Swedish Police Raid the Pirate Bay Again

o_ferguson writes: TorrentFreak is reporting that police in Sweden carried out a raid in Stockholm today, seizing servers, computers, and other equipment. At the same time The Pirate Bay and several other torrent-related sites disappeared offline. Although no official statement has been made, TF sources confirm action against TPB. This is not the first time that this has happened.

Comments

...and here we go again

[torkus]

Site down, random shuffle, site comes back. I wonder if they'll find someone else to arrest this time around.

Though I thought they finally got smart and started hosting elsewhere?

Re:...and here we go again

[Kaenneth]

Looks like EZTV might also be affected.

Re:...and here we go again

[Anonymous Coward]

I see these articles, which seem dated about Sept 2014:

Pirate Bay fools the system with cloud technology

The Pirate Bay runs on 21 “raid-proof” virtual machines

I'm lowercasing some of those titles, so it doesn't look like RAID-proof. This is referring to police raids, not RAID (disk redundancy).

So I guess now we may get to see just how “raid-proof” this really is(n't).

Then again, Pirate Bay moves to the cloud, becomes raid-proof shows a date of October 2012. So their cloudiness might not be a brand new thing.

Re:...and here we go again

[pellik]

No no, that was RAID proof the whole time. There is no redundancy of any kind in the pirate bay's system.

Re:...and here we go again

[Anonymous Coward]

It was all click bait. Reading those articles again today, you see it actually says "However, with the site’s current setup it would be fairly easy to continue operating from another provider in a relatively short time." So define short time.

Re:...and here we go again

[sexconker]

The malware bay endures!

I have never once gotten malware from TPB.
"Reputable" sites such as download.com have been injecting it into / wrapping it around every download for the past few years now.

Re:...and here we go again

[PopeRatzo]

Site down, random shuffle, site comes back.

Seriously. If only Sony's Playstation Network was as robust.

Re:...and here we go again

[MrL0G1C]

You weren't downloading cracks. I downloaded a load of 'cracks' from Piratebay and ran them in a VM for kicks, there were some right nasty little buggers.

Re:...and here we go again

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm guessing you run AdBlock and NoScript? I was shocked at the amount of dodgy "download" buttons everywhere on the TPB site when I viewed it from a different computer. Non-technical people who've heard about TPB may easily fall for those and get some nasty stuff installed.

Re:...and here we go again

[skovnymfe]

There's no such thing as free. Even the criminals know that.

Re:...and here we go again

[umafuckit]

This, I'm sure, is true. But out of curiosity, what did you see and what tools did you test it with? Just any old malware/virus checker?

Re:...and here we go again

[Anonymous Coward]

Well it's back now, so I guess "short time" is "less than 24 hours".

Re:...and here we go again

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why you download your software as a cracked package from a trusted cracker coming from a know release crew.
I have been shopping at TPB for years and have never had any bad experience.

The secret to TBP is to use your brain and not download the first result displayed. TBP is not Google. The best results are rarely at position 1 of your search query but require reorder by seeder count.

Re:...and here we go again

[MrL0G1C]

Tools like Process Monitor, Process Explorer, Autoruns are better for watching viruses.

Checking the software with VirusTotal is the best way of finding out if it's virus/trojan. Of course the best way to scan a system is from separate OS. But I'm lazy and use Malwarebytes Anti-Malware.

Re:...and here we go again

[CronoCloud]

Ha! It's better than it used to be. It's back from the DDOSing.

Re:...and here we go again

[ultranova]

I downloaded a load of 'cracks' from Piratebay and ran them in a VM for kicks, there were some right nasty little buggers.

Problem is, this is nowadays true for software in general, no matter what the source, with perhaps the sole exception of gog.com. Even AMD display drivers tried to install some bundled crapware recently.

Re:...and here we go again

[ultranova]

There's no such thing as free.

So how much did you get paid for your comment?

Re:...and here we go again

[skovnymfe]

Get paid? Commenting costs time and effort. Very few people get paid for their time and effort when commenting. I can't see what I could possibly have to say on Slashdot that would warrant me getting money for it. I sure hope no one gets money for posting anything here. It's all shit.

Re:...and here we go again

[bigrockpeltr]

i think an Argentine TLD should be next... thepiratebay.ar would be awesome

Re:...and here we go again

[sexconker]

And you weren't downloading from the pink/green skulls. Mouse over them sometime to find out what they mean.

Re:...and here we go again

[MrL0G1C]

I didn't need the cracks, I have zero pirated software on my system, I'm happy to pay for software or find free versions.

