Slashdot Mirror
Pirate Bay Founders Lose Final Appeal
therufus writes "Sweden's Supreme Court announced its decision not to grant leave to appeal in the long-running Pirate Bay criminal trial. This means that the previously determined jail sentences and fines handed out to Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm and Carl Lundström will stand."
Gee, I wonder what the reactions on Slashdot will be. I can only guess.
Once again, we must suffer through another pro-piracy story. On Slashdot, piracy is awesome and copyright is evil, yet GPL theft is a terrible thing. GPL code must be protected because it's free shit, yet copyright must also be abolished so we can get free shit--even though the GPL is a copyright license! And don't you dare copy Slashdot's content on another site--few here seem to remember that Slashdot once sent a cease-and-desist letter! And does anyone remember when Slashdot pulled its Spider-Man 2 review because of plagiarism?
The only respectable pirates are the ones who freely admit that they do it because they want shit for free. Slashdot, however, invents convoluted moral platitudes to justify it. You are stealing from artists who created content. You use the "MAFIAA" as a scapegoat so you don't feel guilty about it. Nothing more.
No system can work in which nobody gets compensated for their work. Simply because a distribution channel opened up that made it easy to pirate things doesn't magically make it okay. The "obsolete business model" argument isn't even valid anymore because we already have things like Netflix, Steam, iTunes, etc.
It's almost as if people think the fact they can download Linux for free means everything should be free. The point of OSS is to give back, not to leech. You're not contributing anything back when you pirate something. You're only making sure that whoever made it doesn't get paid for their work, and if it was sold through a record label or something, that corporation will be less likely to take a chance on artists like that because they don't see a return on their investment. Way to go.
This is guaranteed to get modded down because it's anti-piracy. You cannot express an anti-piracy position on Slashdot. You must be pro-piracy, or you will be censored. This place is one of the most one-sided, self-serving communities on the internet.
To respond in general to the comments defending the pirate bay: I write software for a living. I know there are many here who do. There is a crack on the net for almost every piece of software I've ever written. Can someone explain to me how that is not harmful to my business? Seriously, I would love to know. In order for me to make sure that I earn money I have to price my software based on units sold and time spent writing it. Otherwise I might as well go and work in a nice steady government job. If everyone using my software had paid for it then the price would be half what it is. Pirates hurt other consumers just as much as they hurt the businesses they steal from. Their activities are based purely on self interest and have nothing to do with free speech. If you think anything else then you are living in a dream world.