The Pirate Bay Sinks And Swims

mikael_j writes "This morning the German ISP that had been hosting The Pirate Bay's website and search engine shut the site down. A few hours later the website was back up, this time with hosting provided by the Swedish Pirate Party, which issued a press release (in Swedish) explaining why they have chosen to host The Pirate Bay."

Comments

Press release in english

[martenfjallstrom]

Courtesy of Engström, pirate MEP: http://christianengstrom.wordpress.com/2010/05/18/the-swedish-pirate-party-delivers-bandwidth-to-the-pirate-bay/

Re:Press release in english

[Moryath]

Obligatory "the more you tighten your grip, Tarkin..." reference.

As for the rest, well, we'll see. Copyright law all over the world is fucked up right now; the original idea, the contract that someone would have exclusive rights to their story so as to make money for a certain time, before being required to give it up for others to be inspired by (since they used the language and ideas of the commons and doubtless had their own inspirations from there), is all but lost. We've already reached the point where many works have died, never to be seen again, simply because some shithead stuck (for instance) the degrading original film negatives into a vault to become unusable while there were no other copies around.

Ideally, copyright terms should last no longer than patent terms, and registration should be mandatory before copyright can be enforced. Our current "everything is copyrighted by default including my fucking grocery list if I claim it's really a poem" regime is unsustainable and worthless.

Re:Press release in english

[Richard_at_work]

We've already reached the point where many works have died, never to be seen again, simply because some shithead stuck (for instance) the degrading original film negatives into a vault to become unusable while there were no other copies around.

How would shorter copyright terms solve that issue? Copyright law didn't prevent someone else storing an archival copy until copyright expiration, and you would still have no right to go and take those original negatives...

Re:Press release in english

[WrongSizeGlass]

Clearly you've missed his point ;-) If the movies had been properly pirated they'd have been available to all comers on a site like, I dunno, The Pirate Bay. Pirating would have saved those movies rather than hurt them.

Re:Press release in english

[Ephemeriis]

How would shorter copyright terms solve that issue?

Well, if the copyright term was shorter, the copy in the vault may not have degraded by the time copyright expired. And then you could release that vault copy into the wild.

Copyright law didn't prevent someone else storing an archival copy until copyright expiration

Actually, it does.

Copyright law means that I can dictate who makes copies and under what conditions. So if the only copies I allow are low-quality, or severely edited, or DRM-encumbered, or self-destructing... Then there's no way anyone out there can store an archival copy.

Frankly, unless I'm handing out copies of my original filmstock with no DRM or anything like that, folks are going to have one hell of a time using any of their copies for archival purposes.

and you would still have no right to go and take those original negatives...

Generally speaking, you don't want the original negatives.

The original negatives for Avatar, for example, are just going to be a bunch of people running around in front of a green screen.

What you want is a clean, full copy of the work as it appeared for public consumption. Without any DRM or encryption or limitations. Without it being reformatted for fullscreen TVs or anything like that.

A good, clean, full copy that can then be used to master additional copies in various formats.

Generally speaking, this is not available.

Re:Press release in english

[MBGMorden]

If they're any good, that already happens, law or no. That particular issue isn't copyright related (though copyrights are indeed screwed up), but rather just an indicated of just how fragile our storage is these days. For the latest copy of Avatar - sure, it's everywhere, but for less mainstream stuff that hasn't (yet) acheived popularity, things can be wiped out completely by a random hard drive crash or simple degradation. Sure, even when we had books they could be destroyed, but to me it seems that our current medium is just a bit more fragile compared to books - which basically will last a LONG time absent fire or flood.

Re:Press release in english

[Anonymous Coward]

If they're any good, that already happens, law or no.

Whooooosh!

Re:Press release in english

[Lumpy]

Do you realize how many movies and records from the early days are destroyed forever. There is a crapload of Chicago blues artists and awesome songs that will never be heard again because of Copyright law.

Honestly, Copyright does more harm than good if you look past the "money money gimmie gimmie" though pattern of the greedy and think of culture and history.

The rampant greed of today is no different than the burning of the library of Alexandria. Lots of information, literary works, and art are being DESTROYED for no reason other than plain old greed.

Re:Press release in english

[DiademBedfordshire]

Ideally, copyright terms should last no longer than patent terms, and registration should be mandatory before copyright can be enforced. Our current "everything is copyrighted by default including my fucking grocery list if I claim it's really a poem" regime is unsustainable and worthless.

and

A good, clean, full copy that can then be used to master additional copies in various formats.

Generally speaking, this is not available.

What if you had to apply for the copyrights to your work but in doing so you have to turn over a master to the copyright office and when the copyright expires the copyright office turns the master over into public domain,

Re:Press release in english

[ConfusedVorlon]

yup, shorter copyright per se wouldn't fix that issue.

but requiring people to register and store their material in order to get copyright could.

something along the lines of
1) you pay for an independent registered copyright storage facility to keep a copy
2) that gets you copyright for x years on the stored material
3) after x years, the hosted material goes public

with of course x = smallish number

Re:Press release in english

[BoberFett]

I don't know about you, but that kind of loss of history and culture gives me an awful sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. The original artists would probably feel the same way if they knew that the things they created vanished forever because some asshole in a 50th story office didn't want anybody to hear or see something they didn't pay for.

Re:Press release in english

[tibman]

I think Richard is saying that if the Owners of Avatar want the original movie to sit in a vault and rot, that is up to them. You don't get a right to copy someone's stuff if they don't want you to. Is it a loss? oh yes. But it's the right of the owner.

Re:Press release in english

[rolfc]

is it? Maybe legally, but not morally.

Re:Press release in english

[marcosdumay]

Then we go all over the place again. Your method will only work if the master doesn't degrade during the lifetime of your copyrights. Anything you use as archive today will be destroyed (or unreadable) in 80 years time.

Re:Press release in english

[HungryHobo]

Personally I think a mixed system might work:
Otherwise people would have to be insanely secretive about their work until they sent it off to be registered because if a rough cut of a new movie got leaked then there would be perfectly legal for me to sell copies of it.

How about

1: current automatic copyright system but only for a very limited time, say less than a year.
2: if you want longer protection you have to register it by giving a full clean, unencrypted copy to something like the british library- a legal deposit library, it receives copies of all books produced in the United Kingdom.

deciding X isn't exactly easy- if you spend 20 years writing an incredible authoritative book on some subject why should you only get paid for 5 years?
should terry Pratchett no longer get royalties on the first 25 discworld books because they were published more than 10 years ago?
Should not have control of the characters in his current books because they first appeared in his books more than 20 years ago?

Re:Press release in english

[DrgnDancer]

GP (and me) are still not sure how shortening the length of copyright will save this art. If you eliminate copyright completely, you could argue that the free flow of information will allow many recordings to be made and thus minimize loss, but that's not what was advocated in the post above. In that post a shortening of copyright to approximately 7 years (9 year? How long are patents again?) was advocated. 7 years is MORE than enough time for the same things that currently destroy old art to still destroy it.

Let's assume for instance that copyright lasts 7 years. Let's also assume that Iron Man 2 is art worth saving, and that it has original negatives (rather than being entirely digital in it's original, which I suspect it is). The movie is released, and thanks to its seven year protection, no one can copy it (we're also assuming a million fan boys won't find various ways to copy it illegally). After a suitable couple month run, the negatives are mastered onto some new uncopyable (but fast degrading) media and sold for a few more months. After that the negative are stuck into the same vault mentioned above. The studio still owns the physical negatives forever. They can make copies of them forever, or let them sit in a vault and degrade to uselessness.

The main thing that caused the destruction of those old movies and music wasn't copyright law, it was the inherent fragility of the media that the items were recorded onto, combined with the imperfect nature of the copying process, and the inability for consumers to recopy (or in the case of VHS and cassette tapes to recopy beyond a few generations). Iron Man 2 will likely never meet the fate of some old movies, simply because, regardless of copyright laws, the studios will sell million of near perfect copies to anyone that wants one. The purchasers will then (legally or illegally) be able to make further copies if they choose. This is true of any movie made since the dawn of the DVD, essentially. Also of any song recorded since the dawn of CDs and (especially) MP3s.

This doesn't change the fact that copyright laws need serious revision, I agree completely. I just don't see what one has to do with the other. Those Chicago blues songs won't "never be heard again" only because of copyright laws (though those don't help), but because studios own the original media they were recorded on and don't want to release the recordings. Most likely, in a world without copyright, the studios would still own that media, and still not want to release recordings.

Re:Press release in english

[countach]

But nothing is purely one person's stuff. Things become "popular culture", a part of the communal consciousness. Imagine if Shakespeare's descendants were lording it over everybody and everything that ever quote a few of his words. The makers of movies like Avatar would be getting sued right and left by the works that influenced them.

Re:Press release in english

[DrgnDancer]

Well, if the copyright term was shorter, the copy in the vault may not have degraded by the time copyright expired. And then you could release that vault copy into the wild.

But they won't. The studio still owns the physical archival copy. It's physical property, not IP. They can still chose (for the exact same reasons that they currently chose) not to release theie archival copies into the wild. You're talking about apples and oranges here. If the studios were nice people who wanted to contribute to the IP of the world, they would simply give up their copyrights and release the archival films after a set amount of time. They don't. What makes you think that eliminating copyright will casue them to suddenly become nice people who release their physical copies once they are no longer covered by IP?

Re:Press release in english

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

Do you realize how many movies and records from the early days are destroyed forever. There is a crapload of Chicago blues artists and awesome songs that will never be heard again because of Copyright law.

As opposed to without copyright law where the works would be destroyed in exactly the same way, except this time conditional on them existing in the first place?

Copyright (like all property law) doesn't cause greed, despite it's natural association with greed. Just like wagging a dog's tail doesn't make it happy.

Re:Press release in english

[Jeng]

Doesn't the Library of Congress keep a copy?

Re:Press release in english

[Anonymous Coward]

A good, clean, full copy that can then be used to master additional copies in various formats.

Generally speaking, this is not available.

What if you had to apply for the copyrights to your work but in doing so you have to turn over a master to the copyright office and when the copyright expires the copyright office turns the master over into public domain,

Well, it's a brilliant idea and would make the job of the library of congress much easier. Also consider that this would have to be managed by public servants. As such it would obviously never work. /sigh/

Re:Press release in english

[PincushionMan]

This has actually already happened with movies. For instance, the movie Caligula had X- and R-rated versions, with the R playing in theaters. Time passed, and the original R version was lost, and a new R version has been created with differs greatly from the original, and from what I have heard, is missing large elements of the plot. How much plot could they have lifted from the p0rn version?? Other lost items are movies that had R-rated theater runs, but were released to home video as NR, in particular horror and fantasy movies. Most have been lost to hungry VCRs, and cannot be recovered.

Re:Press release in english

[Ragzouken]

It shouldn't be the right of the owner.

Re:Press release in english

[PincushionMan]

Is the real reason Walt is on ice is to indefinitely protect Mickey in Steamboat Willie? 95 years after death is a long time when you can never be declared dead.

Insert Python jokes here.

Re:Press release in english

[icebraining]

If you think the "medium" as a CD with a PDF vs a book, you're right. But the current "medium" is much more than that. With a couple of clicks I can make a copy of my book to a server located 4000 miles from here. With a couple more it's replicated in all continents.

The problem is that people haven't change their habits to accommodate this new reality, and continue to use computers as they've used pieces of paper.

Oh, and if you're talking about media (not text), we're *much* better. Remember that film/vinil are analog and therefore are in constant degradation, and every copy is lossy. Digital encoding has bring the possibility of actually maintaining the same quality for indefinite time.

Re:Press release in english

[dintech]

the degrading original film

Star Wars Kid, is that you?

Re:Press release in english

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually no. After the period of copyright is up (which when it comes to works with multiple authors and corporations which while IANAL could potentially be considered an author, gets pretty complex) that work can be freely copied no matter what the original copyright holder thinks or wants. The only way to STOP such things is to extend the length of copyright which is why that whole early editions of Mickey Mouse entering the public domain was problematic for Disney so they got the length of copyright to be extended, and there was commentary by the judge that Copyright is potentially indefinite which could have bad interpretations for law in years to come but still the idea remains the same, once the period is up it enters the public domain (if you can find it still) and do as much copying and the like to it, the author can suck balls at that point, but given said author has been dead for 70 years at this point, they aren't going to be doing much of anything.

Re:Press release in english

[nomadic]

Well, if the copyright term was shorter, the copy in the vault may not have degraded by the time copyright expired. And then you could release that vault copy into the wild.

Only the owner of the copy (the previous copyright holder) is under no obligation to release it at all. I think that's happened a lot as well, and is probably the main reason these early works have degraded.

Re:Press release in english

[Ephemeriis]

They can still chose (for the exact same reasons that they currently chose) not to release theie archival copies into the wild.

But at least there would be a choice.

Anyone remember one of the first times they re-released Star Wars? The original stock had degraded so much that Darth Vader's lightsaber was a lovely shade of pink.

Sure... If you want to be a dick and hang on to your archival copy you can. But if the copyright term is so long that the question doesn't even come up until the archival copy is dust, it's kind of a moot point.

Re:Press release in english

[dbet]

I wish people would stop blaming greed. The truth is you and I are as greedy as anyone else who has ever existed. Greed is okay. The check is supposed to be a government that doesn't allow the greed of one person or entity to ruin things for everyone else.

At least with the government, its something you can change, which is not true of human nature.

Re:Press release in english

[Ephemeriis]

I think Richard is saying that if the Owners of Avatar want the original movie to sit in a vault and rot, that is up to them. You don't get a right to copy someone's stuff if they don't want you to. Is it a loss? oh yes. But it's the right of the owner.

Avatar did not spring into being in a void. It is based heavily on a shared culture that's built up of all the creative works that have come before it. Avatar, as it is, would not exist if it weren't for all the shared works that came before it. If Shakespeare had decided to cram his stuff in a vault and let it rot, Avatar simply would not be the movie that we have today.

To a certain degree, the owners of Avatar owe it to the shared culture that allowed them to make this movie.

Re:Press release in english

[Ephemeriis]

What if you had to apply for the copyrights to your work but in doing so you have to turn over a master to the copyright office and when the copyright expires the copyright office turns the master over into public domain,

Sounds good to me.

Re:Press release in english

[Pentium100]

Otherwise people would have to be insanely secretive about their work until they sent it off to be registered because if a rough cut of a new movie got leaked then there would be perfectly legal for me to sell copies of it.

Well, there could be a middle ground, say, before the movie is finished they are allowed to pre-register it and have copyright until the movie goes to the theaters or is sold to customers (in case of direct to video movies). When the movie is ready for the customer they can send a copy and complete the registration.

if you spend 20 years writing an incredible authoritative book on some subject why should you only get paid for 5 years?

Why not? If the work you did is so hard and useful then you will make lots of money during the 5 years by selling lots of copies or by being able to charge a lot for a copy. Otherwise you just wasted a lot of time, just like the guy who started his own business but it turned out that what he had almost no (potential) customers and went bust a few years later. You are not entitled to the money just because you spent 20 years doing something that nobody needed.

should terry Pratchett no longer get royalties on the first 25 discworld books because they were published more than 10 years ago?

Should I no longer get salary from the first 2 of my jobs just because it's been 10 years since I worked there? You work - you get paid. You stop working - you stop getting paid. Writing a book or making a movie pays off later than working a regular job and that's why copyright should be 5 or 7 years and not 1 month. If you cannot make profit during those years then it means that whatever you are doing is not profitable and will not be profitable in the coming years too.

Should not have control of the characters in his current books because they first appeared in his books more than 20 years ago?

Well, he would still be able to write about those characters, right? Just because someone else would be able to do it too does not invalidate the books by the original author. Or should Disney retain control over Mickey Mouse indefinitely?

Re:Press release in english

[netsavior]

The point is, nobody can force an owner to crack open his vault and provide his original master of 1942's "The Movie Nobody Saw (c)"

even if copyright expired.

Re:Press release in english

[sorak]

That's pretty much how the patent system works right now. One other option that has been thrown about is to require the copyright owner to renew every few years and pay a small fee for renewal. This option would shut Disney up (for the most part), and prevent situations like the "rotting film" scenario.

Re:Press release in english

[Moryath]

How about

1: current automatic copyright system but only for a very limited time, say less than a year.
2: if you want longer protection you have to register it by giving a full clean, unencrypted copy to something like the british library- a legal deposit library, it receives copies of all books produced in the United Kingdom.

I'm ambivalent on the first (it gives a fair amount of time within to properly register), and very happy with the idea of the second. Being required to hand over a clean, high quality unencrypted copy for public availability once the copyright term expires should indeed be a part of the system.

deciding X isn't exactly easy- if you spend 20 years writing an incredible authoritative book on some subject why should you only get paid for 5 years?
Current patent term is good for 20 years from filing or 17 years from issuance, whichever is later, in the US. So under your theoretical option, you'd get 20 years after date of registration (technically you could get nearly 21 if you used your 1-year "grace period" proposed above).

should terry Pratchett no longer get royalties on the first 25 discworld books because they were published more than 10 years ago?
For the books published over TWENTY years ago, I'd say no. He's had 20 years worth of royalties already.

Should not have control of the characters in his current books because they first appeared in his books more than 20 years ago?
That would be the idea. Part of the stupidity of our current bought-and-paid-for corrupt system is that the earliest version of Mickey Mouse, which by constitutional precedent regarding ex-post-facto law (and absent someone paying off someone over and over... wonder how many SC Justices just happen to hold Disney stock?) should have passed into the public domain in 1956 (under the 28-year term from its original date of publication) and somehow still hasn't today!

Re:Press release in english

[Svartalf]

As opposed to without copyright law where the works would be destroyed in exactly the same way, except this time conditional on them existing in the first place?

Really now... And I suppose the following:

The Mona Lisa
The Statue of David
Plumbing
The Steam Engine ...are all figments of everyone's imagination.

Vast portions of our art and history had NO Patent or Copyright "protection" to speak of and yet they were done. Your premise is, sadly, an old saw- and very, very much wrong.

Re:Press release in english

[DrgnDancer]

My point is that this option already exists, and the studio don't do it. You aren't bound by your own copyrights. If George Lucas woke up tomorrow and said, "You know, I think I've milked this Star Wars stuff long enough... I'm going to relinquish my copyrights into the public domain, and release the archival copies of all six movies." He could do that. It wouldn't even be hard or expensive. Literally all he has to do is send a notarized letter to the Copyright Office and let them know that he's relinquished his rights to the movies and characters. The process of physical distribution of the actual archival copies would be more difficult to be honest.

The studios already have the "choice", they chose not to exercise it. In the event of the copyright expiring, there is no reason to expect that they will change their minds. Granted Lucas is still making money off Star Wars, so he's not likely to give up the rights voluntarily; but plenty of movies exist that studios retain the rights to for no reason other than, "it's theirs and they don't want to give it up."

Re:Press release in english

[Anonymous Coward]

And store it in Flash format. That would be best. For future-proof purposes, and quality across all forms of media hardware of course.

Re:Press release in english

[Anonymous Coward]

The original negatives for Avatar, for example, are just going to be a bunch of people running around in front of a green screen.

