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Prince, Village People to Sue The Pirate Bay
castrox writes to tell us that The Pirate Bay's legal concerns are continuing to grow. Prince and the Village People are planning to sue the popular torrent site with the help of the Web Sheriff law firm. John Giacobbi of Web Sheriff has also asked Swedish band ABBA to join the cause. The suit is seeking "millions of dollars" in damages, although it's still uncertain to whom the charges will be directed. The likely targets are the four Pirate Bay founders who were indicted a few weeks ago on charges of breaking copyright law. Prince has taken investigative action against The Pirate Bay in the past.
Prince, Village People, ABBA to Sue The Pirate Bay: The suit is seeking "millions of dollars" in damages
Correction: They're seeking "millions of dollars" in fabulous damages.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
I know that in the US, there's a very big difference between the civil courts and the criminal courts. While it seems that under Swedish law, the hosting of torrent files doesn't appear to be a crime, does anyone know if they have the same sort of distinctions between civil and criminal courts? Could they be found innocent in criminal court, yet still be forced to pay thousands/millions of damages in civil court?
Nemilar http://www.techthrob.com - Visit Me!
Darth Vader: Your powers are weak, old man.
Obi-Wan: You can't win, Darth. If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
Just as p2p sprang up when Napster went down, alternatives are springing up to take the place of 'regular' p2p and p2p sites that are under attack. Freenet 0.7 (and also 0.5) has a lot of movies, games etc. On 0.7, if you happen to have darknet 'friends' who also trade in similiar content then you're downloads should be as fast as regular p2p with the benefit of anonymity.
...I hope someone sues the Village People for the damage they've done to popular music :-P
Don't they realize this is pointless? Even if they "win", they just give more media attention to torrent sites in general. Say the pirate bay goes down (and I don't think it will) everyone will just start going to a place like mininova, or one of the other hundred popular torrent sites.
Someone needs to tag this article Macho Men.
Anonymous Coward: "This is slashdot. Accuracy is second class citizen here, unlike King Bias."
Not because they'll be charged with illegal file sharing, but because it will go on record that they in fact downloaded music by The Village People. Revealing that to the world should be enough punishment. :)
Yep, next thing you know they'll be getting sued by GNAA. />
<input type="checkbox" name="postanon" checked="checked"
Dear Prince,
I imagine you don't sell many records these days and receive little royalties. But that has less likely to do with piracy and more to do with the fact that you haven't been relevant in the music world in over 15 years. My 17 year old daughter probably has heard of you, but then, she's heard of the battle of hastings, too. The same is true of ABBA, but even more so.
As for the village people, they were a comedy/novelty act. They had 3 hits, which were basically the same song, but delving into other aspects of man/man sex and it's various cliched incarnations in society. How much longer did you think that would be making money?
Somebody like Jay-Z might have a point do this, but he's actually making music that people listen to.
Mr. Prince, my little prince. Is is possible the record companies have put you up to this? I thought you split from the RIAA a couple years ago?
... The Pirate Bay in the past. With a really hilarious response from TPB:
White Stripes / WEB SHERIFF: email our response 2nd mail and response our fax (invoice) 3rd mail attached document We tell Faxxsheriff about our new site 4th mail our response.
I just don't trust anything that bleeds for five days and doesn't die.
These has beens should be glad people are still pirating their music.
IMAGE VERIFICATION IS EVIL!
I heard they held a seance in Las Vegas and the medium channeling Elvis said he wants to sue.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
Using well known but old artists who don't sell much nowadays could be a smart move. The danger of a boycott campaign from fans is less likely to happen because those who were their most loyal fans are now in their 40s or more.
I'm not sure about Prince, but Village People and Abba certainly don't sell much these days.
I totally agree. Weve said for years that web hotels who are making millions, even billions, by renting out web space to file-sharing websites should take more responsibility and control these websites, Giacobbi said.
What the? This firm is called web sherrif, you would think they would have a slightly better grasp of the terms of the trade. It makes me almost instantly classify this suit as totally without merit and just a case of some stupid musicians being conned by a lawyer who smells a fat check (and not coming from the direction the musicians think).
Claims of millions of whatever currency are already laughable enough, does this guy really think that thepiratebay its isp or in fact anyone even remotely connected to P2P makes billions? Does he even understand how much money that is wether you measure it in dollars, euro's or kronen?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
It will be interesting to see if artists et al can actually collect on this case. Since I don't believe tpb is actually violating swedish law.
They're using their grammar skills there.
Good luck w/ that
Seriously, they're sending in this clueless company "Web Sherrif"?
I'm sure thepiratebay is getting scared now - see the links about halfway on that page to read the fine letters mailed between "the white stripes/Web sherrif" and thepiratebay admins.
Every expression is true, for a given value of 'true'
The really interesting thing is that all these artists are old-timers whose glory days are long gone. All their work was produced (mostly) way back.
This really brings out the real trouble with the system. Somehow music is a perpetual machine in terms of money making. Now, I get that if someone uses your songs in order to MAKE MONEY, then they should give some back to you (since you're alive), since your work is obviously making money.
But going after file sharers just seems rather absurd to me especially since the artists considered haven't produced anything new in quite a while and so just wants free lunch. It DOES seem very greedy to me.
I mean.. Get to work like everybody else?
Fight for your digital freedom, join the EFF *now*: http://www.eff.org/support/
They can at most sue them for some sort of grey area "contributory copyright infringement"...
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Will Prince sue over his "Planet Earth" album he gave away for free in the Daily Mail 'newspaper'?
Take Nobody's Word For It.
You mean the artist formerly known as the artist formerly known as prince?
Why only Web Sheriff? Why not Web Indian and Web Construction Worker, too?
