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The Pirate Bay Sails To a New Home

the monolith writes "Back in August, the company supplying bandwidth to The Pirate Bay was forced to disconnect them. Quoting TorrentFreak: '"It took just 20 minutes before the Hollywood companies telephoned the new host who took over operation of The Pirate Bay," commented Patrik from the ISP which had been indirectly supplying bandwidth to TPB. Despite initially putting on a brave face and standing strong, Patrik's company continued to feel the heat. It is not a large outfit and doesn't have the resources to fight the entertainment industry and its threats. Last night, Patrik could hold off no longer after receiving mounting threats from the entertainment industries, which culminated in threats of a court summons. Having come this far, there is little doubt that IFPI and the MPAA would litigate if necessary. ... On the heels of several rumors today, Patrik said he could confirm news of the move, saying that he believes The Pirate Bay is now hosted in Ukraine.'"

244 comments

  1. The pirate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The pirate bay will never die.

    1. Re:The pirate by D+Ninja · · Score: 4, Funny

      Oh, there's some companies out there who would like to arrrrrrrrrgue that point with you.

      Sorry. Couldn't resist. I'll just let myself out...

    2. Re:The pirate by elfprince13 · · Score: 1

      There've been what, 5 or 6 announcements of "a month left of The Pirate Bay" or "2 weeks left of The Pirate Bay" so far this year?

    3. Re:The pirate by The+Stars+Look+Down · · Score: 1

      Yes, it will.

      --
      "Money is the barometer of a society's virtue." - Ayn Rand Atlas Shrugged
    4. Re:The pirate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And the Roman Empire could never fall, and...

      The Pirate Bay might last a good while, but all things eventually come to an end. That includes the MPAA/RIAA as well.

    5. Re:The pirate by Dan541 · · Score: 1

      The Pirate Bay is a classic case of David vs Goliath.

      Its great that the little guys are able to hold out against the big corporate bullies.

      --
      An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
    6. Re:The pirate by horza · · Score: 1

      Indeed. If it was a corporation with a legitimate case it would pursue it through the appropriate legal channels. What they are currently doing is trying to circumvent TPB right of appeal by vigilante action outside of the court in which they had decided to try the case.

      And then they try and make a moral case that copyright infringement is like theft. After corruption like this, suing their own customers, and price-fixing, is it any wonder that normal law abiding citizens aren't too keen on giving them money?

      Phillip.

    7. Re:The pirate by sleigher · · Score: 2, Funny

      The pirate bay will never die.

      Now they are like zombie pirates which are way cooler than just pirates.

      --
      All points of time and space are connected.
    8. Re:The pirate by Dan541 · · Score: 1

      I own more than 100 DVDs and I can't help but feel guilty about it. When your customers have a moral dilemma about buying your products, it's time to re think the business model. But that won't happen because the media companies are business armatures.

      --
      An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
    9. Re:The pirate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The pirate bay will never die.

      Just like napster, (the real) mp3.com, and share reactor, right?

      Piracy will die when all software is GPL'd and media copy right is reformed.

    10. Re:The pirate by Elayoou · · Score: 1

      yeah, like 'The Boat that Rocked' stands. Viva La Paribey.

  2. Google Purges Pirate Bay? by D+Ninja · · Score: 5, Interesting

    What happened to the article "Google purges Pirate Bay from search results?"

    It's listed on the front page of Slashdot, but when I click the link, I can't get to it. I want to know what that is about, dang it.

    1. Re:Google Purges Pirate Bay? by Per+Wigren · · Score: 4, Informative

      It's about this.

      --
      My other account has a 3-digit UID.
    2. Re:Google Purges Pirate Bay? by ACalcutt · · Score: 1

      I noticed that also. Oddly, the Pirate Bay is back in the google results (http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=all&rlz=&=&q=the+pirate+bay&btnG=Google+Search&meta=lr%3D)

    3. Re:Google Purges Pirate Bay? by Dudeman_Jones · · Score: 0, Redundant

      The article about Google purging the Pirate Bay from their search servers has been itself purged.

    4. Re:Google Purges Pirate Bay? by palegray.net · · Score: 1

      This purging was brought to by the Ministry of Truth and viewers like you.

    5. Re:Google Purges Pirate Bay? by Rhapsody+Scarlet · · Score: 2, Informative

      I noticed this too, so I instinctively took a screenshot of my RSS reader to prove it did actually exist.

      Anyone from Slashdot care to explain what the hell happened?

    6. Re:Google Purges Pirate Bay? by Goateee · · Score: 1

      Theres some more info at http://torrentfreak.com/google-removes-pirate-bay-frontpage-from-search-results-091002/. Including thepiratebay in a DMCA complaint seem to just be a mistake from some companies part.

    7. Re:Google Purges Pirate Bay? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      viewers like you.

      Daw, shucks. I'm sure they'd feel different if they knew me better.

    8. Re:Google Purges Pirate Bay? by Runaway1956 · · Score: 1

      Prunes, right? Pirates need dried fruit in their diet 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
    9. Re:Google Purges Pirate Bay? by russ1337 · · Score: 1

      While I didn't take a screenie, I did search the feed and list of articles for some time.

      conspiracy thread starts here ----->

    10. Re:Google Purges Pirate Bay? by MichaelSmith · · Score: 1

      Yeah its in my RSS reader by /. says The item you're trying to view either does not exist, or is not viewable to you.

    11. Re:Google Purges Pirate Bay? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No clue, but I *did* see CmdrTaco post something about "daddypants" in there earlier, so I'm assuming they had some kind of problem. And they're almost certainly doing something behind the scenes. Not long ago, we had a day of downtime.

      Incidentally, I'm disturbed by looking at your RSS reader and seeing just how many of the same websites we visit regularly...

    12. Re:Google Purges Pirate Bay? by straponego · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Interesting. I'd thought Google's revenue streams centered around providing the most accurate and relevant search results. Looks like they've punted on that. So there are opportunities for new search providers after all.

      In fact, this could go a long way to explaining why they haven't gotten serious about semantic search, which would be the next giant leap in relevance. it's because they'd rather give you pseudo-relevant (but profitable) answers first. This is why when you're searching for reviews on a product, you get sales crap instead. And it also explains why the count the whole page, even navigation/spam crap, as relevant, rather than grouping articles/sections/comments as logical units.

    13. Re:Google Purges Pirate Bay? by aj50 · · Score: 1

      Have a look at this article from torrent freak (complete with update saying TPB is back on the results page):

      http://torrentfreak.com/google-removes-pirate-bay-frontpage-from-search-results-091002/

      --
      I wish to remain anomalous
    14. Re:Google Purges Pirate Bay? by Ronald+Dumsfeld · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Google is an advertising company. Not anything else. Not the technology tinkerer it works to portray itself as.

      I'm sure I don't need to explain further.

      --
      Where's the Kaboom?
      There's supposed to be an Earth-shattering Kaboom.
    15. Re:Google Purges Pirate Bay? by Ronald+Dumsfeld · · Score: 1

      I noticed this too, so I instinctively took a screenshot of my RSS reader to prove it did actually exist.

      Anyone from Slashdot care to explain what the hell happened?

      -- The content of this post has been removed for failing to comply with Newsspeak --

      --
      Where's the Kaboom?
      There's supposed to be an Earth-shattering Kaboom.
    16. Re:Google Purges Pirate Bay? by sopssa · · Score: 1

      This is not interesting, but insightful. Google has to follow DMCA law, which means they have to remove links when copyright holders send their request. While I hate Google's all-over-the-internet datamining, in this case it's not Google's fault but DMCA's.

    17. Re:Google Purges Pirate Bay? by drinkypoo · · Score: 2, Informative

      Google is an advertising company. Not anything else. Not the technology tinkerer it works to portray itself as.

      Wrong. Google is both of these things. They noticed that geeks respond better to advertising when it is true and assembled their company accordingly. A lot of good stuff is coming out of Google and a lot of Google geeks contribute to Open Source. Sure, they're not in the same league as IBM, Novell, Red Hat, or Intel, but they don't have to be.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    18. Re:Google Purges Pirate Bay? by Ronald+Dumsfeld · · Score: 3, Informative

      Google is an advertising company. Not anything else. Not the technology tinkerer it works to portray itself as.

      Wrong. Google is both of these things. They noticed that geeks respond better to advertising when it is true and assembled their company accordingly. A lot of good stuff is coming out of Google and a lot of Google geeks contribute to Open Source. Sure, they're not in the same league as IBM, Novell, Red Hat, or Intel, but they don't have to be.

      The "technology tinkerer" part is Google's equivalent of a regular advertiser's department of coke-snorting-idea-generators.

      They don't stand to make much money from geeks, we're the sort of people who learn how to filter out what they make money from. Text-only Adwords was a stroke of genius, when you look at what other advertisers were like at the time. Adverts that are relevant, and not so annoying that geeks will make tools to block them. Especially when the geeks might make that tool easy enough to use that the public do so.

      And yes, you're right they've done a lot of interesting and good tech. Plus released quite a bit of it under liberal licenses. It makes for great PR, allows their techie people who develop these things the satisfaction that it's out there - even if the advertising company can't see a way to use it to sell ad space.

      --
      Where's the Kaboom?
      There's supposed to be an Earth-shattering Kaboom.
    19. Re:Google Purges Pirate Bay? by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Mundanes look to nerds for advice. How many people have you told "I pretty much just use google to find everything"? I've lost count; people I know, people I don't. If you're anything like me, then you have probably had people you don't know overhear your conversations and ask you computer questions (usually I make my answer a solicitation for funds, but sometimes I am helpful.) Getting the nerds on the google train was absolutely key to getting everyone else on there too.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    20. Re:Google Purges Pirate Bay? by Ronald+Dumsfeld · · Score: 1

      I went from recommending AltaVista, to recommending Google when it was obvious the search algorithm was so much better. Nowadays, I don't recommend Google anymore, I recommend Firefox and a part of why I do that is because it has Google as the default search engine.

      I'm probably preaching to the converted to say, that Google couldn't continue to exist without making money off that technology. And that technology enables the automation of something very valuable in advertising, contextual relevance.

      --
      Where's the Kaboom?
      There's supposed to be an Earth-shattering Kaboom.
    21. Re:Google Purges Pirate Bay? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Google also purged the article, I guess. Make no evil unless it is not considered evil by Google

    22. Re:Google Purges Pirate Bay? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Did you even read the headline on GP's link? The purge was accidental.

      As for the rest... they're a company. They're in it for money. Duh. Good luck finding a company that will do otherwise.

    23. Re:Google Purges Pirate Bay? by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Google has to make money somehow, like everyone else. They give us "products" that continually lose money, and I enjoy them. If anything, I'm worried about Google having too much information about everything. Anyone with good access to various data stores inside of Google has access to an unprecedented amount of personal information, like access to tons and tons of unlisted phone numbers, or all kinds of business data that people shouldn't be storing inside google docs :)

      At the same time, I use all kinds of google stuff. I just wouldn't store my secret plans to rule the world there.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    24. Re:Google Purges Pirate Bay? by hicksw · · Score: 1

      I see no evidence that Google is ignoring TPB.

      Googling "torrents site:thepiratebay.org" gives almost 4.9e6 hits.

      Perhaps the original (removed) posting was less than completely accurate.

    25. Re:Google Purges Pirate Bay? by daveime · · Score: 1

      Yes, but it's not *really* a direct link to copyrighted material is it ?

      It's a link to a page that contains a downloadable file containing hashes of IP addresses that can be connected to download parts or all of the copyrighted content.

      I understood the scope of DMCA takedowns was *direct* links to the copyrighted files ?

      Of course, who cares about legality, this is the big corporations, where bullying and coercion are acceptable.

    26. Re:Google Purges Pirate Bay? by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      Interesting. I'd thought Google's revenue streams centered around providing the most accurate and relevant search results. Looks like they've punted on that.

      Google is an American company and has to comply with American laws. One of those laws is DMCA, and it has the section about content providers and take-down notices.

    27. Re:Google Purges Pirate Bay? by paganizer · · Score: 1

      Infoseek was better. I may be remembering things through a rose colored monitor, but I remember them being really close to google, when they started out at least, when it came to accuracy. Too bad Disney destroyed the search code, FWIH.
      But AltaVista was always better at finding the truly obscure stuff.

      --
      Why, yes, I AM a Pagan Libertarian.
  3. What does the next gen filesharing tech offer us? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The Pirate Bay is the first place everyone I know goes for their torrents. Without tpb most people would be lost. What will we do when tpb goes down for good??

    I only hope the next major technology in file sharing has some feature that is built in for anonymous use, and can offer single click access to load media files.

    Dealing with .rar files for a movie that could have been downloaded as one file is so 1990's...

    Something that could combine the best parts of usenet and p2p would be the best long term solution I think...

  4. Ahhhh, but Ukraine is Weak by CodeBuster · · Score: 2, Funny
    1. Re:Ahhhh, but Ukraine is Weak by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You slashdotted Youtube.

      Thanks a lot, ass.

    2. Re:Ahhhh, but Ukraine is Weak by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      For all the joking, Ukraine is likely to be a bad place for this. Its foreign politics, specifically the desire to counter Russian influence, force it to align strongly with the USA to the point of ass-kissing the latter over "minor" issues. Copyright could be seen as one such, and RIAA/MPAA could easily put pressure on US govt to request that Ukraine cracks down hard on piracy, and specifically to serve TPB head on the plate. And they will comply.

  5. The Powers that Be by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Some say it's just a conspiracy theory, but the truth is that The New World Order is the dream of many elite. Do they have a secret society? That's hard to say, since it would be a secret, right? If I were one of the elite, however, and fancied a one world government, I would want to get in touch with like-minded people and wage an initiative toward that goal. So if you value your country's sovereignty in the least, consider the threat real. Many want to eliminate The Pirate Bay's every chance of asylum.

    1. Re:The Powers that Be by turing_m · · Score: 4, Interesting

      So if you value your country's sovereignty in the least, consider the threat real. Many want to eliminate The Pirate Bay's every chance of asylum.

      I think it's relatively unlikely that there won't be some sort of movement by those with power to counter the lack of control caused by the internet. We are seeing that now. It would not surprise me if the media mafia kept up the full court press until every last country folds. They have plenty of money and power.

      OTOH, their enemies are getting something they formerly paid for, for nothing. Not much money to fight with there. Do they have any allies with an income stream? ISPs are a natural ally - they are not stupid. Without media downloads, porn is the only thing really driving large cap high bandwidth accounts. Sure, a lot of people download a lot of porn, but I'm sure the ISPs would be giving up a large chunk of income if the MPAA were able to shut down torrents of movie downloads.

      If the MPAA were to succeed with shutting down torrenting, it's not even the end of technological improvement. We just head towards some sort of darknet. But I suppose that the longer torrents are fairly easy to find and download, the more people come to expect media for free, the more entrenched is the file sharing culture, and the more potential Bram Cohens there will be to code up technological solutions in their spare time. So I suppose this delaying action does serve a purpose.

