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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.
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.
... , 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 :)
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