This post is displayed with recycled electrons
Remember, you can't have 'peanuts' without 'pet anus'.
Suing a torrent site for copyright infringement is something akin to suing a map-maker because a thief used the information to find a bank that was robbed (and yes, I know that with copyright infringement nothing is physically stolen), or suing a telephone company because two criminals used the network to plan a heist.
If all someone is doing is using information from a torrent site to find another party, and is not actively connecting the two copyright infringers Napster-style, then surely they can defend the accusations.
If the pattern goes 9am, 10am, 11am, why isn't noon 12am?
They're hoping for a big payday - but once the lawyers get paid there won't be anything left. The lawyers are just using these people to support another attack against their customers.
A message for Prince, ABBA, and the Village People: your race has been run, get used to sitting in the sun. If you need more money, consider picking up trash and recycling the aluminum cans...
I don't know exactly why, but the above sentence is full of all kinds of funny.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
They're all bygones, they don't care what it does to the music industry, if it nets them cash damages then that'll keep them rich a bit longer, it's not as if any of them have amazing music careers racking in the fortunes for them anymore.
I'd be more suprised if you saw modern bands that are still making a lot of money involved in this kind of suit for exactly the reasons you say, it'll do them harm long term because they still have a reputation and future loss of revenue to lose, these people suing really don't have much to lose in that respect.
...people are actually bothering to pirate works by Prince, the Village People and ABBA.
Ooh, moderator points! Five more idjits go to Minus One Hell!
Delendae sunt RIAA, MPAA et Windoze
ABBA: "Ohhhhh Fernando...."
The Pirate Bay: "Weigh anchor mateys, thar serious this time!"
But I didnt shoot no deputy...
What?
Because I was laughing too hard to focus my eyes
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
Hoist them swabies up by their own peter and we'll see who remains a man when it's all said and done.
i never understood why the pirate bay always shows up in the news as being under fire for distributing intellectual property. in my experience, it never has any seeders.
It's like suing someone for driving a bus full of people to the bank and handing them keys to all the vaults. Whatever your opinion about IP/copyright, the facts of this matter are clear:
The site is called the goddamn PIRATE bay. It was not meant to be on the legal linux sharing side of things.
The vast majority of people using it have never and will never pay the artists for their work. And considering the number of small release work on there (non-big name games and movies), and direct to DVD movies that are leaked (like Stargate), the pirate bay and other sites probably have a significant impact on fair compensation (and thus decisions to produce).
And lastly, the PIRATE bay is clearly abetting the taking of income from individuals in a legally questionable (it's only legal in sweden, yay o_O) and clearly amoral manner...and they are profiting from it at the expense of others (like pirates). Note: Only the rich and popular can sue, I'm more concerned about those that can't.
The real enemy here is copyright law that protects corporations more than artists, and freedom from DRM (corporations _will_ replace/enhance copyright with DRM technologies). But the point, the point is that the Pirate Bay is not one of the good guys just because you can get something for nothing.
Young man, I was once in your shoes,
:)
I said, I was.. downloading torrent files too,
But it's stealing, and there is licensing due,
So you've got.. to.. know.. this.. one thing:
DUN DUN DUN DUNNUN
It's fun to sue with the D.M.C.A.,
It's fun to sue with the D.M.C.A.,
They have everything there for lawyers to enjoy,
Ain't no safe harbor for Pirate Bay, boys!
P.S. Sorry, I had to..
none needed, they have no political support in Europe. They talk a lot though, but that doesn't mean that the common man over 25 knows what it is.
Be honest, who downloads Prince or Village People songs anyway.
I read (on slashdot no less) that Prince did the whole "Artist formerly known as prince" stunt as a means of rebelling against his RIAA-affiliated label. I mistook that to understand that since my enemy was his enemy, that made him my friend....and I was going to check out his music.
But now I see that he, too, is a copyright monger, he just wants the copyrights for himself rather than for the label.
Nevermind, I won't bother to listen to his stuff.
In Sweden it's not very usual that you get fined big amounts, so we are not talking about millions euros in fines.
Anyway, it should be noted that this guy has *tried* to involve ABBA in this. I don't see anything indicating that they have even responded yet, let alone confirmed their agreement with him. I suspect that he wins either way (even if they don't get involved, having their name connected still gets him more attention).
Potential basis of ABBA legal action against the Pirate Bay: "I've been cheated by you since I don't know when" (thrown out due to vagueness surrounding the dates of the alleged infringments).
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
I don't see this as bands vs. the pirate bay, but as old distribution model vs. new distribution model. The new music business model is emerging and trying to mold itself to what consumers, who use the internet, want. The old business model swats down the new business model where ever it emerges and will attempt to change laws and the very nature of the internet to do it.
The by-product of the music industries attempts to do this have two consequences if allowed to continue. 1) Banal crappy sounding music with very little originality and fewer bands (and they are made to an accountants recipe of what sells) and more seriously 2) The ability for business to innovate better business models using the internet will be hampered by the legal framework left over from the music industries legal maneuvering.
How do acts like Prince and The Village People know that their music isn't reaching a new audience *because* of places like the pirate bay? As a whole I think because the music industry is not prepared/able to adapt (it lacks the imagination) eventually it will be replaced, hopefully soon, and that their main fear is that the artists themselves will be able to have a direct relationship with the people who want to listen to their music and yield an income from that direct relationship.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Am I the only one who got a bit of deja vu when Abba was mentioned?
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
I bet this is a trick into goading them into making homosexual jokes when mocking the letters. There's no way it CAN'T be.