      If the MPAA could even defeat that somehow, cost/GB keeps dropping and local transfer rates keep increasing. We'd have a scene kind of like a souped up version of 1980s tape copying. Except you'd be able to copy the entire year's output of the entertainment industry in a few hours. The only real problem then is converting the media to a DRM free digital version and assembling it in one place.

      --
      If I have seen further it is by stealing the Intellectual Property of giants.
    2. Re:The Powers that Be by selven · · Score: 1

      For non-software works, breaking DRM is trivial. You just need to record the screen and sound output and put it together.

    3. Re:The Powers that Be by turing_m · · Score: 1

      Yep. That part is relatively easy. The harder part is assembling it all in one place (and maybe a distant second, deciding what is a duplicate and what to keep/delete so that a complete record is built up).

      --
      If I have seen further it is by stealing the Intellectual Property of giants.
    4. Re:The Powers that Be by Eskarel · · Score: 1

      I don't think the *AA have anything to do with it. The internet is growing very quickly and is really not under anyone's control whatsoever. It's still very much the wild west, and like the wild west, any number of parties would like it tamed and made safe(banks, on-line retailers, pretty much anyone who uses the internet to make money). This would probably happen eventually whether the the RIAA and MPAA ever even existed, simply because the internet is starting to fill up with people who are very interested in the internet being safe for them to do business in, which it currently is not.

      Solutions to tame and control the internet will eventually happen, even if it doesn't happen within our lifetime. It will become taxed, policed, and legislated eventually because it is in the best interest of most nations for this to happen. It may take a long time, and go through many changes along the way(most likely the creation of national or multinational subnets somewhat connected to the current system with requirements for identity and authentication built in), but it will happen eventually.

      That said, it probably won't happen fast enough for the MPAA or RIAA and their members to survive(particularly the RIAA) if they don't wake up and smell the coffee. The era of controlling the distribution of music and movies is over, and they'll have to come up with a business model which doesn't require them to be the sole source of their product. Someday in the future we'll have enough technology that the same will probably happen for physical goods as well, and their creators will have to face that change when it comes.

  6. Keep fighting... by FantasticSpikes · · Score: 1

    RIAA, MPAA et al, you just keep fighting those pirates. I'm sure you'll win eventually. I mean, just think of all those lasting victories you've had over..um..er..um...

    1. Re:Keep fighting... by bughunter · · Score: 1

      Sure, what's going to happen is that eventually, TPB will find a host that is immune to ??AA pressure. Perhaps it will be a safe harbor that will just let it be a bootlegger -- or perhaps it will be a more demanding host, one that has truly sinister motives, like spreading malware targeted at USAian infrastructure, or even military. Who's gonna be sorry, then?

      --
      I can see the fnords!
    2. Re:Keep fighting... by russlar · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Last I checked, one of the "A"'s in MPAA and RIAA stood for "America". Also, last I checked, neither Sweden no the Ukraine were in America.

      --
      Anybody want my mod points?
    3. Re:Keep fighting... by tsm_sf · · Score: 3, Insightful

      No, what's going to happen is that file sharing tech will shift to an even less centralized system, and the **AA will be once again left holding their dicks. The death of the original Napster showed us that these organizations don't really have the first idea as to what they'd like to accomplish, and they will constantly be playing catch-up.

      What we're watching is the painful transition of these media organizations to, basically, advertising agencies. Production and distribution have gone from hugely costly endeavors to something you could do in your bedroom. What's left for them?

      --
      Literalism isn't a form of humor, it's you being irritating.
    4. Re:Keep fighting... by MBGMorden · · Score: 4, Informative

      There are already decentralized systems out their (Gnutella and KAD for example). Those however suffer from the serious problem that all decentralized P2P systems suffer from though: lack of speed.

      The simple truth is that SOME level of centralization will always provide a huge boost in speed, and as such there will always been someone like TPB looking to get a centralized server somewhere that can't be touched. And so far that has worked. The decentralized model already exists, and has for many years, but like always it will simply be a last resort that we likely won't have to use.

      --
      "People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
    5. Re:Keep fighting... by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 4, Informative

      Last I checked, one of the "A"'s in MPAA and RIAA stood for "America". Also, last I checked, neither Sweden no the Ukraine were in America.

      Yeah, but the OTHER 'A' stands for Ass. and there are Asses in ALL countries!

      --
      When information is power, privacy is freedom.
    6. Re:Keep fighting... by rts008 · · Score: 1

      Who's gonna be sorry, then?

      Uhmm...the RIAA/MPAA?
      Wait a minute, is this a trick question?
      Hasn't the same things you propose been happening already?
      What's your point then, exactly?

      Maybe this will make it easier for you: (I will even use your favorite word 'perhaps' to help you out).

      Perhaps it will be like it was before, only out of reach of the RIAA/MPAA this time...perhaps.

      P.S. You do not need the comma between 'sorry' and 'then' in the sentence I quoted from your comment, as it is superfluous. ;-)

      --
      Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
    7. Re:Keep fighting... by Draek · · Score: 1

      The term "RIAA" is often used as short-hand for "the group of multinational recording companies behind the US RIAA and similar organizations throughout the world", with a similar thing happening for the MPAA.

      In fact, most of the RIAA and MPAA members are European, not American, yet being large multinationals they have the money (and therefore, political power) to push their ideas anywhere be it the US, Sweden, or likely Ukraine as well.

      --
      No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
    8. Re:Keep fighting... by trytoguess · · Score: 2, Informative

      Hmm? From what I've seen as a user of both bittorrent and eMule (the major client that uses KAD), the reason the latter is slow is not because of decentralizing, but because of a different philosophy in data sharing. With bitorrent you only share a file if you're trying to finish a download, or seeding. In eMule one shares dozens or even hundreds of files not related to the thing(s) you're trying to get. Bittorrent only shares data relevant to a persons download relatively quickly, and eMule shares lots of files slowly so one can get a larger variety of files (eventually).

      Unfortunately, eMule has become less popular thanks to file sharing sites like rapidshare. Well, at least that's my guess.

    9. Re:Keep fighting... by Anne+Thwacks · · Score: 1
      neither Sweden no the Ukraine were in America.

      You obviously need to vote another Bush into power quickly.

      It will be interesting to see what impact this has on Ukraine's image. Will it appear more or less respectable to the masses? Is Borat going there any time soon? Will Ukrainian tractor sales figures return to the front page of the FT?

      --
      Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
    10. Re:Keep fighting... by rts008 · · Score: 0, Troll

      Last I checked, one of the "A"'s in MPAA and RIAA stood for "America"

      Last time I checked, America consists of:
      1.North America
        a. Canada
        b. USA
        c. Mexico

      2. Central America
        a. Belize
        b. Costa Rica
        c. El Salvador
        d. Guatemala
        e. Honduras
        f. Nicaragua
        g. Panama

      3. South America
        a. Argentina
        b. Bolivia
        c. Brazil
        d. Chile
        e. Colombia
        f. Ecuador
        g. Falkland Islands (United Kingdom)
        h. French Guiana
        i. Guyana
        j. Paraguay
        k. Peru
        l. South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands
        m. Suriname
        n. Uruguay
        o. Venezuela

      1, 2, and 3, are known collectively as 'the Americas'.

      If you are going to be a pendant, then go all the way...otherwise you are a half-ass moron, wasting everyone's time...including your own.
      America is not just the USA. America encompasses North, Central, and South America...get over it. The USA only accounts for 1/25th of 'American' Sovereign Nations/States.

      P.S. I understand that /. is a USA based site, but if we can argue semantics/grammar NAZI for other topics, then why is one this taboo?

      --
      Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
    11. Re:Keep fighting... by Vahokif · · Score: 1

      I've been thinking, why don't torrent trackers work through a Tor hidden service?

    12. Re:Keep fighting... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's not true at all. Centralisation is the weak point in the torrent model, as you ought to know, because Slashdot provided the first large-scale test, and the tracker very quickly went down! This is partly why a Kademlia DHT based on the KAD design was later added to torrent, and it makes almost no difference in performance, except during first-block seeding (and torrent has its own, significant, first-block and last-block problems which are design flaws, though mitigation has been attempted - the torrent distribution curve is S-shaped, rather than the optimal - partially due to large block sizes, and the .torrent method of block identification, and not using a tree-hash - there's a proposal for tree-hashing but I don't like the implementation much).

      Besides, have you forgotten that eMule's eDonkey2000 servers are centralised in really much the same way as torrent trackers? It went faster when they switched to KAD.

      The reason for the speed difference in Gnutella, eMule and torrent is that torrent has excellent choke/unchoke and peer selection algorithms providing fast, individual but distributed response with no involvement whatsoever from the tracker (and that torrent has no long-tail-leeching upstream during active downloads - or indeed at all, another of its design choices that is arguably a flaw by design - and torrents are far more rarely under active attack, and that torrent is somewhat more resistant to active attack).

      eMule and Gnutella are simplistic designs by contrast, with rather old, frankly terrible peer selection algorithms. The protocol can be cheated out of its upstream quite often, so people do, and the network can be (and is) disrupted with several attacks. (The same attacks work on torrent's DHT, but they wouldn't do anything much.) The eMule feedback in particular takes days compared to torrent's seconds - but the centralisation has no involvement in that, and the same problem existed in the centralised eDonkey2000 which eMule started as an open-source clone of (and has now outlived)!

      There are several networks - for example, G2 and Ares - which are somewhat faster. A few of the networks sometimes approach torrent speed. You can even bolt on good algorithms to rather old, poorly-designed networks (StrongDC, for an example).

      The price you pay is "reseed pls!". That is not optimal. That sucks hard. But torrent was really optimised for static seeds, to swarm-proof a centralised download (Linux ISOs, to give a concrete, easily-seen example), and it's not really a weakness there at all.

      The only thing that'll ever be faster centralised is initial network seeding, but since that also presents a single point of attack, I don't think that can be regarded as a way forward. Besides, you need to do that only once ever in a properly designed network, and there are some very good distributed strategies for that too - 30 seconds and you're at full performance.

      But hey, I'm just a P2P developer. :)

    13. Re:Keep fighting... by textstring · · Score: 1

      Because when I want to scrape tracker.thepiratebay.org where do I send my packets? Bittorent trackers are inherently public (ok, there are private trackers but I can still ping them) and centralized. If you hide the tracker, then you can't use it.

    14. Re:Keep fighting... by Vahokif · · Score: 1

      To www.duskgytldkxiuqc6.onion, for instance. They could register a DNS alias for it. Tor hidden services aren't hidden in the sense that you can't access them, they're hidden in the sense that you don't know what their IP is.

    15. Re:Keep fighting... by tsm_sf · · Score: 1

      The simple truth is that SOME level of centralization will always provide a huge boost in speed

      This is true if you're thinking small. And slow. ((I swear I'm not being an asshole, I'm being prescient!))

      --
      Literalism isn't a form of humor, it's you being irritating.
    16. Re:Keep fighting... by XedLightParticle · · Score: 1

      Agreed, decentralization is hardly slowing anything down. There is however another major disadvantage when there's no central control, which was somewhat dealt with on eDonkey, anyone remember when ShareReactor was the thing? However, the media corporations managed to stop it for long enough for most people to move on to other technologies.

      What is really slow is true anonymization, encrypted packets that have to jump thru several nodes to hide sender and receiver, generally not very suitable for large filetransfers. I saw someone suggesting to use Tor to anonymize it, and that's what makes it slow. However some hybrid could be beneficial, with the centralized parts hidden on an anonymous network like Tor, while the actual file transfers would not be anonymous, direct connections between sender and receiver, and thus still of acceptable speed.

      --
      If I was as pragmatic and objective as I claim to be, would I be commenting?
    17. Re:Keep fighting... by textstring · · Score: 1

      I bet it'd be easy to spot a tracker like thepiratebay on the onion network if you had enough node information. Though I think it'd work for smaller trackers or if tor had much wider use. Or it'd work well if trackers played a much smaller role in peering (e.g. DHT) and were only polled once per client.
      I think you've got the right idea and I'd even wager onion-router trackers already exists.

    18. Re:Keep fighting... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sweden and Ukraine is still not in America, and one of the A's in **AA still stand for America.

      So what do north, central and/or south "A" have to do with Sweden and Ukraine?

      Stop wasting time being a half-ass moron and go all the way in your pedatry .

    19. Re:Keep fighting... by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      If you are going to be a pendant, then go all the way...

      I'm swingin' in the raaaaiiiiiin!

      Thanks for your massive fail, asshole. When you say "America" people know what you mean. They know you're a myopic imperialist, too, but that's a separate issue. You're a failed pedant. Don't count on Firefox to underline every error in your comment.

      P.S. I understand that /. is a USA based site

      Obviously not.

      \

      but if we can argue semantics/grammar NAZI for other topics, then why is one this taboo?

      Because it's stupid, because /. is the American blog of an American person. It happens to have a lot of other functionality, but I'm pretty sure that most of us respect the fact that it's Taco's blog.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    20. Re:Keep fighting... by MrMr · · Score: 1

      Hm, I guess when the terrorist downloaders will occupy the US and abduct the population to labour in their hidden DVD factories we're gonna be sorry.
      But until that happens allow me to snigger derisively at your reasoning.

    21. Re:Keep fighting... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've always thought that cheating the upload was a "feature" because some people live in countries where the RIAA/MPAA will destroy your life. Others live in countries where they can upload all day and night without fear. To me p2p has always been too strict on absolutely requiring upload (even on well seeded torrents). Some people just can't take the risk.

    22. Re:Keep fighting... by cool_arrow · · Score: 1

      I wonder if something like this would work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osiris_(Serverless_Portal_System)

    23. Re:Keep fighting... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "America" is short for "The United States Of America". I mean, DUH.

    24. Re:Keep fighting... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Please allow me to promote you to the funniest and most reasonable person on /. at this point in time (no joke)

  7. host the servers in antigua by circletimessquare · · Score: 5, Interesting

    they are invulnerable:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/21/business/worldbusiness/21iht-wto.html

    PARIS -- In an unusual ruling Friday at the World Trade Organization, the tiny Caribbean nation of Antigua won the right to violate copyright protections on goods like films and music from the United States - worth up to $21 million - as part of a dispute between the two countries over online gambling.

    The award comes after a WTO decision that Washington had wrongly blocked online gaming operators on the island from the American market at the same time it permitted online wagering on horse racing.

    Antigua and Barbuda had claimed annual damages of $3.44 billion. That makes the relatively small amount awarded Friday, $21 million, something of a setback for Antigua, which had been struggling to preserve its booming gambling industry. The United States had claimed that its behavior had caused only $500,000 damage to the Antiguan economy.

    Yet the ruling is significant in that it grants a rare form of compensation: the right of one country, in this case, Antigua, to violate intellectual property laws of another - the United States - by allowing them to distribute copies of American music, movie and software products, among other items.

    i mean of course its all bullshit. the concept of intellectual property makes no moral, financial, logical, or philosophical sense in the internet age. but i guess we have to wait a few years for the vanguard of ignorant dinosaurs to die off

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
    1. Re:host the servers in antigua by Hurricane78 · · Score: 1

      If you think about it, the media industry is a joke. I mean they are pretty much the only industry who never got the US to attack another nation for it, or at least let people in other countries die for at.