You just ruined the movie for me. Are you next going to tell people that Santa Claus has a fake beard and a fat suit? or that the virgin Mary isn't a virgin? or that E-Meters can't help improve your life? You can be a negative Nelly and give away spoilers, but that shouldn't improve your Karma!

Re:Press release in english

[Anonymous Coward]

First, it is already expensive to get something actually copyrighted. Yes, you can claim copyright, but then you have to pay a lot of money to prove it if someone challenges it. Musicians often seal demos, lyrics or sheet music in envelopes that are sent back to themselves so that they get date stamped by the post office, but this is not a sure thing. We essentially have a system like this already, except you don't have to agree to store the material, if you want something to have a legal copyright.

Second, this system has led to rampant abuse and exploitation of artists. In the case of recording artists, the Studio pays for the copyright, and often holds the copy right. The artist has already lost control of their art!

One simple change would be that only the artist or family can hold the copyright.

Re:Press release in english

[russotto]

If copyright terms were greater, it'd be more likely many more copies would be made before the originals and first generation prints deteriorated due to age, _because it wouldn't be illegal to do so_.

Re:Press release in english

[Anonymous Coward]

I am reminded that _Nosferatu_ would have never seen the light of day if it weren't for, in essence, pirates.

Re:Press release in english

[Smiffa2001]

As opposed to without copyright law where the works would be destroyed in exactly the same way, except this time conditional on them existing in the first place?

Really now... And I suppose the following:

The Mona Lisa The Statue of David Plumbing The Steam Engine ...are all figments of everyone's imagination.

Vast portions of our art and history had NO Patent or Copyright "protection" to speak of and yet they were done. Your premise is, sadly, an old saw- and very, very much wrong.

Unfortunately most folks nowadays are so shit-scared of someone bigger and more powerful coming along and "stealing" their idea, leaving them (the inventor) in ruins, it might be their only perceived way of protecting themselves and their invention.

Re:Press release in english

[russotto]

I meant 'shorter' rather than 'greater' above... *sigh*.

Re:Press release in english

[Anonymous Coward]

The costs of that scheme might be prohibitive to independent or emerging artists. If only corporations can afford the protections of copyright, that's still not a good situation.

Re:Press release in english

[ConfusedVorlon]

--
Should not have control of the characters in his current books because they first appeared in his books more than 20 years ago?
--

I don't see a problem with people getting to riff on Terry's characters. Just like it is fine for people to riff on Robin Hood and Romeo and Juliet.

Most folks still know that Shakespeare was the original author of Romeo and Juliet.

If he was still around, he could still release the 'Official Sequel' and wouldn't have any problem earning a decent return in 5 years.

Re:Press release in english

[Duradin]

Patronage and manual reproduction were the precursors to copyright. Not a legal enforcement but a monetary one. If you wanted a "The Mona Lisa" you had to pay someone to make a copy of the original, by hand, one at a time probably in the presence of the original. Books? Before the printing press they were copied by hand, letter by letter, page by page. Music? You paid someone to compose the work for you and then paid the performers to perform it.

How did they control the "copyright" of The Mona Lisa? They controlled the object itself.

Re:Press release in english

[Aceticon]

You're making the assumption that the Copyright Office will exist in 130 years time and the even more tall assumption that they will care enough during those 130 years to keep all those masters in pristine order AND keep the capability to read them.

Yes, copyright is screwed up enough that the time-frames involved are more than a century.

Re:Press release in english

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's also assume that Iron Man 2 is art worth saving

That's a bit of a stretch...

Re:Press release in english

[orasio]

The foundation of copyright is that you sell your works, get in exchange a monopoly for a limited time, and after that the public owns it. So, I'm not sure if you were aware of that, but author != owner.

After Avatar copyright expires, ownership goes to the public domain. If the original authors didn't keep good copies after copyright expiration, they are harming the general public, which is the owner.

Re:Press release in english

[BoberFett]

You mean the artist that died in 1952? Yeah, I'm sure he'd be crushed about not earning money in 2010.

Re:Press release in english

[Anonymous Coward]

Not even legally. Once something is released publically, once the copyright expires you're free to do what you want with it regardless of what the creator says. The problem is with things like DRM, where the content creator can destroy all existing copies of something before they lose their copyright, and then it's lost forever. That is the direct opposite of the legal intention, as well as being morally repugnant.

Re:Press release in english

[operagost]

I think film negatives would last more than 7 years if you stored them in your car. You've set up a pretty flimsy straw man, there. The fragility of the media isn't the point-- the point is to ensure the preservation of culture. Clearly, 95 years (the current copyright term in the USA) is enough time for just about anything to be destroyed, while few things will be destroyed in 14 years (the original copyright term in the USA) with reasonable care.

Re:Press release in english

[hairyfeet]

Because somebody somewhere WILL find a way to make a copy, because they know that they will eventually find a way to make a few $$ off of it? It's like this idea I had when I was in school..."DOSBox...in a box" basically taking all these old obscure 80s and 90s DOS games and putting a prebuilt DOS emulator on a disc with a GUI frontend, so that like a Linux Live CD you could just slip the disc into any PC and be enjoying in minutes.

Me and another student had gotten it to a running mockup stage just to see if we could, but when we started trying to contact those that had made the old games we wanted to put on the disc we found a minefield where companies were gone, nobody knew WTF happened to the rights, and the few that responded acted like their game from 87 should be worth more than Crysis.

So instead of a nice little disc that would allow new generations to easily play what we old greybeards cut our teeth on, thanks to copyrights it is doubtful you'll even be able to find a single copy to play or a machine that'll play it by the time copyrights end on them. The combination of copyright musical chairs and greedy pigs that think "we'll do something with it...some day, maybe" and want as much or more than it cost new simply makes it an undoable idea.

Re:Press release in english

[Anonymous Coward]

I dont really think that "we should be allowed to pirate things so we can save them from a possible demise" is a good excuse. In reality we shouldn't be gouged for media every step of the way, then severely limited in our use of it when we already pay a massive premium on it. Its a greedy move and capitalism rewards it. In reality, no one needs millions of dollars and people should just be happy producing art for the sake of art as long as they still can enjoy the fruits of their labor WITHIN REASON.

Re:Press release in english

[operagost]

Copyright did exist in much of Europe during the Renaissance. In fact, the Crown actually holds a copyright on the King James Bible in the UK until 2039.

Re:Press release in english

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, clearly a system of patronage where art is what rich people say it is and trade secrets where guilds hoard the secrets of technology are superior systems and we should re-implement them immediately.

Re:Press release in english

[Anonymous Coward]

Copyright is a monopoly grant by the state.

It is immoral and unjust even in its most pristine and original state.

It should be abolished.

Re:Press release in english

[DiademBedfordshire]

Well they would only need to exist long enough to put the work / master into public domain. From there it should be our ( people who are interested in the work ) job to take the ball and run with it.

Re:Press release in english

[quercus.aeternam]

If there were a yearly storage fee in the facility, it would definitely provide an incentive to let go of no longer profitable materials.

I am no economist, and I'm not sure that a rate could be set that would be high enough to deter hoarding of media, and yet be reasonable for independent artists.

Re:Press release in english

[DrgnDancer]

Your examples... well frankly they kind of suck.

The Mona Lisa and David were both commissioned works. The artists made plenty money off of them (Leonardo da Vinci particularity lived quite well on his work), but the patron who commissioned them had sole ownership and provenance over the items. Much of da Vinci and Michelangelo's work is lost to us simply because the patrons never released it, and it was eventually destroyed or rotted away.

This system was no better than the current copyright system and arguably worse. At least now everyone has an opportunity to hear or see the art at reasonable cost. Also, these pieces are both what I call "old art". Not old in age (people are still producing it now), old in media. Its very value is in its unique, unreproducible, nature. The piece itself is valuable... I could photo copy the Mona Lisa all day and it still would just be a photocopy of the Mona Lisa. New art (as in new media art) is often perfectly reproducible in limitless quantities. Its value is in playing it, watching it, or otherwise experiencing it.

As to the Steam Engine, well, from the article you linked:

"Boulton and Watt's practice was to help mine-owners and other customers to build engines, supplying men to erect them and some specialised parts. However, they mainly profited from their patent by charging a licence fee to the engine owners" (emphasis mine, spelling errors theirs :-))

It was patented.

I'll give you plumbing to some extent, but would like to point out that the concept itself was more on the order of a government public works project (such things often produce useful public domain IP even today). Many of the specific, useful, pieces that make up what we moderns call "plumbing" were patented at one point or another.

This is the big problem with a lot of Intellectual Property reform arguments. The people making them often give poorly reasoned or incorrect points to support their arguments. If I can poke holes in your argument, trivially, and I'm generally on your side (I agree that IP laws need reform), what about someone who disagrees with you and is willing to spend lots of money for research and clever lawyers?

Re:Press release in english

[celtic_hackr]

You do have to hand over two hard copies of your work, if it is published, to the copyright office and pay them to get a registered copyright ($35 and up depending on how you do it and what options you choose). If your work is unpublished, then there is no need to submit two hardcopies, but don't quote me on that - there may be exceptions to the "no hard copy required rule".

Since w are talking about published works, then the LOC has a copy of them. Not sure how long the hard copy rule has been in existence. That'd be a research project, which I'd rather not undertake at this time.

BTW, there's actually fines and punishments for not depositing a published copyrighted work (even if you don't register). even though it's not required to file a registration.

Re:Press release in english

[Draek]

If they're any good, that already happens, law or no.

Yeah, but it raises the bar of what, exactly, constitutes being "any good". With copyright, you're relying on normal people infringing on the law to keep a copy of it in case the studio neglects it, however without copyright you not only have normal people making copies but libraries and universities as well, and they've got the storage capacity to be a *lot* less picky.

Sure, even when we had books they could be destroyed, but to me it seems that our current medium is just a bit more fragile compared to books - which basically will last a LONG time absent fire or flood.

Sure, but again, the ease of copying and negligible costs of storage make keeping redundant copies around the world a *lot* more feasible than it was with physical media such as books. And without copyright you're not relying on the copyright owner to do so, losing your entire electronic library in a flood in New Orleans is irrelevant as long as you can afford to repurchase the storage capacity (ie, loads and loads of disks) and have unrestricted access to the electronic library of, say, an university in Sydney or Leeds.

As Linus Torvalds once said, "real men don't use backup, they upload their stuff to FTP and let the world mirror it".

Re:Press release in english

[Anonymous Coward]

I could very much get behind this.

Re:Press release in english

[Anonymous Coward]

Therefore everything should be free.

Re:Press release in english

[Junior J. Junior III]

For every Mona Lisa or David, there are a crapload of priceless artistic treasures that have been lost to antiquity. Just because some stuff gets saved and preserved doesn't mean that it's the most effective means that were used to accomplish it, or that there weren't other things lost that could have been saved had other means of preservation been available (and legal).

Re:Press release in english

[DrgnDancer]

But as I state other places, the expiration of copyright is no incentive for the studios to release the original media after 7 years (or 14 years, or whatever). The original negatives are the physical property of the studio, who will continue to leave them in vaults until they degrade. I understand that if copyright expires after x years, then it will become legal to make a copy after x years. that doesn't mean you'll get an original to make a copy from. That doesn't keep the studios from developing ever more convoluted DRM schemes to make sure that the copy they sell you is only playable in the manner they approve of. ro from simply not selling home playable copies of it appears they can't control distribution.

My point here is that OP's comment is essentially an apples to oranges comparison. Those old movies he laments the loss of weren't lost because of copyright law. They were lost because the studios owned the original copies, and did not maintain them or make additional originals when they started to fade. Since it was essentially impossible to make copies from the second generation copies distributed to the movie theaters, and since those second gen copies had to be sent back to the studio when the run was over (thanks to completely separate legal agreement having little to do with copyright), copyright has virtually nothing to do with their loss. Had the copyright on those works expired in 7 years, 14 years, or 1 year it wouldn't have mattered. The studio retained ownership of all physical copies of the movie, and would have done exactly the same thin with them.

By contrast, no recent movie (or recently remastered movie) will ever be lost this way. The Studio now distribute copies that the consumer owns (physically, if not in rights to the content). The market for DVDs is such that even the worst excuses for cinema produced in the last 15-20 years have hundreds of thousands of near perfect copies wandering around. This despite the fact that copyright laws are if anything tighter now than they were.

tl;dr: It was the studio's physical ownership of media to play old movies that caused them to be lost, not the illegality of copying them. New movies will never be lost this way, despite much tighter controls on copying; simply because there are so many physical copies.

Again, I agree in principle that Copyright law needs updating, but this particular argument doesn't hold much water.

Re:Press release in english

[nate nice]

Not to mention that if you're scouring for this kind of stuff you often end up paying in the hundreds for a piece of 50 year old vinyl. A lot of this stuff exists in that nebulous zone of someone owning copyright and forgetting about it and there being people that are looking for it but not enough for the holder to remake it or make it available. And of course if you start reproducing it yourself you get a lawsuit.

Re:Press release in english

[bws111]

Exactly what property rights are not 'a monopoly granted by the state'? Should we abolish them all?

Re:Press release in english

[geekoid]

Limited copyright is a good thing. Without it it, a corporation could have just taking JK Rowling works and not paid her a cent.

Should it be looking up for decades? no, but 14 years should do the trick.

And it's not a vast portion. IN fact is a very small portion.

Re:Press release in english

[geekoid]

Actually, if it has ever been released, then someone will have a copy and be ably to post it online.

If it's never been released, then I would argue there is a strong chance it will just be disposed with.

Re:Press release in english

[shish]

Vast portions of our art and history had NO Patent or Copyright "protection" to speak of and yet they were done

They did have copy protection; but back then it was the laws of physics (it was impossible to take a video of a performance and give it to thousands of people around the world in a matter of minutes), rather than the laws of man. What we're doing now is artificially recreating the difficulty of copying that has been real for the last few thousand years.

Re:Press release in english

[Anonymous Coward]

What if you had to apply for the copyrights to your work but in doing so you have to turn over a master to the copyright office and when the copyright expires the copyright office turns the master over into public domain,

You kinda forgot about the little situation regarding the expiration of copyrighted works (or lack thereof)....

Re:Press release in english

[tibman]

Yikes, lots of replies. To clarify, it's like netsavior said, the copyright is expired yes, but you can't make them open the vault and hand over their copy.

Whatever versions exist in the wild can be copyied freely.. but the original is in the hands of the original owner and they can sit on it if they want.

If i were to spend 300mil (hah) on a movie that was so awesome and then i took the only copy and put it into my DVD library. Didn't allow anyone else in the world to have a copy. That's my right.

Even after copyright expires, i don't have to loan it out to anyone for copying.. it's mine. But damn would i be an asshole. I think that's the point Richard_at_work was saying. He was saying that just because the copyright is expired, doesn't mean you can always copy it.

Re:Press release in english

[DrgnDancer]

This is a completely valid argument for the shortening of copyrights. I agree completely. I never said that copyright shouldn't be shortened, I agree with that stance and you have delivered one of the few valid arguments I've seen so far in this thread as to why. My point is that we need more arguments like this, and fewer arguments like those about movies rotting in vaults or Blues music that will never be released. Your argument is related exclusively to how you could have used the rights to a game to be released publicly. Finding a copy of the actual game is not the problem, you'd just like the right to re-release or play the copy you have.

The movies and songs that are being lamented in posts above this one were lost mainly because of the physical ownership of the original media they were recorded on. The problem is only tangentially related to copyright. Some few of them may have been saved if someone could have legally copied them (though I don't exactly know how); but the main problem is some studio owns the physical media the movies/songs are recorded onto, and won't make copies for sale (or allows the originals to degenerate past the point of usefulness).

Re:Press release in english

[HungryHobo]

Should I no longer get salary from the first 2 of my jobs just because it's been 10 years since I worked there?

Should you get salary from the job you left last week?
Writing books and creating art is inherently different from working a 9 to 5 job.

Why not? If the work you did is so hard and useful then you will make lots of money during the 5 years by selling lots of copies or by being able to charge a lot for a copy.

is all you can think of the holywood mainstream crap?
lots of works don't do well for quite some time.
I'd never heard of V for Vendetta until 15 years after the comic was released.
I'd never heard of watchmen until 20 years after the comic was released.

A 5 year copyright term would just mean that studios can rip off everything an author has ever created within 5 years and wouldn't even have to attribute it.

Every major publishing house would just keep a stack of everything they were sent unless they spotted something truly exceptional in the cursory pass 5 years later you'd see anything half decent published with a different authors name on it.

Why not? If the work you did is so hard and useful then you will make lots of money during the 5 years by selling lots of copies or by being able to charge a lot for a copy. Otherwise you just wasted a lot of time, just like the guy who started his own business but it turned out that what he had almost no (potential) customers and went bust a few years later. You are not entitled to the money just because you spent 20 years doing something that nobody needed.

The last thing we need is even lower quality material because authors have to keep pumping out a constant stream of crap rather than spending time getting things right.
Enough authors spend 5 years trying to even get semi decent attention for their books.

So your plan is that they do the work and then the corporations get to cash in on any publicity they managed to garner in that time.

If you cannot make profit during those years then it means that whatever you are doing is not profitable and will not be profitable in the coming years too.

wow.
if you're not sucessful right away then you'll never be sucessful?
what world do you live in?

But sure. lets go with your ideal where big media should be able to rip off everything an author does shortly after the author has done the work of creating and possibly publicizing it.
And you shouldn't spend more than a trivial amount of time on creating anything because you don't think someone should get paid for 20 years for 20 years labor.
got it.

since an author would have to make their money in a very short timescale they'd have to charge very high royalties driving the price sky high.
since there would be no royalty costs at all 5 years later the books would be dirt cheap.

I am rarely in a hurry with books, I'll wait till a series is finished to read through in one go.
I don't *need* to hear the stories right away, why in the world would I ever pay for the insanely expensive new books when I can get them dirt cheap 5 years down the road.
this isn't medecine where people need the drugs *now* or patents where you competitor will pass you out if you don't get that tech *now* this is books where waiting a few years is no big deal.

the only winners in your world are the big companies and the occasional sensation like Rowling.
Everyone else, the small time authors and the authors who put decent work into their books lose big time.

Re:Press release in english

[Anonymous Coward]

In the comments:

2. Härligt initiativ!
Vi får se om de vågar sig på att försöka med politisk censur för att få igenom sina krav

3. [...] kommer gå galna och att alla media kommer skriva om det: Dagens Nyheter, Svenska Dagbladet. Christian Engström, Humblebee, Stefan Flod, Ravenna, Cypyriot och HAX är bara några av de alla som skriver om [...]

6. Bork bork bork!

commenter #6.....I salute you.

Re:Press release in english

[Pentium100]

wow.
if you're not sucessful right away then you'll never be sucessful?
what world do you live in?

I was talking about writing books. If your book is still at a loss after 5-10 years then maybe it's just not interesting enough for people to buy.

Also, how could big media rip off authors? I mean if the work enters public domain then the corporation cannot demand payment for the book, or rather it can, but I don't have to pay it.

Every major publishing house would just keep a stack of everything they were sent unless they spotted something truly exceptional in the cursory pass 5 years later you'd see anything half decent published with a different authors name on it.

The author should retain moral rights to the work, like, for example, the right of being credited for it even when the copyright expires...