They might be seeking "ass action" status.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Notice how the lawyer claims that "the source code for Windows 1998, Windows NT, and/or Windows 2000
http://tracker.piratbyran.org/torrents-details.php?id=2614,"
and further on they state that "The information in this notification is accurate. I swear under penalty of perjury
The information in that email is NOT accurate, since no part of the source code has ever been in the location they mention. Wouldn't that be ground for a countersuit for defamation, or whatever it's called?
I thought for a minute there that the Prince of Sweden had teamed up with a random Swedish village to sue The Pirate Bay.
My train of thought went from anger at the demeaning and archaic reference to the Swedish populous as "village people", to puzzlement about what possible copyrights the prince and villagers could hold in common, to loss of what little respect I have left for those groups.
I'm going to continue to not buy anything from Village people or Prince. Unless I happen to hear a song from either of them that I think is good enough that I decide to buy a CD.
Somehow I can't quite get to the level of rage that some people manage about one commercial organisation suing another over a dispute about a legal matter.
Prince and ABBA are corporate sell-outs. Listen to indy bands and read indy books like America Deceived (book) which was banned from Amazon and Wikipedia.
"Suing a torrent site for copyright infringement is something akin to suing a map-maker because a thief used the information to find a bank that was robbed (and yes, I know that with copyright infringement nothing is physically stolen), or suing a telephone company because two criminals used the network to plan a heist."
...
A better analogy would be to sue the manufacturer of the software that libraries use for managing their book catalogs. After all, that software allows any potential copyright infringer to walk in off the street and find the book they are searching for. They can then pull the book off the shelf to read it without the user paying a cent in compensation to the publishers. Even worse, someone could attempt to copy the entire book! If it weren't for that catalog, none of this would be possible.
Oh, wait, my lawyer is telling me that reading a book in the library, borrowing it, or even copying it isn't necessarily an infringing act
No, it's more like a website hosting torrents of songs and movies, and being sued by the copyright holders.
I'm really not quite sure what the point is of your analogy.
Seriously, all they are doing is calling attention to the fact that they are socially inept business creatures with not one clue how to treat their customers. If you march backward in time a few decades, you will see that the business practices then were to give customers value for money, and to be the one that gave them more or something unique.
Apparently, the 'music biz' has lost touch with that entrepreneurial spirit and moved on to 'sue the fuck out of everyone till they pay us in our graves' business model.
I have only these words to say:
1 - Buggy whip maker
2 - Horse Farrier
3 - Whale hunter
4 - Lamp Lighter
5 - Gold Miner
6 - Candle maker
7 - 8-track tape manufacturer
8 - DOS code writer
9 - Transatlantic passenger liner captain
10 - Japanese longshoreman...
Well, hell, by now you get the idea. Crying to the teacher that ALL the other kids on the playground are stealing from you is not going to go too far for too long. The problem of this whole situation is never really looked at correctly. In the main instance, the music business that is claiming harm here has two historical facts surrounding it:
1 - They were the ONLY way to get into big money music arena
2 - They controlled ALL of the distribution
What they are suing for is insubstantial next to the fact that what they have lost is those two things.
The intarwebtubetrucks stole their business while they were not looking, or more pointedly, while they had their heads buried in a nice tidy pile of cocaine.
What is not recognized nor even noted is the fact that they ARE in fact dinosaurs. Their business is to create fashionable music groups and advertise them. Whoops, those damned intarwebs have taken that from them. All they have left is copyrights (which by all accounts they basically bilked the artists out of) to keep them afloat in expensive lifestyles and habit forming drugs.
Now, you ask, why do I insist on intimating that they are all drug addled ass-wipes? Well, I answer: Prove that I'm wrong.
Show us one or three or even a dozen folks in the big money music business who actually are not? Then contrast and compare that to the rest of them? Go ahead, use Anonymous like efforts to uncover it all, then tell/prove me wrong. The trouble, even if you find some, is that most are exactly what I'm implying.
This leads to the sad conclusion that this small group of private businesses who are using their money to influence the rest of the world's governments. If anyone needed a bastille day, it IS the music and movie industries.
I'm not against anyone making some money, not at all. The sad fact is that the **AA do not create anything. They leach off of actual artists, using their talent to make money for distribution and popularization. In retort I send you NIN, Radiohead, and a host of indie groups that are changing how we, the people, see the entertainment industry. The sad truth is that the **AA are not innovating. They continue to want to sell the fucked up buggy whips. Damn them to hell. I can't wait till their money runs out.
Slowly but surely, people and businesses are learning the lesson, Barbara fucked up, and they need to avoid what happened to her. It is a slow process and it will take a lot more demonstrations, a lot more people in court asking the judge to force the plaintiff to defend their ridiculous damage claims.
The good news: We are getting there. There is light at the end of the tunnel. Better news is that independent artists are showing the way by taking a risk, offering their content for free or whatever you will pay. Amazingly, such experiments are successful, despite the stealing. They make money by CUTTING OUT THE BLOOD SUCKING MIDDLEMEN.
Finally, TPB is involved because they are helping to facilitate the great change that IS NEEDED for the music industry to remove itself from the collective death grip of the **AA. They are the focal point (so to speak) of this whole change. Do they deserve our support? HELL
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
there were so many gay pirates out there.
Will not be buying the next Village People album! Nor will I buy tickets for their next world tour!
Ick. Or visiting their web site again... Can you say Geocities? I knew you could!
Three Squirrels
This won't go to court...they'll settle through ARRRRR-bitration!
amoral seems a strong word for copyright infringement. You can view morals as something handed to us from God, or a set of instincts designed for species protection, but in either case how does driving commercial entertainment workers out of business apply? If all for profit art (movies music, video games (despite what Ebert says), and more traditional fare) went away overnight, I would be ecstatic. I might even argue that purchasing this crap is amoral. But I won't because its really not that important.
refactor the law, its bloated, confusing and unmaintainable.