      Or is it because they "sell" something that is on physical resource?

      So I wonder, when the US will attack Antigua and nuke it out. :(

      --
      Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
    2. Re:host the servers in antigua by FlyingGuy · · Score: 2, Interesting

      i mean of course its all bullshit. the concept of intellectual property makes no moral, financial, logical, or philosophical sense in the internet age. but i guess we have to wait a few years for the vanguard of ignorant dinosaurs to die off

      Of course, you could not be more wrong if you tried. Those "dinosaurs" as you call them are being very quickly replaced by young 20 somethings that are creating new and interesting content. They need capitol to do this, they need to hire good coders, designers, graphic artists, admin's the entire gamete of people it takes to pull something like that together and get the attention of the audience, not to mention the cost of rendering farms and big internet pipes to distribute all this content. Like it or not, those people don't live on being "elites" or whatever the current cool phrase is for those with the drive and talent to create all of that content, they have mortgages to pay, insurance, you know like people who have actual lives

      Rampant theft of the programs they write causes more then just people not making HUGE "profit" it causes the VC people to look elsewhere to invest which in turn causes all this new and interesting content to be still born.

      Put yourself in the VC's place. You have the cash to invest, and someone comes to you with an actual business plan, backed up by a decent demo, with realistic projections for sales. The VC asks, "How are you going to control distribution?" The problem is there is no good answer to give. The VC thinks about it and simply decides that the risk outweighs the possible return and says, "Hey great idea, but with all the pirating out there, how many copies do you realy think you are going to sell? Sorry kid, great idea, but just can't risk the money."

      There are a great many things that can be produced from the effort of many people working small amounts of time, and over along period can produce something worth using. GIMP is a fine example, It took the efforts of a great many people, mostly working part time, a great deal of time to come up with something that comes close to challenging Photoshop. Unfortunately things likes games have a far shorter lifespan, whats col today might not be so cool 6 months from now and then its on the scrap heap but not because it was executed poorly or the writers and designers had poor imagination but because peoples taste in entertainment changes just that fast. When it coasts millions of dollars to put that one really cool game together, the people that made it happen want to make money and more then just breaking even because the risked a LOT to get it out the door.

      So give me an actual reason why they should not profit from the efforts, why they should not earn whatever the market will bare on EVERY copy sold, and why they should expect people to buy one and then post it on TPB or some other equivalent?

      Real actual reasons, not "information wants to be free" rhetoric but actual concrete logical reasons.

      --
      Hey KID! Yeah you, get the fuck off my lawn!
    3. Re:host the servers in antigua by EdIII · · Score: 5, Insightful

      the concept of intellectual property makes no moral, financial, logical, or philosophical sense in the internet age.

      Uhhhh, that is a little bit of bullshit right there.

      1) Morality -- Are you really bringing copyrights into the realm of Good, Bad, Evil, and Virtuous? Really? Copyrights themselves are intrinsically evil? Copyrights lack character and fail to conform to current standards? Are you going to tell me there are passages in the bible about how thou shall not create intellectual property and restrict distribution and sale of thou works?

      I am not buying that. Current copyrights are of course way off balance and are clearly corrupt tools of a few mega-rich groups of people. However, the idea of myself being granted a temporary group of legal protections under the law to ostensibly allow me to make a living off my creative works is not immoral, evil, indication of bad character, incorrect behavior, or outside of the norm.

      2) Financial -- Huh? It makes perfect financial sense. Without the copyrights there is no incentive to be paid at all for your works unless you are DIRECTLY the one performing them or distributing the media they are contained on. Point of sale or performance only. What would stop a megacorp from just copying your works and using their existing infrastructure and wealth to distribute your creations? Nothing. Nothing at all. Put bluntly, the only way to get paid for your work outside of charitable contributions and direct performances is copyright.

      3) Logical. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. The thinking behind copyright is valid and reasonable. It's implementation may be horrifically flawed and may be arguably harmful to society, but that hardly justifies calling it illogical.

      4) Lacking any philosophical sense -- Who the hell are you? No, seriously, not trolling here.. Who the hell ARE YOU?? WOW. You're going to sit there and make absolute statements about philosophy like that? Sorry, you don't get to state absolutes like that.

      Owning ideas is as valid a philosophy as not being able to own ideas. There IS a "sense" to it. The idea of copyright is reasonable. You're idea of how our creative works should be treated and expressed, is also reasonable.

      Now, I don't mean to make any assumptions about you, but you clearly fall into the category of "Imaginary Property" IMO. That's okay. You can argue for a society in which there are no copyrights or patents, or protections on creative works of any kind. That is a philosophical exercise and I will leave it you without denigrating your position (your presentation leaves a heck of lot to be desired).

      However, although your little ditty may sound good, it was neither reasonable nor valid. If you want to argue that intellectual property is not a good thing for society than make some cogent arguments. Not the trolling that you are doing here. It does not serve copyright reform, nor does it serve to promote your ideas either.

      Your post makes you sound like a bigot.

    4. Re:host the servers in antigua by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Of course, you could not be more wrong if you tried. Those "dinosaurs" as you call them are being very quickly replaced by young 20 somethings that are creating new and interesting content. They need capitol to do this,

      Heeelarious freudian slip dude.

      Besides that your brain is broken, its stuck on believing that charging for distribution is the only way to compensate content creators for their efforts. Just because that's the way it has most obviously been done for the past century or two doesn't mean that's the only way it can or even should be done. And now you are going to demand that I explain stuff that's been discussed to death thousands of times before on this site alone - use google and learn a thing or two on your own.

      --
      When information is power, privacy is freedom.
    5. Re:host the servers in antigua by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Morality -- Are you really bringing copyrights into the realm of Good, Bad, Evil, and Virtuous?

      Freedom of speech is good and virtuous.
      Copyrights are restriction on freedom of speech, ergo they are the opposite of good and virtuous.
      You connect the dots.

      2) Financial -- Point of sale or performance only.

      Bingo was his nameo!

      What would stop a megacorp from just copying your works and using their existing infrastructure and wealth to distribute your creations?

      Absolutely nothing. So don't give it away at the point of sale for less than it is worth. Then it doesn't matter if megacorp spends their own money to distribute a million copies, the creator's been paid and all those copies megacorp has distributed are just free advertising for the creator's next work.

      3) Logical. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. The thinking behind copyright is valid and reasonable.

      Maybe that was true before the internet made copyright enforcement impossible, now -- under current conditions -- is quite logical to say that copyright is entirely unreasonable.

      Owning ideas is as valid a philosophy as not being able to own ideas.

      Yes indeed, just as sensible as legislating pi to be exactly 3.14. With out billions of dollars spent on lawyers guns and, er, money, copyright could never even pretend to exist. But the free distribution of ideas, well that takes exactly zero dollars to make happen, its the natural state and has been since the dawn of man sitting around campfires reciting oral traditions.

      Copyright isn't even the ownership of an idea anyway, its the ownership of the right to distribute that idea.

      --
      When information is power, privacy is freedom.
    6. Re:host the servers in antigua by misnohmer · · Score: 1

      Yea right. The second Pirate Bay sets up shop there, anonymous reports about terrorist training camps in Antigua will suddenly come to light. A few carpet bombings later this will no longer be an issue.... Antigua who?? Oh, you mean that big crater in the North Atlantic?

    7. Re:host the servers in antigua by FlyingGuy · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      Nice deflection, but no reason. A true TBP fan boi if one ever existed.

      --
      Hey KID! Yeah you, get the fuck off my lawn!
    8. Re:host the servers in antigua by Draek · · Score: 1

      I am not buying that. Current copyrights are of course way off balance and are clearly corrupt tools of a few mega-rich groups of people. However, the idea of myself being granted a temporary group of legal protections under the law to ostensibly allow me to make a living off my creative works is not immoral, evil, indication of bad character, incorrect behavior, or outside of the norm.

      Only because you judge it so. Despite your ridiculing in the first paragraph, your whole argument isn't about how the concept of morality is inapplicable to that of copyright, but rather than it is but it should be judged as "good". Which is, of course, a matter of personal opinion.

      2) Financial -- Huh? It makes perfect financial sense. Without the copyrights there is no incentive to be paid at all for your works unless you are DIRECTLY the one performing them or distributing the media they are contained on. Point of sale or performance only. What would stop a megacorp from just copying your works and using their existing infrastructure and wealth to distribute your creations? Nothing. Nothing at all. Put bluntly, the only way to get paid for your work outside of charitable contributions and direct performances is copyright.

      It isn't the only way, it doesn't make *perfect* financial sense when the ability to losslessly copy any creative work for almost nothing is so prevalent, and discussing your "megacorp" argument would be beating down a dead horse. Don't assume it's a settled matter when it's not.

      3) Logical. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. The thinking behind copyright is valid and reasonable. It's implementation may be horrifically flawed and may be arguably harmful to society, but that hardly justifies calling it illogical.

      This point I'll give you, it is a logical concept (at least on its face), but so is its opposite, that there should be no copyright.

      4) Lacking any philosophical sense -- Who the hell are you? No, seriously, not trolling here.. Who the hell ARE YOU?? WOW. You're going to sit there and make absolute statements about philosophy like that? Sorry, you don't get to state absolutes like that.

      My guess is that he's referring to the area of Philosophy called Ethics which, yes, deals exactly with things like this. And given that there are very good arguments to make in all three of the most widespread currents in Ethics against copyright, I'd say his comment is well justified. There are, of course, very good arguments to make in *favor* of it as well, but that's why it isn't a settled matter yet, isn't it?

      However, although your little ditty may sound good, it was neither reasonable nor valid. If you want to argue that intellectual property is not a good thing for society than make some cogent arguments. Not the trolling that you are doing here. It does not serve copyright reform, nor does it serve to promote your ideas either.

      I'd say the same about yours. You could argue that a post so lacking in logical arguments deserved no better, of course, but then again he'd probably be able to claim the same thing with respect to this whole Pirate Bay charade where the biggest argument making any bit of sense that's come from the RIAA has been "we believe this hurts our profits, and we don't like that".

      --
      No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
    9. Re:host the servers in antigua by SanityInAnarchy · · Score: 1

      Put yourself in the VC's place. You have the cash to invest, and someone comes to you with an actual business plan, backed up by a decent demo, with realistic projections for sales. The VC asks, "How are you going to control distribution?"

      My response: "Why would I need to do that? Were you actually paying attention during the business plan presentation?"

      Unfortunately things likes games have a far shorter lifespan, whats col today might not be so cool 6 months from now and then its on the scrap heap but not because it was executed poorly or the writers and designers had poor imagination but because peoples taste in entertainment changes just that fast.

      Others, like Doom, last forever. And still others, like Nexuiz, evolve constantly.

      It's funny that you used an example like The Gimp, but you seem unable to grasp the idea that a game could be open source.

      So give me an actual reason why they should not profit from the efforts, why they should not earn whatever the market will bare on EVERY copy sold, and why they should expect people to buy one and then post it on TPB or some other equivalent?

      First, I should make one thing clear: I am not GP. I'm saying this pre-emptively because there's a common problem on Slashdot of assuming that the person replying to you is the same person you replied to.

      I don't agree that intellectual property makes absolutely no sense.

      The problem is that it's unenforceable.

      Remember Prohibition? While I believe it goes against the spirit of this country, you could indeed make a moral, financial, logical, or philosophical argument for banning liquor.

      The problem is, you can't ban liquor. Not only that, but the cost of trying to do so is too high -- organized crime. We're seeing the same thing with drugs, and the only reason we tolerate it is that the organized crime is mostly not in this country, it's in Mexico.

      So, intellectual property is similar. Whether or not it's a good idea, the costs of enforcing it are too high.

      In fact, it's less obvious with games, but let me illustrate that with music... At least here, it's probably possible to avoid infringing anything by recording every sound yourself. But there's a whole genre of music -- legitimate, interesting, creative music -- which is legally difficult or impossible.

      Go watch Good Copy Bad Copy. That's a movie you can legally pick up from your local torrent tracker, by the way.

      In particular, pay attention to The Grey Album and Girl Talk. The Grey Album would be difficult to make, following copyright law -- you'd need Jay-Z and The Beatles to agree, and you'd probably need tons of money to pay for it. But Girl Talk is actually impossible -- as he says, he'd need millions of dollars, and it'd take decades, assuming everyone agreed -- I don't think there's compulsory licensing for remixes.

      Yet without copyright, or simply ignoring the law, that kind of remixing suddenly works.

      Or, take your argument of risk... Apple refuses to implement Theora because they're concerned that someone may have "submarine" patents against it. But truthfully, there might be a submarine patent against anything -- . Patents have become so comprehensive, the patent office is so bad at filtering them, and the cost of a legal defense even if you're right is so high, that I don't see why anyone would take a risk on any sort of commercial software development, since it's impractical to ensure you're not infringing on something.

      Take away software patents, at the very least, and the cost is pretty much patent trolls and any company which only works on codecs. But we have plenty of companies who would benefit from better codecs, and it seems doubtful that we'd stop seeing codecs.

      And take away software patents, and suddenly, it's actually feasible for someone to build a computer business out of their garage -- as opposed to right now, where you'd have to h

      --
      Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
    10. Re:host the servers in antigua by trytoguess · · Score: 1

      ...What slip are you referring to?

      There's the old(er) way where rich people payed people commission to do a myriad of art. That doesn't help the people (video game makers/novelists/programmers/all of the tv and movie industry) who need/want many people to pay a pittance. There's the make money off concerts (and I guess merchandise) route, which might work for some form of media like music, but doesn't help the aforementioned groups. And of course there's open source which has a few examples of profitability. Have I missed any?

    11. Re:host the servers in antigua by Wildclaw · · Score: 1

      Copyright

      Intention: To funnel money into the hands of those who own capital.
      Method: Restricting the spread of information, making the common man less wealthy.
      Excuse: Increasing the creation of information. (Note the exchange between creation and spread, which mostly benefits the rich at the cost of the poor)
      Way of Profit: Ensure that the common man spends most of his entertainment budget on highly marketed low margin cost items, leaving less money for artists who make their money on non-copyrighted sales, such as performances or other services.

    12. Re:host the servers in antigua by twakar · · Score: 1

      Tell us how you really feel... Please don't sugarcoat it with well thought out rebuttals to blanket statements that are lacking in substance and anything at all to back them up. Also, where the hell is the ad hominem attack? This is /. after all. Sheesh, just can't get any good posts around here anymore.

      --
      Progress is man's ability to complicate simplicity!
    13. Re:host the servers in antigua by Vahokif · · Score: 1

      2) Financial -- Point of sale or performance only.

      Bingo was his nameo!

      And what exactly is to stop a publisher just stealing an author's book and printing it without him seeing a penny? Or a software company ripping off a GPL project without giving anything back?

    14. Re:host the servers in antigua by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Absolutely nothing. So don't give it away at the point of sale for less than it is worth. Then it doesn't matter if megacorp spends their own money to distribute a million copies, the creator's been paid and all those copies megacorp has distributed are just free advertising for the creator's next work.

