Slashdot Mirror
Pirate Bay To Offer VPN For $7 a Month
Death Metal sends along an Ars Technica piece about The Pirate Bay's plans for a virtual private network service to help ensure its users' privacy. "The Pirate Bay is planning to launch a paid VPN service for users looking to cover their tracks when torrenting. The new service will be called IPREDator, named after the Swedish Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive (IPRED) that will go into effect in April. IPREDator is currently in private beta and is expected to go public next week for €5 per month. ... IPREDator's website says that it won't store any traffic data, as its entire goal is to help people stay anonymous on the web. Without any data to hand over, copyright owners won't be able to find individuals to target. ... The question remains, however, if any significant portion of The Pirate Bay's users will decide to fork over 5 Euro per month solely to remain anonymous. It seems more likely that the majority either won't care, or will simply start looking for lesser-known torrent trackers to use."
I'm sure there's a torrent somewhere...
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
You're as anonymous as your credit card details allow you to be. How are you supposed to pay for something web-based without handing over your details?
Furthermore, couldn't the courts just request THB hand over a list of paying customers if it were pertinent to a case?
ilovegeorgebush
those wacky europeans do not yet understand how capitalism works.
You're supposed to do it anonymously, noob.
Oh, wait...
ilovegeorgebush
How do you maintain that you're not expressly in the business of circumventing copyright law (as they did in the recent trial) when you offer a paid service that really has no other function?
Your statement is akin to saying that you must be guilty of something, since you refuse to let law enforcement search through your house whenever they feel like it.
I'd expect it's like how bongs and other drug paraphernalia is legal in most areas while any logical use for the items is not. Running a business centered around providing your customers with all the tools necessary to break the law (even when it's obvious that this is your intention) isn't illegal so long as you yourself are not breaking any law.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
It has the function of maintaining your privacy. This is valuble for some people, not because they are breaking the law but because other people, corporations and governments have no business knowing who you are talking/mailing/communicating with in 99,99% of all cases.
I can't believe someone beat the Tsarkon Report guy to the first post!
Illegal is not necessarily the same thing as immoral, wrong, evil, bad.
Maybe the laws are wrong and should be changed? Before that can happen though, this will help people in need of privacy. You can look at it as a kind of civil disobedience.
My other account has a 3-digit UID.
Rex Ping
Actually, no, it's nothing like that.
It's like being accused of being a drug dealer because people buy drugs off your site, and, in response, you offer a method for people to make private transactions.
If you say, "hey, look, I just provide a service, I'm not telling people how to use it" then you might be able to get away with being effectively a middleman in an illegal transaction.
But if your response is to provide a way of hiding those illegal transactions from law enforcement, you're much more likely to be nailed as an accomplice, especially when you're making money specifically off those hidden transactions.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
First, define drug paraphernalia.
Second, rolling paper, water bongs, etc. can be used with tobacco. By selling such items for use with tobacco, said items are not considered "drug paraphernalia" until they are used with marijuana. Thus, there is, in fact, a legal, logical use for such items.
A chef's knife is not a deadly weapon until it is used as such. Until it is used as such it is a kitchen tool.
A screwdriver or pry bar are not burglary tools until they are used to commit a burglary. Until they are, they are just tools.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
But will it also ensure copyright protections or protect IP holders' rights?
No, but why should it? many of us think that the current US copyright laws are unconstitutional, despite what SCOTUS says; Stanford Professor Lawrence Lessig, for one, who argued that current copyright is unconstitutionally long in front of the Supremes. He details the reasons he lost, and what he did wrong that caused him (and us) to lose in his (copyrighted) book Free Culture, available for sale at your local bookstore, free at your local public library, or free on his web site.
After all, they wouldn't want to be aiding and abeting a criminal operation, would they?
I have no problem with aiding and abetting a criminal operation when I buy pot. Drug laws should also be judged unconstitutional; they needed a constitutional amendment to outlaw the dangerous drug alcohol, why would they not need the same to outlaw the relatively benign marijuana? Where in the Constitution (besides the much abused "interstate commerce clause", which could have theoretically been used for alcohol) does Congress have the right to stop me from screwing up my life any way I wish?
Copyright infringement is still a crime in the western world.