You can build it on top of openstreetmap.org, and I'm pretty sure it's going to be as illegal as publishing bomb making literature. (US Army)
I'd sue TPB too, if I were them... i mean seriously - TPB doesn't seem to feature them enough... how are they supposed to become popular if only a fraction of their music is offered on the #1 p2p site?
I bet some evil rival musicians pay TPB to discriminate against prince and the village people!!!one
where are the antitrust lawsuits???
The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
Anybody want my mod points?
As I said, this is not intended to pass judgement about either the legality or morality of what TPB are doing (in any jurisdiction). But I can't stand to hear BS pseudo-legalistic rationalisations trying to pretend that they're an uninvolved third party. If we were just discussing the torrent search engine itself, it could plausibly be looked at that way (there are plenty of legitimate (*) uses for BT). But as I said, that's not the case.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
That's a wonderful headline. :-)
Time to sue Walmart for making products available for me to steal.
Prince, The Village People and ABBA are suing because people are NOT downloading them enough. Prince tried making a statement on the issue, but no one could understand him and the The Village People got tired trying to spell out the message. A spokesperson for ABBA said the group would comment after they all finished get new blond highlights in their hair.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
They do know no one would pay money for their "music" right? Especially not 10 and 30 years after they were last relevant.
No I'm very right, the Pro Piracy movement is a very small movement, they have managed to get people to listen to them in the youth organisations of the big parties here in Sweden. But as to being a big political force it's just laughable. Further, I state that Pirat Partiet themselves have no chance of getting any political representation in Europe or in Sweden.
If they do get elected I will print this message and eat it.
when you get sued by a toothpick in a purple doily.
Mind you, I realise that the possibility of kinky inter-band shenanigans crossed the minds of some people. I'm not convinced that Benny-on-Bjorn action was high in many people's fantasy stakes, but Agnetha and Frida were probably a different kettle of fish(!)
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
Two pairs of couples = Four couples = Eight people.
You forgot to mention that said map-makers knowingly and continually makes maps for robbers, just as the telco knowingly provides (and advertises) a directory for its criminal clientèle.
But the map-maker and telco aren't actually committing the crime, so it's not like they are doing anything wrong.
By the way, I have no problem with bank robbers and criminals performing heists, unless they endanger the children.
I know a way out of this. The Pirate Bay just has to change their name from "The Pirate Bay" to some weird and completely unintelligible symbol that nobody knows how to say. How can the lawyers sue them if they can't even say their name?
What you should probably understand is that there is a distinct difference between "gays" and gheyz".
:)
Gay means homosexual. Ghey according to urbandictionary.com:
"Usurping the traditional term GAY to take the homosexual meaning out and leaving in the lame."
This fact has also been explored in purepwnage (purepwnage.com) and ctrl-alt-del (www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/)
No kitty, this is my pot pie!
the most shocking part of this is that the Village People are still alive.
I mean, what 1 or 2 songs and they can afford to live for decades? they really are creaming the profits.
The reason girls and Windows users don't understand UNIX is because all the documentation is in Man files.
Young man, are you listening to me?
I said, young man, what do you want to be?
I said, young man, you can make real your dreams.
But you've got to know this one thing!
No man does it all by himself.
I said, young man, put your pride on the shelf,
And just go there, to the R.I.A.A.
I'm sure they can help you today.
It's fun to be a slave to the R-I-A-A.
It's fun to be a slave to the R-I-A-A.
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
Sing! D...M...C...A...
Two pairs of couples should be 2 ^ 3, or 8 people. I was aware that ABBA had 4.
Ninjas and pirates. How piquant.
That would really seal the deal. Complete slam dunk. TPB wouldn't stand a chance.
Badges!?! We don't need no stinking badges!
I'll leave out the silliness of suing TPB for contributory copyright infringement, as I'm pretty sure we all agree that this isn't sane.
However, looking at the comments above, I see a horrible pattern: people excoriating ABBA, Prince, and TVP as "old timers" and "not producing anything recently" and therefore somehow immediately irrelevant and undeserving of receiving some compensation for their work.
Now, I realize that /. is heavily 20-somethings (which means, you weren't conscious before about 1990), but I think enough of us here are a bit older that we can recognize that music produced in the 80s and (gasp) even the 70s might still have some worth. Now, the 95+ year copyright is a bit ludicrous, but even ABBA and TVP's songs are still in their mid-30s as to date from creation. And Prince's stuff is a rather young 25 at the oldest. I think it's entirely reasonable that someone have the ability to own a copyright for 25 years. TPB may not be (rationally) responsible, but the people filesharing ABBA haven't got a legal, moral, or ethical leg to stand on.
And, to shove something back at this audience that it often trumpets: teenieboppers aren't the only music consumers! If the music industry is to survive, it has to realize that continuing to sell to 30/40/50 year olds is a viable market. And, let's face it, much of that market is interested in nostalgia. I certainly haven't finished filling out my collection of favorites from the 70s. So, (gasp) there should still be substantial value in selling music a couple of decades old to 30+ people.
So, the attitude of "what have you done for me lately" is bullshit. Nirvana hasn't produced anything in 15 years. They don't (i.e. can't) make money from touring. Does that mean I can pirate their stuff with impunity, since obviously, Kurt doesn't need any of the royalties.
It's attitudes like that that mean we're not taken seriously.
Moderate copyright, rigorously enforced, is a boon to society. Our problem is that copyright is approaching a perpetuity. The reaction to that may be widespread piracy, but let's not kid ourselves that we're somehow "better" than the opposition. Rioting for change is still rioting, even if you manage to get something changed. Vote with your dollars, as its by far the best way (ethically, morally, and socially) to effect change - support those artists willing to embrace new business models, and shun those who prop up the old channels.
