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."
Meanwhile I take piracy very seriously and treat my baby-eating as a hobby.
What, did they expect them to be carrying RPGs, in small boats, off the coast of Somalia or something?
Towards the Singularity.
Peter Sunde and Fredrik Neij are actually 'polite, humorous and down-to-earth.'
And does this surprise anyone? I think most will find that most people that work in IT are this way. Sure there's the occasional elitist that likes to think their shit doesn't smell, but on the whole I'd say most people in IT are reasonable, easygoing people.
Hollywood's lawyers are just as committed to fantasy as their screenwriters...
Seriously, though, what would you expect the operators of something like the pirate bay to be like? IT guys with a strong(and probably slightly odd) sense of humor seem exactly like what one would expect. I suspect that they have a sheeple index far, far lower than average; but, contrary to depressingly popular belief, the desire to not be fucked around with doesn't inevitably lead to all sorts of outrageous depravity.
It's called a secret identity for a reason. I bet if you check with their dry cleaner you'll find that they go through a LOT of tights.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I'm looking for another guy to bareback my gf (late 20s, white, cute to average) while I watch. If you're disease free, white, well hung, not too old, not too fat, etc, and live near Virginia Beach, let me know.
I can meet 2 of those 6 requirements. Why do these tech jobs always have a huge list of required skill sets?
If you're disease free, white, well hung, not too old, not too fat, etc, and live near Virginia Beach
Well, you've come to the right place for disease free and white.
Not sure how close our mothers' basements are to Virginia Beach though....
Boot Windows, Linux, and ESX over the network for free.
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.
... , or "avast"?
While I hate the **AA almost as much as the average Slashdotter, I'm feeling a bit uneasy by reading this kind of news. That's one thing to criticize the whole IP scam that companies are trying to bring down to our throats, but it's another thing to sanctify torrent sites and treat their owners as if they were part of some sort of Jet-Set. What's next ? A new about how mininova's top uploader got laid ? How can we be taken seriously when fighting against the copyright nazis with news like this ? On the other hand, most of the torrent sites I use where discovered by realing Slashdot :)
I can quite readily believe they're not making money doing it. Where's the funding going to come from? Advertising? Well, maybe, but (a) all advertisers know that TPB's audience consists by definition of people too cheap to pay for stuff, (b) most mainstream firms probably won't want to be seen as associated with such a notorious site, and (c) I bet the frequency of Adblock Plus among TPB users is pretty damn high.
I suppose they sell the odd bit of merchandise from the kopimi store, but that must only barely cover their costs.
Full disclosure: I don't actually have the faintest idea what kind of advertisements they show on TPB. Adblock Plus, y'see. So I suppose it could be argued that I'm pirating TPB itself :-)
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
And their favorite film is Donnie Darko, about a human with powers over time?
Crap. We've got a couple of Fremen-in-training here. Arrest them before they can cut off the flow of spice!
You realize the irony of this statement, right? Taken out if its anti-TPB rant, it quite easily applies to the Recording industry distributors. In fact, it almost better applies to them because TPB's so-called profits and effect on music sales are pretty questionable. Whereas the coercive and immoral contracts of the music distributors are widely accepted facts.
The Pirate Bay provides a very valuable service. It excels at displaying what an immoral farce copyright laws and globalization have become. It is a modern day speakeasy. The fact that they STILL (after years of press) get threatening DMCA requests, which do not and should not apply to them (being that they aren't subjects of the United States government) is very telling.
Blowback. If you clampdown too hard, people will resist. Hard enough, and they will revolt and maybe even seek revenge--justified or not. U.S. Copyright law has progressed far beyond its constitutional mandate. Article 1 section 8, clause 8 states the following: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." And yet, "limited time" has come to mean 75 years AFTER the death of the author. There have been serious arguments made in on the congressional floor to construe "limited times" as infinity minus one day. In what reasonable way is that "limited"? Furthermore, there are countless examples where modern copyright and patent laws serve only to obstruct progress. Rarely do stated arguments even involve the actual mandate of patents and copyrights anymore. We speak in terms of losses to artists and inventors despite the fact that this is rarely ever the actual case (most copyrights and patents are held by multinational corporations) and not the intended focus of these protections.
"Intellectual Property" laws have become tools of oppression and exploitation. It should not be surprising that people are resisting them, even if such resistance has ulterior self-serving motive.
-Grym
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
(late 20s, white, cute to average)
Cute to average.....dang I'm too good looking for the job I guess.
Keming n. 1. The result of improper kerning.
No no, if it were an ad for a tech job the requirements would be more like:
must be 20-something and have 30 years sexual experience.
Me lost me cookie at the disco.