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Pirate Bay Closure Sparked P2P Explosion

Barence writes to share that the closure of The Pirate Bay seems to have done nothing to stem the flow of potentially copyrighted materials. In fact, there has been an estimated 300% increase in the number of sites providing access to copyright files, according to McAfee. "In August, Swedish courts ordered that all traffic be blocked from Pirate Bay, but any hope of scotching the piracy of music, software and films over the web vanished as copycat sites sprung up and the content took on a life of its own. 'This was a true "cloud computing" effort,' the company said in its Threats Report for the third quarter. 'The masses stepped up to make this database of torrents available to others.'"

11 of 560 comments (clear)

  1. it's almost like... by u4ya · · Score: 5, Insightful

    a handful of selfish greedy people are no match for millions of selfish, greedy people

    1. Re:it's almost like... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      HAHAHA this is possibly the best comment ever.

  2. In other news by FlyingBishop · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I have feverishly been engaged in whacking moles, and cannot for the life of me comprehend why they continue to pop up.

  3. Yep by petrus4 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Keep trying, suits.

    For every Web site you shut down; for every IRC server you pay to have DDoSed; for every eMule node you raid; five more will spring up in their place.

    You can pollute the edonkey net with malware; we'll move to IRC. You can kill public websites; we'll make private, invite-only underground darknets, that you can't see, find, or regulate.

    The society that you are trying to prevent the formation of is, in good part, already here. We will continue working to establish it, for the ultimate benefit and enrichment of all; ironically even you yourselves in the end.

    The end of scarcity is inevitable. You can attempt to stand in the way, you can slow it down, marginally...but you will not stop it.

    1. Re:Yep by vlm · · Score: 5, Insightful

      When making money from movies becomes difficult if not impossible, they'll just stop making them. That's what will stop it.

      Movies exist because movie theaters exist.

      Movie theaters exist because teenagers need a place to make out, place phone calls, text each other, whisper, eat, drink, and gossip. Sort of like an adult-free daycare for teenagers.

      That explains a lot about the quality of modern movies, they are little more than silver-"screensavers" going on while the real activity is in the seats.

      As long as the social concept of teenagers exist, it will be possible to make money from movies. The quality of the product and the money spent on them will drop until a profit is made. The bar is already low, and will soon be lower. So, no problem!

      --
      "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
  4. War on Drugs by Reason58 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is similarly ineffective as going after drug dealers. This addresses the symptoms, but not the underlying causes.

    1. Re:War on Drugs by Smegly · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This is similarly ineffective as going after drug dealers. This addresses the symptoms, but not the underlying causes.

      Correct. But, like the war on drugs charade - it may start out with the "good intention" of stopping the undesirable thing, but before long cracking down and policing the controls will take on a life (and more importantly, budget) of its own. Then it does not matter if it is effective or not - as long as it seems to be effective to avoid massive outrage, and funding is continuously made available for those running the show to profit from it. With cracking down on P2P, one of the added extra benefit's for those in power to kick anyone they like off the net without due process - a powerful weapon in the censorship arsenal.

  5. Differing realities by alvinrod · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think the media companies thought that when they brought the Pirate Bay to trial and won a conviction that it would scare everyone away from file sharing (legal or otherwise) and that people would go back to buying DVDs, etc. What really happened is that they generated a lot of news which basically informed countless masses unaware that torrent was even a word that they could use these things to get free movies, music, etc. off of the internet.

    It's almost a little bit like the Streisand Effect in that they're really only making the problem worse. If they really wanted to do something about piracy, stop talking about P2P and go after the people who are burning physical copies that they're selling. These people are actually distributing thousands of full copies of product for which they have no license to reproduce. That's a battle that the record companies, movie studios, et al. might actually be able to win.

  6. Re:Sigh... by maharb · · Score: 5, Insightful

    While this is true to an extent, I can tell you that the average consumer knows something is wrong but they just don't know the solution. My mother is one of these 'average consumers'. She has no knowledge of torrents or P2P software yet she realizes the problem of "what happens when my digital music collection gets wiped by hardware failure" and thus refuses to buy into it. Saying that these limits only affect those that know how get around them is false. Anyone who has been subjected to an inconvenience due to DRM will have a negative view of how things work regardless of it they are a pirate or not. They just might not know about the potential (illegal) solutions or they may be unwilling to break the law and also unwilling to buy music (my mother).

    So these initiatives to stop piracy by the media companies may reduce piracy but they will not boost sales. This is the biggest reason the media companies are going to fail. They are trying to get non-paying customers to pay rather than trying to give paying customers what they want. In the process they are turning more and more currently paying customers into non-paying customers. What I am trying to say is that even if they stomp out piracy 100%, if less people are buying their music they have still lost the battle.

  7. Re:Sigh... by cayenne8 · · Score: 5, Insightful
    "You're an idiot.

    Buy a house and raise a family, then tell me how much disposable income you have. "

    You know...there ARE other choices don't you? Frankly, I've never really wanted kids...I'd rather have my disposable income to come and go as I please, travel, buy fun toys, chase different women, etc

    And even if you want to settle down and stick with one chick...not all of them want to be saddled with kids either. Face it, it is a choice you make. If you don't have a job making enough money for house, kids and family AND the fun things in life, well...life is full of choices, each with its consequences.

    Choose, and live with the choice and quit bitching.

    --
    Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
  8. Re:Sigh... by ultranova · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's the same thing with DRM - it doesn't keep the hardcore pirates off who are there to break it, but it surely keeps casual people from copying to friends and so on.

    Mmm... no. What DRM does is make it a nuisance to use a legally-bought copy, making a copy downloaded from a torrent site - which has been disinfected of DRM by a skilled team of professional pirates - superior in every respect. Even disk checks have that effect. And of people can copy games from their friends, they just need to get a crack afterwards.

    As for DVDs, every time I see an unskippable "you wouldn't steal a car" piece before getting into actual content, I can't help but think that if a bought car forced me to watch similar propaganda every time before driving, and a stolen one wouldn't, then yes I would steal a car!

    --

    Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.