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The Pirate Bay Responds To Raid

An anonymous reader writes The Pirate Bay's crew have remained awfully quiet on the recent raid in public, but today Mr 10100100000 breaks the silence in order to get a message out to the world. In a nutshell, he says that they couldn't care less, are going to remain on hiatus, and a comeback is possible. In recent days mirrors of The Pirate Bay appeared online and many of these have now started to add new content as well. According to TPB this is a positive development, but people should be wary of scams. Mr 10100100000 says that they would open source the engine of the site, if the code "wouldn't be so s****y". In any case, they recommend people keeping the Kopimi spirit alive, as TPB is much more than some hardware stored in a dusty datacenter.

57 of 302 comments (clear)

  1. The Pirate Bay by phantomfive · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Working hard since 2003 to preserve your right to consume media without the annoyance of paying.

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    1. Re:The Pirate Bay by QilessQi · · Score: 4, Funny

      Putting it that way kinda makes them sound less like romantic swashbucklers and more like thieves, doesn't it?

    2. Re:The Pirate Bay by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Working hard since 2003 to preserve your right to consume media without the annoyance of paying.

      Working hard to enable people to download movies and music that will work on their streaming and mobile devices after they've paid for the original DRM encumbered media that forces them to watch adverts and FCC warnings every time they use the media.

      There, fixed that for you.

      --
      I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
    3. Re:The Pirate Bay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Working hard since 2003 to preserve your right to consume media without the annoyance of not being able to pay because it's not available in your region.

    4. Re:The Pirate Bay by Raisey-raison · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Working hard since 2003 to preserve your right to consume media without the annoyance of paying.

      Intellectual property was created for the benefit of society. There have been numerous studies showing that IP has massively overreached and it no longer does that. Those who have benefited have resorted to rent seeking behavior by ever expanding its scope. They can legally bribe elected officials by using campaign finance contributions. In effect they get to write the laws. So how about they pay back all the money they took beyond what reasonable IP would look like. Seven years copyright protection is enough for most movies and music. And 14 years for almost everything else.

      And how about we expand fair use back to what it was and should be so that students can get greater access to copyrighted works? How about we also repeal the Copyright Term Extension Act.

      It really is the case that the movie and music industries are trying to steal from everyone else. But because they have politicians in their pocket books you don't call it theft. Piratebay was merely evening an unfair playing field.

    5. Re:The Pirate Bay by dosius · · Score: 5, Interesting

      "Intellectual property is neither"

      --
      What you hear in the ear, preach from the rooftop Matthew 10.27b
    6. Re:The Pirate Bay by ArcadeMan · · Score: 5, Insightful

      And if you pay you're the one getting the annoyance.

      http://img.labnol.org/di/pirat...

    7. Re:The Pirate Bay by BitterOak · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The problem is the Pirate Bay is both, and you have to take the bad with the good. I just kinda wish they'd chosen another name besides "The Pirate Bay", as it makes the site look like it was deliberately set up for piracy rather than general file sharing. (And it might well have been set up primarily for that purpose, but no need to be so obvious about it.)

      --
      If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
    8. Re:The Pirate Bay by Richy_T · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If you don't understand either the definition of theft or what Pirate Bay actually does, sure.

    9. Re:The Pirate Bay by bug1 · · Score: 2

      Working hard since 2003 to preserve your right to consume media without the annoyance of paying.

      Working hard since 2003 to preserve your right to consume media without becoming a victim of the global media cartel.

    10. Re:The Pirate Bay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      Next time there's a $100-plus-per-seat rock concert in your metro area, that didn't sell out, just walk in the gate and explain why you have a right to occupy one of the empty seats without paying. Remember to tell them that you plan to buy some overpriced concessions so you're actually helping out the band financially.

      Some of these guards are kinda slow, you might have to explain it more than once.

    11. Re: The Pirate Bay by ShieldW0lf · · Score: 2

      Working hard to protect human culture from those who would prefer to see it surrounded by a most and accessed via a toll bridge controlled by them?

      It's not just about having access for myself, it's also about cutting off the money supply to the industry.