Hmm. I have a better idea - how about 5 year copyright with the ability to renew it, however, the renewal price would increase each time you renew it. If you are sill making a lot of money for the book then you can pay for the renewal. If it ceases to be profitable to you (old magazines, books that have short lived popularity, old computer games) then the copyright expires and the work enters public domain but is still credited to you.

I'd never heard of watchmen until 20 years after the comic was released.

Di;d you buy the comic new from the publishers or did you buy it used/borrowed it from a library or a friend? If you did not buy it new then the authors did not get money from you (is it still in print?).

Should you get salary from the job you left last week?

If I was fired (because, for example, the company was downsizing) then I will most likely get a compensation, which means my salary for a few months in advance. How many depends on how long I have worked there.

And you shouldn't spend more than a trivial amount of time on creating anything because you don't think someone should get paid for 20 years for 20 years labor.
got it.

Should someone get paid for life+70 years (which would probably mean the life of author + life of their children + most of the life of their grandchildren) for, say, 1 year of labor?
Anyway, should a dead author be paid? Most of the dead people do not get salary or pension or any money at all, why should authors be different?

Re:Press release in english

[sjames]

It seems that the granting of a copyright should include an obligation to keep a copy in excellent condition for release to the public domain upon expiration. If the rights holder can't be bothered to do that, then they must not value the copyright and it should be nullified immediately so that whatever copies might be out there can be pieced together. Anyone who does not care to do that is, of course, free to decline copyright protection.

It should also be quite clear that copyright is far too long. We have a whole generation well into their lives that have NEVER seen anything enter into the public domain and may well never see it in their lifetime. Meanwhile, nothing produced within your lifetime will ever be available to you in the public domain. There are shows that haven't been on the air since before I was born that probably won't enter the public domain until after my death. Kids watching Star Wars (episode IV) for the first time right now may not live to see it's copyright expire. Meanwhile, far from preserving a copy of the original in excellent condition, Lucas is busy trying to re-write history and deny all existence of the original. (I'm looking at you too Spielberg!)

It's interesting that the only reason any early episodes of Dr. Who exist is that "pirates" had illegal copies of some of it available after the BBC recorded over the originals to save money on blank tape.

Re:Press release in english

[westlake]

Do you realize how many movies and records from the early days are destroyed forever. There is a crapload of Chicago blues artists and awesome songs that will never be heard again because of Copyright law.

The Disney archives are complete.

Down to the matte paintings on glass used in movies like Bambi. The Rube Goldberg contraptions devised for sound effects.

Why?

The studio has retained its corporate identity and independence for the better part of ninety years.

The studio - at least since the run-up to Snow White - does much of its artistic training and technical research and development in house.

The studio discovered very early on that its product didn't age like others - but retained its commercial viability for generations.

That made it worthwhile to do some very expensive things - like transferring endless reels of film from to safety stock, preserving and restoring three strip B&W technicolor masters.

When a book, a movie, or audio recording is lost "forever" the reasons are usually quite mundane:

Media is perishable. Pulpwood paper. Wax cylinders. Nitrate stock...

Conservation demands a long-term corporate commitment backed by serious money and technical expertise.

Record companies supporting niche genres - "Race" or "Hillbilly" in the twenties or thirties - are often short-lived and opportunistic.

Take the money and run.

Their corporate assets have fallen into a black hole. The paper trail they leave behind is suspect.

Moving up the food chain:

Primary sources are often preserved simply on the off-chance they might be needed for legal reasons.

To settle performance rights issues. Document product placement and advertising. Production credits. To defend against charges of communism, libel, slander, pornography...

That is why recordings of early radio and television programs ended up in the closed files of the advertising agencies which produced them for their clients.

Re:Press release in english

[sjames]

Nobody is going to bother storing a personal archival quality copy of something whose copyright will not expire until after they die of old age. Many things' cultural relevance follows a curve. That curve tends to hit it's minimum during the copyright term. Unfortunately, that's the point where the last remaining copy tends to be lost. Then later as it becomes relevant for historical insight or because a new generation that has never seen it grows up, it's gone.

Re:Press release in english

[sjames]

Actually, wagging a dog's tail MIGHT make it happy. Fake it till you make it works for human emotions to some degree.

Copyright doesn't cause greed, but it gives the greedy the ability to horde otherwise trivially copyable works.

Re:Press release in english

[sjames]

So long as the rights holder gets the bill for the archiving process, that's fine.

Re:Press release in english

[h00manist]

What if you had to apply for the copyrights to your work but in doing so you have to turn over a master to the copyright office and when the copyright expires the copyright office turns the master over into public domain,

they could decide to refuse works, in fact would have to, unless they decide to keep a copy of anything anyone sends them, no matter how irrelevant. They are forced to censor some things therefore. They could lose things, shut down, get shut down, who knows.

Copyright law should jut categorize the making and distributing copies of any ideas in any format as freedom of expression.

Re:Press release in english

[Anonymous Coward]

Assuming said data is kept only on a master CD for example (which BTW I've got burned CDs that are still readable 10+ years later. If they're kept out of the sun, in a steady temperature, and recorded at X1 (good luck finding a burner that can still do that!) they'll last for a long ass time.

Furthermore the copyright office could just have a couple massive sans with all the data backed up on them and using checksumming and other techniques migrate them to newer arrays even 10-20 years in order to ensure data wasn't lost (files should probably be rewritten to the original array every few months to ensure data doesn't have the chance to degrade, but honestly I've got 10+ year old hard disks with data that still doesn't have bit errors, so ymmv!

Re:Press release in english

[d3ac0n]

I think you are missing the point of his argument.

What he is saying is that the inherent fragility of the medium and/or it's state of being "locked away" is in no way related to the terms of copyright.

For example: I could go out and make a film with my camcorder right now. All arguments of my ability to actually make a film worth watching aside, I would essentially own the copyright to what I produced, provided that I did not re-use anyone else's copyrighted material in the process. Now, let's say that I then decide to take my earth-shaking work of camcorder prowess, and lock it up in my fire-proof safe until the tape degrades to dust.

What does the TERM of copyright have to do with that? Even if I no longer have copyright, since I hold the only copy and am not allowing anyone else physical access, my copyright is essentially eternal. So unless your version of copyright reform includes forcefully taking original works from the owners, changing copyright terms will not fix the issue of the loss of original works via apathy.

Re:Press release in english

[hairyfeet]

Thanks, I truly believe if we didn't have insane copyrights much more of our history could be saved and enjoyed by using a FOSS style approach. what I mean is this, there are plenty out there that don't have the bandwidth or time to download some large FOSS projects, so it is considered perfectly acceptable for third parties to make a few $$ selling say Debian install DVD sets.

I found with many of the more obscure games of the '80s to mid '90s the amount of tweaking one had to do to get the game running acceptably on a newer machine was seriously daunting, bad enough I doubt many would go to the trouble. I happen to like old games and wouldn't have minded going to the trouble if I were allowed to sell them for a few bucks, just to cover my costs and throw a dollar or two in my pocket, but in today's copyright minefield the best case would be a C&D, the worst me getting hauled into court, simply for making an easy way for people to enjoy games that are for systems nobody owns anymore and haven't been sold retail in ages.

It is just shameful, especially for software, that copyrights are so long. I mean if you go by the current law a game written in 1970 would most likely not go out of copyright until the middle of THIS century! Now what are the odds that some will have the code, be able to get a hold of the hardware or an emulator that will run that code, and be able to actually use it? Copyrights as they are now is nothing but the calculated destruction of the public domain, by making sure that by the time anything actually makes it to the public domain anything but blockbusters will have long since been lost to time.

It is disgusting how much of our history will be destroyed on the altar of greed when there are plenty like me that would be happy to help preserve it, if only our hands weren't tied behind us.

Re:Press release in english

[Anonymous Coward]

yup, shorter copyright per se wouldn't fix that issue.

but requiring people to register and store their material in order to get copyright could.

something along the lines of
1) you pay for an independent registered copyright storage facility to keep a copy
2) that gets you copyright for x years on the stored material
3) after x years, the hosted material goes public

with of course x = smallish number

That would be copyright only for the rich. Similar to todays situation where patents only can be upphold by the rich.

The situation you describe is exactly what the European tradition of (automagic) Authors Rights was trying to avoid. Today those ideals have been mixed up with the very bad idea of transferable intellectual ownership (Anglosaxon style Copyright, proved to be bad even used alone) into a really nasty soup. But it only take one bad ingredient to make a nasty soup.

Re:Press release in english

[Patch86]

Should I no longer get salary from the first 2 of my jobs just because it's been 10 years since I worked there?

Should you get salary from the job you left last week?
Writing books and creating art is inherently different from working a 9 to 5 job.

You're right. It's more like developing a new invention, device, etc. It takes a lot of work, and then that work pays off once you've completed it and have something to sell.

And for that we recognise that the inventor should have exclusive use of their invention for, oh, 20 years. And that's for hard, complicated, technical things.

Why should writing a light comedy novel receive greater protection of exclusivity (what is it now, a century or so in most cases) than serious engineering? That was never intended by the people who invented these laws.

And "because Mickey Mouse says so" is not an answer.

Re:Press release in english

[bzipitidoo]

Copyright should be replaced, or possibly just eliminated. Why? The paperless office. The public library in the digital age. Huge, huge savings. Faster, more reliable, less complicated, and more available access to information. And I can't see it happening so long as copyright continues to be imposed on us, continues to drive all kinds of ridiculous and farcical schemes designed to prop it up and perpetuate it. Admit it, DRM is a sad, sorry joke. The Internet killed copyright. Some of us just haven't figured that out yet.

Imagine an online library. Download whatever you want, 24/7. No more limits on the number of copies and problems with some work being temporarily unavailable because all the copies are checked out. No more having to return physical media, or track who is borrowing it with library cards and record keeping and late fees. No more damaged or lost books. No more scratched DVDs. (Well, those problems wouldn't be entirely eliminated, they'd be shifted to datacenters which however are more reliable.) No personnel needed just to man the checkout counter and watch the buildings. Public libraries could evolve into more of a public Internet access area and civic center, and dump the paper books.

We have at least 4 mostly separate systems for distributing works: libraries, stores that sell new works, and stores that sell used works, and subscription based distributors of periodicals. These systems are often duplicated for different sorts of art-- not a lot of overlap between a record store, book store, and video game store though of course there are many stores that are all of these. All that wasteful overhead could be eliminated.

While we wouldn't have to replace copyright with some other system, we will likely want some means of rewarding artists and scientists beyond whatever deals they could arrange in an environment with no formal system at all. What means? In a word, patronage. Have some rough, approximate methods of determining how popular or valuable various works are so we can dole out support in a somewhat proportional manner. Perhaps have only a few tiers. What's important is that the methods not be easy to cheat or not much worth cheating, as well as inexpensive to administer and not too fatiguing for the public. We have contests and awards all the time. An expansion of that could provide guidance for awards of patronage, but would be tricky to keep the injection of money from corrupting things. However that is, I see those problems as solvable, whereas I don't see copyright as viable.

Re:Press release in english

[DrgnDancer]

Look, it's fairly simple. We're talking about two different things. We have copyright and personal property rights. Let's say that I, all by myself, make a movie. I'll call it "My Movie", because I'm creative that way. I'm old school, so My Movie was filmed and edited analog. At the end of the day, I have movie, which is Intellectual Property. I copyright it, and because of the valiant effort of people like you (and for that matter, me; I don't disagree in general with shortening copyright, I just think this is a silly argument for why) my copyright last ten years. I also have a physical piece of property, the master of My Movie. In ten years time, my copyright is up on My Movie. Anyone who has a copy can show it all they want, or use pieces of it for stock footage, whatever they want.

Except no one has a copy. For the release of My Movie, I rented the film reels to theaters, and at the end of the run they sent them all back to me. I only really needed the master, so I destroyed them (I recycled the film though, because I'm a good person). In the end the movie didn't do to well in the theaters (even my mom didn't like it. *cry*) so I never released the anticipated DVD. Now the only copy left is my master. Quite frankly I'm a bit embarrassed by the whole thing so you can't have the master. The master is my personal property. It's a real, physical thing.

That's essentially what happened with these old movies. The studios owned the masters. They rented (not sold, rented, it avoids the Doctrine of First Sale) the copies to the theaters, who showed the movies and sent them back after the run. When a movie stopped being profitable, the extra copies were slowly destroyed until only a few archival copies (or maybe only one) were left. Since this was before DVDs or VHS, that's it. A few copies which (irregardless of copyright) are the physical property of the studios. You can't make them give up those copies, it's not an IP issue, they own the physical media.

Bringing Avatar up only muddies the water. The fate of these old movies will never be the fate of Avatar. Millions of copies will be sold, and regardless of the copyright issues, all of those copies are covered by the Doctrine of First Sale. Meaning they can be resold, kept forever, or used as really inefficient Frisbees.

So what all this means is; copyright reform would not have saved those old movies. Copyright reform is not needed to save new movies from the same fate. This entire thread is completely ancillary to copyright reform.

It's not that copyright reform isn't needed (it is), it's not that these old movies being lost isn't a tragedy (it is, at least in the cases of the good ones :-)). It's that the two topics have little to do with one and other

Re:Press release in english

[HungryHobo]

watchmen:
I got my copy new from the bookstore a couple of years ago, reprints.

Should someone get paid for life+70 years (which would probably mean the life of author + life of their children + most of the life of their grandchildren) for, say, 1 year of labor?
Anyway, should a dead author be paid? Most of the dead people do not get salary or pension or any money at all, why should authors be different?

oh I agree that the current eternal copyright setup is stupid but so is a copyright term like 5 years that could very easily be shorter than the time it takes to create a decent work.

Should copyright last after death?
if it didn't then it would lead to age discrimination- old or sick authors would only be able to get a pittance for publishing deals because if they keeled over too soon the publisher would lose their copyright immediately.

A term which ignores the current mortal status of the writer really does make sense.

And following on from that if the copyright still exists then it has to belong to someone, should it just revert to the publishing company, why?
or should it be treated like any other asset and be passed on to whoever the owner wants it to go to?

Did you ever inherit a house, a car or anything else from anyone?
If so: what did you ever do to earn them?

Why should copyright immediately revert to the public upon the owners death any more than ownership of a house?
The spouse or children of the deceased didn't do any more to deserve the house than the spouse or child of a writer did to deserve the copyright.
why should the former get the income from renting out the property?

5 year copyright with the ability to renew it, however, the renewal price would increase each time you renew it.

As long as the renewal fee starts small and goes exponential that sounds perfectly reasonable.

I agree that current copyright law is a bit insane and yet some of the knee jerk "what did they do to deserve anything" approach is even worse on here.
Copyright reform, not "lets fuck the authors".

Also, how could big media rip off authors? I mean if the work enters public domain then the corporation cannot demand payment for the book, or rather it can, but I don't have to pay it.

EA games new release! The Wheel of Time! The game! Fox Studios new release, Watchmen, the movie, with no royalties paid to the authors! etc etc etc
Also print books still sell quite well so they could of course just print a book and sell it without any royalties to pay.

Re:Press release in english

[Pentium100]

Why should copyright immediately revert to the public upon the owners death any more than ownership of a house?

The difference between copyright and a house is that the latter is real property - made from scarce materials on scarce land and so on. Copyright is not a real property, it's just a (hopefully) time limited monopoly over copying of a creative work with the idea of letting authors benefit from their work because otherwise, as you said, the author would not get any money for his work. So, copyright is something like a job, that is, copyright makes writing books into a job that the author can get paid for without having a contract in the first place. You don't get to keep your job after death.

Well, consider this example - a person works in a "normal" job, gets salary, saves the money and buys/builds a house. Upon his death he leaves the house to whoever he wants, but he cannot leave his income to that person because after he dies the company won't be paying him anymore.
Now consider this - an author writes books, sells them, gets money and buys a house. Upon his death he leaves his house and the copyright to whoever he wants. Now that person has the house, but also has the copyright, the equivalent of the authors job.

As long as the renewal fee starts small and goes exponential that sounds perfectly reasonable.

It should go up pretty fast so that only very profitable works could have 40 years or longer copyrights. Also, the system could be made so that there would be no multiple extensions at a time (you have to come back every 5 years and after each renewal resets the clock to 5 years so that if you come a year after the last renewal you pay in full, but only get 1 year extension so your copyright lasts 5 years and not 9) and the author himself has to it, so dead author = 0-5 years of copyright left depending on whether the author managed to get an (early) renewal before death.

You know, the copyright could also be split into commercial and non commercial use, for example if you make money using somebody's work then you pay royalties longer than the copyright for non commercial use lasts, so a corporation cannot print and sell a 50 year old book without paying the author but someone can scan the book and put it online legally.

Re:Press release in english

[Anonymous Coward]

When copyright holders don't serve the public interest they don't have a right to hold the copyright. Withholding content from the public is not an option. If they do that by way of excessive pricing, restrictive technology, or other means you have no obligation to comply with their copyright. - my opinion -

Re:Press release in english

[Laser Dan]

To a certain degree, the owners of Avatar owe it to the shared culture that allowed them to make this movie.

Ahem Pocahontas ...

Re:Press release in english

[pipedwho]

It could if the rate grew exponentially at each point of renewal.

Re:Press release in english

[Alex Belits]

I wish people would stop blaming greed. The truth is you and I are as greedy as anyone else who has ever existed.

No.

Greed is okay.

HELL NO. It only looks normal because society forces people into a constant state of danger and fear to lose access to resources that are abundant to begin with, thus causing those people to exhibit behavior that resembles greed. Then real greedy monsters among you loudly proclaim "See!!! Everyone is greedy! We are just better than you at being greedy!".

The check is supposed to be a government that doesn't allow the greed of one person or entity to ruin things for everyone else.

That will never happen if American society won't stop encouraging and glorifying greed.

Re:Press release in english

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

You quoted me to the letter, yet somehow, you managed to make your reply have nothing whatsoever to do with my post (or anything that anyone has ever claimed, or ever would claim). Basically, your reply is one huge, laughably mis-aimed, strawman.

Still, that's the rigid standard for +5 insightful comments on slashdot about copyright.

Re:Press release in english

[Rysc]

1: current automatic copyright system but only for a very limited time, say less than a year.
2: if you want longer protection you have to register it by giving a full clean, unencrypted copy to something like the british library- a legal deposit library, it receives copies of all books produced in the United Kingdom.

This sounds good, especially if the initial registration is cheap and copyright extensions are available but require increasingly crushing fees.

Re:Press release in english

[gravis777]

So then you are trusting the government to be able to store and properly treat thousands, if not millions, of film stock, to prevent it from deteriorating over, what is copyright now, 70 years, 100 years? I cringe a the thought of a under-funded US government office being responsible for keeping up with this for decades on end. If a major studio, who has billions of dollars, is unable to maintain prints in their vaults, what makes you think the United States government can.

Still, interesting idea. If someone could realistically pull this off it would be a great thing.

Re:Press release in english

[orasio]

First, there is no such thing as "intellectual" property and then "personal" of "physical" property.
"intellectual" property is just a way to call a group of different kinds of distribution rights, but it shares nothing in common with actual property, so it's confusing in a discussion.

