Slashdot Mirror
The Pirate Bay Is 10 Years Old: 'We Really Didn't Think We'd Make It This Far'
An anonymous reader writes "The Pirate Bay, arguably the most resilient file sharing website, was first founded on August 9, 2003, although it didn't launch until September 15, 2003. Nevertheless, the group considers the former date to be its start, so today The Pirate Bay is 10 years old. From their blog: 'We really didn't think we'd make it this far. Not because of cops, mafiaa or corrupt politicians. But because we thought that we'd eventually be to old for this shit. But hey, running this ship makes us feel young.'"
Information wants to be free, but there are those who want to keep it bottled up.
An those that do want to keep it bottled, have more money than you an I.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Do you really think the NSA gives half a shit more about content owners than it does about us? They play a completely different game in a completely different league.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
But they are outnumbered and we shall crush them.
Demand keeps it in existence.
Really, I don't agree with copyright infringement in all cases, but why should I have to pay for cable AND HBO just to watch Game of Thrones?
Piracy only exists because the content providers are being idiots, when you get right down to it. Give people what they want, when they want it, for a fair price and without any gimmicks, and you'll find the vast majority will gladly pay to consume.
On the one hand their users provide access to good content that is easy to use and DRM free. I can download a file of a film and watch it on my PC and PS3 with ease. Same thing with having a neatly organized audio book to download rather than me having to spend hours ripping and categorizing two-dozen CDs. I buy almost everything that I watch but the ability to watch a Blu-Ray off of a hard drive and not have to constantly swap discs is great.
On the other hand ThePirateBay makes tons of money off of other artists' content. They have enough money off of the backs of other peoples' work to run for office, buy houses, and rent high-end servers. They have often had the site compromised by viruses and malware. Regularly accepting advertisements from places that have literally nothing but trojan horses, scam anti-virus, and other malware. And they are using other artists' works to make a political statement that most artists likely don't agree with. It's wrong when a politician campaigns with someone's song without permission yet The Pirate Bay uses artists' work without permission to promote TPB's cause.
When an artist provides a low cost and DRM free piece of work it is immediately thrown onto the PirateBay. The argument of 'free advertising' is null and void because artists have their own websites, YouTube, SoundCloud, and many other options. It's tough to say "look at the free exposure that Game of Thrones gets on the TPB" when literally everyone has heard of the show. There are entire square blocks and subway cars in NYC that are themed after the show. I don't think HBO needs help with word-of-mouth spreading of Game of Thrones.
And don't give me the "well I can't get HBO in my country" argument. If that was the case with piracy then why are there so many DVD and Blu-Ray rip torrents? Are all of those people just getting a backup copy?
Do you really think the NSA gives half a shit more about content owners than it does about us? They play a completely different game in a completely different league.
You mean like: "Why would the NSA track and read my Mails? There is nothing interesting in my Mails, I'm not criminal." You mean something like that? It would be unreasonable?
Think again!
If this were true they would have sent Seal Team Six after me instead of Bin Laden.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
yeah, wow. i know slashdot attracts the paranoid nutty crowd, but GP is absolutely bonkers.
Right, tell that the guy who soon will probe your anus everytime you want to use a public transport or the guy next to hime with a MG pointing at you.
Think I'll go download a camrip of Elysium tonight to watch over dinner.
10 years plundering the cyber seas, drink hearty ye scurvy dogs!
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
lol, this guy is hilarious! Why is no one upvoting him?
I know, I shouldn't feed the troll. But since trolls are tireless, we must be also tireless in trying to talk sense.
It isn't stealing. When I steal, you don't have what I took from you.
The copyright contract has been broken. It is specifically mandated to be for a LIMITED TIME. Since copyrights are now unlimited, there is no longer an obligation to follow copyright.
The justifications aren't tortured. At this point, the justifications of the copyright cartel are pretty tortured, though.
The people actually producing the art work don't get much compensation for their work. The copyright cartel makes sure of that. Musicians don't get their royalties, and film crews are constantly the victims of bizarro accounting rules where no matter what happens, the film always "lost money."