One last thing. Here's a question for everyone:
Under the current copyright system, if an artist (formerly popular), who hasn't produced anything in a decade or more, and won't (or can't) tour, decides to make their catalog available digitally (as MP3, at some reasonable X per song), yet absolutely abhors filesharing, and sues everyone they can which shares their songs, asking for several thousand dollars (mostly as a deterent) per song in penalties, would you support them?
-Erik
There are always four sides to every story: your side, their side, the truth, and what really happened.
Prince is still touring. Concerts pretty often.
I thought it was the recording industry who gets all the money from music sales, and the artists make there money from touring.
It is to increase the time (read:cost) required to obtain unlicensed copies of works. As such, it encourages people (that can afford to) to buy copies instead of spending their time searching for them (or waiting for cracks). Basic economic theory. DRM is supposed to keep normal consumers purchasing products -- it's not simply targeted at people pirating.
In addition, IF copyright were to disappear today some of its uses would be replaced by DRM, different format qualities, different packages, etc. Regulation is just one way to control distribution. There are business and regulatory solutions for many market situations.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
"I love my job, but I hate talking to people like you" (Freddie Mercury)
I might be wrong, but I thought that TPB and other torrent sites also had Linux/BSD sections(what would be the right word, tracker?) that are perfectly legal in all (or almost all) countries? So in my eyes that makes them more of a normal map maker to follow your analogy.
Or is Linux a HaXoR tool?
Those who can, do.
actually its more like suing a tourist information office,
for telling you where the post office is,
so you could buy a map,
to rob a bank.
the pirate bay don't even link to copyrighted material( files on computers) they link to links to copyrighted (torrent trackers) material.
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
Wow, no "MAFIAA" tags on this one. All the responses attacking the artists on this one (just about every high-modded response) shows that Slashdot is willing to blindly attack anyone who gets in the way of stealing music. Let's stop pretending it's a matter of principle.
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
Honestly, the real crime here is that anyone is actually listening to their crap.
You know what? They should try to get signed on to this suit all of the "artists" referenced by Weird Al in this parody:
You can torture me
With donnie & marie
You can play some barry manilow
Or you can play some schlock
Like new kids on the block
Or any village people song you know
Or play vanilla ice
Hey, you can play him twice
And you can play the bee gees any day
But mr. dj, please
Im beggin on my knees
I just cant take no more of billy ray
Dont play that song
That achy breaky song
The most annoying song I know
And if you play that song
That achy breaky song
I might blow up my radio, ooo...
You can clear the room
By playind debbie boon
Or crank your abba records until dawn
Oh, I can even hear
Slim whitman or zamfir
Dont mind a yoko ono marathon
Or play some tiffany
On 8-track or cd
Or scrape your fingernails across the board
Or tie me to a chair
And kick me down the stairs
Just please dont play that stupid song no more
Dont play that song
That achy breaky song
You know I hate that song a bunch
And if you play that song
That nauseating song
It might just make me lose my lunch, ooo...
Dont play that song
That achy breaky song
I think its driving me insane
Oh, please dont play that song
That irritating song
Id rather have a pitchfork in my brain...
Dont play that song
That achy breaky song
The most annoying song I know
And if you play that song
That achy breaky song
I might blow up my radio, ooo-woo...
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Young man, there's no need to feel down.
...
...
...
...
...
I said, young man, pick yourself off the ground.
I said, young man, 'cause you're HD-DVD won't play
There's no need to be unhappy.
Young man, there's an app you can load.
I said, young man, when you're DRM blows.
You can run it, and I'm sure you will find
Many ways to have a good time.
It's fun to violate the d-m-c-a.
It's fun to violate the d-m-c-a.
You can unlock every DVD to enjoy,
You can give the finger to that marketing ploy
It's fun to violate the d-m-c-a.
It's fun to violate the d-m-c-a.
You can get movies clean, damn that's quite the deal,
You can watch them wherever you feel
Young man, are you listening to me?
I said, young man, do you like your movies?
I said, young man, you do you want to be a stooge?
But you've got to know this one thing!
No law gets passed by itself.
I said, young man, big money pays for itself,
And look here, it bought the d.m.c.a.
You get the shaft with no lube today.
It's fun to violate the d-m-c-a.
It's fun to violate the d-m-c-a.
You can unlock every DVD to enjoy,
You can give the finger to that marketing ploy
It's fun to violate the d-m-c-a.
It's fun to violate the d-m-c-a.
You can get movies clean, damn that's quite the deal,
You can watch them wherever you feel
Young man, I was once in your shoes.
I said, I was down and out with DRM blues.
New technology was eating my wallet alive.
I felt that high-def was so jive
That's when someone came up to me,
And said, young man, google up some de-css.
It's a tool to break the d.m.c.a.
They can start you back on your way.
It's fun to violate the d-m-c-a.
It's fun to violate the d-m-c-a.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Prince, The Village People & ABBA... being downloaded, really? And are they sure it wasn't a mistake, like the file wasn't listed as "Jessica Alba Nude" or something. The concept that no one would pay for their music is easy for me to grasp, but that people would knowingly download YMCA or what not is hard for me to grasp. I think the first big challenge for these guys is going to be finding evidence that both someone posted their music, and that someone else actually downloaded it... and that either wasn't a mistake... hehe.
Why do I picture Web Sheriff as Yosemite Sam trying to get the mule moving?
YAAAH, MULE! YAAAAH!
Selling out over 140,000 tickets in 20 minutes? Playing 21 consecutive concerts in London? People pay attention to Prince.