      Thing is Mega corp can buy one copy from you then produce more copies at a lesser price than you because of: a) economies of scale b) they did not have to spend time researching and creating the work.

      Thus if there were no copyright some artist might have spent 5 years of his life creating a piece of work and then sells them. MegaCorp then sees that the peice of work is good. Buys one copy and sells them for a slightly lower price while waiting for the next schmuck who wastes away a few years of their life creating something so that they can also copy that and sell it for a lower price.

      -
      I find it so funny that Slashdot is so against copyright especially since the IT industry is so dependent on copyrights and patents in order to function, its like most of the people in Slashdot is wishing their jobs away. As a dentist I'm so glad that the copyright issue does not affect me directly. But if I were a programmer or an engineer and there were no patents or copyrights in place... its gonna be a hell of a job (or lack there of) to find a way to bring food to the table.

    15. Re:host the servers in antigua by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 1

      And what exactly is to stop a publisher just stealing an author's book and printing it without him seeing a penny?
      Or a software company ripping off a GPL project without giving anything back?

      "So don't give it away at the point of sale for less than it is worth"

      --
      When information is power, privacy is freedom.
    16. Re:host the servers in antigua by Vahokif · · Score: 1

      That's not an answer at all. You expect authors to sell books at five year's worth of income so they can still make a living when a publisher steals it? How does that help GPL?

    17. Re:host the servers in antigua by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 1

      Thing is Mega corp can buy one copy from you then produce more copies at a lesser price than you

      "So don't give it away at the point of sale for less than it is worth"

      I find it so funny that Slashdot is so against copyright especially since the IT industry is so dependent on copyrights and patents in order to function, its like most of the people in Slashdot is wishing their jobs away.

      Shows what little you know. Most software development is custom work, off the shelf has been a growing but still minority piece of the pie.
      For the most part patents and copyrights have caused stagnation and massive amounts of overhead in the industry - just look at the huge number of "defensive patents" that any large tech corp holds today - they never intend to use the patents to generate revenue or even necessarily any actual products, only to protect themselves from the occasional patent troll, and to keep the little guys - the real innovators - out of the market.

      As a dentist I'm so glad that the copyright issue does not affect me directly.

      Which is probably why you haven't thought very deeply about it either.

      --
      When information is power, privacy is freedom.
    18. Re:host the servers in antigua by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 1

      That's not an answer at all. You expect authors to sell books at five year's worth of income so they can still make a living when a publisher steals it?

      Yes. Or they can sell a chapter at a time for a month's worth of income.
      Or they can do the lecture circuit.
      Or they can use the credentials of being a published expert in the field to get a consulting gig in their field of expertise.
      TODAY 99% of published authors are unable to make a living purely from royalties either, so it isn't like the result here is going to be a significant change.

      The other thing about a "publisher stealing" that you don't get is that not only can ONE publisher 'steal' it - ALL of them can. It then becomes a race to the bottom where the only publishers that will make money are the ones who have the cheapest and most efficient distribution system and are able to live off the thinnest of margins. At that point they aren't 'stealing' anything, they are providing a service to the end-user - distribution - and that's all they are getting paid for because the margins will be so thin in such hyper-competitive market.

      How does that help GPL?

      How doesn't it? Most people working on GPL software are doing it for compensation already, as long as they get paid for the work they put in then so what?
      Sure anyone who buys locked-up GPL software is getting screwed but the solution to that is quite pragmatic and simple - don't buy software that doesn't come with the source in the first place.

      --
      When information is power, privacy is freedom.
    19. Re:host the servers in antigua by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 1

      Nice deflection, but no reason. A true TBP fan boi if one ever existed.

      TBP? What is that?

      And "no reason" - did you miss the entire second paragraph? Or is it because I pre-deflected the typical accusatory demand to be spoon-fed ideas that anyone with a true interest in the economic implications of zero-marginal-cost distribution would already be familiar with, thus leaving a lazy person with no options besides base insults?

      --
      When information is power, privacy is freedom.
    20. Re:host the servers in antigua by Vahokif · · Score: 1

      The other thing about a "publisher stealing" that you don't get is that not only can ONE publisher 'steal' it - ALL of them can. It then becomes a race to the bottom where the only publishers that will make money are the ones who have the cheapest and most efficient distribution system and are able to live off the thinnest of margins. At that point they aren't 'stealing' anything, they are providing a service to the end-user - distribution - and that's all they are getting paid for because the margins will be so thin in such hyper-competitive market.

      How does that help the author?

      Yes. Or they can sell a chapter at a time for a month's worth of income.

      Which a publisher can just copy and resell without paying the author.

      Or they can do the lecture circuit.

      Not realistic.

      Or they can use the credentials of being a published expert in the field to get a consulting gig in their field of expertise.

      Total bullshit. Writing fiction doesn't make you a "published expert in the field."

      Understand that writing isn't a part-time job.

      How doesn't it? Most people working on GPL software are doing it for compensation already, as long as they get paid for the work they put in then so what?

      The entire point of GPL is that you can't just steal the code without giving anything back. Without copyright it would be unenforceable.

    21. Re:host the servers in antigua by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      mean they are pretty much the only industry who never got the US to attack another nation for it

      I think you meant the oil industry...

    22. Re:host the servers in antigua by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Most software development is custom work, off the shelf has been a growing but still minority piece of the pie.

      How can 'most' and 'still minority' fit together. If they are in the minority then they are not 'most'.

      "So don't give it away at the point of sale for less than it is worth"

      'worth' is relative. For example, lets say you're an engineer. You make something really innovative. You then decide to sell it. Lets say the item will cost you $40 to produce by yourself. You can also get a factory to produce it for you and they will bill you $35 an item. It is less for them, they can buy the materials in bulk and make it in bulk. They didn't have to spend the time making it as unlike you have, they didn't have to perfect it you have already done.

      If you decide to produce it yourself, and you decide that you don't place a value on the time you spent producing it, you sell it for $40, the cost to produce it. Manager from the factory then sees it, thinks to himself 'hey I can make A LOT of this for $35'. Without intellectual property there's nothing to stop him from doing so. Then it reaches China, they can make it for $5.

      You then think, thats okay the item is really innovative, it helps make the world a better place. Then you realize, you spent time making that product, you have bills to pay, you're not making any money from the product because someone out there is making it and selling it cheaper than you.

    23. Re:host the servers in antigua by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Unfortunately things likes games have a far shorter lifespan, whats col today might not be so cool 6 months from now and then its on the scrap heap but not because it was executed poorly or the writers and designers had poor imagination but because peoples taste in entertainment changes just that fast. When it coasts millions of dollars to put that one really cool game together, the people that made it happen want to make money and more then just breaking even because the risked a LOT to get it out the door.

      And the same Internet that makes access to cracked games effortless, also provides a solution to the video game industry. Online games. I haven't yet seen a cracked single-player version of Guild Wars, have you?
      Sure, it's possible for fans of the game to write an independent server implementation, but it takes years and by that time you've already made a lot of money. And very few online games live to see an independent implementation of any acceptable quality.

    24. Re:host the servers in antigua by bzipitidoo · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Copyrights are monopolies. Monopolies are evil.

      The goal of encouraging science and art is worthy. The means is not. Since you reach for philosophical points, let's ask the question. Does the end justify the means? Specifically, does the tiny portion of profits that reaches artists justify copyright? Does the gaining of information justify torture? If one plot that would have killed one innocent was supposedly found out through torture, shouldn't we employ torture at every opportunity?

      The trouble with such arguments is they're too narrow. They don't admit that there are other means and other ends. There are other ways to compensate artists, other means to the same desirable end. Perhaps those ways are better. And, there are additional unintended ends that are usually bad. Yes, some artists may see a little something from their efforts. But the Chilling Effects arguably stops more art than it encourages. No one can know whether something they do violates some Intellectual Property, and too often opt to avoid trouble and just don't do it at all. Who knows what great works we could have had? What inferior junk we're pretending is good because every messenger to the contrary was shot? How about a good LoTR live action series? (Sorry, but Peter Jackson's movies were a sad butchery of the story.) We might even discover that a team of people actually can produce better art than any one individual, however talented. For instance, I always wondered how David Eddings managed to portray his female characters with incredibly appropriate feminine behavior. Could any man be enough of an expert to pull that off as well as he did? As it turns out, his wife helped him write the stories. We should move away from this unhealthy concentration on and worship of the One. Just another messy thing about copyright, trying to credit everyone on a massive team effort. Vested interests waste resources on DRM and laws and lawsuits in pursuit of very anti-competitive goals that are bad for everyone else. Locking ideas up for eternity minus 1 day is robbing Peter (all of us) to pay Paul (copyright holders). Are we to shut down used book and record stores? Abandon the ancient and highly respected and beneficial tradition of the public library? That such extreme consequences of upholding copyright are possible is a strong argument against copyright. That is, we should stop using copyright lest people actually start to think that public libraries are bad, that the mere act of reading a library copy of a book is theft. As for torture, the unintended consequences are obvious, and all bad.

      --
      Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
    25. Re:host the servers in antigua by shish · · Score: 1

      Most software development is custom work, off the shelf has been a growing but still minority piece of the pie.

      How can 'most' and 'still minority' fit together. If they are in the minority then they are not 'most'.

      Epic parsing fail; here's what was said in an even simpler form:

      • custom work = most software development
      • off the shelf = minority piece of the pie
      --
      I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
    26. Re:host the servers in antigua by Ronald+Dumsfeld · · Score: 2, Informative

      Copyright isn't even the ownership of an idea anyway, its the ownership of the right to distribute that idea.

      Try again.

      Copyright is a social contract between the creator, and the general public, that they are granted a limited monopoly on their creation. The arguments for that, pretty much boil down to it being in the public's interest for people to have a chance to profit from their creations and thus create, and be able to create again in the future.

      Saying, "Gee, just get paid what it's worth and don't bother if a megacorp rips you off to sell millions of copies" is breathtaking stupidity. You can't charge five million pounds each to an audience of 20-30 people just in case one of them works for the aforementioned megacorp and will copy your work.

      --
      Where's the Kaboom?
      There's supposed to be an Earth-shattering Kaboom.
    27. Re:host the servers in antigua by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Saying, "Gee, just get paid what it's worth and don't bother if a megacorp rips you off to sell millions of copies" is breathtaking stupidity. You can't charge five million pounds each to an audience of 20-30 people just in case one of them works for the aforementioned megacorp and will copy your work.

      Why not? It worked for hundreds of years just fine.

      Perhaps you check up on your history from the 14-16th century in Europe.

    28. Re:host the servers in antigua by gilgongo · · Score: 1

      ...What slip are you referring to?

      There's the old(er) way where rich people payed people commission to do a myriad of art. That doesn't help the people (video game makers/novelists/programmers/all of the tv and movie industry) who need/want many people to pay a pittance. There's the make money off concerts (and I guess merchandise) route, which might work for some form of media like music, but doesn't help the aforementioned groups. And of course there's open source which has a few examples of profitability. Have I missed any?

      No, you have not missed any.

      The fact that hardly anyone, on either side of this debate seems able to grasp, is that the production of art (and by which I include music and games) is not some holy necessity that affords anyone who should undertake it the right to make gazillions of dollars, or even a living for that matter.

      Furthermore, if you as an artist produce something that few people want to buy or even consume in any way: tough titties. This law applies in free commerce - why not art?

      That's not to say that popular artists, or those who uphold a noble cultural tradition, etc. should not make gazilions if people (or governments) want to pay them in recognition of a rare skill. I'm all for that. If you can sell your records for $12 a pop to 10 million people then you get the rewards for that in exactly the same way as if you can sell 10 million self-warming coffee cups. And what's more, all the usual rules of business should apply: shares, investments, recruitment, diversification, acquisitions etc.

      In my opinion there are far, far too many "artists" in existence today who are expected to feed vast amounts of cash into a ridiculously bloated "entertainment industry." This situation has been brought about by the total and utter abuse of the copyright system since the 1950s. If we swept all that abuse way, I have no doubt that the number of artists in commercial existence would be decimated. And we would not notice a damn bit of difference because the arts will still carry on, there will be good music, and in the existence of a free and ubiquitous distribution system call the Internet, we will still be able to listen and optionally pay for it either directly or indirectly via various business models that have nothing to do record labels.

      Sure - many sculptors, pianists, mimes, actors and the people who fill out their tax returns and collect their royalties MAY disappear. But so what?

      --
      "And the meaning of words; when they cease to function; when will it start worrying you?"
    29. Re:host the servers in antigua by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      You forgot all the art which can be created without any commission; people often produce art on their own time and with their own means which is superior to the mass-market pablum produced by corporate investment (e.g. Britney Spears, N'Sync, et cetera.) In fact, you will see almost without exception that a corporate-investment music act is shit; everything good was extant before they discovered and commercialized it. Great bands come from garages, not studios!

      You also forgot crowdsourcing investment. If you will need some money to produce a work, then promise to give the work away for free and solicit donations for its production.

      You ALSO forgot that there is no right to make a profit. It is neither a bullshit "inherent" human right, nor is it guaranteed by any constitution of which I am aware. I do not get choked up over the thought of record companies not being able to make money. They are completely unnecessary in the modern cultural landscape, and are in fact only detrimental. I hope they all go out of business and that the big execs responsible for acts like New Kids on the Block end up sucking dicks for crack rocks.

      ("No joke, just kill yourself.")

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    30. Re:host the servers in antigua by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 1

      How does that help the author?

      It doesn't. But it doesn't 'hurt' the author either which is what you've been implying with your use of the term 'steal' - which is totally inappropriate for situation as described anyway.

      Yes. Or they can sell a chapter at a time for a month's worth of income.

      Which a publisher can just copy and resell without paying the author.

      Yeaaah, this whole sell it up front while you still have control over it idea just isn't really sinking in with you is it? You seem to be unable to formulate a consistent set of objections to that singular idea and thus have taken to quoting out of context and taking pot-shots at those quotes. I'm afraid your inconsistency makes it pointless to debate the subject with you, I should have realized that would be the case when your first question was answered in my original post. So sorry to have wasted your time.

      --
      When information is power, privacy is freedom.
    31. Re:host the servers in antigua by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      'worth' is relative. For example, lets say you're an engineer. You make something really innovative. You then decide to sell it. Lets say the item will cost you $40 to produce by yourself. You can also get a factory to produce it for you and they will bill you $35 an item. It is less for them, they can buy the materials in bulk and make it in bulk. They didn't have to spend the time making it as unlike you have, they didn't have to perfect it you have already done.

      If you decide to produce it yourself, and you decide that you don't place a value on the time you spent producing it, you sell it for $40, the cost to produce it. Manager from the factory then sees it, thinks to himself 'hey I can make A LOT of this for $35'. Without intellectual property there's nothing to stop him from doing so. Then it reaches China, they can make it for $5.

      You then think, thats okay the item is really innovative, it helps make the world a better place. Then you realize, you spent time making that product, you have bills to pay, you're not making any money from the product because someone out there is making it and selling it cheaper than you.

      In the end the consumers pay less for the product so it is a win. It doesn't matter if the original creator doesn't get his share he should have found ways to make his production cheaper first.