And your flippant dismissal of calling politicians corrupt flies in the face of extremely extensive and well-documented history.
What do you call the opposite of a tinfoil hatter? Someone who in the face of overwhelming evidence still believes the lies of the slave driver? A Stockholmer? This is you. Welcome to your new label.
fifth sigma, inc.
Always in trouble, always finds a way out...
LONG LIVE PB! ~ we do really love you, sometimes mode than our wives.
No, not like that at all. More like:
What is the difference between you and Beyonce to the NSA? Nothing. Everything about both of you is recorded if at all possible.
Are you sure ? I would say "we" wildly out number them even at $1 each we add up to much more.
to old for that too.
I like a place I can download stuff I read about on /. the http://thepiratebay.sx/ fills that need.
Like when Aaron Swartz uploaded JSTOR http://science.slashdot.org/story/11/07/22/2254204/release-of-33gib-of-scientific-publications 35 gigs of some of the driest stuff I've read, but I was able to.
Only click on the magnetic links, anything else is... well different. /. article (which is still good).
Secondary link http://thepiratebay.sx/torrent/6554331 not as "funny looking" as the link in the
I didn't realize we were talking about 2013 Capitalism.
But yes, you're right.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Has there ever been a case where putting a word in all capital letters made the argument more persuasive?
Why does that sentence always make the writer sound crazy? Seriously, if you hear someone say, "My logic is based on reality," you're almost always hearing someone who does not have much of a grasp on either.
You are welcome on my lawn.
You've all done really well to make it this far.
Here's to a great site and a group of exceptional human beings, *downs wine*.
50 mBTC sent.
Not to mention that they don't host or distribute anything. The users of TPB are the ones doing the pirating. GP might as well say that anyone who runs a search engine is a thief because they link to pirated material.
Seriously, if you hear someone say, "My logic is based on reality," you're almost always hearing someone who does not have much of a grasp on either.
Your ad hominem attack proves that you are inept at the art of argument.
The fact remains that people cannot survive in the western world
without some source of income, and the fantasy that artists should
be deprived of the ability to make a living because some twerps
like you want music or books for free is bullshit.
Maybe not, but TPB hugely contributes to the efficient indexing of magnet links which point mostly to pirated files.
Are you sure ? I would say "we" wildly out number them even at $1 each we add up to much more.
Sure, if you consider the entire thing to be a big "them vs. us" contest with the whole world. Once you realize it's more complicated than that, even to the point of accepting it's more of "them vs. us vs. don't care", and realize "don't care" is one hell of a lot bigger than either "them" or "us"...
Yo ho ho, anybody got any rum?
Free Martian Whores!
There is no doubt that the system is corrupt, but not paying even a dime for anything is corrupt as well. So don't fool yourself, by using those sites you have become the same thief as the music industry executive. Not everybody can go to all concerts and buy the CDs directly from artists, but at least if we try the legal avenues, at some point the actual artist will get even 1 dollar of compensation for your money.
I have been in countries with little copyright protection and guess what happens with their music and film industry? The government kind of have to step in to fund projects, since otherwise the box office is kind of a moot point. So corrupt or not, the free market with some copyright protection still rules in that sense.
Can't be too efficient, now can we?
It isn't stealing. When I steal, you don't have what I took from you.
You take away the potential to make money from that copy.
People somehow seem to think that when the reproduction cost for something is zero, it automatically removes all the value from the product and unlimited free copies can be made and no one loses anything.
For example, when you buy a book from a real bookstore, you are not only paying for the printing costs but also the extra value that the bookstore, publisher and the author has set for the item to recoup the production costs. Now we can take the physical printing process and the bookstore out of the equation and if we want, and make unlimited PDF copies or whatever. Does that mean that the publisher and author deserve no compensation?
Most of human art was produced before copyright existed, and the artists managed to get their meals just fine. Copyright was a positive force, for a while, when copying was expensive and when it was a limited privilege. That is not the case anymore. Currently copyright prevents far more art from coming to be than it incentives it. It is time to abolish it once and for all.