Copyright infringement is largely a civil matter. And Pirate Bay doesn't limit itself to the western world; the internet is world wide.
Free Martian Whores!
Years ago, the US Government opened up one of these Anonymous web surfing sites. There was no indication that it was the US Government. The let this run for considerable time. After a while, the truth came out in a proceeding. The US Government was using this Anonymous site to find people violating US law. Many people ended up in the tank.
If you send ALL your traffic to this VPN service, what makes you think you are safe? While PB may not log, what is to stop a government from forcing PB to place their own logging device inline?
After being a very quick and nice dialup service, Earthlink suffered a year of horrible response times, poor performance, and high drops. Then it quit, but not until after they lost a lot of subscribers. In a case it turned up that the US Government put these tracking devices inline between Earthlink and their backbone connections which was the cause of the slowdowns. The current crop, though, don't have this issue.
People need to think about these things.
While it's a sure thing that such a thing would be used for people buying drugs, seriously, I would expect this to also widen that drugdealer's market to include more than just drug buyers. A useful tool is a useful tool.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Suppose this takes off and TPB starts raking in cash.
This shows that even Pirates are willing to fork over money and pay for the products if the service is good enough and the price is low enough.
Netflix already has similar Pay-for-Unlimited-Access plans between $8 and $20... and if TPB is successful, I predict that more distributors will move to this service model.
Imagine Blockbuster or Amazon or iTunes saying: "Take whatever you want. Movies, music, ANYTHING. $20/month." They'd make a fortune. Hell, if you threw games in there, I'd personally pay like $100/month.
You seem to be operating under the assumption that the only purpose for offering/using a VPN is to engage in copyright infringement.
Yes, but really, if they only have your name and address, they can't search your home/sieze your system simply for having a vpn account with TPB. You are not violating any laws to have that account, therefore probable cause *shouldn't* work on the simple grounds that millions of people around the world use/connect to vpns all the time. Now IANAL by any means, and who knows what sort of strong-arm/sneaky tactics could be used... but simply having a vpn with TPB shouldn't be enough cause to gain a warrant.
You're not all for an anonymous web really are you?
There are many ways to hide tracks already that are more effective than this offering (Tor, Open wireless access points, anonymous proxies and so on).
Organisations that have significant risk from being hacked either improve their security or get the hell of the Internet.
How do you maintain that you're not expressly in the business of circumventing copyright law (as they did in the recent trial) when you offer a paid service that really has no other function?
Other function: Downloading materials which are necessary to promote freedom but which could be considered seditious or even treasonous. Understanding the substantial non-infringing use for encryption? YOU FAIL IT! Next you must advocate the banning of halloween masks, since no one would ever want to mask their identity except for nefarious purposes, or you only prove that you don't understand the issue - since they are both the same thing. There is no freedom without anonymity.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Yes, because overseas, anonymous VPN accounts are totally new and have never been used before for nefarious purposes...
Said, "It's just like dice but it's got more sides And it tells me who lives and who dies"
Why would anyone need to "cover their tracks when torrenting" unless he was doing something illegal?
Ah, careful there. You're coming dangerously close to arguing the old "mind of I search your car/house, what do you have to hide?"...
Remove the torrent-laced, copyright-riddled emotion from this for a moment. It's about offering users a service to stay anonymous while using the web. The concept is certainly not new (care for a fresh onion on your browser burger?), this one just happens to be offered by a fairly popular website. Something tells me if Google were to offer the same thing, we wouldn't be talking about people hiding Gmail content.
I'd expect it's like how bongs and other drug paraphernalia is legal in most areas while any logical use for the items is not. Running a business centered around providing your customers with all the tools necessary to break the law (even when it's obvious that this is your intention) isn't illegal so long as you yourself are not breaking any law.
Tell that to Tommy Chong. He may disagree with you on that one...
Not that I agree with what happened to him (I think it is despicable), but that's the U.S. Government for you.
Hopefully TPB will be okay because the VPN can be used to bypass censorship on the net (or least can be advertised as being as such) -- if you happen to have your Torrents running through it, oh well, shit happens...also they are not in the USA...
Beware of Sleestak
Actually, the traffic from TPB site is not illegal in most country I would say. There is no parts of the transfer of any copyrighted material going through TPB so far ..