Re:...and here we go again

[MrL0G1C]

Gog is great, I've been binging in the recent sales and have shown support by pre-ordering Witcher 3.

Trojans are worse - they don't have an install option, just starting the installer will install the trojan. Trojans don't have an uninstall option. Trojans typically try to commit crimes such as CC card info stealing, DDOSing or spamming.

Re:...and here we go again

[Gallomimia]

And yet the rest of us got it for free. At least if we had paid money we would have the right to complain about how worthless the drivel you spout is.

Re:...and here we go again

[skovnymfe]

You can't value your life very highly if you perceive your time as free. You spent time on reading my commentary. That's only free if your time is free. Is your time free? Are you worth nothing?

Free Enterprise

[theshowmecanuck]

Sweden is trying hard to make a name for itself as a place high tech start ups should work. Sweden is a place that will allow them to be creative without fear of undo influence from multinationals or foreign influence. cough cough movie studios cough cough riaa cough cough Assange...

Re:Free Enterprise

[MiskatonicAcademic]

The film industry lobbies hard to get governments to persecute sites like TPB. But please, let's not assume that the rape accusations agains Assange was a conspiracy orchestrated or executed by the Swedish government.

Re:Free Enterprise

[Mirar]

Yes, Assange is just Swedish bureaucracy-follow-the-rules at it's absolute worst.

Re:Free Enterprise

[Hognoxious]

Indeed. Let's decide it based on the evidence.

Re:Free Enterprise

[quantaman]

Sweden is trying hard to make a name for itself as a place high tech start ups should work. Sweden is a place that will allow them to be creative without fear of undo influence from multinationals or foreign influence. cough cough movie studios cough cough riaa cough cough Assange...

I get the arguments that they don't host anything and they're just a medium for people to exchange files. But their name is literally The Pirate Bay, their business model is about as close to explicit piracy as you can get.

I'm frankly shocked they've remained open this long.

Re:Free Enterprise

[Anonymous Coward]

But please, let's not assume that the rape accusations agains Assange was a conspiracy orchestrated or executed by the Swedish government.

Indeed. The "rape victims" were clearly hired by American agencies.

Re:Free Enterprise

[rasmusbr]

Yeah...

First they came for TPB, but you didn't say anything because you weren't running a piracy torrent tracker, then they came for, uh, TPB again. And yeah, next they'll probably raid Spotify.

Re:Free Enterprise

[Dunbal]

Better yet, a Grand Jury! er guys?

Re:Free Enterprise

[Threni]

Even with the track records of billions of downloads of other people's intellectual property, there's probably still a good chance 12 fuckwits in the Land Of The Free (tm) will decide there's not enough evidence to indict anyone.

Re:Free Enterprise

[camperdave]

Hey, it's not our fault you don't have a mechanism to collect dimes.

Re:Free Enterprise

[easyTree]

More importantly IMO, I feel that the idea that Assange might have raped someone did more to remove/prevent support amongst ordinary people than did the idea that he "assisted 'espionage'". Part of a multi-pronged ad-hominem.

Perhaps the question of how best to smear the next Assange should be thrown open as an 'Ask Slashdot ?'

Re:Free Enterprise

[bzipitidoo]

Evidence is moot because copying should not be a crime, not even a civil infraction. Sharing/copying should be encouraged as a social good. Sharing of knowledge is what made our civilization, and keeps it alive. Voluntarily allow a few elite control over what may be copied and who can copy, and you weaken civilization. Perhaps not fatally, but why take that chance for something so trivial as a broken business model? There are other ways for artists to earn a living.

Re:Free Enterprise

[AthanasiusKircher]

Before I respond, let me be clear that I absolutely think copyright law is broken and needs significant reform -- at a minimum to make the time until something goes into public domain be only a few years (like it was in original 18th century statutes), not a century or more That said...

Sharing/copying should be encouraged as a social good. Sharing of knowledge is what made our civilization, and keeps it alive. Voluntarily allow a few elite control over what may be copied and who can copy, and you weaken civilization.

I always find these sorts of arguments hilarious. Because you know who funded the arts before copyright existed? Rich dudes.

How did one become an artist in the age before artists could make money off of publications and copying? Well, you had two choices:

(1) Be independently wealthy. A lot of art, music, literature, etc. used to be created by only those filthy rich who didn't have to work for a living. So, if you had nothing else to do and were bored, you could afford to make art.

(2) You're not rich? Well, if you want to be an artist, musician, writer, or skilled craftsman, you have to find yourself another rich dude to fund your work. In other words, you found yourself a patron, because otherwise, how are you going to support yourself?