Your argument would be fine and logical IF the copyright holders actually paid the content producers what it's worth to keep them producing. The middlemen, the production companies and distributors, tend to grab the copyrights, and try to pass off 'work for hire' contracts on the actual content creators to pay them a set fee to create, thus keeping all the profits for themselves.
Read what Joe Straczynski, creator of Babylon 5, has to say about 'Hollywood accounting'. It's easily Googleable, but one of the things he's been quoted on is that B5 has *yet* to 'show a profit' according to Warner Brothers, and the way the contract was written, they could have a fire on a set in the Congo next week and the replacement costs would be charged to B5's profits. So don't give me that 'the artist gets ripped off by piracy' routine. The artists are already getting ripped off by their distributors.
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
You!
That and the reports from certain journalists that show the "real" reports/studies Big Media paid to have done, that shows no link between piracy and loss of revenue.
Despite these reports being feature on /. people either didn't read them, or have there own one way of thinking, the thinking!! these studies were falsely reported. It doesn't count (I guess) when they are the real "REAL" papers saying that there is no link!!
I question Big Medias reports on higher revenue since there is a communist like approach, solely by them to go after ISP's and anyone else regardless of laws and rules in place that are suppose to protect people against monopoly companies. And there is no movement by the "we are all for your freedoms and rights" Republican party, or by the "we are all about your civil liberties, and human rights" Democrats, to eliminate this kind of activity companies engage in, to threaten or blackmail other companies and people.
My favorite part of this "But because we thought that we'd eventually be to old for this shit. But hey, running this ship makes us feel young.'"
How is copyright a positive force when copying is _expensive_?
Thinking you'll be "too old for this shit" in only ten years. (Corollary: thinking only ten years is a long period of time.)
I have been in countries with little copyright protection and guess what happens with their music and film industry?
Let me guess... the countries and their cultures are vastly different from our own in ways that have nothing to do with copyright? Indeed. You have no hard scientific evidence that shows that copyright is beneficial.
It isn't stealing. When I steal, you don't have what I took from you.
Boring nitpicking. Stealing is just a shorthand way of saying you are taking something for free against the wishes of the rightful owner who has put a price on it.
The copyright contract has been broken. It is specifically mandated to be for a LIMITED TIME. Since copyrights are now unlimited, there is no longer an obligation to follow copyright.
Copyrights are not unlimited in any major country that I know of. Can you specify contract are you talking about that makes it ok for you to break the law if, in your opinion, the duration of copyright is too long?
The people actually producing the art work don't get much compensation for their work.
There is nothing stopping any artist to sell their art by themselves and keep ALL the money. The reason they sign up with labels (to take music as an example) is because making 5% of the millions of dollars is better than 100% of zero dollars . The share of the profits that they get reflects the reality that it is not the quality of music that sells it but marketing that the label provides.
And your flippant dismissal of calling politicians corrupt flies in the face of extremely extensive and well-documented history.
Absolutely agree with that one. Assuming you are consistent in believing that such corrupt politicians should have much less power in areas other than copyright (such as taxation/welfare, industry regulation, healthcare etc etc) then we are in perfect agreement on this one.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
You take away the potential to make money from that copy.
And who gains that potential? No one. It's not something that physically exists in any form, and it's not something that can even be owned.
And there must be a lot of thieves around. For instance, someone walking down the sidewalk had the gall to refuse to give me money when I asked for it, thereby depriving me of money I could have had were the situation different!
must sail in the same direction...
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Give me the option to pay appropriately direct to the artists and I'll pay. If not, if you insist I put money in to the leech class that screws the artists... fuck them.
Have you actually studied economics? Do you understand supply and demand? And, more importantly, do you understand the fallacy of excluded middle?
Nobody is saying that "everyone should stop paying for all forms of art, and download it all for free." Nor is anyone (sane) predicting that all purchases of digital art will cease should copyright law change or copyright enforcement cease. If you believe either of these two things, then you are failing to grasp the basics of human behavior.
1) People *like* going to concerts. Even if they could download a video of a concert later, they are willing to pay a fee to go see the concert in person. *artists make money this way.*
2) People *like* going to movie theaters. Same deal.