      Having the Library of Alexandria for myself isn't going to protect me from the ignorance of savages. Only ensuring that they too have a copy can do that.

      --
      -1 Uncomfortable Truth
    12. Re:The Pirate Bay by rainmaestro · · Score: 5, Informative

      Technically, that isn't theft. You've entered a private venue without permission (a ticket), so you'd be trespassing, but no theft has taken place.

    13. Re:The Pirate Bay by TheCarp · · Score: 3, Insightful

      > Man, I don't deceive myself into thinking I 'deserve' to consume whatever some artist makes.

      Perhaps cave paintings should then be scoured off out of respect for the artists whose hard work is being used by others for free.

      > Secondly, if copyright were actually set to 14 years like you propose, the main ones who would benefit would
      > be giant corporations. Would Disney pay for the rights to Starwars if they could just wait it out and take it
      > for free? No, they wouldn't.

      Bullshit. Just because you can pick a few examples of places where big corperations would win out, doesn't mean that those are the rule. I mean are you really suggesting that entire industries, with deep enough pockets to do all sorts of analsys for themselves, have spent millions, if not hundreds of millions of dollars fighting to extend and strengthen copyright....you really are suggesting they have misspent all that money and they are really the ones who stand the most to GAIN by just....not doing that.

      Its not that I would never buy that argument but, I think its going to take a bit more than "look they could have just used star wars" to do so. I mean its true but, that is such a simplistic view, when it would ALSO open the door for everyone else to use it, including many smaller outlets.

      I mean seriously, if every yahoo out there making star wars fan fiction could actually try to make a buck off it, well, few would actually see any returns, and most would still be shit, but, I have trouble imagining there wouldn't be a few that rose out of there above the rest and who could put some real production value into it. Perhaps we would have some movies out by now in that universe that rivaled the originals or even surpassed them.

      --
      "I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
    14. Re:The Pirate Bay by ganjadude · · Score: 4, Interesting

      and if the content creator wants to shun an entire region of their content rather than get paid, there is nothing stopping someone from downloading the content, that is not offered legally to them in other ways.

      Content owners could have got paid if they didnt do that

      --
      have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
    15. Re: The Pirate Bay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2

      So you are saying the government is going to pay me for all my copyrighted content that they have eavesdropped on and stored on their servers? I assume I'll get a dollar per phone call and e-mail and then an additional $1000 for potentially lost sales. Nice!

    16. Re:The Pirate Bay by ganjadude · · Score: 4, Interesting

      while legally you might be correct, but logically, its simply wrong.

      If I can get something I want, and no one is offering it up to me at a nominal fee, I find nothing wrong with taking a free copy of said item. legally it might be wrong, morally, fuck them for not letting me access something I would gladly pay for if they would let me.

      --
      have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
    17. Re:The Pirate Bay by anarcobra · · Score: 2

      So?
      Why should anyone have almost perpetual* control over something he thought up one day?
      14 years is more than enough to make money off the movie, and after that there is nothing stopping you from making more movies about it.
      Get a trademark for the "Star Wars" name if you don't want others using it. Also, Disney doesn't get to "take" anything.
      Sure they could make a remake or whatever after 14 years, but then again, so could the original creator.

      * I know that 70 years after death isn't perpetual, but it might as well be since everyone who was alive when that IP was released will be dead when it comes out of copyright.

    18. Re:The Pirate Bay by jratcliffe · · Score: 2

      In most jurisdictions, it constitutes theft of services, in addition to (potentially) burglary (depending on exactly how you got in).

    19. Re:The Pirate Bay by jratcliffe · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Working hard since 2003 to preserve your right to consume media without the annoyance of paying.

      Working hard to enable people to download movies and music that will work on their streaming and mobile devices after they've paid for the original DRM encumbered media that forces them to watch adverts and FCC warnings every time they use the media.

      There, fixed that for you.

      Do you seriously think that a significant portion of Pirate Bay downloads are people who have purchased the content, and are just downloading a copy to get an unencumbered version? Honestly?

    20. Re:The Pirate Bay by NatasRevol · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Mickey Mouse says "LOL" at limited time.