If you actually want art that requires significant SKILL and TRAINING to learn a craft, those are your primary choices without some concept of intellectual property.

There are other ways for artists to earn a living.

Sure, you can say performing musicians have to tour rather than making money off of recordings, but what about the composers who actually write the songs? Lots of pop artists don't make their own songs -- they rely on expert songwriters to do that. How exactly does one make money off of those sorts of creations? One can't exactly become a "touring songwriter." (I mean, yeah, improvisation is fun and you can make up crappy songs on the spot for a paying audience I suppose, but there's little incentive then to spend time crafting an actual good song...)

So far, I've just been talking about pop music, but it gets harder if you want someone with real talent to devote months or even years to an extended project -- like a book, for example. And how about training? Mozart spent maybe 15 years learning the craft of composition before he began writing stuff of a "mature composer" with thorough training in how to write music. Who pays for those 15 years of training before one can even begin to compose?... and then one's compositions are just shared with no reward for the person who spent his life acquiring the skill to make them.

That's ultimately the problem with these arguments. A system without any sort of intellectual property makes it much more difficult for anyone to spend significant time on any given creative project, since no money can be made from that lost time... let alone taking any time to learn a skilled craft.

Art thus becomes only an amateur occupation, something your crappy band in a garage does improving stupid songs on a weekend, but no room for any possible types of refinement or skills. We expect doctors and engineers and scientists and programmers to spend years refining their skills so that they can produce a quality product. And when they do, they are rewarded for their work. But if you're a skilled artist who took years to learn a trade, too bad -- we still want you to make art, but we want you to donate it to us for free. Find some other way to make your money, thanks.

Unless, well, you're a rich dude and can spend the time acquiring random skills and putting time in creative tasks that won't make you any money. Or if you can find a rich dude to serve as your patron.

Yeah, once you're an established artist with a record, you might be able to get some crowd-funding or something today, but good luck to get that mon

Re:Free Enterprise

[ArsonSmith]

Would you like to fly on my new airline "Crash and Burn!!"

Re:Free Enterprise

[sirlark]

While I agree with most of what you say, including your conclusion that the complete removal of copyright will mean de facto replacement by a patronage system, you miss two crucial points. Firstly, the fundamental difference between the arts in before the 19th century and today is that the distribution costs are now negligible, especially if the distribution is digital, but even if the distribution is physical. It costs less to produce most art in physical form and more importantly to reproduce than ever before in human history, yet prices do not come down. There's also a clear divorce between production costs and retail costs. A new DVD from a block buster movie with a budget in the 100's of millions costs the same or less to buy than the latest top 10 CDs with production budgets in the 10's of millions. Consumers get this, they understand they're being screwed by the CD producers. They're being charged what the CD producers think the market will bear... except clearly the market won't bear it, because piracy is rampant. Music producers (especially) love to harp on about lost sales, but flat out refuse to consider piracy as market indicator. Let's assume there were a full proof way prevent piracy. Sales would stay pretty flat, or I suspect drop a fair bit. People pirate way more than they could ever afford to buy, and if suddenly forced to buy everything, they would pick and choose a lot more, like back in the 80's and early 90's when kids saved their pocket money to buy that one album they'd been eyeing for three months. Concert and performance revenue would probably fall off (except for really big, well publicised, acts, i.e. the guys who are already coining it) because of lack of exposure. CD prices would be forced down. Lack of exposure is why I think CD sales might actually drop in this scenario. The same argument holds for other types of digitally reproducible art.

Secondly, the content-creation (for want of a better term) industry is a lot like the the professional sports industry. We only really here about the super stars, who are 1% of all the attempts at success. The current copyright regime is already in effect a patronage system, except the "rich dudes" are rich corporations who decide who they will promote. Yes consumers can vote with their money, which only constrains who will be promoted to largely popular inoffensive artists, whereas in a true patronage system the individual tastes of the rich dudes funded a wider variety of creative efforts. There are also a lot more "rich dudes" now than ever before. They're called the middle class. They have a fair amount of disposable income. No single person in the middle class has the money to fund an artist in the same way as traditional patronage systems, but there are vastly more potential consumers for art than ever before in human history, and what's more is the skills required to reproduce a performance and the costs involved are way less than before too, allowing artists to either manage distribution themselves, or pay substantially less than previously to someone else to do it for them.

I view piracy as a form of civil disobedience protesting inflated prices. If digital content were reduced to 25% I'm pretty sure sales would more than quadruple. Also, considering the percentages the artists get paid, they're getting screwed the least by piracy. I know that there are plenty of other people involved in music and film production, but for the most part, they all get paid salaries, not royalties. So they're not getting screwed by piracy.