3) Even when downloading content, most people will pay if the price is reasonable and the delivery mechanism is convenient. Amazon.com, for example, makes a fortune selling MP3's individually, even those same MP3's are trivially easy to download for free.
Most "pirates" would like to see a return to balance in copyright law. 20 year maximum is more than reasonable. And artists would get paid!
Such a world is economically viable. It is fair, and it works. Until the content cartels are willing to play by reasonable rules like these, people will continue to go around them by downloading, and will feel completely justified in doing so, whether you call them stupid or not.
Now the pirate bay can refer to all of the actions against them as "against a ten year old".
How about changing the business model to something more sustainable? Don't do some work if you haven't negotiated some sort of payment scheme if your goal was to earn some money from your work. Think about how the patron model was used through the ages to finance creative work. This can work well today because we have the Internet to help spread advertise the idea worldwide. In fact, there are places such as Indiegogo and Kickstarter to support this form of financing.
Copyrights are not unlimited in any major country that I know of.
I think he is referring to the de facto unlimited nature of copyright in the United States, in that due to the lobbying power of the Walt Disney Company, the copyright term will never be less than the age of Mickey Mouse. As long as they stay in business, Disney will forever keep pushing congress to extend the term of copyrights in order to ensure that Mickey will never enter the public domain. Therefore, anything copyrighted after Mickey Mouse was copyrighted effectively has an unlimited copyright term.
Can you specify contract are you talking about that makes it ok for you to break the law if, in your opinion, the duration of copyright is too long?
If the law itself is unjust, the remedy must not come from within the law but from without. In other words, civil disobedience is the only way to affect change if the system itself is corrupt. Insisting on the use of an existing law to combat an unjust system of laws is equivocating.
Facepalm... that's all I can say.
20 year maximum is more than reasonable.
If copyright itself didn't infringe upon people's rights, then I might agree with that, but that is sadly not the case.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
You can do that by pirating your art and then manually sending the typical price of that product in full directly to the artist.
You take away the potential to make money from that copy.
People somehow seem to think that when the reproduction cost for something is zero, it automatically removes all the value from the product and unlimited free copies can be made and no one loses anything.
For example, when you buy a book from a real bookstore, you are not only paying for the printing costs but also the extra value that the bookstore, publisher and the author has set for the item to recoup the production costs. Now we can take the physical printing process and the bookstore out of the equation and if we want, and make unlimited PDF copies or whatever. Does that mean that the publisher and author deserve no compensation?
The author is paid by the publisher with an advance, not the book store, a set fee against future royalties. The royalties kick in after the advance is covered by enough sales. Editing costs and printing costs are paid by the publisher in job lots. The publisher is paid by the distributor. The distributor is paid by the book store.
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
When a person copies a protected work, literally nothing is taken. It's not stealing, it's a malum de jure know as copyright infringment. There is nothing inherently wrong with copying, that is the stability of a society does not require copyrights.
Believe me, I didn't expect anything more of you.
While my general point still stands, thanks for the corrections.
"It isn't stealing. When I steal, you don't have what I took from you."
That's not the definition of stealing. It's taking what is not yours without getting permission or paying for it, while you should have. This is also the case with pirating.
Btw, congrats TPB and I hope you live many more years!!
It doesn't have to be like this. All we need to do is make sure we keep talking.
The problem with prosecuting The Pirate Bay isn't in finding them. The NSA has that covered easily. The issue is finding a law and strategy to get them with for good.
This should be good. How exactly does copyright infringe upon people's rights?
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
I should preface this with the fact that I buy lots of media (movies, tv shows, books, and video games). How exactly is pirating something I don't find worth paying for going to cause people to lose money? I used to buy plenty of music when I was younger, but these days I just don't find much that interests me and I primarily listen to my old music that I ripped to mp3's years ago. Since I don't find any reason to buy say the new Lonely Island cd (my life is of equal quality with it or without it), how are they losing anything if I chose to download it? I don't find it worth my money, thus if piracy is not an option I won't buy it and if piracy is an option and I choose to download it, they're still getting zero income from me.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
Simple. Because there was need to provide an incentive for copies to be made and for knowledge to be spread. Now there is no need for doing it anymore, as spreading knowledge is very cheap.