Aside from that, the issue is that the length of copyrights does change the picture.
If you make an awful picture, with beautiful photography, it doesn't make financial sense for theaters to keep copies just in case they can use your shots in the future. They would have to wait more than a hundred years to use your footage.
With a shorter copyright term, archival would make economic sense to more people, and thus cultural production would be safer from disappearance.

Re:Press release in english

[DrgnDancer]

I am fairly certain that it is still the case that theaters rent the disks that they play movies from, so archiving remain impossible. I know that's how they used to do it. The old movies reels were serial numbered, then rented to individual theaters. If you didn't send the reel back at the end of the run you better have a really good reason why. That's what I'm talking about. You can't play something you don't physically have, no matter what rights you hold to the content. The laws that govern the physical property that is the reel of film or the laser disk are distinct from the laws that govern the intellectual property which may or may not be contained on those reels or disks.

Re:Press release in english

[HungryHobo]

Upon his death he leaves the house to whoever he wants, but he cannot leave his income to that person because after he dies the company won't be paying him anymore.

Not true.
If you die before you retire your pension fund will normally be paid to your beneficiaries.
few authors actually retire at 65, many keep writing until they die.
Copyright isn't very much like a pension though- there is no balance, only the time left on the copyright.
With a pension your beneficiaries get the balance.
And a pension isn't a real object either, it's nothing more than a set of written promises and imagination yet it is still an asset that can be given to someone.
With a copyright why shouldn't they get the balance of time left?

Wether you die before or after the check arrived you still earned the money, why shouldn't you get to choose who it goes to?

So really this is just another "fuck authors" idea.

so a corporation cannot print and sell a 50 year old book without paying the author but someone can scan the book and put it online legally.

That could get messy, if I have ads on my blog and make 20 bucks a month profit and I post some scans am I making a profit by drawing more traffic and thus covered under commercial use? plus the line between what an individual is doing and a corporation is doing can get blurred when corps offer freebies etc to people to take certain actions.

As for your odd thing about only getting a short extension if you renew too soon and only the author being able to extend them you're still in "fuck authors" mode there. Just treat copyright like any of those other imaginary things like pensions, money owed to them and the numbers stored on the banks computer which tell people what their balance is and let them sell them, pass on their ownership or give them away how they choose.

Hell if you try any of your little plans all that will happen is that authors who are elderly or infirm will suddenly have amazingly tallented sons, daughters, husbands or wives and who is to say they can't "coach" their family members on how to write well or "offer style advice and editing" especially considering how many children of authors really do go on to be writers themselves.

Re:Press release in english

[dacaldar]

Of course if they could irretrievably destroy things like Howard the Duck and A.I., that might partially make up for it.

Re:Press release in english

[Pentium100]

Short extension if renewing too soon is to prevent anyone from "extending" to 100 years right after registration.

OK, we at least agree that the current model (life + 70 years or whatever) is too long. So, what would be your suggestions of fixing it?

Re:Press release in english

[HungryHobo]

another solution to your "Short extension" thing would be to only allow renewal for the next period.
Period 0: can register any time between 0 and 5 years to extend to 10.
Period 1: can register any time between 5 and 10 years to extend to 15.
Period 2: can register any time between 10 and 15 years to extend to 20.
etc

No need for some oddball system that penalizes people for being prompt and confiscates time they've paid for.
After all the whole idea is to merely make sure they still have any interest in retaining copyright.

btw all this does incur a significant overhead since any body trying to handle these registrations would have to handle hundreds of millions of registrations and re-registrations every year along with challenges and complications.

1:Very short automatic copyright.(so that authors don't have to be ultra secretive for fear that a rough draft will be published before they can copyright it)
2:Register by sending a clean unencrypted copy to some official body like a deposit libray to get a 5 or 10 year copyright
3:Some time in the last year or 2 you need to pay a (very small) fee to extend the copyright if you still have any interest in it.
4:Every 5 years pay again with the fee increasing exponentialy so that it won't put someone out of pocket at all to hang on to something for a few decades but disney would have to pay billions to hang on to mickey after a century.
(for example for a first time fee of 1 cent and an increase of (*10) each renewal it would cost you $11.11 bucks to hang on to the copyright for 25 years but over a billion to hang on to it for 60)

5:Treat copyright the same as any of those other imaginary things like pension funds or account balances and allow the owners to leave them to their widows and children.
You've done the work, even if the check for work you've done arrives after your death it still belongs to your estate, your employers don't suddenly get to not pay because they delayed enough, similarly with copyright they've done the work, they earned the copyright already, it's not dependendent on them creating even more works.
They're getting paid for what they've already done.

Re:Press release in english

[Trogre]

How much do you trust the copyright office to preserve your copyrighted work, and make archival copies as media degrades?

TPB

[Anonymous Coward]

fluctuat nec mergitur!

These guys never go down...

[TrisexualPuppy]

They never asked for money as other torrent sites did for legal costs. They have managed to make it against all odds. Props to TPB!

Re:These guys never go down...

[HopefulIntern]

Indeed, I am wearing my TPB t shirt today in support. Some of the younger managers here at work (I work for a major multinational IT co) are glaring at me :(

Re:These guys never go down...

[spleen_blender]

I was going to mod this interesting, but I decided you should just come down to my office, Andrew.

Re:These guys never go down...

[Professor_UNIX]

They're probably glaring at you because you're wearing a t-shirt to work at "a major multinational IT company".

Re:These guys never go down...

[subanark]

I don't know about you, but here on the west coast wearing causal every day is perfectly fine (provided you don't do face to face with your customers, or your working for/with the government/military), you may get a few glares if you are wearing a tie.

Re:These guys never go down...

[Any Web Loco]

Hi -

I'm one of the younger managers at a large multinational. Were you, a "hopefullintern", wearing a TPB t-shirt at my office I'd think twice about your professionalism.

What you do on your own time is your own business - but imho your support of TPB is probably best not demonstrated at your place of business, espcaially when you work for a major IT co!

Don't get me wrong - I support TPB and I've got the t-shirt too - but there's a time & a place.

Cheers,

awl

Re:These guys never go down...

[HopefulIntern]

Did I mention it is a company I have absolutely no desire to keep working for? I am not customer facing, so the dress code is virtually non-existent. People here wear Che Guevara shirts to work all the time. Maybe a shirt depicting a mass-murderer is more acceptable? It's a sick world.

Re:These guys never go down...

[LanMan04]

There's a pretty big gulf between "wearing a tie" and "wearing a tshirt".

Re:These guys never go down...

[Anonymous Coward]

You've apparently never been to Google, Microsoft, Sun, Apple...

Re:These guys never go down...

[Hurricane78]

Well, you can vote for them. And that forces the government to give them money. Now isn’t that nice? :)

Re:These guys never go down...

[billstewart]

I worked for Bell Labs back in the day that we could get the library to order technical journals for us - so I had them get a subscription to 2600. And everybody was fine with that, because it did have useful and interesting information. (This was after in-band signaling had become pretty much universal and blue boxes didn't usually work any more, but before 2600 had become mostly a computer magazine.)

Re:These guys never go down...

[Mister Whirly]

That is why it is ALWAYS appropriate to wear a fake tuxedo t-shirt daily to work, like I do. Some things in the fashion world are just timeless and never go out of style.

Re:These guys never go down...

[vm146j2]

I got my University EE library to get a "subscription" to TAP! I have no idea where they sent the money to, and I suspect the copies were hand delivered, but I did learn how to build a blue box.

Re:These guys never go down...

[geekoid]

Do they really care that much, or is that just what you expect then to be doing?

Re:These guys never go down...

[geekoid]

Then leave and stop being a dick.

Re:These guys never go down...

[Any Web Loco]

You think that the fact that you have no desire to work there means it's ok to act unprofessionally?

Re:These guys never go down...

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

You think that the fact that you have no desire to work there means it's ok to act unprofessionally?

There are miles between 'unprofessional' and 'mindless brown-nosing drone.' Although most of the drones can't tell the difference.

Re:These guys never go down...

[sjames]

If he was a salesperson meeting potential clients in that shirt, it would be a problem, but if he has zero chance of meeting a customer and isn't offending his coworkers, what's the problem?

Re:These guys never go down...

[Anonymous Coward]

Did I mention it is a company I have absolutely no desire to keep working for?

Just remember, the people you piss of at this job are your references when trying to get your next job.

Re:These guys never go down...

[Anachragnome]

"Don't get me wrong - I support TPB and I've got the t-shirt too - but there's a time & a place."

A time and place for what? To take your beliefs and hide them away like they are something to be ashamed of? To let peer pressure decide how, and when, you voice your opinion?

I think you are missing the main point of that T-shirt. It is to voice one's support of The Pirate Bay, and by extension, peer-to-peer networking, in spite of ambient opposition to the entire technology and the freedoms it enables. I get the impression that GP wears it for such reasons.

GP at least has a spine to support that shirt while he walks the walk. *tips hat*

I bet he still has his job too.

Re:These guys never go down...

[bughunter]

Perhaps the culture where choice of t-shirt slogan (and not work performance) is the measure of one's "professionalism" is why his desire to work there has evaporated?

Re:These guys never go down...

[Anonymous Coward]

Did I mention it is a company I have absolutely no desire to keep working for?
I am not customer facing, so the dress code is virtually non-existent. People here wear Che Guevara shirts to work all the time. Maybe a shirt depicting a mass-murderer is more acceptable? It's a sick world.

George Bush t-shirts?

Re:These guys never go down...

[Anonymous Coward]

You go! I used to work for (no kidding) the pirating office of the MPAA - they answered the phone "Video Pirates!" cracked me up every time. I popped for a Pirate Bay shirt this am.

Re:These guys never go down...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi,

I'm one of the senior directors at a large multinational. If you're serious about the post above I'd think twice about your professionalism.

You need the live the values for your company to survive in the marketplace. Today that includes understanding the open movement, and if you want to effect change you need to stand up for those beliefs and explain your reasoning at every possible opportunity.

Don't get me wrong, this includes using the Pirate Party as an example when you're doing public presentations in the name of your company.

(and yes, I'm somewhat spoiling my message by posting as anonymous. What I wrote is true, but I don't want it connected to my Slashdot-account)

Re:These guys never go down...

[HopefulIntern]

Look before you get your panties in a twist, there is nothing unprofessional about me. Everyone here wears rude/silly tshirts, it's no big deal. I threw in the "managers are glaring at me" as kind of a joke.
Secondly, the comment that I have no desire to keep working here was misconstrued. As you might have been able to tell, I am an intern, on a short contract. After I finish I want to move far away from this shitty country. It is not because I don't like working here, because I do.

Re:These guys never go down...

[Omestes]

unprofessionally

I find this term amusing. If you don't deal with customers, or the outside, who really cares what you wear? How does wearing a T-shirt effect your job performance, which should be the only metric that matters in non-outward facing professions.

Sure, controversial shirts, that could distract from work are bad, but only because they distract from work. I doubt very much a TPB shirt could be considered controversial. A Che shirt, a bit more because of the current resurgent Red Threat attitude.

I never understood "business attire" for those who work in cubicle farms. If you want to wear shorts and sandles, and it doesn't hurt your performance, fine, it shouldn't matter.

Hell, I see no problem with going to the office with uncombed hair, a pair of ratty shorts, flip-flops, and a wife-beater, as long as you still perform well.

Professionalism is a sham.

German Fail

[ItsPaPPy]

Havent they caught on by now, if you shut them down they will just find someone else?

Re:German Fail

[Anonymous Coward]

Havent they caught on by now, if you shut them down they will just find someone else?

Just like all other illegal activities, try to shut them down and they'll always pop up somewhere else.

Re:German Fail

[Anonymous Coward]

The point here is that it isn't illegal. The Pirate Bay itself does not host any copyrighted content. They don't even run a tracker anymore. And the injunction wasn't even against the Pirate Bay, it was against an ISP, an IP packet pusher. If providing internet access to servers which list torrents is grounds for an injunction, then who is Microsoft's ISP?

Re:German Fail

[shentino]

Maybe you're forgetting the conviction in Swedish court.

While they're still on appeal I'm not holding my breath.

Re:German Fail

[Per Wigren]

That conviction only ruled that the tracker was illegal. The Pirate Party is only hosting the TPB home page and the search engine, they don't host any torrent-files nor do they have a tracker anymore.

Re:German Fail

[h00manist]

Written law, we all have equal rights. Unwritten law, the powerful follow the law, but they also have the use of force - and all that accompanies it. Power, money, paid well equipped lawyers, grunts, PR, media, and the abuse of it all. When written law fails the powerful, they use the unwritten law. Let's study both laws, or we won't know how things work. Currently the "unwritten law" is something like "all information can be claimed by an owner, who can control it and charge for it. People must agree, or suffer some consequences". Of course there is also the unwritten "people control their own thoughts - and actions". Written copyright law is just a small part of it all.

Good think Distributed Tracking exists

[commodore64_love]

I never even noticed Pirate Bay's disappearance.

News?

[kingofnexus]

The pirate bay is down/up so often is it worth reporting everytime? If it was going to go down for an extended period then yes, but its barely been 24hrs.

Re:News?

[mhelander]

True, but the news here is that TPB is now hosted by the Swedish Pirate Party.

Re:News?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it is. The German ISP which previously advertised the Pirate Bay ASN ("provided access to the Pirate Bay servers") was forced with an injunction to cut access. This is noteworthy because they had filed a "Schutzschrift", which is supposed to give the target of an injunction a chance to be heard before the injunction. The injunction was granted without giving the ISP a chance for defense. That is only acceptable if the matter is urgent, which it clearly is not.

Re:News?

[DrgnDancer]

I think the story here is that a political party (however small and fringe) has taken up hosting for them. Given the political views of the Pirate Party, they are unlikely to cave under legal pressure. Given that they have at least some number of representatives in the EU Parliament, and many of the Parliaments of member states, they have some influences over law and justice.

None of which will prevent them from having their pants sued off, but it may help them out a bit when it inevitably happens.

Re:News?

[Elektroschock]

And the ACTA treaty would make that illegal. Btw. MEP Christian Engström is protected by parliamentarian immunity.

Re:News?

[Hurricane78]

The reason are deliberately vague bullshit terms like “urgent”. You can say a specific number. Like how much time is left. But you can’t say “very urgent”, and much less only “urgent” without anything. Because it’s entierly meaningless.
It’s like saying: “This car is 50% faster.”. 50% faster than WHAT?

Re:News?

[h00manist]

The pirate bay is down/up so often is it worth reporting everytime? If it was going to go down for an extended period then yes, but its barely been 24hrs.

One of the hot battles, firefights, front lines, of this copyright war, are the success or failure to keep any large, visible, wide-distribution information-sharing center up, be it a website, p2p technology, or DVD swap meet on a street corner. So I believe we're actually discussing the legal push and pull of our society's copyright law battle, The Pirate Bay is simply a symbolic, and perhaps strategic terrain, a battleground to be won or lost by each side. The particular battle that's lost or won is not important, it's the long term fight to conquer the public mind-share, in favor or against intellectual-property law.

From the point of view of money, the math of the fight is simple. They will keep fighting only as long as they see lots of money down the line. When they believe there is no possibility of making enough money on it anymore, they will start to give up. P2P is taking money out of the business, but not all of it at once. So it's a threat if it grows numerous, not if it simply exists in small numbers. If it stays in small numbers, they use written law, legal means. When it starts growing, they start getting tempted to use force, the abuse of power, any means at all. Just watch http://www.stealthisfilm.com/

Re:News?

[h00manist]

And the ACTA treaty would make that illegal. Btw. MEP Christian Engström is protected by parliamentarian immunity.

Wow that's really interesting. Surely the copyright industry is going to be studying the limits of that immunity, anyone know how far that could protect TPB? Maybe it will protect only him personally, not all the people, connections, servers, etc involved in keeping it running. In that case he could perhaps host the thing on his cellphone, or personal laptop, but not more than that, using that particular protection.

Re:News?

[Anonymous Coward]

None of which will prevent them from having their pants sued off, but it may help them out a bit when it inevitably happens.

Sure it will.

Re:News?

[moonbender]

I don't know if the immunity is stronger in Sweden, but in Germany it can be removed by a sort of vote by other members of parliament. And you're still liable for things you do while you're immune, it just means they can't charge you, imprison you or do things like search your house as long as you've still got it.

Re:News?

[Elektroschock]

The European Parliament seems to be seated in Belgium and Belgium has not even a government.

ACTA would be binding for most parts of the world.

Re:News?

[muphin]

Actually the immunity would involve him and his parties resources, including servers.
Servers; you cant raid a parliamentarian due to the very sensitive nature of government issues, secrets and what not. if TPB is hosted on the same server as other parliamentary resources then the courts will have a very tough time granting permission to take that resource.
Internet; they wont be able to shut down the internet because they would then censor the parliament parties website, a big no no,media would have a field day, it would be political suicide for anyone who does this.

Re:News?

[rdnetto]

This is an incredibly dangerous move on the Pirate Party's part though. Until now, they've remained separate from the Pirate Bay and they've achieved a pretty decent following. But if they get lose in court as the Pirate Bay's ISP, then it will damage their reputation and they could lose a lot of potential followers, ones who aren't hard core pirates but were leaning towards them because of their policies.

Feh

[Pojut]

I don't always download torrents, but when I do, I reach for Demonoid.

Stay downloading, my friends.

Re:Feh

[alphax45]

Thank you for the morning LOL!

Re:Feh

[leamanc]

Wow, you are an interesting guy!

Re:Feh

[danbert8]

Whoever modded this offtopic is either uncultured or something went "woosh". Or maybe they could just be the most interesting mod in the world?

Re:Feh

[lwsimon]

Why is this modded funny?

Re:Feh

[Pojut]

Because of the most interesting man in the world.

Re:Feh

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QI58wj4b4g0

Re:Feh

[Narishma]

Because.

Re:Feh

[h00manist]

I don't always download torrents, but when I do, I reach for Demonoid.

Stay downloading, my friends.

I'm sorry sir, what did you say? You load up terrorists while invoking demons? With other conspirators?

Re:Feh

[geekoid]

shhh it's a Secret.

Re:Feh

[gravis777]

Does it really matter anymore, though? With more and more sites going away from trackers and to magnet links, if site goes down, someone with a mirror could have all the torrents back up in a matter of mintes / hours. All you really need is a torrent search engine, which, after shutting down their trackers, is pretty much what TPB became. Could easily get the same material off of isohunt or btjunkie or one of the many other torrent search engines out there (google). What I like about TPB is that they have Browse (most torrent sites have this, though), a good user base that will tell you if torrents are fakes (the smaller sites have the ability to comment, but you may only see one or two comments on a popular file, and none on a less popular file), and the fact that they FIGHT.

The fact that they also have international attention gives me the ability to easily find torrents of television shows not available in the US, although BTJunkie does a great job of this as well. I am a huge fan of the different Talent shows (Britain's Got Talent, Mam Talent, Minute of Fame (translation? its Russian), etc), and about the only way to see half of these shows outside of the original market is BT.

Makes sense

[CHJacobsen]

This is actually a fairly smart political move.

With the swedish elections coming up in August, they are sure to gain some much needed notoriety.

Also, they are in a different position to fight the inevitable legal battle. Since they are a political party, they don't have to put economic interests first, but are actually expected to take the fight to the bitter end. If they end up losing, and go bankrupt in the process, at least they've stood up for what they believe in.

