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.

Comments

How long can they fight it

[sopssa]

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.

Re:How long can they fight it

[Crunchie Frog]

I know, because we only use TPB for Linux distros, right?

You're a pirate and you steal movies, music, programs, and games.

At least fucking admit to it.

No he's not a pirate and no he doesn't steal yada yada.

He may be a copyright infringer, and he may be infringing on the copyright of movies, music, programs and games. There's a difference, despite what Big Money would say / like you to believe. Maybe that should be admitted, because its closer to the truth than your rhetoric.

Re:How long can they fight it

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in Norway. Here the movies are in the movie theater months after they are released in the USA, and the ticket is very expensive (twice as much as what I have seen in France).

There is not a single good store to buy music or rent movies online. Amazon music is not available here, and iTunes is basically stealing us with execrable rate of exchange. There is Nokia music store of course, but they don't sell movies. Hulu is not available outside the USA.

So yes, online sharing will remains strong in Europe as long as it remains better than the commercial offer.

Re:How long can they fight it

[hairyfeet]

Not to mention I'm sure there are quite a few like me that have bought MORE than we would have, thanks to P2P. I'll give an example: I'm staring right now at a complete Joss Whedon Collection in the nice DVD boxes, framed by a pair of collector figures that my late sis bought me for bookends for them. All told probably a $1000 they got out of my pocket for the set, as I bought every. single. box on release. What does that have to do with P2P?

Simple. Where I live there was NO WB station you could receive. Zip zero nada squat. And I had seen the Buffy movie and thought it was shit. So if I wouldn't have heard about the buzz and downloaded the first couple of episodes I would have NEVER bought those shows, as who would have thought some show based on a shitty movie with some soap star could actually be entertaining? I sure as hell didn't. But I watched them, actually enjoyed the story, and when it came out on DVD I bought them. Could I have downloaded them? Sure, but then I wouldn't have gotten all the funny outtakes, the director and actor commentaries, the "behind the scenes" and "making of" documentaries, etc. in other words they provided more VALUE for my dollar, making it well worth the money to me.

And to me that hits the nail on the head, as all the DRM in the newer stuff like BD takes AWAY value instead of giving me more for my money. And games have gotten so bad, with totally shit alpha code pushed out the door with more crashes than Win95 with a bad driver that it just ain't funny anymore. Give folks a good value for a good price and folks buy your stuff- that is as true today as it was 100 years ago. Sadly i think too many of these "entertainment" companies have decided they are "Too big to fail" and are therefor entitled to ever increasing profits, no matter if their product smells like a porta-potty at an all you can eat chili cook-off. Like the whining I read from THQ over the closing of Iron Lore "whaaah pirates whaaaah" but you know what? Their product stunk. I couldn't get Titan Quest to keep from crashing to desktop and their forums were full of "graphics failed to initialize" errors.

So offer a good value and quit trying to shovel shit for big $$$ and watch your company make cash. It really is that simple. Hell EA got me to buy Medal of Honor: Airborne, even though I had already heard it wasn't great. How? By putting it along with MOH:Allied Assault, all the expansion packs, and Pacific Assault in a nice box with a "timeline of WW2" and a "Music of MOH" CD in a nice box and charging a fair $30 for it. But this whole buck a song and...what is it now? $59 for a game at release? In a dead economy? Fuck your customers and treat them like shit and don't be surprised that they try to fuck you back. I just don't buy BD and get my games from the bargain bin, whereas i used to love getting games on release day, but I can see where some might just adopt a "fuck them first" attitude. After all, thanks to their bribery the copyrights are.....what 150+ years now? Yep, that seems fair.

Re:How long can they fight it

[Roger W Moore]

Commissioned works, live performance attendence fees, and donations are how it will work.

Interesting since this is, of course, the way it used to work several hundred years ago before copyright came on the scene. The other interesting aspect is that instead of always aiming for the mass market there will now be a new market aiming at the tastes of the rich who can afford to commission works just as there was in the past. Of course mass market tastes are still catered to by live performances. Should be interesting to see whether this actually happens. I wonder if history will regard copyright as just a blip?

I wonder if their political party

[G00F]

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.

Isn't it amazing how goverments dance to the tune?

[erroneus]

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.