P.S. I'm viewing things from a South African perspective, where minimum wage is approximately $1 an hour and new release DVDs cost about $18 ~ $25, and a new CD will set you back around $20. E-books range widely from $1 to $15, and physical books are minimum of $25 hard cover, $12 paperback. At minimum wage South Africans have to work 2 and a half days to afford a DVD/CD/Ebook/book.

Re:Free Enterprise

[umafuckit]

I view piracy as a form of civil disobedience protesting inflated prices. If digital content were reduced to 25% I'm pretty sure sales would more than quadruple.

I think most people view it as a way to get free shit. Your assumption that a content price reduction would result in a big sales boost may not end up being true. On the other hand, we do know that people will go to great lengths to get free shit even when it's not in their interest to do it. We have the stampeeds on Black Friday, for instance. I know in the UK most or all of those "deals" aren't any cheaper than random price reductions at other times of year. Plus the good stuff is usually not reduced. Related to this: At one point my wife got really into store coupons and spent ages researching them and driving out of her way to get particular deals at particular times. Eventually she realised it was a waste of time (fucking took two months, she's persistent). She may or may not have saved money (extra gas costs to account for), but she was wasting a lot of time to save a few dollars at most.

In summary, I don't think people behave in logical ways about money. It's very easy to influence people by telling them that something is "free" when it's not, a "deal" when it's not, or to convince people to over-buy bulk goods for (sometimes) tiny savings and then have them end up wasting the over-bought product.

Re:Free Enterprise

[AmiMoJo]

We are not talking about going back to the old rich-dude patronage system. These days we have YouTube, where anyone can upload their work for free. Even recording your work is pretty cheap these days. So the current choice of a musician is:

1. Take a loan from the record label and pray you can afford to live until it is paid off and you are a megastar

2. Upload to YouTube and spam Facebook in the hopes of gaining a following and some ad revenue

Option 2 seems to be the better one for a lot of artists these days. It doesn't work for everyone, but then again not everyone has mass market appeal or is actually any good.

Re:Free Enterprise

[drinkypoo]

(1) Be independently wealthy.
(2) You're not rich? find yourself another rich dude to fund your work.

(3) Perform for crowds
(4) Perform alongside another type of performance, such as theater

And now today there are still more options

(5) Upload your media to services which produce advertising revenue, like Youtube
(6) Fund your media through crowdsourcing, e.g. kickstarter
(7) Create your own site, upload your content to it, self-distribute.

These are just what I can come up with off of the top of my head.

But guess what? You get rid of intellectual property, and you also risk reverting back to a system where only rich dudes fund art again.

Because mainstream music, the kind which cannot exist without intellectual property, is already only funded by rich dudes. It's not clear about what you're complaining.

Re:Free Enterprise

[pantaril]

That's ultimately the problem with these arguments. A system without any sort of intellectual property makes it much more difficult for anyone to spend significant time on any given creative project, since no money can be made from that lost time... let alone taking any time to learn a skilled craft.

Wrong, we can have system which ensures money for creators without intelectual property. We can for example replace the current copyright law (which ensures that you pay for something because you can't copy it) with mandatory monthly payments (you crowdpay creative works you like, you can choose what to support but you have to spent something based on your income/wealth etc.) and the resulting works could be in public domain available to everyone.

Re:Free Enterprise

[bzipitidoo]

I actually think we don't have the choice to keep copyright. Copyright is so dysfunctional that it didn't work well even with the highest public support it ever enjoyed. What helped it most was that copying used to be difficult. Now what keeps copyright alive is lingering public support.

In recent decades we've seen support for copyright weaken greatly, thanks in no small part to industry actions to strengthen it. Instead of adapting to the changing situation of copying becoming far, far easier and cheaper to do, they've called for overly restrictive terms that come across as petty, mean, greedy, and not really effective at helping artists make a living, while causing a great deal of inconvenience and sometimes dramatic reduction in value to the users. They've attempted to elevate copyright to some sort of higher right that trumps all other rights. They've tried to tell the public that we can't use new technology because it harms copyright, and they've even had the gall to whine about long standing traditions such as the used book store, demanding that those places be closed. They've been forced to agree that time and format shifting are not illegal, but they begrudge it and still act as if it is immoral. They've gone on well publicized terror campaigns, abusing our legal system to bully ordinary people. They think they have the right and duty to take any action necessary to protect holy copyright. They're so extreme I would not be surprised if some would like to impose the death penalty on pirates. If that wasn't enough, they've also run propaganda campaigns, done their utmost to confuse the public, get people to accept the false proposition that copying is equivalent to stealing. Once that lie is believed, they then try to appeal to our sense of morals. But it's no longer working too well. What kind of delusional, senseless, alternate reality thinking does it take to come up with an idea like Captain Copyright? They really believed a comic superhero could win if not adults, perhaps gullible children over to a hopeless cause like that, and never expected that Captain Copyright would be an instant laughingstock that just looks plain silly and stupid? All that these desperation measures really show is that copyright is badly broken. And not just the implementation, but the concept.

