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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.
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 don't think of it as "But we just want free warez and dont want to pay for entertainment!", but as "Your silly model based on restricting distribution is a total fail, get another one!".
Ultimately the models that restrict distribution reward distributors more than creators anyway. I say good riddance to them. This isn't about getting paid, but who's in control of what you see and hear and when you see or hear it.
The getting paid part is just the convenient justification of the moment because stating the real reason wouldn't get them anywhere.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
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...
I think that it's important to point out that "rights holders" are perfectly willing to break the law. Sony rootkits, RIAA's illegal "investigations", and more. Worse, the "rights holders" are intent on bending, folding, mutilating, and spindling the law. Today's copyright law is a horrid mutilation of the spirit of the law. I dare say that if the law were fair and equitable, there would be very few people actually ripping off the content found on the web. In fact, if the law were truly "just", I suspect that thieves would be turned in by parents, freinds, and associates. People actually respond to crimestoppers requests for information, after all.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
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.
--- Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity
Quit breathing and stealing all that oxygen, you malicious bastard!
We'll run out!
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.
You know, I don't have any pirated material on my computer. Every song, every video, every piece of software, every file of any kind is something I either bought, downloaded legally for free, or wrote myself.
And yet I support TPB, and oppose the MAFIAA and their toadies in the US and (increasingly) around the world.
You can believe me or not, I don't care. Just be aware that there are a substantial number of people who strongly dislike the current insane state of copyright law and the Draconian enforcement thereof, not because it's personally inconvenient for them, but simply and solely because it is wrong.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
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.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.