Here in NYC, Prince routinely drives up in a limo to downtown record stores that sell bootlegs, grabs every CD with his name on it, storms up to the counter to rant at the nerds at the cash register, then stomps out of the store back into his limo.
I wonder if he then sells them on eBay.
--
make install -not war
Well if your going to get all accurate about it, pirates sail the high seas, attack and board vessels and pillage the contents.
/me sighs.
The word "pirate" has been used in the current context since long before modern computers even existed, as any etymological dictionary will tell you.
You're pretty much completely wrong on the knee-jerk arguments about fair use as well, in almost any jurisdiction in the West.
Please at least do some basic fact checking before you post a smart-ass response, particularly if you're going to criticise people for not being "all accurate about it"!
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
So in fact, very similar to prosecuting a young woman for owning some dodgy books and writing some silly poems...?
It's fun to sue just like the R-I-A-A
It's fun to sue just like the R-I-A-A....
Perhaps you should read what you post "Meaning one who takes another's work without permission", your not taking it you are only copying it and as a torrent technically only small fair use portions of it at any one time ;).
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
And yet, it's the least-ridiculous of all his routines. Unless assless pants quit being ridiculous.
My question is why anyone would want to download their music, free or otherwise?
I would expect for them to know about as much about computers and law as the founder of CompuGlobalHyperMegaNet. And look at the email that someone posted above - Web Sheriff is using an AOL email address for their official legal correspondence. That is professionalism there.
Someone better tell Blizzard and OS-distributors that they're using a service "that was specifically designed for (or with the intention that) it would be used for ... and similar activities, and included details pertinent to that activity" when Blizzard and OS-distributors disseminate their software. dun, dun, dun!
:(
Wait! You mean that torrents can be used for legal purposes too? No way! That's not what the MAFIAAs were telling everyone
... y'know, you could just stop.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
The Venture Brothers and Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law, ever!
The Top 100 list at tpb is perhaps telling--and the Top pages for the subsections too (because the Top 100 is dominated by video and audio). It looks like even the Top Unix section is more pirated things than not, though it is much more heterogeneous there.
I agree Prince isn't the most torrent'ed artist. However, I am "computer savvy" enough to torrent, and yet I listen to Prince. Other "computer savvy" people listen to Prince. Plenty of people who aren't "computer savvy" listen to your favorite band.
If a Prince torrent is out there, expect him to sue whether or not he's a top download. Attention grab? Maybe, but a bigger attention grab is playing the Super Bowl. It's possible he's suing because he wants money for it's own sake. Just sayin.
So it sounds like older people are buying records anyway.
I'm guessing that is not the demographic that is downloading music. In fact, most of this older demographic is probably only vaguely aware that you can you can download music from the Internet.
You see the problem with Prince's approach, I trust?
The people who are illegally downloading music aren't interested in prince's music. And those are interested in his music don't download.
There's no need to talk trash. The worst that can be said about the guy is that he's an idiot for suing the Pirate Bay. He continues to make albums on his own terms, and continues to perform with top-notch bands.
For those of you unfamiliar with red-light districts in the Southern Hemisphere, Sydney Australia's "King's Cross" is the grandaddy.
If you seek it, whatever it is, chances are it can be bought down a sidestreet in "the Cross" any night of the week. Like drugs, for instance. You can buy drugs in King's Cross, Sydney, Australia.
There -- according to the "torrents are stealing" argument, I am now a drug dealer. I didn't actually provide you with the drug, but I gave you instructions on where to get them yourself. And, of course, that's exactly the same thing.
There were actually multiple levels of propaganda- Some "Pirates"(in the rape-and-pillage sense) of the High Seas were only being labelled as such because they dared import goods without paying duties - i.e. smuggling. Some were honest, moral people who simply disagreed with unjust taxation and the centralised state. That didn't make them evil, in fact in my book it makes them good.
Of course the reality is more "term which continues to use the term gay as a derogatory while cowardly pretending not to."
Insensitive: that's so gay.
Insensitive, cowardly, and disengenuous: that's so ghey.
-josh
Another head shaking day. I have *points* the village people on vinyl. Yes I actually do. I have CD's and vinyl ranging from The Pet Shop Boys, to Average Lavigne, The Village People to Pantera. When I go to thepiratebay dawt arrrrg, I search up stuff like that because I leave torrents running over night, and it's just simpler for me to download that stuff and put it on my iPod/cell phone/psp/chip player/wtfeverthing when it's in a compact little mp3 format. I'm not downloading stuff I don't already own, especially when it's THAT old. I have even bought *shock and horror* songs off of iTunes when it suits me to do so. This, however, is the last of the straws.
I can't understand why they don't just give it up. Prince's 1999, Purple Rain, etc. are ubiquitous enough, that thepiratebay is not going to hurt anyone giving it away for free. And if as many of us as have already done so can recite (or rewrite) the words to YMCA, then I would have to say the same thing goes for The Village People (whom until moments ago, I had assumed all dead). At some point in our lives, or the lives our parents, siblings, or beloved gay friend, we have owned, had in our posession, or have been given a copy (not copied, but a retail copy) of this ubiquitous music. I am going on a music strike. I will purchase no more music. Period. At this point I have enough music to listen to continuously for over 3 months, without repeating the same song twice (not counting remixes and covers). I don't require any more music and I have too much loathing for the main stream companies to want to purchase anymore music. I will break out my record player, and don my mp3 device, and I will enjoy the music I have until I hear that this nonsense has ceased. What else can we do besides bitch? Just stop buying it.
... and when asked (repeatedly) to stop distributing those maps, he laughs, calls robbing banks "free expression" or some such crap, and declares himself a defender of "free expression", all the while making an assload of money off the whole sordid affair.