Yes, I think some kind of patronage system is the leading idea to replace copyright. While in past centuries it was a system that only worked for the rich, today, patronage, like copying and many other things, can now be done by the masses.

Re:Free Enterprise

[jader3rd]

I view piracy as a form of civil disobedience protesting inflated prices.

But if it's the price the market will bare, how can it be inflated?

Re:Free Enterprise

[ArmoredDragon]

I view piracy as a form of civil disobedience protesting inflated prices. If digital content were reduced to 25% I'm pretty sure sales would more than quadruple.

That would be under the (rather silly) assumption that all digital content has a 1:1 price elasticity. I can't even begin to describe how stupid somebody would have to be to make that assumption.

Re:Free Enterprise

[david_thornley]

Unless you're going to describe how somebody's going to do something like the Avengers movie and put it on YouTube, I'm going to be supporting copyright.

Re:Free Enterprise

[steveg]

But it's not. When the price rises above what the market will bear, you get a vigorous black market. That's exactly what we've got. If the assertion that cutting the prices by a factor of 4 will increase sales by more than 4x were true, that would be evidence that current prices are *more* than the market will bear.

*Is* it true? Maybe. Someone would have to do the experiment, and I'm not holding my breath on that.

I'd guess that the drop in income the music industry has seen in the last decade or so is evidence that they *are* charging more than the market will bear. No, the industry's problems are due to file sharing you say (*they* say)? I suggest that file sharing is one of the *reasons* that the market is willing to bear so much less, but so is the perception that if you're not getting something physical you shouldn't pay as much. That perception may not even being accurate (physical distribution is a smaller percentage of the total cost than we might think) but it's still "intuitively obvious" to most people that a download should be cheaper than a physical object.

"But people just want something for free! Making it cheaper won't help!" For some people that's probably true. But most people want it *easier*. If it's easier to buy it, and it doesn't cost too much, then most people will take the easier path and just buy it. Black markets won't go away. There will always be free riders. But I suspect a lot of people in the black market aren't that hardcore about it, and would be paying customers if it were less expensive.

Re:Free Enterprise

[JamesBecht]

How did one become an artist in the age before artists could make money off of publications and copying? Well, you had two choices:

(1) Be independently wealthy. A lot of art, music, literature, etc. used to be created by only those filthy rich who didn't have to work for a living. So, if you had nothing else to do and were bored, you could afford to make art.

(2) You're not rich? Well, if you want to be an artist, musician, writer, or skilled craftsman, you have to find yourself another rich dude to fund your work. In other words, you found yourself a patron, because otherwise, how are you going to support yourself?

A system without any sort of intellectual property makes it much more difficult for anyone to spend significant time on any given creative project, since no money can be made from that lost time... let alone taking any time to learn a skilled craft.

sorry, but if you believe this is a universal principle you got it all wrong... just because for the ost part of it's quite long history, human societies have not been relying on a monetary system... and most of humanity's art production has been made by people who have never been paid for it... the rich vs. market funded art debate is mostly valid for the last 5 hundred years in western countries... but it just doesn't cover people's art in these countries and even less so people/ethnic/religious/whatever art in many countries and in the 500.000 years history of art creation by our species and our species ancestors (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/12/141203-mussel-shell-oldest-art/) but you sure can say non commercial art is not art... just for the sake of contemporary economic capitalistic grip on art...

I give it 24 hours

[lance423]

TPB doesn't stay down long. It's like the Hydra of piracy. Cut off all the heads you want but it won't stay dead.

Re:I give it 24 hours

[loserhead]

you exaggerate but you're right. I'd set the over/under on TPB's return at three weeks.

Re:I give it 24 hours

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, that's the problem. Not dead.

If the police shot them instead then piracy could be tackled.

Re:I give it 24 hours

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll take the under on that one.

Re:I give it 24 hours

[PsychoSlashDot]

TPB doesn't stay down long. It's like the Hydra of piracy. Cut off all the heads you want but it won't stay dead.