    32. Re:host the servers in antigua by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 1

      Without intellectual property there's nothing to stop him from doing so.

      Contract law does not rest on IP law. If that factory manager decides to break his non-compete and non-disclosure contracts with you, you don't need copyrights or patents to be made whole.

      Like I said, you really haven't thought very deeply about this, even though all the points you are bringing up have been argued to death here a thousand times before.

      PS - what shish said.

      --
      When information is power, privacy is freedom.
    33. Re:host the servers in antigua by Vahokif · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      You're why no one seriously agrees with abolishing copyright. Have a nice day.

    34. Re:host the servers in antigua by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 1

      You're why no one seriously agrees with abolishing copyright. Have a nice day.

      Wow! Me personally? What a heavy burden I carry.
      I guess that makes you a "no one" then, huh?

      --
      When information is power, privacy is freedom.
    35. Re:host the servers in antigua by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Way to cherry pick whacko numbers.
      How about charging 20 pounds each to an audience of five million. That's a lot more feasible. Or how about 20 pence to an audience of 500 million people - after all the internet lets you reach a huge audience.

      Besides, all it really takes is 20 pounds from an audience of just 1000 people to make a living wage. That's more than 99% of all artists make under today's system, the only difference is that most of the money goes up the noses of management in the publishing companies.

    36. Re:host the servers in antigua by Stiletto · · Score: 1

      Intention: To funnel money into the hands of those who own capital.

      You can say that about most laws in the USA. The entire system is set up so that money nearly always flows from those who don't have it to those who do.

    37. Re:host the servers in antigua by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You didn't read what he said properly. The engineer did not decide to go with the factory. The factory manager [can be from another factory, theres more than one factory in the world] saw what he was selling and decided that he can make it cheaper and he did. So did the guy from China. There is no contract whatsoever.

    38. Re:host the servers in antigua by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My mistake on the first point... and
      you're right maybe I have not thought this through. I see where some (with regards to artists) are coming from that they benefit from giving their music away for free as they can earn money from performing live. How about engineers or pharmaceuticals?

      What would motivate them to create new innovative products if they spend years of research and perfecting a product only to get it copied by their competition who does not invest money in said research? (therefore have lower costs). I honestly can't see why they would unless they are doing it as a hobby. Care to enlighten me?

    39. Re:host the servers in antigua by Eskarel · · Score: 1
      1. Using freedom of speech to cover created works is a bit of a stretch. Freedom of speech is intended to protect your right to safely express your opinions and beliefs without being persecuted. It's a vitally important protection for the continuation of anything remotely resembling a free society, but saying because you have the right to say "the president is an abusive dictator and should be impeached" you have the write to transmit the contents of a novel or song is really rather missing the point. You don't need the right to send a million copies of the latest harry potter book to all and sundry to have a free society. You do need the right to be able to read it to your child, and that's what fair use is for, not freedom of speech.
      2. As good as this sounds, when this was actually the case, there was far less creative work available for regular people. With enough money you might hire a permanent performer of some sort, but you wouldn't have the great variety you have now. You could argue that when on artist creates a work everyone could benefit, but someone has to pay the bill eventually, and most systems like this involve everyone trying to pass the buck or employers insisting that creative works are not shared.
      3. Your argument touches on the fact that current legislation is flawed and largely non-functional, but that doesn't make the idea of compensation for the creation of artistic work illogical, anymore than the fact that you can't currently instantly create a car makes charging for that car logical. If creative works are valuable and their creation benefits society, then their creators deserve compensation for their creation. You can't really get any more logical than that.
      4. From a philosophical point of view, nearly everything is reasonable(though your example of pi is not actually philosophical anyway). Most people on this earth would agree that creative works by and large benefit society as a whole. They would also agree that since this is the case, then compensating the creators of these works so that they may continue creating those works is a right and valuable thing to do. This is quite a reasonable philosophy to hold, and in no way illogical or immoral.

      All of this of course doesn't mean that the current way in which we compensate the creators of creative works or the ways in which we enforce this compensation is moral, logical, or makes any kind of financial or philosophical sense. I personally believe that it makes very little sense at all.

      The reproduction and distribution costs of a CD, movie, or even a book, are nearing zero. Advertising is a lot more readily available to individuals than it ever was before. Yet, publishers still take the lion's share of the proceeds of any creative work. This is immoral, illogical, and makes no financial sense.

      Due to extremely long copyright periods, artists who create one successful work can currently often retire on the proceeds of just that one work if it is sufficiently popular, creating no additional creative works at all. While this has a certain moral validity, and makes logical and financial sense from the perspective of the author, it does not make sense from the standpoint of the society enforcing the laws governing this compensation.

      Creative works can also languish for extremely long periods of time, unused and yet unavailable to society as a whole. This is immoral, illogical, and makes no financial sense, since we pay for enforcement and yet do not benefit.

      As it currently stands, stealing a CD from a shop has a far lower penalty than copying the same CD onto your computer, by several orders of magnitude. This is immoral, illogical, and again only make financial sense from the perspective of the person getting that money, not for society as a whole.

      Our current copyright system is fundamentally flawed. It does not serve the interests of society, since we as a whole are required to pay to enforce the rights of creative artists, but those creative artists are not required to compensate

    40. Re:host the servers in antigua by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 1

      Freedom of speech is intended to protect your right to safely express your opinions and beliefs without being persecuted.

      While that is certainly true, it is far from the only reason freedom of speech is held in such high regard. Your interpretation that political expression is the only reason we have the right to freedom of speech is entirely bogus. For one thing, if that were the case then you can damn well bet it would have been spelled out that way in the bill of rights. Instead, they put no qualifiers - none whatsoever, not even a teeny tiny restriction - in the 1st amendment.

      Second freedom of speech - including the right to make a billion copies of harry potter is the natural state. If it were not for government interference we would all have that right.

      As good as this sounds, when this was actually the case, there was far less creative work available for regular people.

      There also was no easy way to organise any sort of mass patronage, thus the rich guy paying for an artist's livelihood out of his own pocket is no longer an useful analogy or excuse for copyright.

      This is quite a reasonable philosophy to hold, and in no way illogical or immoral.

      Except that's not what the EdIII claimed. He didn't claim compensation was logical or moral. He claimed copyright as the means to such was logical and moral. Like him, you have done very ltitle to show that it is either.

      --
      When information is power, privacy is freedom.
    41. Re:host the servers in antigua by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 1

      What would motivate them to create new innovative products if they spend years of research and perfecting a product only to get it copied by their competition who does not invest money in said research? (therefore have lower costs). I honestly can't see why they would unless they are doing it as a hobby. Care to enlighten me?

      The difference between being first to market and second to market with a half-assed copy.

      As someone who has participated in the tear-down and inspection of competitors products (yes all of the big companies do it) if it took years of research to perfect, no one is going to be able to reverse-engineer and then bring up an assembly-line in a day, a week or even a month. And when they do, there is also the question of whether they screw it up and start shipping defective products.

      That is the profit window.

      Maybe it means that some kinds of R&D won't be profitable - but then again, there are plenty that aren't profitable under the current system too. Or maybe it means that those kinds of R&D get funded in a sort of coopetition between a group of different manufacturers who will all use the results in custom ways - similar to how patent licensing creates the same effect but only after the fact instead of up-front.

      --
      When information is power, privacy is freedom.
    42. Re:host the servers in antigua by trytoguess · · Score: 1

      Yes, after I posted that, I remembered webcomics which do both of the things you describe, but then I figured in practice art for the sake of art and crowdsourcing investment is already covered in open source.

      No there is no right to profit, but what does that have to do with companies who try to make it easier to make a profit not grantee a profit, or what I wrote which is trying to figure out the other ways that content creators can make money?

      Pray tell, why are you so pissy about this?

    43. Re:host the servers in antigua by trytoguess · · Score: 1

      Actually, I think most people here (minus those who'd abolish copyright altogether) would agree with you. The RIAA and similar companies are bloated and corrupt, no one deserves to make millions of dollars for derivative trash, those who just distribute said trash certainly don't deserve it, copyright does need to be reformed, etc.

    44. Re:host the servers in antigua by DAldredge · · Score: 1

      I write a computer program - if I can't charge for it how should I get paid?

    45. Re:host the servers in antigua by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Pray tell, why are you so pissy about this?

      You call it 'pissy' because you disagree with me and believe that making an Ad Hominem attack will somehow help you make a point. I call it 'passionate'. This is one of the key issues of our time.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    46. Re:host the servers in antigua by daveime · · Score: 1

      money nearly always flows from those who don't have it

      If they don't have it, then what is flowing ?

    47. Re:host the servers in antigua by trytoguess · · Score: 1

      I said pissy because you wrote "No joke, just kill yourself." How exactly was I supposed to interpret that?

    48. Re:host the servers in antigua by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm not convinced. A month or even a year of profit is not going to cut it for something that took years of R&D and costs millions or billions. Especially if it is a slow moving expensive specialist equipment (such as advancement in medical technologies). If they were consumer goods that can sell a lot during that small window then maybe. But if its say... a car, anything over $10,000, a non mass market product or anything that doesn't fall into an impulse-buy category then a one or two year window would not be enough to even break even from the costs. If I had any interests in a company that wastes long-term resources for short-term profitability... I would shed them off my portfolio in a heartbeat, I would imagine other smart investors would do too, that company is not going to last long.

      In any case if opinions such as yours ever become the dominant one, I'm glad that I'm not in the business that would be severely affected... on second thoughts people may not be able to afford my fees anymore.

    49. Re:host the servers in antigua by FlyingGuy · · Score: 1

      First of all thanks for the great response.

      I personally think software patents are wrong and as many have so adroitly pointed out, the PTO is ill equipped to deal with them at best and even when they try to do the right thing they usually, regardless of their best efforts, still get it wrong.

      On the other hand, the original intent of the protection of copyright ( to allow the author a limited amount of time to control the distribution and sale of his or her work ) before it passes into the public domain, I contend is necessary to promote the continuing creation of works that fall under the protection of copyright. Now it seems to be generally agreed ( at least within /. circles and wider ) that this ought to be around 16 years from the date of first publication.

      If this were the actual case then Jay-Z could indeed make whatever remix he wanted from the White Album, publish that and he would then enjoy the protection of copyright for the prescribed amount of time.

      But now lets take that a bit father and apply it to software. Windows 98 was originally published , in binary form, June 25 1998. So if the protection was 16 years the copyright protection would then expire on June 25th 2014 and would then pass into the public domain. Does this mean that on June 26th, 2014 an individual or company would then start selling copies of Windows 98? Would they have to original distribution CD's with the activation code? Could the crack the activation code (yes I know it has already been done, and there are enough OEM activation codes floating arount) and defeat it? Could they alter the original product? Could they start selling it on their own media? Would they have to call it Microsoft Windows 98 or could they call it something else entirely?

      Now what about Microsoft Windows 98SE? It was first published in 1999, but one can argue that it is simply and updated version of the original. Should it be treated like the nth version of "The Joy of Cooking" and granted a new inception date for the protection of copyright?

      Now all things being equal, how far should the government go in the prosecution of those violating the protection granted under copyright? How harsh should the penalties be? Should it be a criminal or civil offense?

      There are so very very many questions needed to be answered before any serious reform of copyright ( which in my opinion is so very badly needed ) can be attempted but whatever the eventual conclusion it has to be enforced vigorously.

      --
      Hey KID! Yeah you, get the fuck off my lawn!
    50. Re:host the servers in antigua by b4dc0d3r · · Score: 1

      Ah, straight from the Libertarian Bible. It's funny when so many people are pro-Libertarian until they see Libertarian logic in action. Not that it's a bad thing, just amuses me.

      Sorry if I have capitalized Libertarian if it wasn't appropriate - I get confused at the distinction sometimes.

      Keep spreading the word, my friend.

    51. Re:host the servers in antigua by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      this site is full of ignorant thieves. If giving away stuff for free is so clearly fucking obviously a ticket to riches, why are you here and not relaxing on your yacht?

      ignorant cunt

    52. Re:host the servers in antigua by Shark · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If getting paid is your primary reason for writing the computer program. Don't write it until you find someone willing to pay you for writing it.

      If you write it because it is useful to you, profit from its use either through the time it saves you or the things it allows you to do/make.

      From a customer standpoint here's how I approach it. I have a project, it uses open source software but some functionality is missing for me to turn it into a profitable venture. I will gladly pay someone to add that functionality, even if I don't *own* that extra functionality.

      --
      Mind the frickin' laser...
    53. Re:host the servers in antigua by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Your post makes you sound like you are peeing your pants...

    54. Re:host the servers in antigua by SanityInAnarchy · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Small correction:

      If this were the actual case then Jay-Z could indeed make whatever remix he wanted from the White Album, publish that and he would then enjoy the protection of copyright for the prescribed amount of time.

      Actually, neither Jay-Z nor the Beatles wanted this to happen. It was someone else mixing both of them together.

      Anyway...

      Does this mean that on June 26th, 2014 an individual or company would then start selling copies of Windows 98?

      I don't see why not. In fact, I don't see why Microsoft wouldn't open source Windows 98.

      Now what about Microsoft Windows 98SE? It was first published in 1999, but one can argue that it is simply and updated version of the original. Should it be treated like the nth version of "The Joy of Cooking" and granted a new inception date for the protection of copyright?

      I don't see why not, so long as that doesn't apply to 98 (or the first edition of Joy of Cooking). Kind of like how id software has released the Quake 3 source code, and have almost certainly used that to build the Doom 3 engine, but have not released the Doom 3 source code.

      Now all things being equal, how far should the government go in the prosecution of those violating the protection granted under copyright?

      Well, that's the thing -- copyright used to be a civil matter, not a criminal matter.

      whatever the eventual conclusion it has to be enforced vigorously.

      Still doesn't work.

      I mean, we can argue all day that old movies should be up on Archive.org, but that's not going to stop new movies leaking onto The Pirate Bay before they're even in theaters.

      So, I do agree that copyright should at least be reformed. But as we move forward, there are really only two options:

      Either we, as a society, somehow find our way past this idea that someone needs a monopoly on their work to create that work, and we find a way to reward people without these restrictions...

      Or we start locking things down to the point where the free Internet is a memory.

      I don't really see a middle ground. The only way to vigorously enforce copyright that isn't laughably easy to defeat is pretty totalitarian -- you'd have to only allow approved communication over approved channels with approved devices. Even here, it's possible to defeat, it just gets harder as the tools for reverse engineering and free communication become rarer and less legal.

      The only real solution I see is to trend towards business models which don't presuppose that you'll be able to eradicate piracy -- which, in fact, compete with piracy as though it was a legitimate competitor.

      A simple example, via music: Just go on tour. Even playing bars, you'll likely actually make a living, compared to how little money you'd make working with the RIAA. And the best part is, you're providing an experience which cannot be duplicated -- people can record you all they want, all it does is give you free advertising.

      Another example: MMOs. It's much more difficult to reverse engineer the protocol and write a server from scratch than it is to simply strip DRM out of a single-player game. And even if you can do that, someone has to run the server, and it's likely to be a less populated, less enjoyable server than the legitimate ones.