Either way, we're up for some good drama. Stay tuned.

Re:Makes sense

[mhelander]

It will be interesting to see if the copyright lobby will go so far as to try to throw a Swedish politician in jail. But if so, that could well backfire. Will they dare create a martyr?

Re:Makes sense

[dskzero]

I didn't even think about it that way (of course, i have no idea of swedish political agenda), and it will really stir some good drama. I don't think their intentions are to sweep the whole battleground, but to make a point by becoming a very real pressence in the elections.

Interesting point.

Re:Makes sense

[elrous0]

Sadly, it's only a matter of time before it's cut off at the ISP level in most countries (either by law or corporate mandate). Of course, that will set up a game of "chase the new pirate bay IP address." But the days of typing in thepiratebay.org into a web browser and getting the site are likely numbered for most of us.

Re:Makes sense

[Elektroschock]

The tool is ACTA, an international trade agreement and its 3 strike rules. Super-secret. A French model for cutting internet access.

Re:Makes sense

[Anonymous Coward]

(either by law or corporate mandate)

There's a difference?

Re:Makes sense

[Anonymous Coward]

Hopefully, by then, it will be as easy and ubiquitous to type thepiratebay.onion into a web browser.

I'm not quite dead yet! "It's just a flesh wound"

[CodePwned]

Cue up Monty Python Holy Grail quotes

Learn the bloody lesson

[durrr]

If the money funneled into legal departments to hunt pirates were instead funneled into marketing and development of competitive alternatives we'd have next to no piracy.
Instead, the money that the lawyers don't pocket goes to implemention of fascist-grade DRM and to greed inspired practices such as pay-for DLC which is a massive turn off. If i want to have a game continously bleed me for cash i'd play an MMORPG(which i do; eve online, but they atleast have the sense of providing expansions for free(and quite often) so the bleeding is smooth)

Re:Learn the bloody lesson

[Krneki]

As long as there will be people unwilling to pay there will be piracy. You can combat them, but you will just get less piracy and no financial gain.

If people don't want to spend money, they won't. If it is free they might want to check it out.

Re:Learn the bloody lesson

[jonaskoelker]

If the money funneled into legal departments to hunt pirates were instead funneled into marketing and development of competitive alternatives we'd have next to no piracy.
Instead, the money that the lawyers don't pocket goes to implemention of fascist-grade DRM and to greed inspired practices such as pay-for DLC which is a massive turn off. If i want to have a game continously bleed me for cash i'd play an MMORPG(which i do; eve online, but they atleast have the sense of providing expansions for free(and quite often) so the bleeding is smooth)

Who do you think decides where the money goes?

Whose interests will the allocation of money be most aligned with?

Who designs the system which dictates who gets to do the allocation and what benefits them?

I think the people who are positioned to apply the lesson of history are already applying it, and the suckers (that's us, the consumers) by and large pay.

This is not about the trackers

[chrb]

From TF translation:

"The Pirate Party delivers bandwidth to the home page and the search engine The Pirate Bay, while the tracker and the torrent files that were previously on the page are now hosted elsewhere. These were never affected by the German court decision."

Re:This is not about the trackers

[dave420]

I didn't think TPB was running a tracker - I thought they turned that off ages ago.

Re:This is not about the trackers

[Pentium100]

they did. However, around that time a new tracker, called openbittorrent.com appeared. This tracker has no index and does not host torrent files. It may or may not be run by the same people that run TPB.

hey, traditional media distributors:

[circletimessquare]

buy all the legislators in as many countries as you want. hire as many lawyers as you want. you're working against tens of millions of technically astute, media hungry and most importantly, POOR teenagers

there's nothing you can do: you lose. obfuscation, encryption, obscurity, steganography, darknets, p2p, proxies... we win, assholes. you will not preserve your dead economic model. the economic model of free media on the internet will be foisted on you. adapt, or die. end of fucking story. deal with it

Re:hey, traditional media distributors:

[Anonymous Coward]

P.S. Allow me to introduce you to your faceless enemy. My name is Legion: for we are many.

Re:hey, traditional media distributors:

[zwei2stein]

No, we will not.

This is game of whack-a-mole. Those teenagers need to be able to access shared stuff. That access needs to be reasonably open if masses are to benefit from it and it is singple-point-of-failure. Whacking website or proxy is as easy as dropping packets to certain ip address. Obscurity means useleness for millions and win for media companies.

You still need to download data to your computer. No encryption or steganography gets around the fact that any reasonably fast download will be up on radar due to its size.

Obsuscation, Steganography and Encryption is not going to help much either. People of both ends of pipe need to know wtf is going on, and if you want something more than couple of people, it needs to be public.

Efficient sharing is open. Open means vulnurelable. They own pipes, and they own people who make laws about pipes. Best we can do without pipes is sneakernet.

True hope is that those millions will turn to adults and vote for change. Reality is that as they turn to adults, they will have different issues than free music or movies.

Re:hey, traditional media distributors:

[Jaysyn]

This probably doesn't ring true for most, but I've got a lot more new music by sneakernet than by Internet.

Re:hey, traditional media distributors:

[Barrinmw]

At the very least, if they are able to crush the internet piracy (which they won't) you are forgetting Sneakernet that will quickly become widespread in any group of people.

Re:hey, traditional media distributors:

[ZekoMal]

This scares me.

What we need to be doing, is killing the middle man. The RIAA, the MPAA, the greedy non-artist studios that do nothing but leech off of the artist.

Don't say "free as in beer media" is the future. Say that buying directly from the artist, at whatever price the artist dictates, is the future. That is the free you want.

Because if you make it so that artists can't make money at all, then you will kill creativity. Don't give me anecdotal evidence to the contrary, one artist here and there already sitting on millions or on another job do not count as success with 100% free art. At the end of the day, a lot of art takes years of 80 hour weeks to produce, and you can kiss non-D movies and non-flash games goodbye if everyone stopped paying the artists involved.

Re:hey, traditional media distributors:

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you know when you are saying something nonsensical? Take what you said, and the say the opposite. If both are true, then your argument is absurd.

Re:hey, traditional media distributors:

[Anonymous Coward]

Here here.
- Justin Davidow.

Re:hey, traditional media distributors:

[Interoperable]

True hope is that those millions will turn to adults and vote for change. Reality is that as they turn to adults, they will have different issues than free music or movies.

Most voters want better roads, better health care, a cleaner environment, cheaper cars and lower taxes. Demanding legal file-sharing and better quality content seems right in line with that.

Re:hey, traditional media distributors:

[Yvanhoe]

buying cultural works is so passé.
Financing an artist is.

It is a paradigm shift :
http://flattr.com/

Re:hey, traditional media distributors:

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, yes, the current method of file sharing means you'll only have a use of bandwidth when you download something.
However, it should be trivial for any decently skilled programmer to implement a distributed "hosting/sharing" system which keeps a constant flow of information to and from your computer, if you donate 10gb of harddrive space(or 1-2 gb of ram if you don't want to wear down your hd faster than necessary) which is used for a load balacing system for say, slashdotted articles and cat videos you would have a justified reason to have an in and outflow of encrypted information which you don't know what contains, if the system is quite open and distributed, as any robust system ought to be then of course some pirated movies and games would find its way into the system, and as they just happens to pass by you save them to your harddrive if you're aware of them, someone just observing the stream of bits incoming and outgoing is however entirely unaware of any of the content.

The obvious drawbacks of this method would of course be a constantly increased bandwidth usage and lower transfer speeds as you need to sift the good bits out of a 'contaminated' stream. But if such an adaption is necessary it will happen. When it comes to software systems there's not very many limits to creativity, meaning that no matter what digital hurdles are built there will always be some innovate person jumping over them.

Re:hey, traditional media distributors:

[icebraining]

We have, ourselves, full confidence that if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected, and if the best arrangements are made, as they are being made, we shall prove ourselves once more able to defend our Internets, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone.

Even though large parts of Internets and many old and famous trackers have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Ifpi and all the odious apparatus of MPAA rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the ef-nets and darknets, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Internets, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the baywords.org, we shall fight on the /. and on the digg, we shall fight in the courts; we shall never surrender, and if, which I do not for a moment believe, the Internets or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the Anon Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in Cerf's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.

Signed;

The Pirate Bay Crew - Always when needed.

Re:hey, traditional media distributors:

[Anonymous Coward]

buy all the legislators in as many countries as you want. hire as many lawyers as you want. you're working against tens of millions of technically astute, media hungry and most importantly, POOR teenagers

there's nothing you can do: you lose. obfuscation, encryption, obscurity, steganography, darknets, p2p, proxies... we win, assholes. you will not preserve your dead economic model. the economic model of free media on the internet will be foisted on you. adapt, or die. end of fucking story. deal with it

Why is this post and the child beneath it all about 'teenagers'? You're actually ruining your own defense of file sharing in general if you're sitting here griping that its about 'teens accessing free stuff'. You're only giving the other side even more motivation.

Re:hey, traditional media distributors:

[Anonymous Coward]

amen to that
i go with the if i like it i might pay the AUTHOR/ ARTIST $3. not the lame ass publisher who thinks an ebook release of a book thatwas released in 1969 and has been out of print for almost 3 decades, is worth $12

Re:hey, traditional media distributors:

[Anonymous Coward]

Freenet P2P is unwhackable by design. All whackings can do is drive more users there, and to comparable networks. And Sneakernet is growing exponentially. (USB 3 copies a 700MB movie file in under two seconds.) Ergo, free music and movies are forever. But that's not the issue.

The bigger picture is that the formerly heterogenous landscape of many interconnected information networks (electronic or not) is simplifying into two strata: a highly transparent, legally controlled public zone where you don't really have privacy although many think they do, and an intransparent zone where privacy precludes accountability. Legal and corporate measures against illegal network traffic speed up this divide because they destroy grey areas of the "rules are present but not enforced" type. This is true in many areas, not just filesharing.

The destructing of grey areas makes it harder for cultural norms to shift to legal to illegal and vice versa. This means a lot of decisions about what is legal are being made right now. And these decisions are probably very much long-term.

Re:hey, traditional media distributors:

[Anonymous Coward]

and we are not cowards!

Re:hey, traditional media distributors:

[cpghost]

Obsuscation, Steganography and Encryption is not going to help much either. People of both ends of pipe need to know wtf is going on, and if you want something more than couple of people, it needs to be public.

Not necessarily true. In fact, because P2P filesharing is so immensely popular, anonymous P2P systems a la Freenet, Gnunet et. al. will be even more effective, once enough people are being pushed (nudged, or coerced) to join them. It's only a matter of time until most of the Internet traffic will be a big end-to-end encrypted binary blob that no deep packet inspection can open. Sure, that's just the technical workaround and not a cure to the social disease that Copyright has mutated into, but sometimes, societies are driven by technology too.

Re:hey, traditional media distributors:

[brit74]

My name is Legion: for we are many.

Hm. Wasn't "Legion" the name of the demons that possessed a man in the Bible? I have to give you credit for subtly slamming pirates.

And He (Jesus) asked him (the man), "What is thy name?" And he answered, saying, "My name is Legion: for we [demons] are many."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legion_(demon)

Re:hey, traditional media distributors:

[Mad Leper]

Killing the middle man would be the last thing pirates would want. If it weren't for the RIAA/MPAA the pirates would be screwing the artists directly rather than by proxy, and no-one want to be a party to that.

As long as the MPAA/RIAA exist, the pirates can safely take all the media they like while rationalizing it as "sticking it to the man"

Re:hey, traditional media distributors:

[h00manist]

Best we can do without pipes is sneakernet

Weekly Friday DVD swap meets before-movie-time in public squares would be nice. In fact, the DVD's could be legit, they can be watched hundreds of times just fine.

Re:hey, traditional media distributors:

[jafac]

I hear you on the evils of the RIAA/MPAA; the abusive contracts, the monopolistic practices, price-fixing, payola, lobbying and bribery, perversion of our copyright system, etc.

But one also can not deny the creative value in the collaborative aspect of a record COMPANY. (or Movie studio). - including, in the case of music, the sound/recording engineers, the huge amount of innovation that has gone into recording technology, the often annoying, but also often awesomely creative music producers (who take a band or act's song, add instruments, remove instruments, change levels, re-arrange things, and make a SOUND) - the graphic artists, the makeup artists, stage designers, etc. - hell, even the sleazy promoters have an element of creativity to how a tour is planned, arranged, acts are lined up, venues are selected, and even how retailers are corralled and co-ordinated to launch a new release; all part of an "experience" that for many is just banal commercialism, and for others, part of the excitement of being a music fan; and all factored into the price of the CD and/or concert ticket and/or other merchandise.

Same goes for movies. Ever sit through the closing credits, and just look at the hundreds and hundreds of names that scroll by. Even contemplate the talent of the person who keeps track of all those people's contribution to the overall project?

I wholly agree that this group model has killed individual, and small-group creativity, and the abuses at the corporate/business level have intruded intolerably on our civil liberties. But - there IS a value in, and a place for, large-scale entertainment and performance/art production.

The civil disobedience model has been the obvious path since Apple created a system sound file named "sosume". It was obvious then, that digital audio technology was going to lead to this. I am glad to see this evolve into a political party. I've read the party's platform, and I think it's reasonable; and unlike Dr. Lessig, I think the party's name is quite appropriate and acceptable. It's an outright rejection of the unfair bias (and labelling) against our counterculture. We were called beatnicks in the 1920's, and we said; "go ahead, call us beatnicks". We were called hippies in the 1960's, and we said; "yeah, we're hippies, and you're not." Even black Americans permit themselves to use the dreaded n-word. No "cracker's" allowed. So now we're Pirates. Why not?

Re:hey, traditional media distributors:

[Anonymous Coward]

Well that all assumes status quo of course. For example, if the media conglomerates can get enough parents of these poor teenagers to believe that copyright violation is a bad idea, these teenagers may find themselves without the tools required to pirate (a computer, etc.) or even getting sent to bed with no dinner. Do realize that although your point is good, it is only 100% guaranteed if you postulate no major changes in public opinion on pirating.

Re:hey, traditional media distributors:

[jack2000]

You say this like it's a bad thing. It's not all that bad. >:)

Re:hey, traditional media distributors:

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

True hope is that those millions will turn to adults and vote for change. Reality is that as they turn to adults, they will have different issues than free music or movies.

Yep, that's the hope. But I share your doubt. Look at what happened with the baby boomers and drug laws - those guys grew up with a very relaxed attitude towards drugs yet once they got put in charge of things they went all draconian with drug laws. We may very well see a similar phenomenon with today's kids. I hope not.

Re:hey, traditional media distributors:

[rastoboy29]

It's not about the free music or movies, it's about the fact that the only way to stop it will also result in them shackling our minds.

And I think you understate their problems rather tremendously.  They can (and have) made it more difficult, but only slightly.  There's just too damn much data, and even Joe Public won't stand for them literally filtering the whole internet.

Re:hey, traditional media distributors:

[rastoboy29]

Yes, the pirates will suck ALL the money out of ALL movies and ALL art and there will be NO money to be made, and thus we will have only crap.

Do you really think that will happen?

We've had file sharing in a big way for over a decade now and the music industry still thrives.  Or do you think it only thrives because of guilt induced iTunes customers?  Would that be a sustainable business model, anyway?

Nonsense.

Re:hey, traditional media distributors:

[Xest]

That's a very simplistic, and rather pessimistic view with quite a few holes in it.

"You still need to download data to your computer. No encryption or steganography gets around the fact that any reasonably fast download will be up on radar due to its size."

It might well show up on "radar", but it'll still be buried between the billions of large legitimate downloads and transfers that occur each day, from high quality video conferencing, to remote backups, to downloads of the latest software versions, to legitimate file transfers between people collaborating on hobbyist projects. There's simply too many large data transfers, between too many different hosts, such that if illegal file transfers are sufficiently obfuscated, it is just not viable to pick them all out.

Technology in terms of obscuring file sharing has a long way it can still go if it needs to, writing a plugin based file sharing system, where data transfers are wrapped up in other plugin-implemented protocols such as HTTP, FTP, Games protocols and so forth and where the plugins themselves are transferred via P2P isn't a massively difficult task, it's just somewhat time consuming, and simply put, there's no real need for it just yet, but you can gurantee it'll happen should the need arise. There's no reason file transfers can't be masked to look like legitimate web usage in this respect, and the amount of processing power it'd take in terms of DPI to figure out what is merely obfuscated data, and what is legitimate traffic would be well be on any ISP, possibly even beyond many governments in fact.

The issue for the industry is there's the political aspect too, and to start really stopping file sharing you have to start passively snooping on encrypted connections and so forth, which crosses an important line- it is a clear breach of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and if you're in Europe, the European Convention on Human Rights. You'd have to face international criticism, or like the UK when our old Labour government did just this- face the European courts if you're in the UK, or you'd have to pull out of being signatories of these declarations, which in itself will put you in the international spotlight, and lose any international political standing you may have once had. This is a line that most governments simply wont cross, even if it means upsetting the people feeding them backhanders in the music/movie industry.

It's a game of brinksmanship for sure, it's a constant battle between the industry trying to push fundamental principles on freedoms, legal rights, privacy and so forth of Western society to their limits, and the pirates creating further countermeasures that require further bending of the laws and principles to fight it.

The music/movie industry wont win, because for them to do so, would mean the abandonment of some of the fundamental principles of Western society, and pretty much every Western government recognises that although they'll go so far, abandoning the fundamental principles on which their society is built, and losing all international influence and respect as a result, is simply a step too far in protecting the industry.

Besides, even if governments do drop their principles and stoop to the level of China, or North Korea, then I suspect you'll still find kids swapping contraband on USB pen drives, or wirelessly between their mobile phones.

I don't disagree that it's technically possible for governments and the industry to defeat measures pirates come up with, you're right about that. But to ignore the expense of continuing to do so in the face of ever more advanced obfuscation, and to ignore the political lines that must be crossed to do so, is bound to result in the false conclusion you've come to that the industry can somehow win this.

Case in point, I can use a fully encrypted connection to Giganews' US servers. Giganews is protected under legal precedent, and my encrypted connection is protected from government snooping under the ECHR. Sure they can theoretically

TBP and DHT

[gorzek]

TPB going down isn't even that big a deal anymore, since they shut down the tracker and went full DHT. At this point, you can pretty much get by with something like IsoHunt. All we need for torrents anymore are search engines. Having someone actually run a tracker has become completely unnecessary.

But it does lots of good PR for TPB to keep getting brought down, then popping up a couple hours later. Makes the authorities pursuing them look utterly incompetent.

Re:TBP and DHT

[chichilalescu]

You're right. It's beginning to look a lot like "the boat that rocked" (fun movie, if you haven't seen it).

Re:TBP and DHT

[Anonymous Coward]

This one?

Re:TBP and DHT

[ifrag]

Maybe, although there are a few nice things about TPB. For one the VIP / Trusted system was at times useful, especially when looking for release day type content. Also, the comments posted on TPB were useful at times, although some other sites include comment systems as well. TPB also has one of the least cluttered no-nonsense layouts (with ad-block of course), where some of the other sites are so cluttered it gets confusing as to where the actual links even are. So I still prefer it to just straight google, but like you said, it won't actually stop anything either way, it's just a preference thing.