It's fine to say that, but there's no particular reason to expect that's the truth. I mean, yeah, in the past it's always come back, but kind of by definition the number of places they can find refuge is diminishing each time. Doesn't it stand to reason eventually there won't be anyone willing to host them?

I'm pretty good about purchasing anything I consume - if it's any good - after any... grey-market downloads. I've got dozens of hardcover books that have never been opened because I first read them in ebook form. I've got unopened DVD and CD packages for much the same reason. Fact is that I wouldn't have bought nearly as much entertainment stuff if I hadn't sampled them first. Now I've got a bunch of authors, musicians, and the like who I buy their physical product on sight, unquestioned, because I originally found them at no risk, via... piracy. Yes, there are things I read/watched/listened-to that I will never pay for. But that's because frankly the stuff just didn't suit me. So hey. Live with it.

My meandering point is that I fear the day that piracy is no longer practical. It will be so much harder to find things I truly enjoy... and BUY.

Re:I give it 24 hours

[freeze128]

Zack: "I was watching the discovery channel and found out that if you kill a starfish, it just comes back to life."

Sheldon: "Was the starfish wearing boxer shorts? because you may have been watching Nickelodeon."

Re:I give it 24 hours

[Khyber]

Dude, it was less than an hour, if that. Thepiratebay.ee was up and running fine for me.

Re:I give it 24 hours

[antdude]

Hail TPB! :P

Are there any good alternatives?

[pellik]

With TPB abscent where else should I go?

Re:Are there any good alternatives?

[ArcadeMan]

There's always Netflix, iTunes, Amazon... /duck

Re:Are there any good alternatives?

[o_ferguson]

torrentz.eu has never let me down.

Re:Are there any good alternatives?

[Ingineerix]

For YIFY movies: https://yts.re/

Re:Are there any good alternatives?

[houstonbofh]

Google is surprisingly helpfull.

Re:Are there any good alternatives?

[grub]

YIFY will never get busted. Because the quality of their rips is so low, it would put anybody with properly working eyeballs and a decent TV off pirated movies for life.

YIFY rips are great if you are used to playing Minecraft all day long.

Re:Are there any good alternatives?

[El_Muerte_TDS]

iTunes does not work on my 10 month old Panasonic "Smart" TV, or Linux based HTPC, or Sony PS3. Amazon only recently started selling ebooks here, nothing else. Netflix is great though, now if they can finally convince content providers to license them more content.
So what are these alternatives?

Re:Are there any good alternatives?

[Ingineerix]

I find it good for a "preview". If I really like the movie, then I'll buy it. If it's crap, but worth watching, maybe dig up a better copy.

Re:Are there any good alternatives?

[Ingineerix]

Also good for watching on smartphones.

Re:Are there any good alternatives?

[easyTree]

and all of this is ignoring the fact I can't justify $10-$20 for 90 minutes of content I'm going to watch all of once, get fucked.

What are you, some kind of kill-joy? How are the studios to fund location shoots in every major capital city and thus funnel cash into these cities' coffers if you don't foot the bill? What's wrong with you?

Re:Are there any good alternatives?

[freeze128]

Apple TV.

Re:Are there any good alternatives?

[complete loony]

Google. Just throw the word "torrent" into your search query.

Re:Are there any good alternatives?

[BitZtream]

How about you get fucked. You just don't want to pay for content. Cry me a river.

Re:Are there any good alternatives?

[pantaril]

I usually go to kickass.to for the mainstream stuff or to karagarga.net for rare/artistic pieces (unfortunately karagarga is private tracker and it's very hard to get invitation).

Re:Are there any good alternatives?

[CronoCloud]

iTunes does not work on my 10 month old Panasonic "Smart" TV, or Linux based HTPC, or Sony PS3. Amazon only recently started selling ebooks here, nothing else.

When the Amazon MP3 store comes to your locale, you will find that it DOES work on Linux, and the PS3.

Your tax dollars at work

[Snufu]

Law enforcement and judicial officials working round the clock to ensure the world is safe for multinational corporations.

Re:Your tax dollars at work

[Anonymous Coward]

Bingo! Sony is presently freaking the fuck out. Torrents are the primary vehicle for the dozens of gigs of their leaked data floating around, and TPB is the masses' first (if not only) source for torrents. The timing here is no coincidence.

Re:Your tax dollars at work

[BarbaraHudson]

Nah, the swedes just wanted to get the rip of "50 Shades of Gray" before the official release.

