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Swedish Authorities Attempt Pirate Bay Shutdown
Several sources are discussing the recent attempted shutdown of The Pirate Bay by Swedish authorities. It seems that following the recent court defeats and the pending civil actions, Swedish authorities threatened TPB's main bandwidth supplier with a hefty fine in order to get them shut down. Not surprisingly TPB has relocated and is back online although the tracker still seems to be down. As a gesture of their "appreciation" TPB plans on sending a mocking t-shirt to the people believed responsible for the takedown attempt.
This is really just the last attemps to remain online. How long will it take until they're closed at another ISP again? (TPB is down again btw). And how long will it take until their domain is pulled down?
This time they're not just arguing against media companies/RIAA/MPAA in USA, but their own goverment and courts. Shit is going to hit the wall.
And with the latest GGF buyout news and suspected inside trading with stocks, losing in swedish courts and everything happening with them recently, this just seems like the last attemps to get the remaining money off the site.
Personally, I would like to see them stay online and fight for the values they have (or are giving to people). But it really doesn't seem like its going to happen.
The thing is, The PiratePirate Bay's talk about "but we only host the .torrent files, not the files" didn't work out for them. It's also pretty clear what was The Pirate Bay's purpose, along how they mocked companies asking to remove content. The point being they are clearly breaking the law and giving technical excuses for it, while the purpose counts just as good (and I'm saying this as a swedish person)
Sadly, it seems like the world is going to more closed place again by what goverments do. I dont want USA's laws here either. But instead of the clear pro-warez propaganda of all of the Pirate Parties, they should go more for net neutrality, freedom of speech and making people understand why they should be valued and what can happen if those rights are taken away. "But we just want free warez and dont want to pay for entertainment!" is not going to work, and it is the wrong kind of agenda. You should pay for people who spend tons of it, or just not use it like any other product. Just because it can be digitized on your computer doesn't mean you should be able to get it for free.
It's interesting to see how this develops however. Persons behind TPB have a great idea about freedom and net neutrality. It would be sad to see them getting beaten, even if I dont agree with TPB's main purpose.
I'd like to see TPB's revenue streams, and if they are actually profitable or even break-even in any way.
I mean, I can understand fighting against the MAFIAA in some respects, but this is getting ridiculous. It's like people just pirate for the sake of pirating, just to stick it to "the man" so to speak. But then you have to question why they started pirating in the first place? I mean, are they seriously denting retail sales all that much? It doesn't seem like game and movie companies are all that concerned overall, (films especially), and films are still earning tens and hundreds of millions of dollars on movie release weekends.
I am just saying, if they are trying to prove a point or communicate a message, there has to be a better way.
Forget DNS... just publish the most recent IP address in the Wikipedia article on The Pirate Bay.
== last known address ==
[12.34.56.78 Clikz here 4 teh warez]
I wonder if them getting involved in politics is what is causing them to be more of a target that previously?
Think about it, it wasn't that long ago they where untouchable, but since they formed their own party they are actively in court all the time, getting their equipment confiscated, or some other blow dealt against them.
The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive
The stunts are part of their public image. It's not stupidity. People who are otherwise unbiased are likely to find their positive, humorous attitude more appealing than the strict suit-only approach of their opponents. They are, most likely, very well aware of what they're doing.
And look at how well that did for them. They had two options, they could have worked with these industries and tried to make a deal with them or they could have fought the system. They decided to fight the system but they fought the system like children and were treated like children by the system.
And as a sidenote I always found it funny that people defended them by saying it hosted legimate material which is true, but the site itself is called, "The PIRATE Bay" and the majority of the top 100 was pirated material.
Why does dated and old software gets tossed aside in your reasoning but dated and old music, TV shows and movies do not?
The software industry is like Hollywood too,their games is all they have.
If Hollywood stopped releasing crap they would get more people to pay for it. If Hollywood stopped wasting millions in production costs they would get more profits from their products.
Hint to Hollywood: stop caving at the actors demands. They don't want to play for $200K, some other actor will. Movies should be about the stories not the fucking morons who play the characters.
Quoting a very funny website:
"A short patronizing history
Before the growth of the merchant class, nobility used their money, power, and influence to promote ideas through the use of patronage. If they favored an artist, philosopher, musician, writers, orator, scientist or even a jester, they would patronize them and in this way their ideas would flourish. The patrons, who were often egotistical, would take credit for the ideas and would circulate them to further their own fame.
After the growth of the merchant class, nobility lost sole control over money, power and influence and patronage was partially replaced with commerce. Artists, philosophers, musicians, writers, orators, scientists and even jesters were forced to please many people instead of just one in order to survive. Spreading their creative ideas became much harder because they did not have the money, power, or influence of the nobility.
With the advent of marketing artists, philosophers, musicians, writers, orators, scientists, and even jesters were forced to associate with advertisers, distributors, branders, promoters and other middlemen in order to reach an audience. In essence these marketers became the new patrons."
htttp://quityourjobday.com
Keep your eye on the big picture here. Swedish law did not and still does not consider what The Pirate Bay does to be illegal... not directly anyway. And the fact that they were convicted of aiding the act of copyright infringement without first charging anyone of "the primary offence" is pretty suspect. (Shouldn't the charge of aiding in a crime first have to identify a specific crime having occured?)
But consider the flow of events and how these things are happening. The **AAs are petitioning the U.S. government representatives to apply pressure to the Swedish government to take all of these actions. Their [the Swedish government] first actions against The Pirate Bay and the official communications prior spells out pretty clearly what's really going on. The Swedish actions failed because their own laws do not outlaw what they are doing. There have been attempts at getting laws passed and they don't seem to be passing and so it's becoming really difficult for the people behind this (the **AAs) to get the results they have been paying for.
So what I am trying to point out here is that it is utterly amazing how this is all happening. The Swedish government is compromising its own integrity at the demand of the U.S. government (and probably with incentives from the **AAs as well) who is acting on behalf of businesses that operate in the U.S. I can't say that "this is corruption" but I can say it doesn't look, smell or feel right.
It is no coincidence that these events (court case, ISP block) are unfolding during a global recession. Some media company or association thereof have undoubtedly provided the swiss government with a fresh influx of currency.