Artists didn't have a less pleasant life than any other commoner. The truth is everybody had a very difficult life in comparison to modern society. Still art existed and people kept creating new stuff. Copyright is unnecessary. Most artists earn far more with other activities than through copyright. Submitting all of humankind to these restrictions to privilege the few that earn a lot with copyright, when most of them are intermediaries and not creators is ridiculous.
I sent a letter to the BBC about a week ago asking them to set up a mechanism that I could donate for products of theirs that I enjoyed.
I explained that I don't use iTunes and I don't use BluRay, but I wanted a 1080p copy - and asked if there was a way I could donate money directly to them. The request was for the documentary "Africa" - which was the best doco i've ever seen. Go David Attenborough!!
Unfortunately, BBC didn't do me the courtesy of a response.
If I could cut out the middleman and pay the artist directly (well, in this case, BBC), I would. I'm sure others would do the same too.
Yes, I download - but I also pay/try to pay for what I think is good, but I will not pay 1c to any "intermediate" organizations that are bullies, liars, cheats or swindlers.
And Google, Bing, Yahoo, et al contribute to the efficient indexing of direct links to pirated software.
Copyrights are not unlimited in any major country that I know of. Can you specify contract are you talking about that makes it ok for you to break the law if, in your opinion, the duration of copyright is too long?
While not unlimited US copyright is definitely long enough to be viewed as such as most works created today will be under copyright way past your and my lifetime:
As a general rule, for works created after January 1, 1978, copyright protection lasts for the life of the author plus an additional 70 years. For an anonymous work, a pseudonymous work, or a work made for hire, the copyright endures for a term of 95 years from the year of its first publication or a term of 120 years from the year of its creation, whichever expires first. http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-duration.html
It should be obvious to anyone including the most hardcore defenders of the current model for whose benefit these asinine copyright terms have been put in place.
Pro tip: It is not for the benefit of the creators.
"I have downloaded hundreds and hundreds of records, why would I care if somebody downloads ours?" Robin Pecknold
Well, I'm shivering. Is there a torrent for 3D printed tinfoil?
They sent Bin Laden after you?
First you'd have to define "right". And the lack of such definition is at the heart of the copyright wars. One side waves around things like "a right to control one's creations", "a right to be paid for my work", and the other side waves around things like "a right to do whatever I want with something I bought", "a right to express myself by producing a derivative work".
Funny how everyone thinks the particular "rights" they wave around are absolute, yet the history of judicial and legislative opinion which deals with the contradictions between these rights is far from deterministic, and varies widely from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, or even within the same jurisdiction, over time, or even between various contemporaneous judges.
> Think about it, since ThePirateBay exists the copy protection (DRM) went right into NSA survilance style
Uh, don't you think that a much more likely explanation is that the content cartel's reaction is merely a natural one caused by the "Emperor has no clothes" exposure by TPB that copyright is, given modern technology, not enforceable in any practical fashion without trampling over all kinds of rights which people cherish (and yes, here we have the real overlap with the NSA situation).
I've seen several of my books on TPB, and I still manage to make a living. Get over yourself.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Copying a file is as much stealing as walking on private property is. It may be a crime but it isn't theft - it's trespassing.
You wouldn't walk on someone else's lawn now, would you?
systemd is not an init system. It's a GNU replacement.
This is such a fail argument. Why does it even come up?
It is not societies job to stop artists and producers from signing stupid contracts. That's their job, and their job alone. For every writer or actor who signed a stupid contract I can show you one that was smarter and did incredibly well out of their success.
However it IS societies job to ensure that once they've created something and decided what to do with it, that they can then benefit from that work in some way. It's our job because basically every modern society has decided that creative works are good, and professional creatives are even better, and that we need to have a framework in place that lets people focus on making creative works full time. The alternative funding models out there have not been shown to be anywhere near competitive. How many people watch movies funded by Kickstarter?