      --
      There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
    21. Re:The Pirate Bay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I'm sure if you go back and read all of Shakespeare and then compare the actual story-lines to current movies, you would find quite a few similarities.

      For example,

      Lion King is based off Hamlet
      Ten things I hate about you is based off Taming of the Shrew
      West Side Story was based off Romeo and Juliet, as well as many other movies.

      Those are just a few off the top of my head.

      When you see enough and read enough, as well as expand your world history, you realize how few unique ideas people come up with.

      Go read the Canterbury Tales (free off the Gutenberg Project) and you will see how much our humor really hasn't changed.

    22. Re:The Pirate Bay by Katmando911 · · Score: 2

      So what you're saying is change the laws.

      Until then ... it's stealing.

      You are wrong. It's Copyright Infringement, not stealing. Don't agree with that? Get Congress to pass a law saying the two are the same thing. Until then, I'll defer to the Supreme Court (see Dowling v. United States (1985))

    23. Re:The Pirate Bay by AK+Marc · · Score: 2

      If the content producer doesn't give you permission to view the content, then you don't have a legal right to view it.

      So? I don't have a "right" to view it, but by law, I don't have any responsibility not to, should I find it available. Unlike actual stolen items, where if I know something is stolen, i'm required by law to attempt to return it.

      I have the right to do anything I want, so long as it isn't prohibited by law. As such (there are no prohibitions on seeking viewing content not "available") I do have The Right to view it. And even if I didn't have The Right to do it, when there's explicitly no law against it, it's legal, regardless of The Rights I have.

    24. Re:The Pirate Bay by Jason+Levine · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Copyright is an exchange. The government protects content, for a limited time, in exchange for the "owner" releasing it into the public domain.

      This leads to the biggest problem with Copyright today: The length. When copyright was a 14 year term followed by an optional, one-time 14 year renewal, it was a sane trade-off. You get a monopoly on this book you wrote and in exchange, the public gets full access to do whatever they want with it in 14 or 28 years. If you grew up loving a story, you could write a new story using that character when you got older.

      Nowadays, though, copyright length is too long. If my younger son (age 7) reads something published today that he likes, he'd need to wait around 95 years (depending on the situation and assuming no more extensions of copyright - which is a big assumption) before it landed in the public domain. Since it is unlikely that my 7 year old will live to 102, his children or grandchildren might benefit from that work going into the public domain.

      This whole system was supposed to encourage authors to produce more works, but if I (at age 39) publish something today, how does it encourage me to make more works when my work is still under copyright and I'm 125 (or would have been had I still been alive)? Is an Isaac Asimov story published in 1950 really encouraging Isaac to write more because it remains copyrighted until 2045? (I can see it now. Zombie Asimov rises from the grave and, after a light brains snack, locates some typewriters and begins work on five new novels.)

      --
      My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
    25. Re:The Pirate Bay by bughunter · · Score: 2

      It's about what the market will bear. If the content owners would offer it to us at a fair price, people wouldn't bootleg it.

      For instance, me personally:

      I WILL pay to see a movie in a theater, and I very rarely download feature films mostly because I don't have an urge to own a copy - paid or free.

      I WILL pay Netflix $22/mo (or whatever it is this month) for service that includes all I can stream to multiple devices in my home.

      I WILL NOT pay Charter $150/mo for the level of service that's required to get HBO, Lifetime, FX, etc just so I can watch 12 episodes a year of the four or five series that are worth watching. Therefore, I WILL bittorrent bootleg copies of Mad Men, Sons of Anarchy, etc that are often superior to the level of service I get from my own cable company. (And the wife gets whatever she wants to make her happy; "You want all five seasons of Boardwalk Empire, sweetie? No problem, you'll be watching the first episode in half an hour.") Offer me a cafeteria plan, and you'll get paid what the content's worth.

      Furthermore, if they can't be bothered to supply me with reliable equipment and/or a signal level that won't befuddle said equipment, then I won't have to download programs that I had intended to DVR, but your POS set top box got confused because I tried to tune it to channel 4 so now I have to bootleg that, too.

