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The Pirate Bay Founders Go Legit With BayFiles

Posted by samzenpus on from the now-with-90%-less-stuff dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The founders of The Pirate Bay, possibly the best-known BitTorrent tracking service in existence, are going legit with a new file-sharing site which they claim will adhere to all copyright rules and takedown requests. BayFiles, as the new service is named, isn't BitTorrent powered. Instead, the site borrows its method of operation from the likes of Megaupload and RapidShare: a user selects a file and uploads it to the site via their web browser, after which it becomes available for anyone to download, assuming they have the link."

4 of 151 comments (clear)

  1. Adhere to takedown requests by Baloroth · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So, basically, if the copyright holder complains, the file will be removed. But, if Rapidshare et al. are any instance, it'll promptly be reuploaded under a different name. Encrypted and password locked so the RIAA won't know it's there unless they manually go out and search all the sites linking to it. Or, in other words, it's just as "legitimate" (I honestly think it is legitimate) as TPB is, just with better ass-coverage, more work required on the part of the copyright cartels, and less chance of downloaders being traced. Perfectly legally, of course.

    --
    "None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
  2. Totally Legit, Easily Abused by eldavojohn · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Here's what I got from the article. It's registered in South America from Hong Kong company. Once you upload a file, you get a link but there is no way to search across uploaded files. So basically you can share that link out with only your close friends and no one else could possibly know about it and there was no mention of Bayfiles inspecting or fingerprinting these files actively -- only when issued a DMCA from a copyright holder.

    I'm guessing their DMCA officers just wait for requests and then investigate the files and then delete them. Are there even any negative repercussions for the offending uploader? If so, just do it anonymously.

    Sure, it's not possible for everybody to come and get whatever they want but it's quite simple for me to upload a few albums and sent the links over to my friends to get a zip download.

    How is the RIAA (or anybody else) supposed to find files on here that violate their copyright? Sure, you can't post your link in a forum that will be found via Google but for close knit meshes of sharers, this is a dream come true (just like Usenet or even the Dropbox accounts my friends share).

    --
    My work here is dung.
    1. Re:Totally Legit, Easily Abused by SuricouRaven · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Your fourth paragraph explains: If people can keep on using the old software via pirate source, and it does what they need, why would they pay for upgrades? In many cases, a software companies greatest competitor is themselves from five years ago.

  3. No torrent, no download by Taibhsear · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Which no one will use.

    People (legitimate uploads at least) put their files on Pirate Bay because it offloads the server work and increases their customer base. Almost like free advertising for their software. You go to TPB, see what files are popular and download them. You might download software you could never have heard of since you have no other contact with that company. Can't go download something from a website you never heard of. And since it was torrents, popular files you could get in no time vs going to the company's main website for a direct download which could take way longer if they didn't invest in their servers/connections. Going rapidshare style almost blows the whole point of going to TPB.