When you purchase music, you actually purchase a license. Your rights are whatever the seller gives to you through the license. There is no ambiguity.
Copyrights are not unlimited in any major country that I know of. Can you specify contract are you talking about that makes it ok for you to break the law if, in your opinion, the duration of copyright is too long?
You accuse him of "boring nitpicking" when he says piracy is not theft, whereas you do *exactly* the same stating that copyrights are not unlimited. It's life + 70 years in the US. This means that effectively no one will ever benefit from entry into the public domain of copyright works created in their lifetime. If the timescale is so long that you never see it, then it's as good as unlimited.
To illustrate the absurdity of your argument, try some reductio absurdum. What if coyright terms were 10^6 years. Still not technically unlimited, according to you.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
For every writer or actor who signed a stupid contract I can show you one that was smarter and did incredibly well out of their success.
No, you can't. You can show a few examples of the latter. There are an almost infinite number of the former. There's a reason that Hollywood Accounting has so much published material about it.
How many people watch movies funded by Kickstarter
I have.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
> I have been in countries with little copyright protection and guess what happens with their music and film industry?
I dunno, maybe... government shills will use their great success to claim that, er, copyright needs to be strengthened?
But please, feel free to serve up some referenced facts which actually confirm your anecdotal opinion. I'm actually quite open-minded.
If it's society's job to ensure that someone can benefit from creative works, why is it handing the creators something which is utterly worthless? The right to control copying of an abundant product is worth nothing without the distribution network which is not owned by creators.
Oh, right, because copyright is intended to benefit the distributors and not the creators. The creators are merely a cheap excuse and as they are not particularly scarce and most cannot independently gain access to end consumers to a significant degree, they hold no bargaining power and thus have the choice of between getting screwed or getting nothing. Perfect. For the distributors.
If 'copyright' had actually been about incentives for producing creative works it would have been constructed to automatically hand creators a significant portions of the end user transaction. A guaranteed significant cut would actually be worth something and would actually let someone focus on creative works full time.
But it's not. And most 'creatives' would have a better chance of striking it rich by working selling fries with that and investing their proceeds in the lottery than by playing a game which is intentionally stacked against them every step of the way.
You do realize that the definition of taking means that the one whom the thing is taken from no longer has it? If I take your apple you don't have it. If I take your book you no longer have it.
If I pirate your book you still have it. Because I copied it. I neither took it, nor stole it, I copied it. And if you didn't see it, you'd have no idea it had happened, nor could you demonstrate or even experience any loss, while had you been robbed you'd certainly notice it.
See, physical property rights are actually demonstrably real and arguable as part of natural law, while imaginary property rights cannot be demonstrated or argued without their own previous existence.
Creationists do it all the time. It makes their arguments truly compelling and I for one am thoroughly convinced to the degree that I go forth this day in search of my beard and sandals. I'm not entirely convinced they'll coordinate well with my sweater kittens, but hey, details.
My logic is bigger than your logic. Ner...
Yes, but they don't index deliberately only pirate links, and remove copyright-violating links on the copyright holder's demand.
Maybe, but the author would still like to be paid for that copy, for his hard work.
What happens if you run a website that disobeys copyright law? Well, if they're targeting you already, possibly censorship, which means you've just lost some free speech rights.
What happens if you use your own equipment, resources, and money to produce something that's under the protection of copyright? Well, you could possibly be sued into oblivion if any copyright holders find out, which means copyright also infringes upon physical property rights in order to provide certain people with government-enforced monopolies.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
When you purchase music, you actually purchase a license.
My equipment, my rules; I consider it mine regardless of what the law says.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Infringing upon people's rights for security or to encourage innovation is, to me, just disgusting. I would oppose the TSA even if it worked, and likewise, I oppose the notion that copyright was okay in the past.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Boring nitpicking.