      --
      Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
    55. Re:host the servers in antigua by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 1

      If you think an entire car can be reverse engineered and churned out on a production line in under two years, you just have no sense of proportion. The actual patentable engineering that goes into such a product is miniscule compared to the level of industrial engineering. I think you have over-estimated by a couple of orders of magnitude just how much patentable work goes into creating most products.

      If I had any interests in a company that wastes long-term resources for short-term profitability... I would shed them off my portfolio in a heartbeat, I would imagine other smart investors would do too, that company is not going to last long.

      What an amazing opinion to hold considering that is precisely the kind of pressure wall street brings to bear on all publicly traded companies. Not to mention, it is a huge distortion of what I have described anyway.

      --
      When information is power, privacy is freedom.
    56. Re:host the servers in antigua by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Copyright is a social contract between the creator, and the general public, that they are granted a limited monopoly on their creation.

      Putting "limited" in bold does not enhance your point. It cripples it. First, there is nothing inherent about the enforcement or legistative origin of the laws that makes it limited in a meaningful sense. In this context, "limited" is meaningless. It is like me promising you $50 at some indefinite point in the future. That point in the future can be anytime - 125 or 300 - years and that $50 may be worth only 50 pesos when the time arrives. In that sense "$50" is a lie used to market in the same sense as "limited". Lastly, everything is not a "social contract". You might argue copyright is part of the social contract but on its own, it does not work that way.

    57. Re:host the servers in antigua by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      but is owning an idea you've already shared with others very sensible? all intellectual propety laws are nothing more than a legal construct made with hopes of encouraging more creativity, in other words a social contract: "if you make something good, we'll give you a monopoly on it so you can gather the resources to improve your craft so we get better creative works."

      in fact i might argue, given the chance to exhaust all logical and philosophical possibilities, to argue that *any* law that cannot be thought of as a reasonable social contract between any given individual and everyone else, is a law that should be ignored until it is overturned: "you leave people alone and we'll leave you alone, but if you rob from or kill someone else, we'll deprive you of your freedoms so that you can't do it again for a while and hopefully learn not to repeat your act." But when this becomes "Act the way we think you should, even when it doesn't affect us. if you smoke pot in your own home and do nothing to harm anyone else and we find out about it, we'll lock you away. also if you copy the works 'owned' by some large company we'll financially ruin you." the contract has been violated and such laws need to be done away with. this also applies to: "you make lots of money without doing anything really wrong, but you sell things at a high price that many people have decided they cannot live without, so we're going to take more of your rightfully earned money and give it to others who are more deserving (note: we have equated 'more deserving' with 'having less' and we hope nobody will notice)." (also note that i don't consider many of the executives from the recently famous banks to have 'earned' their money, but then the proper punishment for bad business practices is to have your company fail).

    58. Re:host the servers in antigua by shaitand · · Score: 1

      "So give me an actual reason why they should not profit from the efforts, why they should not earn whatever the market will bare on EVERY copy sold, and why they should expect people to buy one and then post it on TPB or some other equivalent?"

      They should be able to make whatever the market will bare. The free market. The one without government interference like copyright and patents.

    59. Re:host the servers in antigua by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 1

      I write a computer program - if I can't charge for it how should I get paid?

      Did you really get "can't charge for it" out of "your brain is broken, its stuck on believing that charging for distribution is the only way to compensate content creators for their efforts" - or where you just trying to illustrate my point about people's brains being stuck on charging for DISTRIBUTION and not for the work itself?

      --
      When information is power, privacy is freedom.
    60. Re:host the servers in antigua by message144 · · Score: 1

      I am a software engineer. I write SAAS applications. What is software intellectual property theft? Should I be worried it?

    61. Re:host the servers in antigua by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      It's a bill hicks quote about people who work in advertising. If you do work in advertising, by which I mean lying and not just kicking out spec sheets, then perhaps it applies.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    62. Re:host the servers in antigua by DAldredge · · Score: 1

      I spend X hours/days developing a program for sell. How do I make money for it your ideal world?

    63. Re:host the servers in antigua by DAldredge · · Score: 1

      In "this copyright is evil and should be abolished world" that so many seam to want I would have to charge full price for the first copy because then they would be able to resell it / give it away. Why should I be limited in that way? And who would

    64. Re:host the servers in antigua by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 1

      I spend X hours/days developing a program for sell. How do I make money for it your ideal world?

      Are you serious? First off, what part of, "And now you are going to demand that I explain stuff that's been discussed to death thousands of times before on this site alone - use google and learn a thing or two on your own." did you miss the first time?

      Second, have you read any of the other subthreads on this story? Have you even read much of slashdot? Did you steal that uid?

      --
      When information is power, privacy is freedom.
    65. Re:host the servers in antigua by DAldredge · · Score: 1

      It's funny that when I ask that question very few people actually answer it. Some do say that I should write horrible programs that require support but that just isn't me.

    66. Re:host the servers in antigua by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 1

      It's funny that when I ask that question very few people actually answer it. Some do say that I should write horrible programs that require support but that just isn't me.

      Yeah, its funny that you haven't even bothered to look for answers - you ask, but you don't search.
      You would be a terrible businessman with such a prounounced lack of interest in understanding the markets.
      Besides who says that you deserve to have a business model supported by the government that 'fits' you?

      --
      When information is power, privacy is freedom.
    67. Re:host the servers in antigua by FlyingGuy · · Score: 1

      They should be able to make whatever the market will bare. The free market. The one without government interference like copyright and patents.

      I agree about patents, but there needs to be some protection from people who feel that they can give away anything they desire no matter what.

      yes I want to charge what the market will bare; however, if someone out there decides they don't like the price I am charging, happens to work for a company that has acutely purchased said product then takes that product and slaps it up on TPB or some equivalent what is my recourse?

      --
      Hey KID! Yeah you, get the fuck off my lawn!
    68. Re:host the servers in antigua by FlyingGuy · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      Don't waste your breath on Jah-Wren Ryel (80510) this clown is a cretin, he is 100% troll and 100% flame bait.

      --
      Hey KID! Yeah you, get the fuck off my lawn!
    69. Re:host the servers in antigua by dangitman · · Score: 1

      So, if intellectual property makes no moral sense, then you are arguing that it is perfectly moral for someone to take someone else's work and pass it off as their own (i.e plagiarism)? Because for plagiarism to be immoral requires some concept of intellectual property. So, do you really believe that plagiarism is acceptable behavior?

      --
      ... and then they built the supercollider.
    70. Re:host the servers in antigua by shaitand · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "yes I want to charge what the market will bare; however, if someone out there decides they don't like the price I am charging, happens to work for a company that has acutely purchased said product then takes that product and slaps it up on TPB or some equivalent what is my recourse?"

      None. In a free market you have no right to restrict copying and distribution in the first place.

      Your only recourse is what god/nature/the universe provides and that is your ability to enforce your will WITHOUT the government and courts doing it for you. You have no moral or ethical right to a copyright in the first place, ideas, images, and sounds naturally flow from one mind to another without restriction they don't belong to anyone.

      There are plenty of reasons people make creative works. Profit incentive is only one of them. And even within the realm of profit incentive there are numerous ways to profit that don't require an artificial IP. Is there some reason a writer, musician, painter, or programmer can't be paid for the individual act of performance? What is so wrong with that?

    71. Re:host the servers in antigua by FlyingGuy · · Score: 1

      I'm sorry, but what you are describing is not a market. Perhaps this will enlighten you as to what markets are and how they work at even the most basic levels.

      As to you assertion that I have "no moral or ethical right to a copyright in the first place, ideas, images, and sounds naturally flow from one mind to another without restriction they don't belong to anyone" is specious as markets for knowledge and creative works have been around for centuries.

      Your assertion is a simply a fundamentally flawed idea that because you have an internet connection you have the right to obtain, by any means available, the creative works of anyone and then distribute them as you see fit, to anyone you see fit.

      Please tell me what ideology of a "market" do you base this upon?

      --
      Hey KID! Yeah you, get the fuck off my lawn!
    72. Re:host the servers in antigua by trytoguess · · Score: 1

      I hope you're not seriously trying to claim the meaning behind your words were somehow different because some other guy used it in a different context. And no, I don't work in advertising. What on Earth would make you even add something short of related to that field?

    73. Re:host the servers in antigua by cpghost · · Score: 1

      However, the idea of myself being granted a temporary group of legal protections under the law to ostensibly allow me to make a living off my creative works is not immoral, evil, indication of bad character, incorrect behavior, or outside of the norm.

      Really not? Since it has the huge potential to create a copyright black hole that swallows up orphaned books and other creative works, it can be seen as detrimental to humanity's collective memory.

      Just think again: by copying, we contribute to save works for posterity. How many works have been gone forever, because there was just one copy of it, and it was destroyed in a disaster or war? Library of Alexandria, or more recently the Municipal Archive in Cologne, etc. etc. etc..? Had people made copies (no matter if illicit or not), those works wouldn't have disappeared entirely, never to be seen or read again.

      That's why copyright, as it is handled now, is probably deeply immoral.

      --
      cpghost at Cordula's Web.
    74. Re:host the servers in antigua by shaitand · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "As to you assertion that I have "no moral or ethical right to a copyright in the first place, ideas, images, and sounds naturally flow from one mind to another without restriction they don't belong to anyone" is specious as markets for knowledge and creative works have been around for centuries."

      Your assertion is false. Your premise that markets for knowledge and creative works have been around for centuries supports my own argument since these markets flourished and supported creativity without intellectual property. A free market does not rely on artificial copy protection constructs to create artificial scarcity. Without such constructs it is creative talent that is in limited supply, not copies of previously created works.

      "Your assertion is a simply a fundamentally flawed idea that because you have an internet connection you have the right to obtain, by any means available, the creative works of anyone and then distribute them as you see fit, to anyone you see fit."

      Not at all. My assertion is rather that once the owner of a work has sold that work to someone they have all the same rights the person who created it has because it now belongs to them. If its a sculpture they can make castings, impressions, photograph it, or give it (or any of those copies) away. The sculpture is property owned by the creator until he sells it or gives it away. The copies are owned by whoever makes them in turn not by whoever created the original. The abstract idea of the sculpture that would be covered by copyright is not property in the real world it is not a natural right. It exists only because of government interference in the market.

    75. Re:host the servers in antigua by EdIII · · Score: 1

      That's why copyright, as it is handled now, is probably deeply immoral.

      Which is why I explicitly stated the idea of copyright had nothing to do with morality, while the implementation of copyright arguably does.

      There is a difference. It's like calling Nuclear science deeply immoral, while the only thing immoral about is the weapons it has been used to create, not the science itself.

      I support copyrights. More specifically, sane implementations of copyrights which do not exist right now. I love a philosophical debate and Sim-City-esque exercise in creating Utopia as much as anyone else, but we still have to be practical now. The resources and technology, and quite frankly, the maturity just does not exist to have a world right now in which money has no meaning, and therefore intellectual property would have no meaning either.

      My issue with the poster was absolute statements against copyright itself which are just not valid. You can attack how copyright is being handled, but to use those same arguments against copyright as a concept... is well just bullshit (to borrow a phrase from the poster).

      As for your concerns about copyright, that is precisely what copyright reform can/should/will address. Libraries already have the ability to store copies and considering how many libraries there are, I would argue your concerns about an event like the destruction of the Library of Alexandria is suitably mitigated. How many copies do you need. What is the required N amount of redundancy that will assuage your concerns about copyright?

      I would go farther with copyright reform and actually extend an Intellectual Property Free Zone around all universities, schools, colleges, libraries, etc. I strongly feel that is in the best interests of society and would go much farther than is probably necessary to maintain a redundancy that you desire.

      Ultimately I would like to see a world with no use for money or intellectual property, but in the meantime we can make use of copyrights positively. Their destruction really is not required to correct the situation.

    76. Re:host the servers in antigua by FlyingGuy · · Score: 0, Redundant

      Once again your argument fails and this is why:

      If I create a sculpture, a painting, a fine vase from rare porcelain it is, in point of fact, a one of a kind object. Anything else but the original is a copy, a knock off and if you claim it is the original it is a forgery and that has been established for centuries and forgery has been a crime in most all civilizations for centuries. If you try to sell it as the original, later bodies of law codified that as fraud, again a crime.

      The very idea of the protection of copyright ( although it has been perverted, but that in and of itself does not give you the right to subvert it in a world where the vast majority of people have agreed that this protection is beneficial when applied for a limited amount of time to ensure that more creative works are created) is to ensure that creativity flourishes and your declaration is antithetical to that idea and will help to ensure that those with the ability and desire will think twice about doing it again if they cannot benefit from the labors of their thoughts and ideas.

      I whole heartedly agree that the protection has been perverted and is serious need of reform, but your apparent actions and theories are intent upon removing all protections, in any form, and tha course will ensure that the production of creative works will once again be limited to those who can ingratiate themselves to those who can afford to but bread on the artists table and a roof over their head or those that are content living in a hovel. You have only but to remember the many very famous that died penniless and destitute or in an asylum.

      --
      Hey KID! Yeah you, get the fuck off my lawn!
    77. Re:host the servers in antigua by skeeto · · Score: 1

      I agree with Jah-Wren Ryel, and have friends that also agree, so it's obviously not "no one".

    78. Re:host the servers in antigua by cpghost · · Score: 1

      Ultimately I would like to see a world with no use for money or intellectual property, but in the meantime we can make use of copyrights positively. Their destruction really is not required to correct the situation.

      I couldn't agree more. Yet, the abuses of the original copyright concept, if not kept in check, will ultimately lead to its total demise. We're already on a slippery slope, and if copyright isn't fixed asap on a worldwide scale, it could very well collapse within less than a century from now; perhaps even less.

      The question that should be asked: how can copyright be reformed in a foolproof way, so that it doesn't degenerate (again) as it did? What's there to stop the greed of multinational content-cartels from monopolizing once again reformed copyright laws and turning them upside down? Those are very hard to answer questions, and somehow I'm pessimistic that we'll be able to find a good compromise between authors' rights and the right of the general public.

      Maybe, one compromise would be a personal, non-transferable copyright that is bound to the author. The point here being that it should not be transferable to corporations, thus perpetuated. Authors could temporarily grant the right to copy to publishers, but publishers wouldn't hold the copyright, which would be a personal right, bound to the author (artist, etc).

      Ideally, copyright should also automatically expire for works that are out-of-print for an extended period of time, but since this is a variable amount of time, it too WILL eventually be abused and extended up to the death of the author -- if personal copyright would ever be universally adopted.

      --
      cpghost at Cordula's Web.
    79. Re:host the servers in antigua by Shark · · Score: 1

      Well, I'm not special enough a a coder to try and make a living out of it so I'm probably not one to tell you how to do it right. I enjoy working, so I try to get paid for the time I spend working.

      I guess I'm too humble to think that something as simple as coming up with a good idea would afford me the ability to just sit there and get money for being so smart/creative. My creativity is its own reward.