      Finally, I WILL pay $250 once a season for a pair of tickets to see my favorite NFL team play against my hometown team, plus spend money at your concessions. It's a whole day's entertainment and the experience of a live game is worth it, even if I have to put up with asshole Chargers fans.

      But I WILL NOT pay the $400 per season that DirecTV and NFL conspire to charge me to watch live games if I am a fan who lives outside of a team's primary market area. Therefore, I WILL watch bootleg live streams even if they are only 175kbps 12fps lagfests rather than be extorted by corporations. Offer me an option to subscribe to one team's games and I might pay $100 a season, maybe even $150. Offer me a standalone VOIP option at an affordable price and you'll get paid what the content's worth.

      Otherwise, I have other options. And I always will. Even if it's paying nothing and viewing nothing.

      --
      I can see the fnords!
    26. Re:The Pirate Bay by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 4, Insightful

      other shoe: the 'content' owners think that they should get a forever return on the sale/rental of the content.

      the duration started out reasonable but they decided to BREAK THE COVENANT and since they feel they can break rules at-will and pay to have custom laws made for them, I concluded they are acting in bad faith and any contract where the other party is in bad faith is nullified.

      NULLIFIED.

      so, they get what they wanted. a content 'war'. one that they can't possibly win.

      fuck, THEY started it. they escalated it. we're just trying to give them a bit of their own medicine. maybe next time they'll respect the rule of law and not mickeymouse around with the protected duration (see what I did there?)

      to have a law respected, both sides have to respect it. since that doesn't happen, well, we have what we have today.

      aka "what goes around, comes around'.

      --

      --
      "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
    27. Re:The Pirate Bay by Areyoukiddingme · · Score: 4, Interesting

      You make it sound like you have a fundamental right to content someone else produces. You don't.

      Yes I do.

      It's called culture. Humans have been producing it for thousands of years. Claiming it is some sort of property that can be owned is a legal fiction created only in the last few hundred. The vast majority of consumers of culture throughout history and pre-history did not pay for their consumption. If authors got paid at all, they got paid once, by their patron, and forever after the cost of spreading the media was the marginal cost of duplication, and the cost of consumption was zero.

    28. Re:The Pirate Bay by NoMaster · · Score: 2

      It was added to the US constitution because state governments were unable to implement copy laws.

      Not to mention that for the next 100+ years the US largely refused to recognise overseas copyrights (and, in many ways, actively encouraged Americans to break them.)

      --
      What part of "a well regulated militia" do you not understand?
    29. Re:The Pirate Bay by easyTree · · Score: 2

      Really? Do you have any tips to make the best of the experience?

    30. Re:The Pirate Bay by Psykechan · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Actually, you do. Once something has been released to the public, no matter how, it becomes part of the public domain. Copyright is a limited privilege that is granted to the creator during which time they are exclusively allowed to distribute content in order to make money off of said content. This was created to further the creation of more works for the public.

      I believe that denying the content creators financial gain by circumventing copyright is wrong. However, if content creators continue to extend copyright or use DRM to make sure that their content can not ever return to the public domain, they are stealing from the public. Having the public return the favor is to be expected.

      This vicious cycle can be solved, but neither side seems to care enough to fix it.

    31. Re:The Pirate Bay by ArchieBunker · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Given the acoustics and volumes that bands play I would rather listen outside. If you don't wear earplugs you WILL have hearing damage. Either way earplugs or not its gonna sound muffled.

      --
      Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
    32. Re:The Pirate Bay by ruir · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Actually, two of our major futebol stadiums sit next to residential areas, and people make a chunk of profit renting them or allowing people on their verandas on major games. Last time I checked, no action was taken against them

    33. Re:The Pirate Bay by uncle+slacky · · Score: 2

      There's quite a good article on the subject here, starting with Benjamin Franklin's notorious pirating: http://www.tuxdeluxe.org/node/157

      --
      Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it.
    34. Re:The Pirate Bay by dunkelfalke · · Score: 3, Informative

      Just yesterday I've tried to watch a Pink Floyd "The Endless River" bluray I've bought the other day on my PC - I don't have a TV or a stand alone bluray player. I was not able to get it to work thanks to the bloody DRM.
      This crap encourages pirating instead of buying.

