Pirate Bay Shifts Connections From Sweden To Ease Heat on Pirate Party

An anonymous reader writes with this news (excerpted from IT World) that follows up on the report of pressure put on Sweden's Pirate Party for its connection to The Pirate Bay: "The Pirate Bay has opened two new gateways to its internal network in order to shield its current Internet provider, the Swedish Pirate Party, which had been threatened with legal action if it did not stop providing Internet access to the torrent search site by Tuesday. The Swedish Pirate Party had provided bandwidth to The Pirate Bay for about three years because it was hard for the site to find anyone else who would do so. But last Tuesday the Rights Alliance, an organization that represents the film industry, gave it an ultimatum: The Pirate Party had to cut off Internet access to the torrent search site or face legal action. The Pirate Bay's administrators said in a post on Facebook that, because of the legal threat and the potential cost of fighting it, 'We've taken the decision to move on to Norway and Spain.'"

Comments

Anybody remember the Fifth of November?

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems like with all the lawsuits getting thrown around these days, even dedicated organizations run scared at the first mention of 'legal action'. We need to stand up for what is bullshit to begin with. Sure, people will go to jail, but without sacrifice there can be no victory. If you aren't prepared to do whatever is necessary for what you believe in, don't join a national organization dedicated to supporting it(supposedly no matter what the consequences). The world is getting hairier and hairier with legal steps these days, we just need cut through all the crap and focus on what is important. EVERYBODY has to help though. Artists, consumers, everyone is important because without them all, the big guys win. And nobody wants that. People shouldn't be afraid of their governments, governments should be afraid of their people. Peace.

Re:Anybody remember the Fifth of November?

[Troed]

There are multiple angles to this issue. The Swedish Pirate Party is part of an international movement (with sister parties in ~60 countries) and we're represented in the European Parliament. Thus we are already well on our way to through political means change society to be more Internet friendly.

While providing Internet connection to The Pirate Bay is a political statement, it won't help our overall goal to have the party economy, as well as that of our leaders and administrators, in ruin. It makes for a less effective election period next year, when we have both EU and national elections during the span of a few months.

Luckily, we didn't have to make that choice. The Pirate Bay choose themselves to switch to other ISPs making the result of our internal debate moot.

/me - board member of the Swedish Pirate Party

They're afraid of going after downloaders.

[concealment]

The Pirate Bay through its unfortunate but iconic name will always be a target. If they'd named it "Generic Torrents," we wouldn't see this.

However, as someone who uses TPB to distribute legal content, I don't want it to go away. It is the most high-profile torrent tracker in the world and that makes it useful for spreading information.

I don't know how much of its content is legal, but I think the roles here are reversed. If someone uploads a torrent of illegal information (child porn, piracy, state secrets, etc) and other someones download it, then those are the people who should be prosecuted.

The recording industry is attacking TPB instead of attacking the someones who are doing the illegal acts, because those someones are mostly the children and college students of middle America. It would be politically unpopular to attack those.

Lawsuit threats work

[schneidafunk]

Moral of the story? Just the threat of a lawsuit motivates people to do things against their will.

Re:Lawsuit threats work

[fibonacci8]

From Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary: Extortion noun (Concise Encyclopedia) Unlawful exaction of money or property through intimidation or undue exercise of authority. It may include threats of physical harm, criminal prosecution, or public exposure. Some forms of threat, especially those made in writing, are occasionally singled out for separate statutory treatment as blackmail.

Money Law

[Phrogman]

Just another case where the courts are being used to threaten/bully someone into conforming to the will of our corporate masters. Sad to see.

Blackmail

[DustPuppySnr]

Is it only called blackmail if you are not a registered corporation?

Re:Takeaway: You might be a pirate

[Anonymous Coward]

More like the Pirate Bay's evacuation of Sicily.

In the grand scheme of things, its a shiny political win but economically and practically hurts Pirate Bay nowhere near as much as it hurts Sweden. Why setup servers in Sweden if there's a constant threat of being targeted and having your servers shut down? If TORRENTS can get you hit with legal action, digital storage sites like Dropbox and Amazon (which actually host the infringing material) are probably looking at this and blacklisting Sweden from ever hosting servers.