Slashdot Mirror
The Pirate Bay — "Just a Very Large Hobby"
praps writes "In a fascinating interview with two of the founders of The Pirate Bay entitled 'Are they baby-eating monsters or what?,' Swedish news site The Local discovers that far from being the radical Robin Hoods of the digital age, Peter Sunde and Fredrik Neij are actually 'polite, humorous and down-to-earth.' They may run one of the biggest sites in the world but 'it's just a hobby that's grown to be very, very large.' Financially, they are 'happy as long as it doesn't make a loss,' and both hold down regular IT day jobs. And apparently they spend a lot of time with a Bedouin in the Sinai desert."
about the origins of the Robin Hood legend.
In the earliest documented version of the legend in anything like recognizable form, Robin and his Merry Men beat and rob a monk, then later on they decide to kill the monk and his page because they were afraid they would testify against them.
The whole system of sheriffs was a form of oppression forced on the population by their Norman overlords -- that much the later legends sort of get right. Monasticism was a byproduct of a Christian society in which the highest echelons made their living by murder, robbery and extortion, and in which sins could be expunged through gifts to the church. The history of medieval monasticism was a story of reformist zeal followed by rapid accumulation of wealth and corruption, recapitulated over and over again.
But notice: While it's obvious why robbing and killing sheriffs and monks might be considered admirable, apparently this doesn't stop at that. Killing the page was considered quite as merry and shrewd.
There's a lesson in this.
When the law becomes abusive, it's too much to expect that resistance to it take the form of highly principled disobedience. Once defying the law becomes seen as just and right, fine distinctions like between a corrupt church official and an innocent child witness go out the window.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Peter Sunde alias brokep, recently wrote an excellent essay about how TPB has been treated by Swedish media. For those who (like me) can read Swedish, the link is provided here.
I don't have the energy to translate it right now, but if any other Swede would like to, please do. Until that, try the google translation
Quantum hacker.
... but all good things (that can be attacked by the RIAA/MPAA will) come to an end.
As much as I love Pirate Bay, the central website model can't last.
Systems like Cubit seem promising. Hopefully in a years time we'll have moved to a more distributed model for torrent file search and delivery.
more power to them for making money
So there is absolutely no moral case for saying that the money their making properly belongs to the musicians who create the content?
These guys are leeches. Artificial middlemen not just creaming off the profit from others' labour, but removing every last penny and walking off with it.
And no, saying that the Music Industry is no better is no defence. Two wrongs do not make a right, and at least the music industry pays royalties. What do these guys contribute other than crap about being regular guys indulging a hobby?
A website? You know, the one people want to get the trackers from?
That's what they contribute. What's slashdot or TFA's site contributing except crap about these regular guys indulging a hobby, and a bunch more crap about other guys doing other different stuff?
They get the $ from advertising, so your beef is with any ad-funded site with unoriginal content then?
I'm sorry, the songs have all been BROADCAST! They have been on the radio, you can record them and play them back at your leisure. The Internet just makes this easier on a massive scale.
... so why do they expect to make a margin on it?
The recording industry and musicians have NOT tried to keep their songs secret. Back in the day when the only way to listen to a song whenever you wanted to was to buy the LP, selling LP's made sense. Now selling/leasing/licensing songs doesn't make sense. I can transfer a song from here to Australia for no incremental cost in my broadband. No one had to burn a CD, ship something, carry inventory, or anything else for this to happen
If the musician comes to my town maybe I'll plunk down $120 for two tix to see him live, $50 for a t-shirt. If I really like him then maybe I'll buy a CD so I can get a quality lossless copy and album cover, or a poster for my room. But this stuff that has already been broadcast on the airwaves for free? I'm not paying for it.
My favorite quote doesn't fit into 120 characters. Now no one will like me.
I run a music torrent tracker. People are more than happy to pay me for the great service I provide which according to the users, is 100 times better than they commercial offering out there. And nobody is calling me names because I make a few bucks to pay for the server. I have record labels coming to me asking if I can "secretly" release their un-released tracks on my tracker and make it look like they've been pirated by a "warez" group so it looks authentic, because more people will download "unreleased" material and they`ll get the word out about their label. I have also been contacted by bigger labels asking me if I'd be nice enough to remove a specific song they've released because it`ll be a big money maker, and I do. None of these people including the labels and the artists want to go to court, and they're quite happy with having some of their stuff released on trackers, as long as the people downloading the tracks think otherwise. A lot of this stuff is NOT what it seems, and a lot of the times - labels and artists are on "our" side, but they can't say it and have to depend on my discretion. Many big-name artists have an account on my tracker, and have many gigs of downloads and uploads.. you have to remember, they are also "users" just like you and me. So this whole image of owners of the pirate bay being money-grabbing hooligans is absolutely out of whack, I`m a regular guy, you are - and so are they.
The magical number is: 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
I could see how mainstream, non-geeks would get the idea that the guys who run a "piracy file sharing website" (as some in the MSM portray it) would look like that picture of Stallman from that /. story a few days ago...you know...stereotypical "anti-establishment" look...scraggly beard, Castro hat, dread locks or green-colored hair...
Geeks shouldn't be surprised at all...but people who are on the outside looking in only have what they've heard in news reports to guide their perception, and I can at least understand why they would expect some anarchist types to be being TPB
Thank you Dave Raggett