Re:TBP and DHT

[h00manist]

But it does lots of good PR for TPB to keep getting brought down, then popping up a couple hours later. Makes the authorities pursuing them look utterly incompetent.

The main benefit seems to be millions of people seeing that free circulation of information is inevitable, as well as safe and healthy, despite some confusing obsolete laws yammering on about some old dead concepts.

Re:TBP and DHT

[Backward Z]

Reveals the authorities pursuing them as utterly incompetent.

FTFY

Just delaying the inevitable

[soporific16]

The pol-lice state is coming
Doo dah
Doo dah

The pol-lice state is coming
Oh doo dah day.

Oh doo dah day
It's on its merry way

The pol-lice state is coming
Oh doo dah day.

All good and well,

[unity100]

but where do i donate to pirate party ? a paypal donate would be convenient.

Re:All good and well,

[dsavi]

Here's the page from the Swedish Pirate Party's homepage, run through Google Translate: "Golden Pirate"

Re:All good and well,

[kthreadd]

On their web site under the link titled donations. http://www.piratpartiet.se/donate

Re:I'm not quite dead yet! "It's just a flesh woun

[gyrogeerloose]

"I'm don't want to go on the cart!"

Bankrupt ? HAHAHAHAHAAH

[unity100]

the moment they put up an international donation page, they would get flooded with money. remember obama's campaign and how he floated on $5 donations as opposed to clinton and won.

Re:Bankrupt ? HAHAHAHAHAAH

[richie2000]

the moment they put up an international donation page, they would get flooded with money. remember obama's campaign and how he floated on $5 donations as opposed to clinton and won.

http://www.piratpartiet.se/donate

Re:Bankrupt ? HAHAHAHAHAAH

[jez9999]

And they will still pale into insignificance compared to the money Hollywood rakes in...

Re:Bankrupt ? HAHAHAHAHAAH

[unity100]

but they wont be fighting the courts in usa, where money can buy justice. it will be in sweden.

Re:Bankrupt ? HAHAHAHAHAAH

[Anonymous Coward]

the moment they put up an international donation page, they would get flooded with money. remember obama's campaign and how he floated on $5 donations as opposed to clinton and won.

http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php?cycle=2008&cid=n00009638

Yeah... That is a lot of 5$ donations on that list.

Where's that sarcasm detector?

Re:Bankrupt ? HAHAHAHAHAAH

[plastbox]

Yes, Sweden is clearly different! This is why they, at the urging of corporate giants like Sony, changed the law (ipred) a few weeks before taking the PirateBay guys to court, so they could have any basis at all for a conviction. Go Justice!

Re:Bankrupt ? HAHAHAHAHAAH

[Fenror]

The actual situation was bad enough as it was. There's no need to spread misinformation.

Re:Bankrupt ? HAHAHAHAHAAH

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure helps now that Euro is at a 4 year low, around US$1.25. :)

Re:Bankrupt ? HAHAHAHAHAAH

[icebraining]

This table lists the top donors to this candidate in the 2008 election cycle. The organizations themselves did not donate , rather the money came from the organization's PAC, its individual members or employees or owners, and those individuals' immediate families. Organization totals include subsidiaries and affiliates.

Re:Bankrupt ? HAHAHAHAHAAH

[DrgnDancer]

After certain point in a court case, money ceases to matter. As long as you can afford the best lawyers available, you have "enough" money. Since many good lawyers will likely work pro bono for a political party they believe in (vs. a random ISP), and the Pirate party can likely call in a fair good amount of money for defense, it's not likely to matter if the studios can pull in more. When Apple and Microsoft go to court, no one talks about who has more money to spend on the case. They both have more than enough. When Microsoft and Bob Smith go to court, the differences in resources are a serious factor.

Re:Bankrupt ? HAHAHAHAHAAH

[Locklin]

Thanks for the link. I just dropped my 5 bucks in the jar.

Re:Bankrupt ? HAHAHAHAHAAH

[IICV]

but they wont be fighting the courts in usa, where money can buy justice. it will be in sweden.

... where money can buy lutefisk?

Re:Bankrupt ? HAHAHAHAHAAH

[freejung]

Awesome timing on that Richie! Should be modded funny as well as informative. Everyone go and donate -- the Pirate Party is uber-cool for many other reasons in addition to this latest move.

Re:Bankrupt ? HAHAHAHAHAAH

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

remember obama's campaign and how he floated on $5 donations as opposed to clinton and won.

Not so much:
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/apr/22/barack-obama/obama-campaign-financed-large-donors-too/

Re:Bankrupt ? HAHAHAHAHAAH

[spyfrog]

True.
I am Swedish and as the pirate bay trial have showed us, you don't even need to buy the justice here. You can simply bribe the police with the minister of justice thinking its a good idea and choose your pals as judges.
In the US at least you have to pay for it - here you can get it for free buy having the right friends in politic.

Re:Bankrupt ? HAHAHAHAHAAH

[richie2000]

Thanks. We'll put it to good use (I just ordered more RAM for the servers, so that's one way donations will be used).

I'm not sure how I feel about this

[JoshuaZ]

Unfortunately, The Pirate Parties (including the Swedish one) are now the party to go to for a lot of reasonable views on many issues. Not just copyright, but other IP issues and even some non-IP issues. We should be worried by the fact that even some people who are massively in favor of copyright reform (such as myself) are not happy with The Pirate Bay and think that at minimum a lot of what Pirate Bay does is unethical. Having one of the Pirate parties directly associated in this way already reinforces perceived connections between the Pirate parties and outright software piracy to an extent that really isn't helpful.

Re:I'm not sure how I feel about this

[Anonymous Coward]

and even some non-IP issues

Actually many Pirate Parties, such as the UK one, fiercely avoid taking a position on anything non-IP related.

IMHO it makes it hard to take them seriously as a political party that should go into a national parliament.

Re:I'm not sure how I feel about this

[sourcerror]

Having one of the Pirate parties directly associated in this way already reinforces perceived connections between the Pirate parties and outright software piracy to an extent that really isn't helpful.

Naming theimselves as "Pirate Party" doesn't help either.

Re:I'm not sure how I feel about this

[Anonymous Coward]

First post ever on Slashdot, but here's how it goes:

You say "outright software piracy" as if it were a universal law. It isn't everywhere in the world. And as long as a lot of pirate parties maintain their habit of expressively doing things that are supposedly unlawful, I support them, because the don't succumb to pressure from the media. For example the German pirate party has a former member of the parliament, who is being accused of being in posession of child pron. He was shunned by his former social democratic party and got a warm welcome with the pirates and the expressively said that they welcome him as he is so long innocent until proven guilty.

Re:I'm not sure how I feel about this

[Fnkmaster]

The sad part is that because they are called the Pirate Party, we grown up adults can't really tell friends and family about them without sounding ridiculous. Maybe "Pirate Party" doesn't sound so ridiculous in Swedish or other languages, but in Standard American English it conjures up all the wrong images, especially given the recent rash of high profile high-seas-piracy incidents.

"Creative Commons" - now that's a name that has positive associations. "Open Source" - positive associations. "Electronic Frontier Foundation" - check. These are things I can tell people about in a business or personal context without sounding like a fricking loon.

Re:I'm not sure how I feel about this

[Yvanhoe]

You have to take into account the fact that the Swedish party pirate came into being because of a single event : TPB being chased out of Sweden without any debate about copyright laws in the internet era. This is a way to force the door. As I understand it, the PP position could be : "What TPB is doing is clearly problematic, just as is the fact to just try to shut it down without debate. Let's talk about this now."

Re:I'm not sure how I feel about this

[thijsh]

What they stand behind is: the name does not matter, neither do the corporate tirants who want to bury TPB... it's about the fact that the search engine is just as legal as any other search engine and they defend this at any cost (they know they are now even more guilty by association). The name is poorly chosen indeed, but that should not be a reason for a witch hunt!

Re:I'm not sure how I feel about this

[ThePhilips]

Having one of the Pirate parties directly associated in this way already reinforces perceived connections between the Pirate parties and outright software piracy to an extent that really isn't helpful.

And who said that piracy is bad?

I hear lots of businesses moaning and whining about it, but they would moan and whine about *any* problem. I do not see how it is different from say competition or financial crisis or natural disasters. Or the actually happening shift in the business model.

Avatar is the most pirated movie of all time - and it didn't prevent it from netting 1+Bln. Or could it be that the piracy actually helped? After seeing crappy copy off P2P many wanted to see it in all the 3D glory??

Re:I'm not sure how I feel about this

[Anonymous Coward]

The same was true for the greens a couple of elections ago (s(/IP/environment) - now they're probably the third biggest party (poll in swedish) of the seven currently in our parliament (a couple are close to not getting in [4% minimum], and we might (risk) get a right-wing nationalist party in for the first time on the national level, after the next election.

Re:I'm not sure how I feel about this

[h00manist]

You have to take into account the fact that the Swedish party pirate came into being because of a single event : TPB being chased out of Sweden without any debate about copyright laws in the internet era. This is a way to force the door. As I understand it, the PP position could be : "What TPB is doing is clearly problematic, just as is the fact to just try to shut it down without debate. Let's talk about this now."

Assumed, public piracy seems to be successful copyright civil disobedience.

Re:I'm not sure how I feel about this

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouldn't try to hunt pirates if I were you... unless you're a ninja.

Re:I'm not sure how I feel about this

[Anonymous Coward]

I was a member of the Swedish Pirate Party before TPB was chased out of Sweden. But the TPB thingy did get the membercount above 1k.

Re:I'm not sure how I feel about this

[Zoxed]

> Unfortunately, The Pirate Parties (including the Swedish one) are now the party to go to for a lot of reasonable views on many issues.

Not always so: if there is one you should check out the policy of your local Green Party.

or it could be stupid ...

[Lazy Jones]

I don't know how trustworthy the swedish legal system is, but here in Austria, most judges are political puppets who would be pressurized into sinking the PP together with TPB simply because it's politically opportune and because they can (a good example is the current trial against legal animal rights activism where anyone can see how unfair such a political trial can be: tierschutzprozess.at). It's a glorious move on behalf of the PP for sure, but it'll be an uphill battle and the heroes only win reliably in movies.

But hey, if you don't fight, you can't win...

Re:or it could be stupid ...

[Hurricane78]

Completely irrelevant. Since that is no reason not to at least try it.

Re:or it could be stupid ...

[Lazy Jones]

Since that is no reason not to at least try it.

If they don't mind spending a year in jail or so, perhaps. If they do, they'll have to consider the possibility (the original TPB owners got a 1 year sentence, who knows where hosting them gets you...).

Re:or it could be stupid ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know how trustworthy the swedish legal system is, but here in Austria, most judges are political puppets who would be pressurized into sinking the PP together with TPB simply because it's politically opportune and because they can (a good example is the current trial against legal animal rights activism where anyone can see how unfair such a political trial can be: tierschutzprozess.at). It's a glorious move on behalf of the PP for sure, but it'll be an uphill battle and the heroes only win reliably in movies.

But hey, if you don't fight, you can't win...

We don't have a jury system. Instead, in a normal lower court situation, two out of the three judges in a court is politicaly appointed one year at the time (they act as representatives of the people). As being a judge is hard work without any sufficient payment, it is mostly retired people with much time at their hand that do this (it is almost always Christian men of Swedish heritage over 60, in a society were more than 50% are women, more than 50% are atheists and less than 30% Christian, and more than 30% are immigrants or has at least one parent who is an immigrant (today Northern Europe is The Melting Pot of the World, not USA (USA caused many of these people to become refugees in the first place)). The good thing is that any Swede can apply to become a judge and likely be accepted as one if he/she/it haven't done something really terrible, it is a high demand and poor supply situation.

In a special or higher court, all three judges usually have specialist expertice and are appointed by the national assembly (the judge with legal expertise in lower courts are just an ordinary non-politically hired public employee). If a case is anything but a repetition of earlier cases, it can usually be appealed to a higher or special court.

It is far from perfect, but it works surpricingly well compared to other legal systems. You have to remember that Sweden is a very open society (or at least was before it joined EU) and many watching eyes are usually on the courtroom. If a trial is to be hold behind closed doors (very rare, usually cases where a witness might risk reprecussions or where a childs future is at risk), the media (people with a press card, the organisation that grants those have no politcal or govenrment bindings) has still the right to attend the court (unless they are directly involved in the case), but not to report (unless there is a mistrail situation).

Re:or it could be stupid ...

[GuldKalle]

That is true. But there is a huge difference between (ab)using your power to shoot at the Pirate Bay, and abusing your power and hit a competing political party in the process. It could (and should) lead to a major backlash.
This chapter of the story will be worth reading..

Re:I'm not quite dead yet! "It's just a flesh woun

[EdtheFox]

King Arthur: You fight with the strength of many men, Sir Knight.
[the Black Knight doesn't respond]
King Arthur: I am Arthur, King of the Britons.
[no response]
King Arthur: I seek the bravest and the finest knights in the land who will join me in my court at Camelot.
[no response]
King Arthur: You have proved yourself worthy. Will you join me?
[no response]
King Arthur: You make me sad. So be it. Come, Patsy!
[attempts to get around the Black Knight]
Black Knight: None shall pass.
King Arthur: What?
Black Knight: None shall pass!
King Arthur: I have no quarrel with you, good Sir Knight. But I must cross this bridge.
Black Knight: Then you shall die.
King Arthur: I command you, as King of the Britons, to stand aside!
Black Knight: I move for no man.
King Arthur: So be it!
[they fight until Arthur cuts off Black Knight's left arm]
King Arthur: Now, stand aside, worthy adversary!
Black Knight: 'Tis but a scratch!
King Arthur: A scratch? Your arm's off!
Black Knight: No, it isn't!
King Arthur: Well, what's that then?
King Arthur: I've had worse.
King Arthur: You liar!
Black Knight: Come on, you pansy!
[they fight again. Arthur cuts off the Knight's right arm]
King Arthur: Victory is mine!
[kneels to pray]
King Arthur: We thank thee, Lord, that in thy mercy -
[cut off by the Knight kicking him]
Black Knight: Come on, then.
King Arthur: What?
Black Knight: Have at you!
King Arthur: You are indeed brave, Sir Knight, but the fight is mine!
Black Knight: Oh, had enough, eh?
King Arthur: Look, you stupid bastard. You've got no arms left!

Story is wrong

[g0bshiTe]

I'm sorry but I think this story is wrong, and I believe that this all happened last night.

I didn't bother to RTFA, but last night TPB site would not resolve. Seeing this today, what was happening last night may be related.

Re:Story is wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry but I think this story is wrong, and I believe that this all happened last night.

I didn't bother to RTFA, but last night TPB site would not resolve. Seeing this today, what was happening last night may be related.

Indeed, it looks like it went down long before this morning: http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2010/05/18/the_pirate_bay_returns_to_the_internet.html

Mostly a symbolic victory?

[MattGWU]

This is nice and all, but is TPB still good for anything? It's not being watched by every media conglomerate and their 'private eyes' in the world? Even before I quit downloading quite some time ago, and even then had the sense that TPB wasn't 'safe' to use if you were doing something you should be concerned about. Is there enough legit content on TPB to make it relevant in todays litigious online climate? If I wanted something that badly today, I wouldn't even know where to look that's considered 'safe' (ish?), but I KNOW TPB wouldn't be my first stop. ..........or is that what They WANT you to think?

Re:Mostly a symbolic victory?

[icebraining]

TPB is just a place to download torrent files. That's not how the MPAA "catches" you; they act as a normal client, connect to other peers and log their IP addresses.

There's nothing you can do, besides setting up a private tracker where everyone is trusted, or using a anonymising proxy like IPREDator.

its not whack-a-mole

[circletimessquare]

its a game of cut off the head of the hydra

all the old school distributors are doing is breeding more industrial strength, impossible to detect distribution network

really! why not hide it is as tiny http form posts and or gets? how do you deep packet inspect that?

and why not download slow? for the majority of teenagers, iron man 2 in 5 days rather than $20 is perfectly fine

Re:its not whack-a-mole

[Anonymous Coward]

Not that I disagree with your general argument, but when making analogies, you may want to stick with ones that support your argument. Yes, the Hydra would grow back two heads in place of every one that was cut off, but Hercules figured out that he could cauterize the headless stump to prevent heads from growing back and that the hydra had one head that, when removed, would kill it.

So to apply your analogy to filesharing, the content companies will eventually figure out a strategy that will keep more people from becoming pirates and that one of these times, they'll shut down the right site and filesharing will die. That's not going to happen, so the hydra metaphor isn't quite right.

Re:its not whack-a-mole

[Anonymous Coward]

Alternatively, there is always the multipipe approach...

Back in the ancient days of yore (90s) when Dialup was King-- There were interesting software solutions that would parallelize a large download between multiple dialup modems, to get the file much faster then the individual dialup connections could service overall. (EG, two 56k connects is twice as fast as 1 56k connect)

All that needs to be done here, is to manipulate something like Tor, so that it allows you to parallelize a download though several discrete exit points of the TOR routing network. that way the file is downloaded "simultaneously" through multiple pipes, at a trickle rate, but combined equal the full bandwidth of your highspeed connection.

with encryption, obfuscation, and pals, this would make that 5gb download less visible. (not INvisible, mind-- but LESS visible)

If you combined it with the "wrap in http Post/Get" approach mentioned earlier, then it would look even to your ISP that you were more a spammer than a pirate. (5gb of HTTP traffic is a LOT of traffic for HTTP...Looks like mass spamming.)

This still doesn't stop people from creating rival network infrastructures though. (That's what laws about having unsecured wireless networks try to combat.)

Re:its not whack-a-mole

[joost]

really! why not hide it is as tiny http form posts and or gets? how do you deep packet inspect that?

Hmm! Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your rss-feed.

which is bullshit

[circletimessquare]

they gave songs away for free for decades: the radio

they gave shows away for free for decades: broadcast television

and before either, there WAS no recorded music or images. yet we still had shakespeare and mozart

art is not dying, creativity will never die, in fact, those who truly love art are not motivated by the almighty buck, they are motivated by love of the art. they'll waste millions to make art, and we'll benefit from it. meanwhile, art made for profit, the usual mindless pop movies and music, will we miss them?

and finally, if you give away your songs for free, what really happens? well, for 0.01% (the rest stay poor, JUST LIKE BEFORE THE INTERNET) you get famous. then you make millions from concert gigs, advertising endorsements, personalized content... in other words, you'll still make $ from art, only via ANCILLARY REVENUES

so sorry chicken little, the sky is not falling

Re:which is bullshit

[Arcaeris]

they gave songs away for free for decades: the radio

they gave shows away for free for decades: broadcast television

They only "gave _____ away" in the sense that advertisers indirectly paid them to make content that people would want to watch and listen to. Someone was paying them - it just wasn't you directly. This content was never "free."

The "free" content world you're describing means that every amateur musician and every TV show or movie of the future would be paid with advertisement. Every mp3 would have a commercial in it. Every movie as well. We already see from movie theaters that actually showing movies doesn't make any money, you have to sell extra crap. That cut that goes to the studios is to pay for the production of that movie. Where is that money going to come from?