Re:Your tax dollars at work

[Anonymous Coward]

If there was property tax on intellectual property, you know, the same sort of argument why physical property is taxed -- "we the govt. have to spend so much money protecting your land!!" -- then, I bet, these wankers who claim their intellectual property is worth trillions will suddenly go, 'oh, did we say trillions? We mean, er, uh, very little. Please don't tax us." They'd actually have to pick a value that's in equilibrium with downward pressure to avoid taxes and upward pressure to sue infringement. Right now, there is no equilibrium, just upward pressure to maximize payout from suing over infringement, hence the sky-high ludicrous appraisals of their intellectual property.

Re:Your tax dollars at work

[Zontar The Mindless]

My tax kronor, you mean, I'm sorry to say. About 200,000 of them last year, dammit.

Re:Your tax dollars at work

[BarbaraHudson]

Well, there's sales taxes, there's taxes on profits, there's taxes on employees wages ... it's not like you can claim that intellectual property isn't taxed.

Re:Your tax dollars at work

[dk20]

They'd just do what they currently do.

Put the IP offshore and "license" it back domestically.

We didnt make any money as we had to pay such high fees to our (Cayman, Ireland, Luxembourg) based subsidiary.

If you really want to fix the tax system, tax corp income the same way personal taxes are done, on total earned less deductions, not on "profit".

Re:Your tax dollars at work

[Zontar The Mindless]

Naturligtvis inte. Men jag räcknade endast inkomstskatten där.

Re:Your tax dollars at work

[drinkypoo]

If there was property tax on intellectual property, you know, the same sort of argument why physical property is taxed -- "we the govt. have to spend so much money protecting your land!!" -- then, I bet, these wankers who claim their intellectual property is worth trillions will suddenly go, 'oh, did we say trillions? We mean, er, uh, very little. Please don't tax us." They'd actually have to pick a value that's in equilibrium with downward pressure to avoid taxes and upward pressure to sue infringement

another clear argument for escalating copyright registration fees. You get a bit of time for free, then the fees start out relatively low but double every year. because what we want isn't just for corporations to pay the value of their intellectual property, but we want it to become public property eventually. If the system isn't designed such that the copyright costs approach the value of all of the money in the economic system within a typical human lifetime, then it's broken by design.

Re:Your tax dollars at work

[BarbaraHudson]

Sure you can. Neither of the things you listed are intellectual property. Not sure what point you were trying to make, but you sure didn't make it.

My point was simple - the consumables for creating intellectual property are taxed (wages, materials, etc.) and there's sales taxes when you sell it. To claim that intellectual property is not taxed is simply not true.

Regular property is taxed as soon as it exists.

Nope. It has to have an original owner for it to be taxed, and within a region (municipality, state, whatever) that has legal authority to tax it.

Re:Your tax dollars at work

[david_thornley]

The consumables and labor for building a house are taxed. Then the house itself is taxed. GP was proposing to tax copyrights at some sort of declared value, like an inventory tax.

Re:Your tax dollars at work

[NewYork]

http://wh.gov/iCfVS should save the world from Oligarchy

For how long?

[thevirtualcat]

12 hours? 24 hours? I'm pretty sure TPB has had longer downtimes that were self-inflicted.

If they can take TPB down and keep it down for a month? That's news.

Re:Hey Look

[ArcadeMan]

According to MPAA accounting, the few minutes TPB was offline generated 5.6 billion dollars in sales.

And if we use Verizon accounting for the same numbers, the few minutes TPB was offline generated 560 billion dollars in sales.

It's good to know they're keeping us safe.

[Iamthecheese]

The Swedish people must be delighted to know how much is directly and indirectly being brought to the table in the name of removing those evil and dangerous criminals at the Pirate Bay.

Sovereignty, reputation as a safe place to do business, a reputation for not being corrupt, and a long cultural history of preserving freedom and privacy are a lot to sacrifice but as long as a perfectly legal file sharing site can be brought to its knees for literally hours it's well done.

Furthermore I'm sure not a single penny has crossed the border from Hollywood, and no favors were exchanged with US politicians to make this happen.

Re:It's good to know they're keeping us safe.

[Zontar The Mindless]

Iamaswedishtaxpayer and I don't think it's "delightful" at all.

Re:It's good to know they're keeping us safe.

[Anonymous Coward]

WOOOOOSH!

Re:It's good to know they're keeping us safe.

[Zontar The Mindless]

You're an idiot. Just so you know.

When will they learn?

[Anonymous Coward]

They need to move to something like freenet or i2p where there is no way to determine where stuff is hosted so nothing to take down. Even the domain name shuffle goes away.

Yes, its an extra hurdle to get to it for noobs, but that is where a 'newbie friendly' tool would come in handy.

If Hollywood gets destroyed...

[hessian]

...humanity can advance again. Just a thought.