Dammit, I knew my company was up to something. Always making me use vpn to log into work. I'm reporting them for copyright infringement.
I don't get this blurb from the headline. Seems to me like this service wouldn't be mainly targeted at users accessing torrent trackers. This is anonymity for the Internet in general, and torrent trackers are only one small part of that.
Furthermore, I'm not familiar with any case so far that is based on turning over the logs from a website to get the users. I don't think that would present a strong enough case that someone is sharing, which is what they've been getting people on. Instead, they've been snooping the actual upload traffic from people by requesting downloads based on everything I've been seeing.
Bear in mind the "You shouldn't be hiding anything if you're innocent" mindset leads to a lot of privacy invasions.
Hotspot Shield is free with ads.
:q!
Rather interestingly one the founders of the Pirate Bay, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, registered a site for selling the drug GBL. GBL is converted by the body into GHB, sometimes referred to as "the date rape drug". Svartholm also registered a site for selling the drug Fenazepam. When asked about this he replied (roughly translated): "We register domains for customers who don't wish to be visible and we protect their anonymity".
Never express yourself more clearly than you are able to think. --Niels Bohr
Then you change the laws, not break them. It is not civil disobedience. It is simple criminality.
Henry David Thoreau would disagree:
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Just because all you did was "drive the getaway car" doesn't mean you're not an accomplice.
About time someone's analogy included a car...
Momentarily, the need for the construction of new light will no longer exist.
Seriously, who the fuck actually uses water bongs with tobacco?
I once smoked tobacco through a traditional narghile and it is actually enjoyable: there's no smoke so it doesn't feel like you are trying to breathe through a forest fire, tar and most cancer crap stays in water and the nicotine kick is powerful (but I'm not a smoker). Apparently a lot of people use those for tobacco (which needs to be of a special kind for best enjoyment).
Non-Linux Penguins ?
I wouldn't even argue this issue, but instead reject the premise out of hand, since it is not "a paid service that really has no other function". There are other functions for VPN other than copyright infringement
First, assuming you trust TPB (which is your choice) there are security benefits to encrypting traffic through their VPN. It means that if you're on an untrusted Internet connection, you can encrypt your otherwise unencrypted traffic through this tunnel. So if I hop onto a WiFi network without being sure whether the person running that network is trying to capture my traffic for some reason, the VPN blocks that.
Of course, on the other side of the issue, you have to trust TPB to not be spying on you, and what happens when that traffic leave TBP is a different issue.
Further, there are lots of reasons to want to anonymize Internet traffic. Only a subset of those reasons are illegal, and only a subset of those are illegal copyright infringement. But still, there are legal reasons to what to be anonymous. For example, political or industrial whistleblowers who want to avoid retaliation. Or, on the slightly less noble (though still legal) side of things, there's not wanting your ISP to have a record of your porn-viewing habits.
Regardless, I don't think TPB would claim to have no part of circumventing copyright law anyway. Maybe I'm wrong, but I thought their argument was just that they weren't the ones violating copyright, but were only providing an open forum (so to speak) that was sometimes used for copyright violations. There are actually trackers for legal torrents on TPB too. You could definitely argue that offering a place for users to exchange torrents and a service to anonymize traffic are as morally/legally neutral as the Internet itself, and that what users choose to do with those services is a different matter.
EVERYONE has something to hide. Not to say it would be illegal, but how about credit cards? Or something even a little more trivial, how about the way you like to have sex? Let's say you were talking to your wife over the internet about the way you like to have sex. Is it illegal? No. "Not tasteful?" According to who? And is it potentially embarrassing? Depending on what specifically you're talking about, maybe. Especially if it were revealed to your work or maybe your insurance company. Here you thought you were just talking about the great night you were gonna have with your wife and someone has 'eavesdropped' on that conversation and has twisted it to be a weapon against you. Yeah, that's extreme, but just one of those things that 'could happen' if we (the people) don't try to fight the little things.
"The best way to accelerate a Macintosh is at 9.8m/sec^2" -Marcus Dolengo
Anything for which you want to frustrate 3rd party traffic analysis. For example, you can send me an encrypted email whose contents other people can't read, but your ISP (or someone pressuring them) can see that you connected to my SMTP server.