      I'll take money for implementing an idea, I'll take money for refining/improving it and I'll take money for teaching people how to use it. Essentially, I will take money for time spent performing work. I cannot earn back time I spent so money is a decent compromise for giving it to someone else. I don't loose any measurable quantity of my life when someone makes a copy of a song or program I wrote, why would I be entitled to any compensation?

      --
      Mind the frickin' laser...
    80. Re:host the servers in antigua by DAldredge · · Score: 1

      "My creativity is its own reward." None of my utility companies take creativity as a method of payment.

  8. Re:What does the next gen filesharing tech offer u by Dudeman_Jones · · Score: 1

    That actually sounds quite a bit like freenet. Too bad that freenet is the slowest thing on the internet ATM. But hey, what you lose in bandwidth you gain in anonymity.

  9. distribute tracking/hosting? by dziman · · Score: 1

    Distribute torrent trackers and web hosting. That way, as long as there are enough people hosting torrents from the tracker, it remains alive.

    1. Re:distribute tracking/hosting? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The problem with this is the issue of trust. Despite the vast quantity of malware out there, torrent files on various trackers *can* still be policed. However, without a central authority, this is not the case, because, as is demonstrated by the field of cryptography: without any sort of central authority, one cannot guarantee the authenticity of any communication party over an insecure medium. So, there would be no way to determine that your distributed version of the page/torrent is actually the correct (uninfected) version.

      The only way you could create such a network would be to use public keys, which would require each user to build a network of his/her own trusted users (or trust those in a chain of users--a rather dangerous proposition). This would make it very difficult to efficiently/effectively share files with trustworthy clients.

      Of course, you can further obfuscate a torrent/site by having another "trusted party" host hashes to given versions of the sites themselves, but that still leaves a burden on someone to host those hashes. (Interestingly, though, that is something that could--and to some extent does--exist in the current generation of Peer-to-Peer file-sharing.)

      It's possible the technology above exists and I'm simply ignorant of it (I've yet to try Freenet, actually). Regardless, it doesn't look like a next-generation file-sharing method is going to become mainstream anytime soon--the torrent fight will probably rage on a while longer, probably until all possible hosting countries are exhausted. I do pray that torrents aren't eliminated however, and that piracy (to some degree) is allowed to continue, if only to further democratize a corporate system.

  10. TPB still in .se by kokoko1 · · Score: 3, Informative

    The 'host' command says TPBay is still in Sweden
    host thepiratebay.org
    thepiratebay.org has address 194.71.107.15

    whois says this IP belong to some provider in .se
    whois 194.71.107.15

    --
    http://askaralikhan.blogspot.com/
    1. Re:TPB still in .se by palegray.net · · Score: 1

      My results concur with this.

    2. Re:TPB still in .se by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      You need to dig a little deeper.
      TPB has it's own provider independant IP addresses that can be moved around the world. The fact that a Swedish company operates them doesn't matter. Neither does the country part below, because that is not dependant on actual physical location.

        inetnum: 194.71.107.0 - 194.71.107.255
        netname: DCP-ANYCAST-DNS
        descr: DCP-NEWORKS
        country: SE
        status: ASSIGNED PI

    3. Re:TPB still in .se by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      DNS can be slow at times. Propagation may take 24-48 hours to filter downstream in worse-case scenarios.

    4. Re:TPB still in .se by gilgongo · · Score: 1

      The 'host' command says TPBay is still in Sweden

      N00bs should first read this post before making themselves look silly.

      --
      "And the meaning of words; when they cease to function; when will it start worrying you?"
    5. Re:TPB still in .se by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What has DNS got to do with this? If they have PI space, their addresses never change, regardless of where the servers are located physically.

    6. Re:TPB still in .se by kokoko1 · · Score: 0

      Oops my bad, I should start reading BGP. Thanks.

      --
      http://askaralikhan.blogspot.com/
  11. Re:What does the next gen filesharing tech offer u by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There is a program called graboid that works pretty nicely. I think if someone were to use that model, and add a p2p component to it, that would be a real success.

  12. Desperation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The media mafia is getting real desperate these days i see.

    It's like a soap opera. But funny!

    This time around they prolly paid a few dozen people a crapload of money to put pressure on this isp. And the end result? The pirate bay is down for um.. A day?

    hahahahaha!

    I hope someone is taking notes. You'll be able to write a book someday soon. "How NOT to defend a dying industry"

  13. Why bother? by Hailth · · Score: 3, Insightful

    People trying to get rid of the pirate bay act as if removing a tool for sharing will put an end to the desire to share that drives the ability to find new tools to do it.

    1. Re:Why bother? by palegray.net · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The industry will be satisfied when they gain the ability to monitor everyone's net connection for signs of "illicit filesharing activity." If you think I'm joking, watch the kind of legislation the entertainment lobbies put their weight behind.

    2. Re:Why bother? by sqrt(2) · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The legal department of the RIAA has to look like they are doing something. They have to try and make some accomplishments, even symbolic ones.

      --
      If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
    3. Re:Why bother? by FireFury03 · · Score: 1

      The industry will be satisfied when they gain the ability to monitor everyone's net connection for signs of "illicit filesharing activity." If you think I'm joking, watch the kind of legislation the entertainment lobbies put their weight behind.

      The current proposals in the UK (which the government seem to be firmly standing behind) is to chop someone's internet connection after receiving 3 accusations of copyright infringement. No courts involved.

      Still, it shouldn't surprise me - presumption of guilt seems to be the foundation for most of the recent laws.

    4. Re:Why bother? by Anne+Thwacks · · Score: 1
      presumption of guilt seems to be the foundation for anything to do with Jack Straw (minister for double-plus unjustice)

      There, thats fixed it for you.

      --
      Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
    5. Re:Why bother? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And when they cut everybody off?

      No more online shopping, no sales tax to the government via online sales, telco operators demand more government subsidies to prevent their collapse. Unemployment due to no customers for internet services.

      How can we e-vote without the internet then?

      Sorry EU has ruled the internet is a basic human right now. It wont happen.

    6. Re:Why bother? by palegray.net · · Score: 1

      Sorry EU has ruled the internet is a basic human right now.

      That's a laughable proposition. You can call the Internet a "basic human right" all you want, right up to the point where corporations buy the ability to monitor all your communications to "enforce law and order." Don't worry, you'll still have an Internet connection, though... have fun with your half-baked "freedom."

    7. Re:Why bother? by AlgorithMan · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The industry will be satisfied when they gain the ability to monitor everyone's net connection

      which will cause anonymous p2p to catch on (like frost in the freenet). And if that happens - and nobody ever has to be afraid to be caught again - then the content industry is dead...

      so to rephrase your statement: the industry will be satisfied when they commited suicide...

      --
      The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
    8. Re:Why bother? by Larryish · · Score: 1

      If you think I'm joking, watch the kind of legislation the entertainment lobbies put their weight behind.

      I would much rather put a weighty foot in their behinds.

  14. Re:KOMMIES TO THE RESCUE !! by Colonel+Korn · · Score: 1, Funny

    Always the hell holes of the world attract the sleeze of the world, like me to Slashdot.

    fixed.

    --
    "I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
  15. Use SKIs by syousef · · Score: 1

    If some fucker comes up to me in snow shoes and tries to spam me I just ski the fuck out of there. Retrofit SKI to a nice geeky acronym for some kind of technology to combat this shit and you're good to go.

    --
    These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
    1. Re:Use SKIs by syousef · · Score: 1

      Somehow replied to the wrong story? I didn't even think this one was up when I posted? Gremlins or my stupidity. Either way ignore.

      --
      These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
    2. Re:Use SKIs by The+MAZZTer · · Score: 2, Funny

      I don't know it kinda fits if you consider TPB the guy on SKIs and whoever is trying to shut them down the guys on snow shoes.

    3. Re:Use SKIs by Merls+the+Sneaky · · Score: 1

      and when TPB finally gets to the bottom with nowhere to ski to, some other fucker is waving at them from the top of the slope.

    4. Re:Use SKIs by karnal · · Score: 1

      Here I was looking for a car analogy and I got a Ski analogy....

      --
      Karnal
  16. TPB now hosted on the moon by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Now how to sue out off the earth!

    1. Re:TPB now hosted on the moon by eggman9713 · · Score: 1

      I would think the moon is considered part of the United States, seeing as our flag is there and no one else's (to my knowledge, feel free to tell me I am a misinformed clod). Hence why they aren't hosted there.

    2. Re:TPB now hosted on the moon by Opyros · · Score: 1

      In fact, the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 forbids us to claim any part of the Moon.

    3. Re:TPB now hosted on the moon by sqrt(2) · · Score: 2, Informative

      The US has never made any claims of ownership of any part of the moon. There are small Soviet markers made of metal up there too that were placed by their various unmanned probes, so the US is still the only country with a real flag on the moon. The US and Russia also have a treaty that says both will treat the moon the same way we handle international waters, and forbids military use.

      --
      If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
    4. Re:TPB now hosted on the moon by enrevanche · · Score: 1

      The U.S. has signed the "Outer Space Treaty" which treats the moon like international waters, so nobody has claim to the moon exclusively. Russia (USSR) placed pennants there in 1959.

    5. Re:TPB now hosted on the moon by M8e · · Score: 1

      Haven't all the us-flags been blasted away at the return trips?

  17. Re:KOMMIES TO THE RESCUE !! by palegray.net · · Score: 4, Informative

    Ukraine isn't Communist. Go back to school, starting with the fourth grade.

  18. Oh for godsakes... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Would the obvious just hurry up and happen? Clearly we need Jack Thompson to go after the Pirate Bay. Which'll preferably be running on servers made of code stolen from SCO, and rumored to play the secret beta of Duke Nukem Forever if compiled backwards.

    Anything else? Will that put our Stories That Just Won't Die together?

  19. Empty Threats? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If it took them only 20 mins to contact the last ISP why would they only threaten legal action? This is the same **AA that sues dead people http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=riaa+sues+dead/

  20. Re:What does the next gen filesharing tech offer u by sqrt(2) · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Isohunt usually has a comparable or better selection depending on what you're looking for, they largely mirror each other anyway. If TPB ever dies for good the community might splinter, but there will be replacements and word will get around what they are.

    --
    If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
  21. Re:KOMMIES TO THE RESCUE !! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    But a hellhole it is, and the attracts flies like shit is fitting as well. Communistic? Not politically anymore, but socio-economically, then yes. http://kgb.com/

  22. Re:KOMMIES TO THE RESCUE !! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Ukraine isn't Communist. Go back to school, starting with the fourth grade.

    It was when I was in the fourth grade.

  23. The Rifleman by donotlizard · · Score: 1

    Holy crap! I'd better download the entire series ASAP! What would Chuck Connors do?

  24. Re:What does the next gen filesharing tech offer u by Ethanol-fueled · · Score: 1

    ISOHunt ain't no TPB, especially with regard to textbooks.

  25. Re:What does the next gen filesharing tech offer u by houstonbofh · · Score: 1

    You mean like googling "latest movie torrent" and using that? (Which is still frequently TPB) And the reason for rar is so the 6 gig movie fits on a fat32 thumb drive. (2 gig file size limit) Crappy reason, yes, but still a reason.

  26. MPAA continues shoveling water... by aonyx · · Score: 1

    Oh, no! You mean I have to go all the way to the Ukraine to visit TPB? Boy, the MPAA really succeeded this time!

  27. Thirdy days at sea, and not a wench to be seen ... by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 1

    . . . grease up the monkey!

    --
    Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
  28. Re:KOMMIES TO THE RESCUE !! by Jackie_Chan_Fan · · Score: 2, Funny

    "Always the hell holes of the world attract the sleeze of the world, like flies to shit."

    Is that why we have so many corrupt, bribed, traitors in our US Government?

  29. Re:KOMMIES TO THE RESCUE !! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Cincinnati Bell doesn't provide service to Ukraine, knothead.

  30. Is it legal by Taco+Cowboy · · Score: 1

    to force ISP to pull the plug?

    2 wrongs don't make 1 right, right?

    --
    Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
    1. Re:Is it legal by KlaymenDK · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The question is not whether it's legal, the question is whether the small guy can afford to raise that concern...

  31. Yes? And your point was? by Mathinker · · Score: 1

    The great success of TPB in the Swedish courts up to now leads one to believe that your comment probably shouldn't get all the way up to +5 Insightful. I do agree, however, that it does make it harder for the **AAs (or other national commercial content orgs) to shut things down when the servers are in foreign countries whose economies are less dependent on selling content.

  32. Upstream by sopssa · · Score: 5, Informative

    Before more and more people jump in with their stupid whois links domain->ip links saying "look, their ip is 194.71.107.15 and its in sweden"...

    TPB is hosted on their owners own AS and ip block "DCPNetworks" which is one of the couple ones they have. It's info is registered to be in Stockholm, Sweden, but its manual info given to RIPE. It doesn't mean its physically there. More so, it could had been there but moved elsewhere later. Lots of people seem to think these geolocations are some magical system to determine exactly where ip location is, but it's all based on manually typed in info when you register with RIPE or other registreries.

    What you have to look at is their upstream providers. robtex shows still the old info too. More so, my own look up goes to amsterdam and leaseweb as their last upstream provider.

    Actually this seems to be a fail over system of theirs. PatrikWeb, their only upstream besides DCS and SPACEDUMP, stopped providing bandwidth so their fail safe system kicked in and started providing bandwidth in Ukraine when one of their upstream providers stopped routing. They probably have more providers in place too to pick up quickly.

    It's an intelligent system and not a surprise that those who haven't looked into BGP and routing more dont understand what's going on and just point out that the IP space is registered in sweden and dont see it can actually be located anywhere.

    1. Re:Upstream by sopssa · · Score: 1

      And more info that shows this is indeed their fail-safe system kicking in and has absolutely nothing to with any geographical move.

      Older news confirm that they have "hosting" in Holland, Russia, Ukraine and some unnamed EU country. But it seems the words are made understable for general people and ignoring that they're not actually hosted there, but TPB's own ISP gets their upstream providers via those countries.

      After PatrikWeb dropped routing their packets last night, it seems their fail-safe system kicked in and started routing most of the traffic via Ukraine. Then all these news sites picked up the story unintelligently that they've moved to Ukraine, without actually knowing how routing works at ISP level. But this is probably TPB's guys purpose - yeah lots of people just point to their ip and fail to see how it works in deeper levels. The pirate bay guys aren't stupid at all and its actually funny they're able to pull out this kind of infrastructure to support their site :)

    2. Re:Upstream by Krneki · · Score: 2

      Stop giving information. Let the music/film industry think they are still in Sweden. :)

      --
      Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
    3. Re:Upstream by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As informative as this is, please do not post off-topically just because it will put you high up on the page. It's dishonest.

    4. Re:Upstream by zoloto · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I haven't seen a more impressive post on slashdot regarding networking on this level in a long time. You wouldn't happen to belong to NANOG would you?

  33. Was OK, until the "philosophy" over-reaction by Mathinker · · Score: 1

    Lacking any philosophical sense -- Who the hell are you? No, seriously, not trolling here.. Who the hell ARE YOU?? WOW. You're going to sit there and make absolute statements about philosophy like that? Sorry, you don't get to state absolutes like that.