Is that the future you want? MORE advertisement? I'll take the world where we find some way to pay artists directly instead.

Re:which is bullshit

[DrgnDancer]

None of that was ever free. You paid for the radio and television by listening to or watching the advertisements. You may not have noticed, but nearly as much effort is going into stripping ads out of content as is going into stripping DRM. Advertising as a revenue stream may not be dead, but it has proven to adapt poorly to digital media. In anything other than streams, it is trivially easy to remove, and people do so all the time. So that avenue is essentially dead.

Mozart made money by being sponsored by rich people. Of course this meant that his music was available nearly exclusively to the rich people that sponsored him. So if you like we can go back to a patronage system. Expect not to get to hear much music.

The biggest problem though, isn't related to either of these things. It's related to nature of much of what we consider "art" now. Let's take a movie. Let's make it a low budget movie. It costs, say, $5 million to make. So, someone, somewhere has to come up with $5 million dollars up front. That's not chump change even for a wealthy person, certainly not for a starving young director trying to get his movie made. The art of a movie is IN the movie. It's not a filmed play, you can't perform it live to make money that way. We've already determined that advertising is not a great way to make money these days. How are you going to make make money on your movie?

Movie theaters are the obvious answer, but most movies (with the exception of the Avatars and Iron Mans of the world) don't actually make money until they release to DVD. The upfront costs are too high, and the returns from theaters too low. The irony here is that the people most hurt by the loss of DVD sales would not be the huge blockbusters that rake in enough to pay for themselves in the first two weeks after release. It will be the small independent films that only really make money over time.

The problem is essentially this: Much of what we consider "art" now has a very high up front cost, but virtually no distribution cost. It exists in a digital realm. It cost a lot to make, but can be copied infinitely and perfectly. This is as opposed to the old system where up front cost were generally minimal (paints and canvas, a guitar and some sheet paper, whatever), and the value was in the single unreproducible product. Music and theater (plays and such, not movies) were similar, but the value was in the experience (which was again unreproducible, even with if you could reproduce the actual melody or recite lines of the play).

We have to figure out how things like movies, video games, and digital art or music can make money in a post copyright world. The problem is not musicians or painters (despite what the RIAA screams), we have a model for them. It worked in the past and continues to work for thousands, if not millions, of small time "gig" bands and gallery artists. The problem is these guys.

If copyright disappears, that kind of art will suffer. It may disappear. Not immediately, not entirely, but slowly and mostly in the middle tier where most of the best "art" is. The smallest, least professional guys will still do it for love (and we can have yet another game where penguins shoot things, or race things, or are shot by things. Yay.), and the biggest guys will still make gobs of money by surrounding their crap with so many layers of DRM that it won't matter whether they technically "own" the rights to the IP, because you're never going to get it to do anything they don't want it to. So you'll probably still have the crap and the soulless corporate shiny.

Note that I say "we". I've seen it posted many times here on /. that it's not our job to figure out how to replace the media company's failed business model. I say I'm not really all that worried about the big media companies. If copyright disappears, they'll wail and cry, then encrypt their stuff tighter than a spider wraps its dinner and continue to make gobs of money (sure it'll probably be breakable..

Re:which is bullshit

[marco.antonio.costa]

I agree with the parent. I'm almost coming to believe that artists getting paid is a bigger threat to creativity and art.

I mean, lets face it: if there was copyright in the late 18th century, Beethoven would've written 3 symphonies, 9 piano sonatas and lived off the royalties till he died of cirrosis some 10 years earlier than he did.

Re:which is bullshit

[celtic_hackr]

Except Shakespeare was a) rich and b) made money from the people who came to his performances; and kings and queens and lesser royals paid Mozart to do his work. As were all the famous painters also paid and supported by rich people. Before there was radio and TV and phonographs you had to go to where the entertainment was or pay it to come to you. Then there were those artists who lived a live in poverty for their art. Odd as it may sound many artists are not willing to do that though. Art and creativity will not die, ever, but the ability of those not gifted in art and creativity will lose out if everyone stops paying for it.

Believe it or not artists have to eat, drink and sleep somewhere too. That all takes money, if they worked full time making art for you thankless hordes demanding only free entertainment then when would they ever have time to make money in order to eat and survive? And if what they are doing is not worth anything to you, why should they share it with you? Go make your own f***ing art and amuse yourself.

Not that, I'm saying giving it away or letting "piracy" happen is going to have an impact on the income of artists. With the internet trading of music and video, many people will get for free things they might have bought were it not for the ease of just taking it. Some will wind up buying the originals from the artists, some will not wind up buying anything, and some will just discard it. What the net effect will be, I can't say, as most everyone from both sides are lying vociferously.

Re:which is bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

You're crossing/mixing your comparisons.

For radio, your point more or less works. For TV and Movies it doesn't.

Lets look at TV:

Broadcasting works because of advertising, which is paid to the broadcasters (combination of the guys that own the hardware and produce the content). Broadcasting even has another layer of premium channels that are not supported by advertising. (HBO and what not) If you ignore/cutout the advertising and you don't pay for content where are they going to get revenue streams?

Off the top of my head:
1. Merchandise : Works for some content, usually for stuff aimed at children.
2. DVD/DLC Sales: Works, but often copied based on your line of thought.

For good old cinema released movies you have the same problem. Either fill them with advertising (which you don't want) or release them on broadcasting systems to the same tune as above.

If you cut any of that out (which is what blatant copying does) there is no revenue. I'm all for alternate revenue, but could you give an example that isn't breaking your argument down to: "I want it because I can copy it and it's your fault you can't entice me into paying for it somehow, even though I don't actually want to pay for it or put up with your advertising which does pay for it".

And please stick to TV/Movies in your answer, as these are really all uniquely designed markets.

Re:which is bullshit

[ZekoMal]

No, no, holy fuck no. Radio was never free, you simply weren't the one paying. Or did you think that radio stations were just magically generating paychecks for their radio hosts?

Broadcast television was never free, your eyeballs were being whored out to advertisers that paid the TV channels for the chance.

And Shakespeare and Mozart weren't bloody giving their art away for free! They were hired, then produced their creative work. At no point did either artists just sit himself down in someone's home and give away their latest work, then leave.

You're an entitled little bugger who thinks that someone should just give you something for free because you don't think it's worth it. So yes, the sky is falling, because you don't know what the fuck reality is.

Re:which is bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

Radio and TV are decidedly not free. The customers (advertisers) pay the broadcast company for their product (viewer's eyeballs) and the licensing fees for media are part of the business cost for the broadcast company, just another bill in the mail.

A LOLcats declaration

[Yvanhoe]

The Pirate Bay has even issued a statement, written in lolcats, to explain this move :
http://thepiratebay.org/blog/179
:
AS U MITE HAS READ OR NOTICD, PEEPS ONCE AGAIN R TRYIN 2 SHUT US DOWN. DIS WILL NOT SUCCED, LOL. OURS RLY NICE WEBHOST WUZ THREATEND WIF RLY HUGE FINE, SO WE DECIDD 2 MOOV TEH SIET SO DAT THEY DIDNT GOT INTO TROUBLE, LOL. TEH DECISHUN 2 MOOV WUZ TAKEN BY US, TEH PIRATE BAY, LOL.

TEH PIRATE BAY IZ AN UNSINKABLE SHIP. IT WILL SAIL TEH INTERWEBS 4 AS LONG AS WE WANTS IT 2. REMEMBR DAT, K THX.

TPB, ONLY IN IT 4 TEH LULZ SINCE 2003

The year is 2010. This is a political official statement.

Re:A LOLcats declaration

[Jaysyn]

I love the "hidden" message:

"Assclowns ov teh RIAA"

Re:A LOLcats declaration

[Sir_Lewk]

The year is 2010. This is a political official statement.

Damn, this really is the future isn't it?

Re:A LOLcats declaration

[goldspider]

I can't imagine why anyone would have a hard time taking these guys (and their platform, by proxy) seriously...

Re:A LOLcats declaration

[Yvanhoe]

In the pirate party we also are in there for the lulz also and the Swedish one is making 9%. It tells you something about how fucked up the other politicians are...

Re:A LOLcats declaration

[kimvette]

Best "press release" (of sorts) ever!

"Only in it 4 teh lulz"

Classic.

Now, can I haz cheezburger?

Re:A LOLcats declaration

[Hurricane78]

You forgot the emphasis:

AS U MITE HAS READ OR NOTICD, PEEPS ONCE AGAIN R TRYIN 2 SHUT US DOWN. DIS WILL NOT SUCCED, LOL. OURS RLY NICE WEBHOST WUZ THREATEND WIF RLY HUGE FINE, SO WE DECIDD 2 MOOV TEH SIET SO DAT THEY DIDNT GOT INTO TROUBLE, LOL.
TEH DECISHUN 2 MOOV WUZ TAKEN BY US, TEH PIRATE BAY, LOL.

TEH PIRATE BAY IZ AN UNSINKABLE SHIP. IT WILL SAIL TEH INTERWEBS 4 AS LONG AS WE WANTS IT 2. REMEMBR DAT, K THX.

TPB, ONLY IN IT 4 TEH LULZ SINCE 2003

Re:A LOLcats declaration

[jvkjvk]

Perhaps you should try paying more attention the the substance of their actions rather than the window dressing that frames them.

Of course, one could say this about the majority of people.

As a note - whole countries seem to take these guys seriously enough, not to mention their corporate masters.

If 'seriousness' can be measured by the response of one's opponents, then you should take them very seriously indeed.

Regards.

Re:A LOLcats declaration

[Anonymous Coward]

Unlike most political statements, I believe this one might be true. While this might be a political statement, what makes it any more or less official than other political statements?

Re:A LOLcats declaration

[Anonymous Coward]

Where is this hidden message???

Re:A LOLcats declaration

[cdrguru]

Just because nobody has done it yet, please do not discount it.

I am sure I could garner 9% of the popular vote in the US with a Tittie Party. I suspect unless the turnout was heavily in favor of gays and women it might be close to 20%.

The Pirate Party having 9% means nothing.

Re:A LOLcats declaration

[Anonymous Coward]

I think my Bold font is missing ...

Re:A LOLcats declaration

[h00manist]

Unlike most political statements, I believe this one might be true. While this might be a political statement, what makes it any more or less official than other political statements?

If political statements are measured in audience hearing, listening, paying attention and agreeing, it's pretty darn good. It's been copied around, so it seems people like it.

Re:A LOLcats declaration

[Backward Z]

I am sure I could garner 9% of the popular vote in the US with a Tittie Party. I suspect unless the turnout was heavily in favor of gays and women it might be close to 20%.

I'd like to see you try.

The Pirate Party having 9% means nothing.

No, you posting about it means nothing. Having 10% of a population supporting a radical political party means far from nothing.

Re:A LOLcats declaration

[Anonymous Coward]

The Pirate Party having 9% means nothing.

Maybe not in the two-party system of the US. In the multi-party system of Sweden it means a great deal.

Ukraine?

[Anonymous Coward]

Then why it traces to Ukraine currently?
Last hops before the trace cuts off are:
  8. de-cix.topnet.ua
  9. fft-kv.br01-kiev-vlan1702.top.net.ua
10. gts.dp.customer.top.net.ua
11. 91.193.68.158
12. 188.95.159.34
13. ???

Re:Ukraine?

[Pentium100]

There are a lot more hops than that, or at least there seem to be:

    6 106 ms 110 ms 99 ms fft-kv.br01-kiev-vlan1702.top.net.ua [77.88.201.10]
    7 109 ms 100 ms 100 ms 149.6.190.190
    8 106 ms 100 ms 119 ms 91.193.68.158
    9 125 ms 110 ms 109 ms 188.95.159.34
  10 Request timed out.
...
  17 Request timed out.
  18 127 ms 130 ms 139 ms thepiratebay.org [194.71.107.15]

Filter error: Please use fewer 'junk' characters.

Insert obscure Futurama joke

[Xelios]

TPB v3.0, now with 6000 and one hulls!

Stuff that matters

[commodoresloat]

this is news because now every file is called something like "borkborkbork.torrent"

Host PBay?

[g4b]

I just imagine if the torrent standard would support adding files to the share, we could simply host a torrent with torrents and update it. This way searching for a torrent will be searching in the torrent's files and selectively download it. calling it vtorrent or something would distinguish it from normal torrents.

I know DHT exists, and several other protocols to decentralize, however this way there would be a way to distribute even further.

This would not kill the need of a tracker and some hierarchy to define who can add files, but certainly would decentralize by another factor. However clients would have to implement search features to cope with this new kind of file first of course.

Once plugged in into the tracker network, all decentralized methods would take effect, resulting in a subnet not relying completely on an ever present tracker.

Does something similar exist?

Hmm. So when is the responsibility acted on?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm. So when is the responsibility acted on? With copyRIGHT comes copyRESPONSIBILITY. All works must go into the public domain. But if you allow that public work to die, you've destroyed public property. And extremely EXPENSIVE public property.

Even without that, the term of copyright stated explicitly that the limited term came with the proviso that it goes to the public domain. If the Owners of Avatar don't want to live up to their end of the bargain, why should I?

That should be obvious

[Anonymous Coward]

Since when do pirates ask for your money?

Re:That should be obvious

[TheSpoom]

*head explodes*

Re:That should be obvious

[bughunter]

It depends on your definition of 'pirate.'

If you mean casual copyright violator or file-sharing software operator, then never.

If you mean purveyor of bootleg recordings in places like flea markets, military bases, and some third-world cities, then always.

If you mean "Avast ye scurvy dogs, prepare to board" honest-to-goodness pirates, then you'd be lucky if they just "ask."

Isn't that like saying....?

[Alexvthooft]

"Pirate Bay is a search page, and as such it is not responsible for the results"

Isn't that like saying that illegal gun selling doesn't increase the number of gun shot victims?

Sure, it isn't the same, but the fact that they are facilitators should count for something, as well it does in the case of arms selling.

Well just putting it out there.....

Re:Isn't that like saying....?

[ledow]

Your analogy is poor. For a start, their entire position is that the search results (i.e. "the gun selling") isn't illegal. So it's like saying that *LEGAL* gun selling doesn't increase the number of gunshot victims.

Despite being anti-gun and living in a low-gun country, I'd have to say that's not such a bold assertion. Yes, LEGAL arms are sometimes used to kill people, but a vastly more significant portion of gun-crime happens with ILLEGAL guns. Especially in my country where legal arms are incredibly rare... I know one person who has a specialist gun collector's license out of all my friends and acquaintances.

A better analogy would be that it's like saying that people who mention a bootsale (yard sale) where they know pirate DVD's are for sale are somehow complicit if you then decide to go to that sale and buy some.

Re:Isn't that like saying....?

[Alexvthooft]

Well thank you for that.

I have to admit I wasn't too happy with the analogy myself....

You could ask why post it then? Well otherwise I would never have gotten your response and learned from it :)

But I do not entirely agree with your analogy at that. If something is said to be true the opposite or negative or that does not need to true at that. This is not mathematics. I am of course speaking of your 'improved' version of my analogy

Cheers

Bork bork Yarrrr Bork Bork?

[billstewart]

Annoying that Google Translate doesn't support Latin; mine has mostly paged out to long-unused memory...

Re:Bork bork Yarrrr Bork Bork?

[darkhitman]

Basically 'it floats and does not sink'.

teenagers are the future

[circletimessquare]

what they believe is what the future of society believes. if you don't understand that this is a fight over the habits and beliefs of teenagers, you don't understand the fight at all

Re:teenagers are the future

[brit74]

teenagers are the future what they believe is what the future of society believes.
And that's why the past few decades were all about free love, hippies, eastern religion, and peace. Glad we haven't had any wars since Vietnam.

completely wrong

[circletimessquare]

every mp3 is completely free and ad-less. because the mp3 IS the advertisement... for the concert gig where you sell tickets, for the musician who will endorse your product, for ALL SORTS OF ANCILLARY REVENUE STREAMS

"Where is that money going to come from?"

gee, i dunno, i didn't know your average guitar and laptop with free software was a major investment. especially considering the teenager holding that guitar and pushing record on that laptop is mainly doing it to get in girl's pants, like very other wannabe musician in history. but gee i'm sorry, i didn't want to brust your bubble: as we all know its IMPOSSIBLE to make art without money first, that moeny is the only motivation. and art motivated by money is always the highest quality that everyone desires, not at all shallow vapid and empty. yup, yup

the world is not ending son. only the distribution model that the internet killed. get used to it

so what is your alternative distribution model? control the internet?

good luck!

Re:completely wrong

[ZekoMal]

I hate to burst your bubble, but not all music is possible to host in a concert. Nor could you seriously expect that to be what the artist should look forward to. It should be their choice to do that, not yours.

As for free movies? HAH! Some movies go straight to video because they'd never be able to get in to all of the movie theaters they wanted to. Should they just throw in the towel and expect no money for their work? If consumers were offered a legal and free alternative, sales would plummet.

As I said before, you have a sense of entitlement. What you're saying is that you don't want to pay the artist, but someone else will through a different means. Guess what? Artists get pretty damn pissed when someone takes their work, loves it, but refuses to pay them for it when they were selling it. It says that you love what they do, that you'll come back for more, but that you don't think they're worth the $5 they're asking for.

Hey, I saw you made a new program and you're selling it for $30. I would really like it, but well, I think I'll just take it. It's just a copy, after all, and free software is the future of computing!

Library of Congress, not just a unit of measure

[Jeng]

I could swear that the Library of Congress is trying to preserve all the information that you say is being lost.

Isn't that part of their purpose? http://www.loc.gov/about

Re:Library of Congress, not just a unit of measure

[wealthychef]

Somehow, relying on the government to be the central repository of all things cultural seems like an idea best left unexplored.

Re:Library of Congress, not just a unit of measure

[Jeng]

As opposed to leaving it in the hands of the publishers, or the XXAA?

Perhaps a non-profit? But how long would the non-profit last and whom would support the non-profit?

I would say relying on the government to be A central repository of all things cultural seems like a basic idea already enacted and doing well.

Having only one central repository may be best left unexplored, mainly because there is no way in hell there will only be a single repository, unless the author never released the title. Every country has their own national library, and then you have the individual local libraries for redundancy. There may be a few things not saved in that manner, but would they be saved in the hypothetical alternative that you haven't even thought up yet?

Re:Library of Congress, not just a unit of measure

[wealthychef]

How do you know I haven't thought it up yet? The alternative is to just not rely on the government to do it. I would prefer that the government fund a private entity to do it, with strict admonition to include everything, including porn or kill flicks, and have submissions be anonymous and automatically accepted. Does that work for you?

Re:Library of Congress, not just a unit of measure

[ArbitraryDescriptor]

I pose a question then:

A) What would a private citizen have to do to be considered a Library in the eyes for Fair Use?

B) What would then prevent them from Lending digital copies online?

Re:Library of Congress, not just a unit of measure

[TheNumberless]

I never understood the appeal of putting a government sanctioned monopoly in the hands of a profit-maximizing private entity. It's like the worst of both worlds. Don't even free market ideologues agree that competition is what makes the whole thing work in the first place?

Re:Library of Congress, not just a unit of measure

[Miseph]

I would prefer that the government do it themselves, with the same exact rules. I don't like the government paying private corporations to do things it is perfectly capable of doing for itself and which fall inside of the 'core business" of governance.