Encryption obscures the "what" from 3rd parties, but sometimes you want to obscure the "who". A VPN service is one way to make things more complicated. Now the person spying on you just knows you conversed with TPB. If they weren't already watching me, then they don't know who TPB relayed to.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
The idea is vulnerable to traffic analysis. Once the IPs of the PB VPN endpoints are known, last mile providers could just drop traffic from them.
The whole point of P2P is to use the bandwidth of each client as a server in addition. This relies on a network being distributed without a central bottleneck.
VPNing in to TPB will introduce just such a bottleneck, killing performance. Or have they figured out a way to do point-to-point VPNing between all registered users?
What VPN technology are they using? How does it work?
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Seriously, what is the sole purpose of Pirate Bay?
Share Linux distros or share copyrighted material?
You can yell "can be used for legal purposes" or "cannot be proven" or whatnot until your face is blue, but will not change the truth.
It turns out there's no "sole purpose" of TPB. 80% of their torrents are legal, but probably the majority of traffic is not. To some people the most important purpose of TPB is to force a showdown that might help to change unjust laws.
"I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
The difference is TPB is not an American company. They're not bound by American laws and money. What has permitted TPB to exist in the first place is their country's relaxed copyright laws (vs the U.S.).
They've also been operating the world's largest public tracker for YEARS, longer than anyone else. They are largely responsible for the success of BitTorrent as a protocol, by making it freely accessible to anyone and everyone without discrimination. It doesn't matter whether you're a kid in a basement, or a big business or artist joining the movement, TPB is there and you can make use of its service.
Say what you will about the copyright issue, there's no hiding the fact that a large portion of their site is used for software piracy, but it is leading people to ponder and discuss these issues, which is more than any MAFIAA drone has ever accomplished with greedy lawsuits and gag orders.
There is no question at all that copyright infringement is a crime, and TPB's founders don't argue that point at all. What they're fighting is the current implementation of copyright law, which they consider over-reaching and extortive. It is their highly-effective form of civil disobedience, and they've extended an invitation to the entire BitTorrent community to join the cause.
The fact that they can stand trial and actually put up a good fight, should be at least partial proof that what they are doing has some legitimacy. If you really want to fight piracy, go beat up the guy selling DVDRs on the street corner... that guy's just in it for himself.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
The Pirate Bay is a search engine for files hosted using a specific protocol. The bittorrent protocol is the most innovative use of cooperative distributed storage. Not new it has been around for about a decade. Bandwidth efficient? no. The ISP each of us purchases services from hate it.
The bittorrent protocol offers the individual the otherwise impossible opportunity to "publish" works larger than a web page and reach a wide audience. Encryption is just another advancement along the way towards greater control for creators of content. You read that right.
In time there will be a very similar protocol that provides for encrypted key servers to enable the content we have purchased from small in (business terms) content creators. It should sound very familiar. Encrypting content and purchasing keys isn't in any way innovative. The problems inherent in encryption won't be solved by anyone but some questions will find answers.
Certainly the Bittorrent protocol or one like it is worth safeguarding.
The questions asked in this trial will find easy answers.
Obviously ownership of copyrights is easily solvable but, other seemingly intractable questions remain.
Freedom of information in search engines.
Freedom to use and definition of, non standard internet protocols including encrypted protocols.
Jurisdiction and definitions of free trade across borders.
After all is said and done which government will receive tax money from creators and purchasers of content. Taxes are inevitable.
What organization will define copyrights.
How can encryption be both secure and open to examination by individuals and governments.
These questions will put individual internet users at a disadvantage and vex lawmakers, judges and mathematicians for decades.
Technology often provides more questions even in mundane uses than answers.
15TW = 15,000 Nuclear Reactors. (Approx. one accident a month.)
But, no one is showing the law is unjust. They are just breaking the law and claiming the law is unjust because they don't like the law, and they don't like the law because the law says they can't make copies of copyrighted works even if it is cheap and easy to do so. They trample on the rights of the copyright holders and then claim it should be their right to do so.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
It's from the trial. One of the TPB admins did a survey of a portion of the torrents they had and went through and categorized which he considered legitimate traffic and which wasn't. 80% were legitimate.