I don't think it is boring nitpicking. I've met a number of normal people who don't even know what copyright infringement actually is, but thanks to people calling it "theft" all the time, they think it involves physical losses. As far as I know, copyright infringement is not legally considered theft, and since copyright is a legal matter, I think people need to use the 'proper' terms when discussing it. Using words such as "theft" just confuses the matter.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Neither does TPB, because you can easily find torrents directed at legal material on there. It's the users who decide which torrents to put up and a link is not illegal, whether it's a hyperlink, a magnet or a torrent. It's like if I told you "Hey, someone told me that John has illegal drugs" and you go buy illegal drugs from John. You and John have committed a crime, but I haven't.
Do an image search on any search engine. I guarantee you that you'll be pulling tons copyrighted images, so requests for link takedown are obviously not effective nor are the search providers legally required to stop linking to them.
That's not the definition of stealing.
Why do people rely on definitions from random dictionaries when discussing a legal matter? Not only does calling it "stealing" confuse people who aren't familiar with copyright infringement, but that is not what the legal system recognizes it as.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Considering that I would not have bought most of the stuff I have pirated anyways, there is no money or sales potential lost at all.
I have pirated some stuff that I later wound up buying, just because I enjoyed it so much, so if anything, piracy helps sales potential for the few quality products out there.
According to your "so called" logic, I do "work" for NO PAY and I'm fine with that. Your definition of "work" is sipping Long Island Iced Tea by the pool. My definition of "work" is the creation of a useful or entertaining product. When I write a document for my company they pay me for the time it took to write. I don't get paid every time someone reads my instruction manual, test report, or RFQ. How is it that "artists" spend a month or two writing a book (recording a tune) and expect to get paid for the rest of their life? The actor and director, who got paid $10M for making the movie, expects to cash a huge check ever month for sitting on thier collective ass. Where does this expectation, YOUR expectation, come from? Well, "logically" the artist is unable to produce a viable product day-in and day-out like I do, so they must be paid for past product. It doesn't sound like these guys are being as productive as you and I are expected to be everyday. I'm not "starving or homeless" and I have a book for sale on Amazon that I wrote just for the fun of it.
Now that I said that, I fell better.
Lemme guess you have never lived a foodless day as a musician or lived off of oatmeal for a week musicians work as hard if not more hard than avg desk jockey and they deserve fair pay for their labor norman greenbaum lived off the royalties to spirit in the sky for a long time why shouldn't today's hitmakers and hit writers be given same opportunity
Copyright is only unnecessary to those who do not have creative output and seek to punish people that do by STEALING their LABOR
Just because you are one out of 100,000 does not make you innocent. It only means that you comprise 1 / 100,000th of a lawless, unethical mob. this is called LOOTING
It's not nitpicking. Intellectual property cannot be stolen per-se, and has no intrinsic value. It can only be duplicated, and even if the author does not wish it there is no direct loss.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Neither does TPB, because you can easily find torrents directed at legal material on there. It's the users who decide which torrents to put up and a link is not illegal, whether it's a hyperlink, a magnet or a torrent.
That is a completely naive argument. It is blatantly obvious that TPB's main motivation is to serve pirate magnet links. That someone tucks there an occasional legal torrent does not change the big picture much.
Considering that I would not have bought most of the stuff I have pirated anyways, there is no money or sales potential lost at all.
I have pirated some stuff that I later wound up buying, just because I enjoyed it so much, so if anything, piracy helps sales potential for the few quality products out there.
That is somewhat reasonable argument, but there are still people who don't think about this stuff, and it becomes hard to choose to whom we give the free copy. Because many of those people actually would have bought the product if it wasn't there for free and, they won't be buying it even if they enjoy it in the long term.
Of course it's not. The rationale for copyright in the Constitution is "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."
How exactly does any life + x years term apply to the "Authors and Inventors", when they are dead?
As to the benefit to society, (even barring any future copyright extensions) works created before I was born will likely not enter the public domain before I die of old age. I think that makes your "unlimited" argument a little more obvious.
> When you purchase music, you actually purchase a license. Your rights are whatever
> the seller gives to you through the license. There is no ambiguity.
My rights are whatever the seller gives me? So if the license I get says I cannot complain about the quality of the music in any public forum, this abrogates my first amendment rights? Somehow, I don't think so.