This is quite similar to my objection to the government hiring PMCs. If a private corporation wants to do it, then fine, they can justify it to their shareholders, but the government is explicitly in the business of running a military... why should they be hiring a private vendor to duplicate that functionality?

Re:Library of Congress, not just a unit of measure

[Meski]

Somehow, relying on the government to be the sole repository of all things cultural seems like an idea best left unexplored.

There, fixed. It does no harm for them to be keeping a copy of all things cultural.

Re:Library of Congress, not just a unit of measure

[Meski]

I pose a question then: A) What would a private citizen have to do to be considered a Library in the eyes for Fair Use? B) What would then prevent them from Lending digital copies online?

A - they buy a copy of the book/whatever.
B - they only lend as many copies at a time as they have bought. This breaks the existing crap licenses they have on ebooks, but I don't consider them to be worth the silicon their bits are stored on.

Network setup?

[alexandre]

Can anybody explain to me how they can claim that nobody knows where their servers are but still get shutdowned?

Are they routing from I2P to a data center with a huge cache?
What if someone was to attack the DNS, then they'd be screwed. (until they register something ridiculous but ...)

It would be really interesting to be able to use and improve on that setup for many people... anyone care to help? :)

Viva la Evolución!

what the hell is wrong with you?

[circletimessquare]

why do believe you need money to make art? why do you confuse a DISTRIBUTION MODEL with an essential passion of mankind?

and how did mozart and shakespeare function? patronage, that's how

and why do you NEED an ancillary dvd market to support crap movies? as you say, avatar made bazillions... in the movie theater! can the world survive without direct-to-dvd crap?! pfffffft

musicians will make millions... at concert gigs

sure, only 0.01% of them

JUST LIKE IN THE PRE-INTERNET ERA

but with the long tail (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Tail) greater quantization of the market due to more efficient distribution (the internet) means the world is not a binary existence between signing a contract (and making millions) or making nothing. instead, all those starving musicians... some will make $100s, some $1,000s, %10,000s, $100,000s... where before the capricious opinions of record company execs decided your fate between nothing and millions. and even THEN made you sign contracts where they got the lion share of $ anyways. in fact, artists will be RICHER because even though there is less money in play on just concert gigs and other ancillaries, they get the money DIRECT, not 10% of what some record exec rams down your throat due to holding all the power. now, on the internet, YOU, the audience decides who will make $$$, not some asshole snorting blow off a hooker's ass. its a far more efficient, egalitarian model. the artist is freer, the audience has more cultural riches... and the old school media conglomerate dies. let me find my tiny violin somewhere...

you fail to think the issue through. you only grasp part of the issues you talk about. just think all of your concerns through. you will see for yourself: THERE IS NO PROBLEM (unless you are an old school distributor). the sky is not falling chicken little. the world has survived far greater shocks to social and legal convention due to technological progress. open your brittle mind, see the better future for what it is

Re:what the hell is wrong with you?

[geekoid]

Stop with the Shakespeare and Mozart comparisons.
!) There was not a quick cheap and easy way to move their work around.

2) They lived in an era where people had to GO someplace to hear their
  work.

3) They weren't competing in anywhere the same type of market.

That are bad and irrelevant examples.
You're overall point is, in general, correct. Your examples are crap.

Re:what the hell is wrong with you?

[DrgnDancer]

I find your sig ironic. You talk about the philosophical incoherence of copyright law, then you post this... thing.

You do not need to make money to make art. It is, however, a fact of history that nearly all great art was made by someone being paid to do it. I can virtually guarantee that, unless you can find the "Boise Museum of Amateur Art", 95% or greater of the art in any museum in the world was created by someone who was either paid to make it or who sold it. The simple fact of the matter is that a professional artist can afford to spend more time on their art. They therefore have more practice (likely translating at least loosely to greater skill), and a larger body of work (more chances that something they do will be truly great).

You don't need an ancillary DVD market to support crap movies. Yes Avatar made Bazillions in the theaters. Did you actually read my post? I'm not worried about the big studios. They'll be fine. Avatar will continue to be made. The problem range is in the middle. Medium budget movies released by small and midsized production houses usually don't make money until they hit DVD. They're also where the vast majority of the "art" in movie making lives. That's the reason they're often called "art house" flicks. Don't get me wrong, I love a big budget super-hero film as much as the next guy... but I'm well aware that Iron Man 2 isn't going to be included in a "great movies of the early 21st century" compilation 100 years from now.

I think I covered that most musicians are the least of our worries, despite what the RIAA claims. Musicians, you're right, will generally continue to make money the way they always have. One of the advantages of being among the oldest arts known to mankind is that there's lots of business models to chose from. Digital musicians create some issues, somehow I don't think people will get off on the thrill of watching some guy mix tracks on his Mac, but so far they're a fairly small and niche form of artist.

Having "artists" make money "direct" works fine for traditional arts. Musicians, painters, etc, as I've covered ad nauseum, these guys will be fine. A lone painter, or a band of five guys can do their work and sell it or not sell it, no problem. They have few upfront costs. Movies and video games are a completely different matter. Why do you think the distribution and creation mechanisms are so closely tied together for game and movie houses? It's because these forms are art cost a LOT to make, but very little to distribute. This created a situation where the only way that the creator can make their costs back, let alone make money, is selling individual copies and hoping that they sell enough of them to make up the production cost.

In short, you keep coming back to musicians. Yes, they're artists, yes, they can make money without the big studios. I get that. I never said otherwise (in fact I specifically address it). Your arguments is long on optimism, but short on any real solution to the problem (other than for musicians). You accuse of failing to think the issue through, but don't seem to have even read my post (at any rate you don't respond to any of the points other than the first two.)

Re:what the hell is wrong with you?

[Anonymous Coward]

Quick idea to drop off here.

Mozart and Shakespeare's music/plays could have easily been done by amateurs. Would it have been good? No. But if it had been done by amateurs it would have been free yet shitty vs. costly but good (for a given quantity of good).

Also, Mozart was the original pirate.

On December 13, 1769, Leopold and Wolfgang left Salzburg and set out for a 15-month tour of Italy where, among other things, Leopold hoped that Wolfgang would have the chance to study with Padre Martini in Bologna, who had also taught Johann Christian Bach several years before. On their circuitous route to Bologna, they passed through Innsbruck, Verona, Milan, and arrived in Rome on April 11, 1770, just in time for Easter. As with any tourist, they visited St. Peter's to celebrate the Wednesday Tenebrae and to hear the famous Miserere sung at the Sistine Chapel. Upon arriving at their lodging that evening, Mozart sat down and wrote out from memory the entire piece. On Good Friday, he returned, with his manuscript rolled up in his hat, to hear the piece again and make a few minor corrections.

You've got to note that at that point in time he was risking excommunication since the music was not allowed to be spread. But the Pope, seeing the feat the child prodigy had accomplished, forgave him and let the music go.

Re:what the hell is wrong with you?

[ZekoMal]

why do believe you need money to make art?

Because musical instruments are not free. Because paint is not free. Because clay is not free. Because lighting equipment is not free. Because video cameras are not free. Because sound stages are not free. Because green screens are not free. Because most 3D programs require a license of some kind, if not thousands of man hours to produce.

Art is not free to produce. Why do you believe that art is utterly worthless if it's a copy the artist is selling? Oh right, because you don't wanna pay for something you definitely wanna consume.

Re:what the hell is wrong with you?

[Anonymous Coward]

There is one flaw in the Concert argument, new forms of media that have no equivalent to the concert. for example, how would one make money on selling a video game, without requiring a purchase of the game it's self. And before you start mentioning free to play mmorpgs, the ones that survive have premium content for purchase, so once again your paying for the "full" game, the free part is an exceptionally long demo for all intents.

Anything more complex than bejeweled takes a team of people a long time to create, especially without funding. If they have to work to live and create on the side, it's insane. I know because I'm currently starting my own studio, and it's taken 3 months to get what we could do in 3 weeks if we could devote 40+ hours a week to it instead of paying jobs.

I'm not saying the current system isn't broken, but a truly free system may affect more than you believe. Think of all the "ad supported" free apps out there. Those have ads because it's some form of income. How many would not be made it there was 0 income chance?

And if you doubt the studio comment, I understand, because everyone seems to claim to be doing something, or an expert in whatever, so go to www.udvgames.com, find the email on the about us page, and send an email asking about this post it you need to.

Re:what the hell is wrong with you?

[Omestes]

I think we need to draw a divide between older, more traditional art (music, graphic art, theater), and modern, more technological art (movies, games). The traditional forms require next to no resources to perform, and can be done with NO investment (playing on old tin barrels, sculpting with earth and found objects, using natural pigments, etc...). The traditional arts are very cheap to produce at their core. The more modern forms require a huge front-end to produce, and can't be done with non-specialized equipment. The modern arts require huge initial investments to get off the ground, even though originally they could be done (like the more traditional arts) in someone's garage for very little money up front.

Because musical instruments are not free. Because paint is not free. Because clay is not free.

Not free, but cheap, very cheap if you choose to go that route. Ignoring modern "commercial" arts, musical instruments are largely improvised, or very cheaply produced. See bone flutes, tin can percussion (ala Jamaican street music), dead animals stretched over wooden forms, the hillbilly string bass and washboard, etc... If you leave a musically inclined individual on a desert island, they will make music, if you leave a group of them, you will have a band. You don't need a million dollar studio, and a vintage Strat to make good music. Music is part of what defines us, it has been present throughout our entire history.

As for visual arts, this is another problem, people have been doing them since we became people. Music and art can be considered among the things that make us "not apes". Every singe one of us is an "artist" in a sense. Every doodle we make in the phone-book is art. Your three year old using a stick to make figures in the mud is an artist. Again, if you stick a human, who is so inclined, on a desert island, they will be making art in no time.

Art and music, unlike modern games and movies, is not primarily about profit, they preexist the term, or concept. If there was no copyright, and zero monetary incentive for doing art, the traditional arts would happen, and people would still be producing them on a large scale.

This argument devolves into "should artists have a day job", and "what ratio of professional artists do we need". I personally don't care if Brittany Spears (or who-ever) can produce music constantly, and without the constraints that effect the rest of us (who may or may not be as creative). It isn't my responsibility to allow musicians the ability to only produce music. I don't see this as a priority.

The more modern, and expensive forms, requiring specialized, and expensive, equipment are a different story. Yes, you need a very large wad of cash to make a movie, or a video game (though this wasn't always so, it is a rather modern development). So yes, eating up the profit motive would hurt gaming and Hollywood.

It wouldn't really hurt music or the fine arts. At least their cultural value, and incentives.

The existence of copyright isn't about money, it is about cultural good. The argument is what ratio of protection coerces artists to produce more, while still benefiting society.

Pirate Party of Canada

[TihSon]

The Pirate Party is spreading across the globe, and in spite of a corporate war against culture, it is not going away anytime soon. These issues are not easy, and when they are eventually resolved they will not satisfy everyone, but unless all the players come to the table, all that remains for the average citizen of the world is to play the role of pirate. A role given to them by the buggy whip salesmen of the last century who will not allow their business model to grow.

http://www.pirateparty.ca

Re:Pirate Party of Canada

[TihSon]

Not sure why, but the link above seems to direct back here. Use this instead...

www.pirateparty.ca

Isn't it obvious why?

[wealthychef]

Why does it require an explanation that the Pirate Party would host Pirate Bay? I mean come on.

Music event donations?

[h00manist]

I suspect they could raise more organizing music events than online donations.

money for political campaigns

[h00manist]

Most money for political campaigns is spent on media. It's feasible they could manage their own online campaign well enough to compete with expensive TV media ads. In fact, they could use volunteers from anyone in the world in their internet political campaign.

in Italy

[Anonymous Coward]

the whole thepiratebay.org is blocked, both at the dns AND ip level.

how many countries are doing it?

corporations and politicians

[h00manist]

The basic rules of economic and political interests, abuse, and gaming of the system are the same everywhere, in Zambia, the US, China or Sweden, but the social percentage of honesty or corruption, and the laws, are different. It accounts for the difference. There are stats and comparisons of levels of corruption in different countries on Wikipedia somewhere.

This will all change someday

[celtic_hackr]

As long as the internet exists solely as wire, your scenario has merit. Once people start building their own wireless networks, how do you propose to shutdown the airwaves without sucking out the atmosphere. Now to show my age, I will quote the first intelligent computer: "The only winning move is not to play".

Now of course you are neglecting the possibility of building an underground internet. One that does not use any of the regular servers. One already exists, I won't give the details here. But it's not hard to find. At least not for anyone who really, well, and truly is a computer geek.There are many paths to circumvent "the Man". The internet is just a bunch of servers running an application that allows other machines to relay data over a wire carrying electric current or light or sound waves.

It would be a matter of absurd simplicity to turn a dozen shortwave radios, spread out over a large distance into a wireless internet root DNS system. Now, I must state in conclusion, I find the whole idea of uploading copyrighted works for worldwide download to be very unfair and simply wrong from a moral and ethical standpoint.

Now if you come back and say but the copyright protection is too long, what about those 1920 blues songs and 1950s Musical movies (like Oklahoma!), I really want to share? I say, if that's what you want to share why are you uploading P. Diddy songs from 2009, and Disney movies from 2010? I can agree copyright is too long now. 56 years was a decent, but long, number. 35 years is probably more fair. Seven is a joke and totally unfair to authors.

Head on a swivel

[ThatsNotPudding]

Watch your back; Disney has had people killed for less threatening ideas.

Surrender the Booty!

[freejung]

Well... I wouldn't exactly call it "asking."

False

[geekoid]

Setting aside the subjective value of 'good'.

Movie get locked up for a variety of reasons. For example,. many of the anti-Japanese cartoons from WWII are extremely hard to find and the studios take steps to destroy them simple because they are embarrassing. Many of them have fantastic art technique, emotionally gripping stories, and serve as a reminder for when emotions can take a country to far.

WHat does happen is anything people feel makes them enough money is avaiable. That is certian;y true. Copyright impacts culture. Copyright is a good thing, but right now it's gone too far.
registered, 14 year and a million dollars to extend it 7 more should just about be perfect as a balance between creators getting paid, and the continuation of culture.

Re:News? Glug Glug Glug

[DeadJesusRodeo]

A "Schutzschrift" is one of the tastier beers from the Rhineland. A cool clear lager that drinks smooth and tastes great. Mmmm try a Schutzschrift today! Danke!

no, i don't think they're crap examples

[circletimessquare]

1. yes, there was no quick and easy way to move their work around... and? your point?

2. they lived in an era where people had to go someplace to hear their work. again, your point? currently, the mp3 is free, just an advertisement to go see the artist at a concert. same world, better advertising

3. they weren't competing in the same market? again, what is your point? what is this observation supposed to mean? how is that instructive as to why or why not free mp3s are good/ bad? i am not being facetious, i am genuinely interested in why you think that is supposed to mean something

Re:no, i don't think they're crap examples

[ZekoMal]

No, the MP3 was never an advertisement. It was an alternative for those of us that don't want to be surrounded by shrieking harpies and deafening music. You seem to believe that just because MP3's didn't exist before electricity that they therefore shouldn't be worth so much as one cent.

It's not your choice. The artist chooses to sell their work. There are artists who give things away for free. How about instead of spitting on the artists that want to sell their work, you simply go and consume the free stuff?

Or, to put this to a comparison, since you seem apt to use comparisons yourself:

Say that an artist has their newest painting up in a museum. Everyone can come look at it for the entry fee to the museum, and they can buy a print of the painting-a copy, if you will-in the store. According to you, every human being on the face of the Earth should be allowed to go in to that store and grab a print, simply because the artist made something and can get a tiny bit of payment for every visitor that comes to see the "live" painting.

And you believe that won't stifle creativity at all, when doing something like that will mean that artists make less than they used to with more people using their work for free.

Of course they can

[Anonymous Coward]

"The point is, nobody can force an owner to crack open his vault and provide his original master"

Of course they can.

Forfeiture.

But that's a dumb example anyway: please tell me how many movies make box office while never moved out of a vault? NONE. So we don't care here.

Now if it's "Movie I released and everyone's seen", then we already HAVE someone coming in to a private vault and forcing the owner to do something they don't want to: it's called copyright enforcement. I OWN that DVD. I OWN the content. I OWN the movie on it. Don't like it? Don't sell or distribute or display your work.

Alternative: no copyrights.

[Anonymous Coward]

Alternative: no copyrights. There you go: no government intervention in the free market. Simples. Oh, what was that? You WANT government involved? Well why don't you make up your mind???

Re:Alternative: no copyrights.

[bhiestand]

Alternative: no copyrights. There you go: no government intervention in the free market. Simples. Oh, what was that? You WANT government involved? Well why don't you make up your mind???

Can't we have both? I mean, current copyright law is absurd. Let's just make it 10 or 20 years from the date of creation (or publication)... and require (as I think is somewhat the case now) a copy of all copyrighted works to be sent to the LOC for the copyright to be valid. Government should continue to house as much of the historical and cultural record as possible (they're the only reason we have most of our Civil War photos) and private citizens and organizations can amass their own libraries. It's a win for everyone (except Disney).

Teh Darmah

[Anonymous Coward]

AS U MITE HAS READ OR NOTICD, PEEPS ONCE AGAIN R TRYIN 2 SHUT US DOWN. DIS WILL NOT SUCCED, LOL. OURS RLY NICE WEBHOST WUZ THREATEND WIF RLY HUGE FINE, SO WE DECIDD 2 MOOV TEH SIET SO DAT THEY DIDNT GOT INTO TROUBLE, LOL. TEH DECISHUN 2 MOOV WUZ TAKEN BY US, TEH PIRATE BAY, LOL.

TEH PIRATE BAY IZ AN UNSINKABLE SHIP. IT WILL SAIL TEH INTERWEBS 4 AS LONG AS WE WANTS IT 2. REMEMBR DAT, K THX.

TPB, ONLY IN IT 4 TEH LULZ SINCE 2003

peer to peer political party

[h00manist]

I wonder if they'll be distributing a CD full of peer to peer software and complete printed manuals, with faq's on fake files, distributed hash tables, port forwarding, etc, as their political platform.

Ironically, most of this is payed by EU money

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of the money the Swedish Pirate Party has comes from their one (1) representative in the EU parliament. He have donated most of his paycheck to the party (because EU politicians are ridiculously overpaid, the Swedish Green Party (Miljöpartiet) and most of the representatives of the Left Party at least used to do the same thing (they may still, I don't know the situation today)).

Re:Ironically, most of this is payed by EU money

[Elisanre]

To be fair there are two representatives, Christian Engström and Amelia Andersdotter.

Remembrance

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember when all this will happen again :)

mp3s are worth how much?

[circletimessquare]

take an mp3

assuming you are in windows, highlight it and hit ctrl-c, then hit ctrl-v

define to me the cost involved

it does not matter that someone says mp3s are worth 1 cent each or 2 trillion dollars each. i am not talking about what you think they are worth. i am not talking about what i think they are worth. i am talking about what THEY ARE ACTUALLY WORTH

so we have your poorly thought out ideology. and we have my simple economic reality. you tell me who is going to win this contest

adapt, or die