For being on the receiving end of *AA complaints (Local ISP), I can tell you that they don't care how old the movie is.
Mind the frickin' laser...
Exactly - and so a VPN connection to Pirate Bay is just an encrypted network connection until someone transfers something copyrighted.
You can't have it both ways. The simple truth is that the vast majority of the uses you quoted for the drug-related items aren't the norm. I don't say that to say that they should be illegal - quite the contrary. I say that they should be (and currently are) legal and nobody much cares because they, like the VPN's here, are simply the result of a populace getting as close to breaking the law as they legally can because they don't see the purpose of the actual law (ie, marajuana, or filesharing of copyrighted content being illegal) as being just.
Or more simply, tools generally aren't illegal - doing something illegal with those tools is. A VPN is a tool, and so until they can prove that I'm using it to do something illegal then I'm innocent on paper, which is all that most people care about.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
No, actually it is exactly like that... Here's why:
You can do legal things in public, or in private. Just like you can do illegal things in public, or in private. The problem is governments are exceeding their boundaries, and forcing away your anonymity under the guise of providing public benefit. The government, nor anyone else imho, has the right to remove your privacy. If you choose to do illegal things in private, oh well! That's the price of true freedom in the USA. Governments should keep busting criminals that commit crimes utilizing public methods. Governments should not strip away our privacy as a step in determining whom to bust.
I'm sorry but I'll never register here and I'll always remain Anonymous Coward to people unable to access /. server logs. I'm sorry that if you invade my home I will end your life as a defense mechanism to such invasion. I'm sorry you seem to have a fascist agenda to know every detail about me (others) and mine (theirs).
The most disturbing part of your posts however, is that you have taken the stance of, "attempting to protect your true identity and maintain personal privacy for any reason; makes you guilty of committing a crime." You do so in a non-shallant way that really implies anyone that disagrees with you MUST be a criminal. If I was a mod I would have definitely gone with -1 flamebait.
PS) If you really stand by the ideals you seem to be presenting here, I dare you to go ahead and post your full real name, address, telephone number, and social security numbers, so I and others here can put your life under our microscopes. Otherwise, by your logic, you're a criminal hiding behind an email@ and an IP.
I hate to sound like a broken record, but there is no copyrighted material on pirate bay. The site contains torrent trackers, not the files themselves. If Pirate Bay were just a giant server full of pirated mp3s and movies, it would have been taken down a long time ago. Hence the drug dealer analogy doesn't work at all, since maintaining a site about *where to get drugs* isn't illegal.
>>>It's like being accused of being a drug dealer because people buy drugs off your site, and, in response, you offer a method for people to make private transactions.
Well to stretch an analogy to near breaking point..... Piratebay doesn't sell drugs. They just provide the address(es) for the corner where you can obtain them, which is not illegal. Neither is it illegal to sell users a trenchcoat and hat to help hide their identity.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Excellent point, thanks. The scary thing is that Sweden seems to be looking to make copyright enforcement more strict as a result of all of this.
Said, "It's just like dice but it's got more sides And it tells me who lives and who dies"
Does your company facilitate copyright infringement? It's not called the Shareware Bay y'know. By offering VPN they are no longer passive facilitators, but active ones. They've even named the service as a parody of an IP protection directive, expressing their clear intent, as if "Pirate Bay" wasn't enough of an outright confession.
And it doesn't have to be a flagrant violation of criminal code, if it's close enough the BSA, RIAA, and MPIAA will simply throw enough money into a civil suit to make it unprofitable and deter anyone else from offering torrents and VPN. That's why the RIAA makes so many contradictory statements in different lawsuits, they're just saying whatever $10M in legal will buy them to scare people away from piracy that's cost them $10B over the last 10 years.
Even if they're certain they're not breaking any law, it'll still cost PB >$200k in legal to defend against an IP infringement claim of that magnitude, and even if they win and are awarded legal costs, that's a pretty big loan they're forced to give their lawyers for about two years. No question, the MAFIAA will go after you with complete knowledge that they have no case whatsoever. Torrents + VPN == an arguable case + a precedent the MAFIAA cannot afford to go unchallenged.