Re:Ob (with a diagonal line through the o)

[Zontar The Mindless]

Sorry, Ø is Norwegian and Danish--Swedish uses Ö. Monty Python jokes about "møøse" notwithstanding.

Re:Hey Look

[o_ferguson]

That's down now too, although it was up when you posted it. Probably got slashdotted...

Re:Hey Look

[mSparks43]

Not just back up.
But no longer blocked by the Great firewall of (not so) Great Britain.

although the site is 500 server errorring a lot due to the overwealming amount of traffic this generated.

Funny as F'

http://thepiratebay.ee/

[Scottingham]

http://thepiratebay.ee/

Works for me!

Re:http://thepiratebay.ee/

[Scottingham]

I take that back...looks sketch...

Re:http://thepiratebay.ee/

[BitterOak]

http://thepiratebay.ee/

Works for me!

It looks like a pay site, but only $4.99 for a subscription. Can anyone confirm if it's legit?

systemd

[jfdavis668]

Same day Fedora 21 was released? I suspect systemd is responsible.

Coincidence...?

[Schumacher]

This - very conveniently - happens on the same day as the airing of the last episode of Sons of Anarchy... Kurt Sutter, is this on you?

Re:Hey Look

[ihtoit]

keep 'em down for three days and we'll have fixed the deficit AND paid the debt! EVERYBODY WINS!

https://thepiratebay.cr

[surfcow]

Back up in Costa Rica.

Heard the 'Bay was hosting some of SONY's recently stolen materials.

I suspect SONY is trying to recover from THE hack.

https://thepiratebay.cr

Re:https://thepiratebay.cr

[BitterOak]

500 Internal Server Error

Re:https://thepiratebay.cr

[Zanadou]

Remove the "s" --> http://thepiratebay.cr/ . The interesting thing about this one is the chat box in lower left corner. Worth lucking for a while in there to see if any interesting info pops up.

However, it looks like none of the content has been updated since yesterday. Maybe the upstream "pool" is still AWOL, as well.

There's also http://thepiratebay.ee/ , but I'm not sure about the (more/less) authenticity of that one. It also hasn't been updated in a about 24 hours.

Re:https://thepiratebay.cr

[Zanadou]

Ah, wait, http://thepiratebay.cr/ is just a proxy/mirror. That now makes sense why it hasn't been updated.

At time of posting this, "The" Pirate Bay still hasn't officially come back online. Source.

Re:anonymity sites?

[Champaklal]

Did you mean chopping the "onion"?

Re:It's already back online, sort of

[BitterOak]

I get "500 Internal Server Error."

More trouble than it is worth....

[TiggertheMad]

I get the arguments that they don't host anything and they're just a medium for people to exchange files. But their name is literally The Pirate Bay, their business model is about as close to explicit piracy as you can get.

I'm frankly shocked they've remained open this long.

You yourself agree that they are nothing more than a directory, yet you are suggesting that they are responsible for the content that is posted. If I can use an analogy to demonstrate how crazy that is, You might also suggest that the yellow pages is responsible if any business that advertises using their directory deals in stolen goods.

I don't care if they call themselves, 'The throwing nuns and puppies in wood chippers bay', linking to content is not a crime, and that is all they do. Should Google be responsible for indexing and linking illegal content?

Moreover, this sort of legal action is just stupid, for purely practical reasons. TPB users aren't breaking copyright law for financial reasons, so even if you could completely stomp out this sort of behavior, organized crime would pick up the slack. This is a grey goods market, and good luck trying to shut it down.

If the DoJ was smart, they would just focus anti-piracy operations on organized crime where they can do some real good, and just let sites like TPB slide.

Why TPB and not the banks?

[jenningsthecat]

Banks in EVERY jurisdiction carry out transactions with and pay interest on money deposited by criminals of various stripes, from tax evaders to mobsters to drug lords to terrorists. And in many cases the banksters know the provenance of those funds, and simply don't care, 'cause business is business after all. Not to mention the thefts the banks themselves commit, which are only not considered illegal via the legal legerdemain of calling them 'service fees'. So why do governments, (and by extension, their corporate masters), have such a hate on for the TPB? Yeah, I know, it's a rhetorical question, but I had to ask it.

So Pirate Bay is raided and shut down, and its founders thrown in prison, while bank CEO's are allowed to conduct business freely and in full daylight with impunity. It seems that a lot of somebodies in a lot of places consider the facilitation of file sharing a more heinous crime than the facilitation of theft, murder, gun running, etc. Gee, that disconnect wouldn't have anything at all to do with the profits of big corporations, would it?