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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.
How efficient of them.
The piratebay guys keep pulling these idiotic stunts, like not showing-up to their own trial, and pretty soon they will lose. If they would at least TRY to put-up a rational defense instead of acting like teenagers, maybe they can win their cause.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
"I sued The Pirate Bay and all I got was this lousy T-Shirt"
Maybe, but they put up a damn good fight compared to everybody else in that situation.
It makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside to seeing a gang of hooligans consistently thumb their nose at the system while the entertainment goons continue to waste their resources playing whack-a-mole with The Pirate Bay and p2p in general.
TPB knew what they were up against and they are fighting it to the very end. It's debatable whether they have big balls of if they're just stupid -- or both -- but since when have big media's rabid lawyers respected the spirit of the law? They don't even respect the letter of it and they are fast making a mockery of the US judicial system and the executive branch. At least TPB are honest enough to openly mock the system rather than throw enough money at it to pervert it.
Besides, and some of you may not know this, there are other torrent trackers besides TPB. Just fucking Google it, or ask somebody here. They'd gladly tell you.
-- Ethanol-fueled
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 short: People pirate because they can. The long: Pirating is so easy and does so little damage to the media companies that people don't even feel remorse for doing it. Most people think that the prices for media today is far too high and if they were lowered they would likely buy more. I doubt the media companies are really losing much business because the movies people truly want to see still get bought. In other words, if media prices were dropped the companies revenues would likely be similar to what they are now. People would buy more but at a lower price. Most pirates are not exclusive pirates. They still go out to the movies, buy new releases, and buy their favorite bands music. They pirate things that they were less likely to buy.
I don't think the average pirate is trying to prove a point or communicate a message. I think they do it because they want something but not enough to pay the asking price.
Stewart Brand was close. He almost understood.
You can't make someone pay for information unless you're the only one that can provide it. Everyone. Every single person reading this... you are a potential content provider. You could make every bit of information on your computer available, right now.
Sue us.
All of us. ...because that's the only way you can stop the tidal wave that will crush your monopoly of distribution.
You're idea of how to define property are antiquated and you're about to become extinct unless you mutate. The only people making money now are your lawyers.
And when you've lost. When you've bled yourself dry and lost all support from the public you think you pander to, the dust will settle and we will still be here distributing information. Not because we are cheap. Not because we don't want creativity to win... but because information is free.
Hint: creating information is a service people will gladly pay for...
It's quite obvious the corruption involved in the initial raids on TPB in 2k6 was/is much more widespread than previously thought.
They are appealing, and from all accounts the initial lower court ruling does not get applied until their appeal is decided a year plus from now.
This is persecution plain and simple, a textbook case of political harassment by plutocrats intent on keeping their hegemony.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
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.
Pirating is so easy and does so little damage to the media companies that people don't even feel remorse for doing it.
I think it's a little deeper than that.
See, there used to be a notion of a "social contract" underlying copyright. The idea was that by enforcing copyright restrictions for a limited (fairly short) period of time, we could encourage the production and publication of works which would soon enrich us all by falling into the public domain. The existence of a rich public domain both acted as a constraint on the price of new works by giving people a less costly alternative and as a reminder to everyone of the benefits of honoring the social contract.
In a world where copyright expired after 14 years, the average college student would be very familiar with the theory underlying copyright, and why it's morally wrong to ignore it -- because the average college student would already have seen works fall into the public domain in his or her lifetime. A favorite childhood movie would have been freed, and others would be close.
But now, copyright has become perpetual, and the social contract broken.
Oh, sure, technically copyrights still expire, but that's only if they don't get retroactively extended again, and they already last longer than most lifetimes. The result is that Joe Sixpack thinks it's a legitimate (if obscure and trivial) question to ask "Who owns the copyright on Shakespeare's plays?". Most people don't realize that copyrights are even supposed to expire, and feel that the only moral force behind copyright is that an author, musician, etc., has a moral "right" to control his or her work. Even the ones who don't bother wondering why this is true for authors but not true for, say, plumbers, still recognize that this is a weak moral force, especially when it's clear that the creator is already very well paid for his or her work.
Thus, the extension of copyright terms has sucked all moral force out of copyright. People don't feel remorse because there's really no significant reason to feel remorse.
And the sad and delicious irony here, is that the very people who decry piracy the loudest are the same people who lobbied for term extension.
They did it to themselves. As far as I'm concerned, that removes what remaining moral force there might be. I don't pirate stuff myself, but I don't really consider it a moral issue. I do want to see that creators of good stuff get paid, not so much to pay for the work they have done as to encourage them to do some more, but that's it.
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