PB can't win this one though, won't surprise me if they get shut down entirely. If they hadn't been so flagrant about it, maybe, but it's pretty much like a gun shop called "Cop Killer's Paradise" in a city with the highest fatal shootings of officers. They not only facilitate illegal activity that is clearly abundant, they promote it.
War as we knew it was obsolete
Nothing could beat complete denial
- Emily Haines
Virtual Pirate Network, ijaaaaaaarrrr
Oh come on, everyone was thinking it.
I'm sure someone will come out with a license code generator so you can get this free...
I have, and there great!
Spelling and Grammar errors have been added to this post for your enjoyment
..as if "Pirate Bay" wasn't enough of an outright confession.
So if I name my blog "I like to steal things" I'm obviously a thief? A name is not a confession.
If sharing files, even ones "protected" under copyright is considered legal in their country (some countries have pretty liberal interpretations of "fair use" and "fair dealing"), then the name is tongue and cheek not a confession of guilt.
"If you are going through hell, keep going." - Winston Churchill
"I once smoked tobacco ... there's no smoke..."
Can you explain how that works? Smoking without smoke?
I'm at a public internet cafe or any public internet access point (i.e airport, hotel, etc) and don't know what kind of snooping an unscrupulous proprietor maybe up to, a VPN connection to Pirate Bay will protect me from those shenanigans. Or I just want to keep my browsing habits private from my local ISP as I don't feel it any of their business as to what sites I spend my time at. The point being that I would use a Pirate Bay VPN for the same reasons I would use any other VPN.
If you are asking for some one to justify using the Pirate Bay's VPN specifically, I really don't see why anyone would have to do that. But just to humor you, their service price seems pretty fair and their stated privacy policies seem to be exactly what some one looking for VPN service would want them to be.
TPB is a good choice to offer this because their admins have proven themselves to be excellent at communications security, not because it's somehow linked to their torrent trackers.
The problem is that, again, as far as Sweden's laws are concerned The Pirate Bay isn't doing anything illegal.
Is it illegal in America? Yes. Does setting up a VPN service make them look worse? Yes. Will it actually affect TPB in any significant way? Probably not. Trying to shut down TPB is like trying to shut down Wikileaks.
If the day ever comes that their service is illegal in Sweden, I'm sure that they'll just move it to somewhere that doesn't give a fuck and would appreciate making tens of thousands of dollars a year off of them.
Besides, if The Pirate Bay were sued, all they'd have to do is set up a legal defense fund. They'd get the money they need in a very short time, I imagine.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
Because several ISPs will block all torrent activity, regardless of legality.
Which makes getting new linux ISOs and updating World of Warcraft slower than torrenting them through a VPN.
3 guys distributing linux distros does not justify tens of millions leeching copyrighted content from the rest of us.
You're right. They should at least seed a bit!
No tyrant thrives when every subject says no.
There are many things that can "get you in trouble".
Downloading info about environmental or animal rights activism? Since green is the new red, you might make a terrorist watch-list.
Or maybe you want to read Chuck Norris's call for the formation of "cell groups" to prepare for another campaign of terrorist "succession" from the U.S..
Or maybe you want to blow the whistle on corrupt government but fear backlash, so need anonymous communication.
Or maybe you want to be able to get information about medical conditions without letting your "managed care" company know.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
This all comes down to the american capitalist, hyper propertarian view of copyright which other countries are free to reject. This american centrism discussion of IP is what people are railing against.
If we had more people like John carmack in the world, (giving away his sourcecode) and letting games fall into what is practically public domain, IP wouldn't be such a problem.
We have too many idiots who want to use IP to privately tax creativity and innovation to death. We have orphan works that people can't touch because of IP, when's the last time anything entered public domain?
Truth be told the sheeple are feeding the King georges of corporate world, private profit can be abused and turned into a PRIVATE tax of an unelected body of people and framed as "trade", when it's nothing but another form of totalitarianism and corporate protectionism, or simply - rule by price.
Next is the fact that corporations are trying to stop people from owning anything, and the pirate bay is a good reaction against that despite what it's users intentions are. I'm glad they exist as a counterweight to all corporate bullshit that keeps getting passed because their are not enough intelligent people in the world to stop the army of lawyers and deep pockets in washington and other governments of the world who are bought and paid for by these shills.