Yeah, I don't really like TPB. Sorry.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
http://thepiratebay.org/search/swedish%20chef/0/99/0Here you go, elementary swedish lessons by a native
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
*pinky on lip
Ah, but if you start down that path, then you'll end up arresting people who write books on, say, how to rob a bank. Or how to build a nuclear bomb. Or how to [insert whatever activity you don't like]. And you're well on your way to book burnings and fascism. Thank God for the First Amendment.
This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.
Because if The Pirate Bay gets convicted, the next obvious target is Google. You can find at least as much pirated content using Google as you can using The Pirate Bay, and they're both indexing services that just provide links to sites or other means to retrieve the illegal content. So if The Pirate Bay goes down, providing links to means to retrieving illegal content is banned and Google has to be next. And I'd love to see the fool trying to do a legal face-off with Google on their very core business... It's gonna be more bloody than all the real life pirate confrontations throughout history!
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
Haha no you're wrong, gamers/geeks are totally the most sensitive people on the planet ...since when was this an issue :)
No kitty, this is my pot pie!
Self-confessed pirates, which is what the The Pirate Bureau is an organization of, are people who believe in privacy, freedom of cultural expression, and is against the current laws regarding immaterial property, among other things. I was a pirate for years without having any pirated material on any of my disks (it wasn't the pirate part that stopped, though).
Fair enough.
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
real well.
we gonna love you SO much more after you pull this worthless stunt out of pitiful greed for a few $m more, that your album sales gonna skyrocket. ah, and village people, you will instantly be catapulted to great fame again after you join this shit.
Read radical news here
> made up of two pairs of couples
That's 8 people total?
Copyright of the has-beens, for the has-beens and by the has-beens shall not perish....
It's probably confusing to them because they thought Eunuchs have no man parts...
Pirate Bay sues you!
(Sung to the tune of "Waterloo" by ABBA)
My my, at Pirate Bay, Metallica did surrender
Oh yeah, and Prince has met his destiny in quite a similar way
His CDs are all on the shelf
He's always repeating himself
Pirate Bay - Prince was defeated, you won the war
Pirate Bay - promise to seed there for ever more
Pirate Bay - couldn't pay Prince if I wanted to
Pirate Bay - nor Benny or Bjorn or those other two
Pirate Bay - YMCA on my hard drive too
RIAA tried to hold you back but you were stronger
Oh yeah, and now it seems their only chance is giving up the fight
Of renting the music to us
Why do they make this awful fuss?
Pirate Bay - RIAA screamed, you just showed the bird
Pirate Bay - Prince had a fit what a childish turd
Pirate Bay - Lars Ulrich beat off upon his drums
Pirate Bay - while 5 gay men wiggled their bums
Pirate Bay - is YMCA on their hard drive too?
And how could Prince ever complain
His CDs are in bargain bins
Pirate Bay - Hetfield is smashing up his guitar
Pirate Bay - Prince might just wish he could play a chord
Pirate Bay - corporate puppets are running round
Pirate Bay - they want to drive you into the ground
Pirate Bay - with YMCA on your hard drive too?
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
I have been thinking about TPB, and the problem is that there is a target. It should be possible to use a torrent type of scheme to create a website. The problems are authorship and stuff like that but not insurmountable.
Once it is removed from the requirement of an ISP and DNS, there is no action possible and no way to prosecute or sue.
And yet his entire audience is over 40.
Perhaps the guy is puzzled why his royalties aren't what they used to be from the "Purple Rain" album. He really is irrelevant to the music scene in 2007. I happen to think the guy is extremely talented. But for all of his grammys, aside from music critics and long-time fans, who even listened to those albums? Not kids. And as to selling out a show, my wife dragged me to a Michael Buble concert last year. It sold out in minutes. And when I went there, it mainly consisted of older women, their husbands who went along, clearly uncomfortable. But it was packed with a nice, orderly, old crowd (and I have to say, the guy and his band are top-notch), and completely irrelevant to the music scene.
So while what you're saying is true, it doesn't nothing to dispute what the OP said.
What I find most troubling is that "copyright" was originally, in the U.S.A anyway, established as a method to provide compensation for creators to contribute to the thriving culture, with the understanding that after a while it would fall into public domain.
By "publishing" a work, the creator makes their "property" public. *If* the public finds the property useful, the owner should get paid, as he has created something of value. At what point, however, has the "value" passed from the creator to the public? Think of it this way, after some point in time, a work remains valuable less of its own worth, but more of the collective use, its effect on society, and reference to it. At that stage, the creator of the work should no longer be compensated.
The second issue is commercialization of the work. Many band members I know are all in favor of "file sharing," but don't like the idea of ever seeing their songs used for selling beer, or at least not without them being part of the negotiation and being paid.
Copyright need a real debate. There are issues of artists rights and the right to compensation if they create something special. There are also the inherent cultural ownership of popular works, quite frankly, great works become part of culture and must be owned by the society for the good of the society, much like taking land by eminent domain.
Publishing is a two sided sword, by making something public, the upside potential is that you make a lot of money. The downside risk is that you lose ownership of your work. The current copyright mafiaas want to keep the upside potential and eliminate the downside risk. Its great business if you can get it.
If you take like .8 seconds to click the link and look at the related article, you'll probably be more disturbed than amused. The pirate Bay being sued is no longer a big deal. They have shown time after time that they will not shut down, what they are doing isn't exactly illegal, and it CANNOT be stopped.
The artists involved want your ISPs to TRACK YOUR INTERNET ACTIVITY..... how is this not a bigger deal. The pirate bay is a fringe organization that is currently a juggernaut, fueled by broke college students and their will to change the world. But ISPs, not so fringe, not so independent, and definitely not fueled by broke college students or any will to make the world more livable. In America we should have seen this coming, patriot act and all, but Big American Douche corporations stretch overseas, so you dirty-assed foreign motherfuckers have to deal with this too.