> There is no ambiguity.
Somehow, I get the impression you aren't a lawyer.
Oh, and by the way, unless you were talking solely about digital downloads, you should read the following Wikipedia article: First sale doctrine. And even the status of digital downloads is not totally determined, we're still waiting for the ReDigi litigation to play out.
It doesn't have to. Links are not illegal.
Sigh...
You probably should have thought about all those things *before* you refused to pay for your copyright protection.
Failure to pay for that agreed upon service means we now fail to provide that service. It's as simple as that.
You can only keep bouncing checks for so long and still act surprised no one will accept them any longer.
The copyright contract has been broken. It is specifically mandated to be for a LIMITED TIME. Since copyrights are now unlimited, there is no longer an obligation to follow copyright.
The justifications aren't tortured. At this point, the justifications of the copyright cartel are pretty tortured, though.
I'm sorry but that justification is pretty tortured.
I pirate too and I have my justifications. For music when I know the album and can buy DRM free files I'll buy. If there isn't a DRM-free option, or I don't know the album that well, I'll probably pirate. I'm also more willing to send money to smaller artists who would really miss it.
For TV and movies there's some legal online broadcasts, and netflicks helps too, but not all shows have online broadcasts, netflicks doesn't work on Linux, and DVDs are super expensive. If there's a legal way, even with ads, I'll watch that way. Otherwise I'll probably pirate.
It's immoral for me to pirate, but not seriously so, and if the media infrastructure changed sufficiently I'd stop. I'm willing to admit I'm doing a mildly bad thing if it means I don't have to lie to myself.
The people actually producing the art work don't get much compensation for their work. The copyright cartel makes sure of that. Musicians don't get their royalties, and film crews are constantly the victims of bizarro accounting rules where no matter what happens, the film always "lost money."
And your flippant dismissal of calling politicians corrupt flies in the face of extremely extensive and well-documented history.
What do you call the opposite of a tinfoil hatter? Someone who in the face of overwhelming evidence still believes the lies of the slave driver? A Stockholmer? This is you. Welcome to your new label.
Politicians making screwy laws and studios using Hollywood accounting means they're unsympathetic crooks, but it doesn't let us off the hook morally speaking.
I stole this Sig
I've made my living for more than 20 years from the content I've created.
Your assumptions are entirely wrong.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Which "right" is that? Unless of course, you're trying to posit that ideas are property, which is entirely a construct of the industrial revolution. You'll find no such right in natural law.
You are welcome on my lawn.
The question you should be asking is, "Why should someone expect to live an entire life supported only by the fruits of a work lasting three minutes and twenty-nine seconds?"
How long did Norman Greenbaum work at writing that song? Can you make a case, moral or economic, for so little work producing enough wealth to live on for 44 years? The question you should ask yourself is, "Is that reasonable?"
You are welcome on my lawn.
It isn't stealing. When I steal, you don't have what I took from you.
Cool. So, to show that you are not hypocrite, could you share your SSN/credit card number? Numbers still be yours, but maybe you will learn in hard way about this "not stealing".
I think you two are on the same side but you've crossed wires.
> Boring nitpicking. Stealing is just a shorthand way of saying you are taking something for free against the wishes of the rightful owner who has put a price on it.
Boring irrelevance. Calling it stealing or claiming that it is 'rightful', did nothing to address the parent poster's substantive point that there is scant legitmiate moral claim to be awarded the power to ration something that can exist in abundance. The public grants the legal conditions that pertain to copyright, and if the public's desire to encourage creative works through the restriction of non-commercial copying is no longer considered to be in their interests then sad day for copyright holders.
> The share of the profits that they get reflects the reality that it is not the quality of music that sells it but marketing that the label provides.
If the quality of music is truely as worthless as that implies then there is even less moral justification for charging for it, as it is all just some manipulative marketing exercise in turd polishing!
It doesn't matter if TPB, as an organization clearly advocate piracy. The platform they provide to share torrents is neutral, and does not favor illegal material any more than legal material.
If you ignore ACs because they are anonymous - you're an idiot.