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Pirate Bay P2P Trial Begins In Sweden
Many readers are writing to tell us that The Pirate Bay trial is now in full swing in Sweden. Looking at a possible two years in prison and $150,000 in fines (plus another $14.3 million if the record companies get their way), the battle of infringement is sure to be one of the most watched p2p trials. "The International Federation of Phonographic Industry (IFPI) which is representing the case of music and film producers, made a statement about the case on Friday. Stating, For people who make a living out of creativity or in a creative business, there is scarcely anything more important than to have your rights protected by the law. Copyright exists to ensure that everyone in the creative world from the artist to the record label, from the independent film producer to the TV program maker - can choose how their creations are distributed and get fairly rewarded for their work. The operators of The Pirate Bay have violated those rights and, as the evidence in Court will show, they did so to make substantial revenues for themselves. That kind of abuse of the rights of others cannot be allowed to continue, and that is why these criminal proceedings are so important for the health of the creative community."
I'm saddened by this not because I think the Pirate Bay operators are innocent but because I feel they're an easy target to set precedence on.
Meanwhile, the real issues at hand continue to get worse and go unaddressed. Like the fact that the EU just extended music copyright to 95 years (maybe in an effort to catch up with the United States?). Or the fact that people who collect digital music en masse couldn't possibly have bought it all in the first place. Or the important differences between illegal digital distribution and traditional theft of goods or money.
No, unfortunately, the IFPI/RIAA isn't going to figure out a way to cope with new awe-inducing technologies. The court system isn't going to earn any respect from its citizens. Musicians aren't going to be rewarded anymore than they already are. The free market will suffer from DRM. And people who depended on seeds and traffic for legal reasons from these sites are going to be left shit outta luck.
I feel like we're stuck with a bunch of dinosaurs concerned only with their self preservation when the fact is that they leach so much money from the system that they simply can no longer be a part of it. Songs cost $1 to download when they should cost 11 cents with ten cents going to the artist and one cent going to the host/distributor.
This trial isn't a solution and we all know how it's going to end. Work out solutions that really plague the system and piracy will go away.
My work here is dung.
Absolutely! I mean it's either that or, horror of horrors, finding salaried employment.
I'm a mathematician. Many Slashdotters are programmers, engineers, etc. Isn't our work creative? How come we don;t get a lifetime +90 years gravy train? Is what we do simply not worth as much to society as movies about comic book superheroes and books about high school for witches and wizards? We don't seem to need protection, so why should artists?
May the Maths Be with you!
As I understand it, TPB has long held that the website does not contain any copyrighted material, and that they don't distribute any copyrighted material. I guess what I'm getting is that the prosecution is trying to prove that pointing out the location of copyrighted material is a crime.
Given that corporate greed is a constant, (as evidenced by the US banks, who hoarde bailout money and spend it on sports stadium naming rights in the face of imminent economic collapse) I see this snowballing to the point where companies that manufacture software, like BitTorrent and Azureus will soon come under fire. They tried this with the gun industry, and have had mixed results for years. I think it's rediculous that you should be held accountable for someone potentially doing something illegal with the software you designed in good faith, and under the allowance of current law. It's an erosion of rights thorugh corporate lobbying that leads to this sort of behavior. As others have stated, artists won't see any extra income if bittorrent traffic in its entirety (not at stake in this trial, I know) comes to a halt. In fact,there is a good chance, I think, that the media companies pushing this witch hunt will find that even if they were somehow successful in completely ceasing all P2P trading of their content, they would not see any increase in revenue. To the contrary, the large population of people that hear about an artist via the medium will no longer have access to this method, and the proliferation of new music will slow down considerably, fueled only by expensive promoting methods. If the media companies want their 1970's revenues back, so be it. But I think they're also looking at 1970's revenue minus the adjustment for inflation.
Raging in an online forum won't do anything for the world around you. To see change, you must take action.
Give me one good moral reason why one shouldn't respond in that way to a cease and desist letter.
May the Maths Be with you!
The Pirate Bay does nothing more than a phone book does. That is, it provides a reference or index entry to an actual object.
If what the Pirate Bay does is illegal, then phone book publishers should be prosecuted for listing felons and scams. After all, by this flawed thinking, the listing of the contact information facilitates the felonies and scams of the individuals represented by the entry.
This is obviously nonsensical. Why do people lose their critical reasoning ability so easily?
Can You Say Linux? I Knew That You Could.
The Pirate Bay hurts creators of many different kinds of works, from music to film, from books to TV.
Actually, I *am* a musician in a band, and I've put our original recordings up on TPB. Recordings have become a promotional tool, not a main means of income. It doesn't matter what anyone's opinion regarding it is, it's the reality that computers, digital technology, and the internet has brought into existence. Unless governments all over the world decide simultaneously to unplug all the networks, confiscate all the PCs, and remove all rights and all privacy for normal citizens, this will continue to be the case.
Attempting to use legal means to change this is akin to passing laws against gravity, and both will enjoy equal success.
Cheers!
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
If you look at most great literature the writing was not done to make piles of money.
In fact, I think it is interesting to note that while music and video are subject to much pirating, books have remained relatively pirate proof.
How many artists historically are not "discovered" until long after they are dead? History is full with artists who died paupers only to be discovered later.
I'd actually make the counter argument. I believe copyright is tyranny. It encourages owners of the copyrighted material to wring every last cent out of existing owned property and ignore new and emerging artist. Bands such as the Beatles would never happen today because the record companies only want to pay a solo artist, such as Britney Spears. Lastly and sadly, proof that copyright is tyranny is evident in the top grossing touring bands each year over the last 30 years. Rarely is it a new band, most generally top grossing touring bands are from the 1960s, 70s and 80s. That's because the record companies make piles of money promoting artists who have deep catalogs replete with greatest hits albums. Copyright law as it exists today in the US is tyranny of the worst kind, handicapping the youth. I have a brother who records. He can't even get a local radio station to talk with him because they are locked into only playing copyrighted material pre-approved by the big media conglomerates.
We are not free because of copyright laws today, we are imprisoned.