Why is what 2 washed out artists do to piss off four Swedish kids more important than 1984-esque corporate espionage on your personal activity?
You guys should take this lawsuit more seriously. Prince is ferocious... anyone needing proof only needs to watch this heinous video of him on the prowl - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcMuTsBFQTE
You are using English. Please learn the difference between loose and lose; they're, there, and their; your and you're.
the truth is we are where we are because we shared
IP law is the corruption of the right of fair use and the public domain
if we don't fight for what's right, we will surely lose it
deserves not only to be fined, but to be subjected to all sorts of "this is not torture"
LOL, I'm guessing these lawyers see the same opportunity as some well known Nigerian scammers. Just fire off letters to every musician you can find promising them a big share of the money to be had from filing suits again these notorious web sites. Only the letters are coming as from: Mrs. Maryam F. Abacha, Attorney at Law. Instead of wife of dceases diplomat...
Still a slave? (to the m.a.f.i.a.a.)
No, it's more like suing a map-maker when they produce a map that was specifically designed for (or with the intention that) it would be used for bank-robbing and similar activities, and included details pertinent to that activity.
:)
This doesn't quite fit what's happening here either, here's why; the 'map' in this particular scenario wasn't 'specifically designed' or with the 'intentions' that it 'would be used' for bank robbing and similar activities, it's simply a map for finding locations...now what you do at and with those locations knowing what 'kind' of locations they are before hand...is YOUR civil responsibility, NOT the map makers.
Make sense? Although I can totally understand you're devils advocation
What are they going to sue for, as the piratebay hasn't committed any crime in their country? Or do they have the same sort of 'no ramifications sue for anything you feel like today' sort of civil laws over there?
I say we setup a fund. Any idiot artist/CEO/etc that attempts nonsense like this gets a contract put out on them and we use the 'fund' to pay for the hit. After 2 or 3 i bet the madness will stop.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
As I describe here, while it is quite possible to argue that a tracker on its own has legitimate uses, when you take into account TPB's self-declared position (which they are totally open about), this makes things different.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
But where are the cars? Won't somebody please think of the cars??
Okay. It's like being the organiser of a group of people who manufacture parts of a car from a blueprint derived from a car, and send them to each other:)
I've never downloaded a Prince album. I'm a Prince fan. Is this confusing?
No.... "theft" really does NOT mean you obtained something illegally, REGARDLESS of whether another person was deprived of it. What you forget in your example is, sneaking onto a train, bus, etc. occupies a SEAT. You've taken that physical space away from being available for a paying customer, who was supposed to receive it in return for the purchased ticket.
It's arguable that there were "plenty of empty seats, so nobody was short of one anyway". But you had no way of knowing that would definitely be the case at the time you chose to sneak on-board. Furthermore, by occupying the space on the vehicle, you might have inadvertently caused some measure of inconvenience for a paid customer that you didn't even realize you caused. (Perhaps someone with difficulty walking wanted a seat close to a door, which you sat down in - forcing them to move closer to the rear of the bus or train?)
In the case of music or software copying, there was simple nothing physical deprived from ANY party (assuming you didn't steal the blank media used to store the data!).
is that maybe prince KNOWS it's a bad idea. so do the village people. maybe they're our allies, and what they really want is legal precedent supporting thepiratebay. :):)
Perhaps they should focus their angst on those who actually have millions of dollars to pay for their "damages." How about Cisco and Juniper Networks, who provide most of the internet's packet flow. If a torrent search engine is an accessory to infringement, then the routers that actually route the data should be also.
Maybe a little off-topic, but...
An interviewer once asked "Weird Al" Yankovic if any artists had specifically told him not to do a parody of their songs. Although as a parody, he has the right to anyway, he is really a nice guy who respects the wishes of the artists in that regard.
He said that the only artist who wouldn't let him parody a song is Prince.
A little while later, the interviewer asked him what his concerts are like. His answer was, "They are a lot like Prince's concerts, except that mine are deliberately funny."
No, it's more like suing the publisher of the Anarchists Cookbook when someone commits a crime with it.
/when you double devil's advocate are you necessarily arguing with the original argument?
Right. Because he's been so successful in the past.
I want my Cowboyneal
...or like a phone company that produces a phone book that only contains numbers of insecure dialup access points to government networks.
I guess if an artist has only 5 years to make a profit, than any copyright infringement in that period is a much more serious offense. Capital punishment perhaps?
It's supposed to be 14 years, and imprisonment is even an option.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Someone should mod the parent up. How can an original parody be redundant? I checked with google, and it seems the above lyrics are original. They're good too.
Write your own Choose Your Own Adventure. http://www.freegameengines.org/gamebook-engine/
Why doesn't thepiratebay just implement DMCA style ISP takedown notices?
That would immunize them against many lawsuits.
I realize that most slashdotters are not big prince fans (I am a huge fan), but his history with regard to the recording industry
is pretty interesting. Famously fucked by Warner Brothers, he used contract loopholes to release on other labels. He manipulated
industry charting techniques by releasing triple and quadruple albums to chart platinum (they count as more than one sale).
The concert giveaway and the newspaper giveaway were charting cheats also that caused billboard / soundscan to revise their
rules. Basically Prince guaranteed himself Platinum / Diamond status for musicology by "including" the album in the price of
the concert ticket. If you didn't know, Prince tours are generally more than one night in big cities and sold out. That is alot
of "album sales". When the industry said "you can't do that", the next time around he gave away the album free with a daily
newspaper, gaining chart position, and thereby visibility, in the process.
music lover since 1969