    Of course he does. You didn't read the fine print which is written between the lines that, except for statements of fact, everything which is stated on forums on the net are personal opinions? IMO, statements about philosophy are automatically not statements of fact.

    Owning ideas is as valid a philosophy as not being able to own ideas. There IS a "sense" to it. The idea of copyright is reasonable. You're idea of how our creative works should be treated and expressed, is also reasonable.

    I have a bit of trouble here. You believe that "property" should include, in its definition, something which, in order for it to be useful, has to be distributed to and used freely by others? Because I cannot think of any way we could actually be having this conversation on this forum except that you have just distributed a lot of ideas to me and I have processed them in my brain in order to generate this response which is a lot of ideas I am distributing back to you.

    Even copyright doesn't go that far --- it is impossible to copyright an idea, one can only copyright the formalization of an idea in a particular, expressive, work. To which the original poster would certainly add: "whatever that means". And he'd probably be right. For example, I'm pretty sure that the MPAA and Marvel would have something to say in court if I would try to sell a film starring an "Arachnoman" superhero with powers identical to Spiderman. Unless, of course, it was obviously a parody.

  34. Still wouldn't work, probably by Mathinker · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Unless they manage to outlaw one-to-one encrypted communications, people will still be able to use the net for organizing personal transfers of enormous amounts of content (just think about how many songs, or even non-HD movies, fit on one microSD chip now). Eventually it will be possible to tracelessly exchange enormous amounts of content in person, and social networking sites which enable this as a side-effect can easily be set up.

    TPB will morph into "The Pirate Get-together Organizer", and as long as they are attentive-yet-ineffective to the demands of the content groups, as opposed to militantly "in your face", they will survive for a long, long, time.

    1. Re:Still wouldn't work, probably by palegray.net · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Unless they manage to outlaw one-to-one encrypted communications ...

      The vast majority of Internet users (a) wouldn't understand that concept if you spent an hour trying to explain it, or (b) wouldn't bother to implement it even if they did "get it."

      I'm a huge fan of encryption, and I actively promote its use wherever possible. That said, the much larger issue is very simple: at what point will our government start allowing private corporations to instantly determine guilt or innocence? What's to stop them from outlawing "illegal" encryption using mechanisms like the DMCA, i.e. only allowing crypto they have keys for on their networks? We're getting uncomfortably close to that point (some would argue that we're teetering on the brink), and there's probably no going back once that bridge is crossed. It'd be easy to simply inflate prices for "unchecked" connections to the point where no ordinary person could afford them, making them only accessible to business interests.

      All the good intentions and solidarity in the world won't get you anywhere if you're sitting in a jail cell on the whim of some company that decides you're a criminal worthy of confinement.

    2. Re:Still wouldn't work, probably by Mathinker · · Score: 2, Interesting

      the much larger issue is very simple: at what point will our government start allowing private corporations to instantly determine guilt or innocence?

      I totally agree with you here; that has to be one of the more insightful comments I've seen in the copyright-wars-subthread at Slashdot.

      What makes it even more insightful is that one's actual ability to know if you are violating copyright will be more and more in question. If I see a file which is claimed to be: "First half of New Blockbuster Movie" which claims it is legally licensed for redistribution for publicity, I don't see it being a strong case in court that I would knowingly be violating copyright by downloading it.

      But now what if there is another file which is "Last half of New Blockbuster Movie" with the same claim? It would be fairly obvious that if I download both, I can be fairly sure that I have downloaded at least one file with a false claim. But what if, for example, my best friend downloads the second file instead of me?

    3. Re:Still wouldn't work, probably by cpghost · · Score: 1

      What's to stop them from outlawing "illegal" encryption using mechanisms like the DMCA, i.e. only allowing crypto they have keys for on their networks?

      Just send two interleaved encrypted streams: one with the escrow key, the other with a safe/secret key. Should "they" wish to snoop, they'll decrypt with the escrow key an endless stream of praises and kisses on how great our government and corporate overlords are caring for our well-being and and a lot of campaigning for the latest and greatest IFPI scheme to secure our nationally oh so vital digital economy. That will satisfy them, and they'll never come back for more.

      --
      cpghost at Cordula's Web.
  35. Re:What does the next gen filesharing tech offer u by Dan541 · · Score: 1

    Bit-torrent is a long term solution. Because it is a protocol and not a network so it can't be "Shut Down".

    ThePirateBay is a sigle entity, it can be attacked and brought down but that won't stop others from stepping in and setting up replacements.

    --
    An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
  36. Re:KOMMIES TO THE RESCUE !! by palegray.net · · Score: 1

    Times change. The Berlin Wall fell, and the USSR collapsed shortly thereafter. I recall it vividly.

  37. Re:What does the next gen filesharing tech offer u by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    And the reason for rar is so the 6 gig movie fits on a fat32 thumb drive. (2 gig file size limit) Crappy reason, yes, but still a reason.

    That's not the reason at all. It's because the more elitistic piracy groups use FTP to get their files across and because of their "trading" games and so on.

  38. Demonoid is out of commission as well right now... by herojig · · Score: 1

    Demonoid is out of commission as well right now, been down for almost two weeks. The mad craze for trying new software (and to make all the updates for Snow Leopard) has been dampened considerably, and peeps now find time to walk the dog and water the garden. My inside sources tell me the real reason Demoniod is down is due to the kidnapping of their lead database manager by MPAA insurgents, who stormed the facility in late September, extracting the prisoner and fragging a server cluster on the way out. Desperate times call for desperate measures it seems. Meanwhile, software sales are actually up around the globe, as folks are paying for piddly upgrades in hopes their apps will continue to work in OSX 10.6.1. With Demoniod and Piratebay down, the vast majority of decent Leopard torrents have dried up, leaving folks with unseeded downloads for Sims2 and ancient versions of Adobe CS suites. These are dark times indeed.

    --
    I think therefore I can't be ~TTNH
  39. Pretty simple by adewolf · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Time to enact legislation that separates the government from corporations, much like separation of church and state. Pliable/compliant/paid off corporate governments must be stopped. No government should ever be "compelled" to defend private corporations interests. Well, all the big record companies will go out of business soon anyways. It's really a waiting game.

    --
    "The Brady Bunch is back...working homicide"
    1. Re:Pretty simple by mysidia · · Score: 1

      Are you sure of that? Not a single one of the major record companies has gone out of business.. not a single one of them appears to be in any immediate danger.

      More likely they get bought out. The content they own and their rights to it are valuable assets, and they basically have a perpetual income stream off royalties from sold music, whether the music is sold as CDs or MP3s on iTunes, they profit.

      It's not as if people will stop listening to their music, or if movies/etc will stop needing music to incorporate into movies.

  40. Re:What does the next gen filesharing tech offer u by Keeper+Of+Keys · · Score: 1

    I thought it was to prevent ISPs from easily fingerprinting torrented data.

  41. Re:What does the next gen filesharing tech offer u by fredklein · · Score: 1

    Someone needs to create a 'add-on' for torrent programs that allows users to share their connections. A kind of open proxy, I guess.

    When your BT client connects to the file seeder, it would also connect to a 'proxy seeder', which lists all the other users who are sharing their bandwidth thru a proxy. Then, your download/upload goes thru one (or more) of those open proxies. No logs means no way to trace the 'end user' who actually is DLing the files, so no one can be sued. (They could try suing the proxy owners, but I don't think that'd go anywhere.)

    Yes, it would result in decreased bandwidth for the owner of the proxy. But, lots of people do nothing with theirs anyway most of the time. For instance, they can turn on the proxy overnight, while they're sleeping (assuming they don't have a DL going themselves), or even during the day during work hours. I mean, really, who needs 30down/5up all the time??

  42. that lean by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    got my nuts sittin on penut butter

  43. In Soviet Russia? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The Pirate Bay is hosted in Soviet Russia now. There has got to be a joke there somewhere ...

  44. The Bay is Dead! Long live the Bay! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    One TPB dies and another is reincarnated somewhere else in the world. Perhaps in multiple places (mirrors). It makes it easier to deliver content over a shorter path to the user. Also, with dozens coming and going, its harder for the **AA to bellyache. If things got real bad, it could be hosted in the middle of the ocean, while having traffic handled by national and international carriers on a rotating basis. Next: perhaps Brazil, or South Africa, or Nigeria, or Vietnam, or Argentina, or Indonesia.... pick a place. Perhaps all at once. In 20 years TPB will still be around. In 20 years, the **AA may be gone. We can only hope.

  45. Re:What does the next gen filesharing tech offer u by Homburg · · Score: 1

    Dealing with .rar files for a movie that could have been downloaded as one file is so 1990's...

    Sharing rar files on bittorrent is, generally speaking, stupid. The scene releases rars to allow for integrity checks and re-uploading parts in the case of file corruption; this is useful if you're distributing via systems like FTP (as the scene does), but it's pointless if you're distributing via bittorrent, where the protocol already divides the files up into blocks and performs integrity checking on them.

    Now, some bittorrent sites directly distribute scene releases, so it makes some sense for them to distribute these releases unmodified, that is, as rar files. But insisting on rar files for non-scene releases, as some bittorrent sites do, is just aping the form of the scene without understanding the reasoning behind it; it's n00bish posturing, in other words.

  46. Re:What does the next gen filesharing tech offer u by Homburg · · Score: 1

    Isohunt is a torrent search engine, not a tracker, so it's not really comparable to TPB; indeed, if you search on Isohunt, there's a good chance the results you get will be to torrents tracked by TPB. If TPB disappeared, Isohunt would have lot fewer torrents.

  47. Chinese censored Internet for everyone? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Just curious about what's going to happen the next time some big rich company decides to sue a small ISP because they are hosting a site like for example wikileaks that holds information which looks bad for them?

  48. Re:What does the next gen filesharing tech offer u by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The Pirate Bay is the first place everyone I know goes for their torrents.

    I, personally, am quite fond of btjunkie.org. Crawls TPB and a lot of other sites and is, thanks to not actually tracking anything, a level farther away from any of the legal troubles the trackers are in.

    Even better, though, are medium-sized closed trackers. 30-50k users seems to be the sweet spot. Plenty of trackers that'd be too much work to deal with for the MAFIAA, yet quite a bunch of users around to keep the site up-to-date. And whenever I need something and can't find it on a closed tracker, I'll fall back to btjunkie which will produce the best result from TPB, demonoid or whomever else has it.

  49. In the sun, I will come.... by bogsnot · · Score: 1

    TPB should head for Barbados or Antigua. They may even get official government support. Both of those lovely little islands used to earn a lot of their income from internet gambling sites, until the US decided to block them, and break the rules of the WTO. Now, if they were to host TPB, they would have some nice leverage with the US to help them come into line with the WTO policies. One downside is the US spinning it to be they are countries that support (financial) terrorism, and soon enough those islands are surrounded by gunboats.

  50. Get rid of media drones. Ignore them... by boorack · · Score: 1

    ... and their ill business model. The "industry" isn't going to think at all. It's a cartel full of idiot corporate executives incapable of thinking outside of their MS Excel sheets and bribing politicians. Provoking those crooks with things like Pirate Bay will only result with mayhem and more draconian laws. It's time to override them and invent better business models in a legal, indisputable way. Creative commons comes to my mind but it does not solve problem of financing a production. Things like this may be a good complement to CC - while Max Keiser is a kind of freak (and first films submitted on his site reflect this), idea of community financing via premium copies (and taking eventual profits) coupled with filmmaking costs dramatically lowered by today's technology may do the trick.

  51. What? by Dunbal · · Score: 1

    People still use thepiratebay?

    LOL

    --
    Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
  52. Re:What does the next gen filesharing tech offer u by hot+soldering+iron · · Score: 1

    Anyone have ideas on how to use Google Wave as the next P2P technology? The irony, oh, the irony. So delicious....

    --
    When you want something built, come see me. If you want correct grammar and spelling, get a F*ing liberal arts student.
  53. Hahahaaa good luck fucking bastards. by unity100 · · Score: 1

    Now your only chance to shut down pirate bay is to get its owner shot. and if that happens, you will be in a hell of trouble, so it wont happen. and even if they are shot, someone else will take over, and the thing will go on.

    GIVE UP ALREADY. 'the people' apparently seem to have decided that p2p is the way to go in the future. its 'the people' like in 'we, the people'. you cant fight against that.

  54. Yeah... by P.+Legba · · Score: 1

    ...they write folk songs about things like that.

    I like to think that human democracy is safe as long as the Internet pirates and pornkings and garden-variety anarchists can compete on a level playing field with the average multinational corporation.

    The Internet really is an intellectual Wild West...designed to survive a nuclear conflagration. Hope wins out.

  55. Re:What does the next gen filesharing tech offer u by P.+Legba · · Score: 1

    FIDONET!

  56. The Media by P.+Legba · · Score: 1

    are pawns, owned by the other industries to create the necessary illusion that is America and that Americans have freedom.

    The Media simply enable the US war machine to do what it does by giving it a pretext, a narrative, and preferably one that's easy to understand and talk about at the water cooler.

    If the Media ever demand and find themselves in a position to fight for;a bigger slice of the pie, then watch out.

    Maybe we can help that desperation arrive a little sooner.

  57. Re:What does the next gen filesharing tech offer u by AmonTheMetalhead · · Score: 1

    You do know what births out of graboids right? Ass Blasters!

  58. SSSCA reminder by sowth · · Score: 1

    Oh how the users of slashdot have forgotten. The entertainment cartel tried to pass much worse. They tried to get laws passed which would require all computers to be DRM controlled.

    Not only did they demand a system to keep their files from being copied (at great expense to your computer--they wanted every audio and video input to scan for watermarks. The standards would also require all multimedia hardware (sound cards, video cards, CD/DVD drives) to encrypt everything, so no one could tap into the lines to "steal" any content. They also asked for such features as the ability to erase "pirated"[1] files remotely.

    Check out the SSSCA and CBDTPA. Note the euphemism "security" for DRM.

    Palladium was Microsoft's answer to this. They tried to sell it as protection against viruses and such. Look in the section titled "How does Palladium work?"

    The PC-specific secret coding within "Palladium" that makes stolen files useless on other machines is physically and cryptographically locked within the hardware of the machine.

    Palladium was renamed Next Generation Secure Computing Base. It was supposed to go into Longhorn (renamed Vista), but apparently they never got it working properly. Some say this is why Vista is so screwed up.

    In fact, I would say the whole reason MS went into the game console business was to test out their DRM ideas so they can incorporate it into mainstream Windows. Game console companies lock down their computers[2] hardcore. It is difficult to run any "unauthorized" programs on their systems, and you risk being arrested for being a "pirate" if you do.

    [1] "Pirated" files, meaning any file they don't like.

    [2] A game console is just a computer with more emphasis on graphics acceleration and locked down so their manufacturer can charge "royalties" for the privilege of writing programs for their console. Look at the parts in a game console--CPU, GPU, and such. There is no reason you couldn't run a word processor or other programs on it if you were given approval. In fact even the Nintendo DS has a version of the Opera web browser for it.

  59. Pirate bay Alternatives: Google by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    thepirategoogle.com

    thegooglebay.com