      --
      "It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
    35. Re:The Pirate Bay by dave420 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Disney wouldn't be where it was today if the notion of public domain didn't exist - almost their entire early output was based on public domain texts. Using Disney as an argument for stronger copyright is fraught with issues as now they are a dominant player when it comes to stricter copyright, but wouldn't be in that position if lax attitudes towards copyright had not existed in the past.

      The main people who would benefit from restricted copyright would be you and me, because unless an artist has the blessing of Disney or over $4bn, they will not stand a chance in hell of being able to publish works based on that universe, and we will never get to enjoy their art. Just imagine how much awesome work has already been missed because some judge told them they can't make it? Why do you prefer the bean-counters to the brush-wielders?

    36. Re:The Pirate Bay by AmiMoJo · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Do you seriously think that a significant portion of Pirate Bay downloads are people who have purchased the content, and are just downloading a copy to get an unencumbered version? Honestly?

      Yes. I myself and quite a few people I know download stuff that they either bought or could watch via free/subscription TV if they could be bothered to buy and program a DVR. It's easier just to use torrents though, as most DVRs don't let you stream to other televisions and make you manually skip adverts. It's just too much hassle, torrents are so much easier.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    37. Re:The Pirate Bay by QilessQi · · Score: 2

      I provide most of my writing and artwork online under Creative Commons Attributional license, and my Open Source libraries under the Artistic License, so I'm very sympathetic to the notion of sharing -- but only when the artist themselves elects to do so. That's not the case with The Pirate Bay and its users, and what they do doesn't pass the smell test with me.

      There are tons of artists out there who release music and books and games and short films on public sites, with licenses that allow unlimited copying and sharing. If that's the model you believe in, then please frequent those artists, and throw a little cash their way -- some of them are friends of mine; they could use it! As for the rest of the artists and their producers and their distributors: if you don't like paying what they ask, then don't consume their product. It's really very simple.

    38. Re:The Pirate Bay by meta-monkey · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Also, remember that we, the copiers, are the ones with the fundamental right. If you sing a song, I have an unalienable free speech right to sing the same song. Just because you sung it first doesn't give you the right to use force (your own or through government) to shut me up. I have a right to use my copy machine to copy the book you wrote, the movie you produced, the song you recorded (so long as I did not commit theft of actual property or trespass to obtain the source material).

      So we as a society can encourage you to create, though, we will permit you a limited monopoly on reproduction so you can make a profit. This is a voluntary curtailment of my natural rights to free speech and use of my physical property. But only so long as the terms are agreeable and the enforcement is reasonable. I need to get something for what I'm giving up. But once you go power-mad and demand 90+ years of monopoly instead of 14, start spying on people, hacking their computers, blocking access to websites, criminalizing use and modification of property I own, throwing people in jail, so you can make billions on pop garbage then no. Fuck it. Not worth it. Let's go back to the natural rights. I'll keep my right to copy and you can keep your right to suck it. If you can't make a profit, boo-fucking-hoo. I don't need Action Blockbuster #324123 or Teen Pop Idol 14 badly enough to let you do those things to me.

      If you want to be reasonable, we can talk. But if you're get too big on yourself and forget who actually has the natural rights here, and that we are doing you a favor by curtailing those rights, for which you should be eternally grateful, then like you said. Contract breached. Null and void. Fuck 'em.

      --
      We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
    39. Re:The Pirate Bay by Some_Llama · · Score: 2

      You have no right to the content in my daily journal, or the diary of someone else. That's my content and theirs. Claiming that a movie or song is "culture" is laughable. I've not stated that content is "property" - they're your words. But if I produce content of some kind that does not give to a right to view/hear/read it.

      nice strawman, let's explore both statements

      1. "You have no right to the content in my daily journal, or the diary of someone else. That's my content and theirs."
      as long as they are unpublished you are absolutely correct.

      2. Claiming that a movie or song is "culture" is laughable.
      absolutely wrong. just because you say something does not make it so, like in this case, where movies and songs are published works and once consumed by a culture, becomes part of that culture.

      3. But if I produce content of some kind that does not give to a right to view/hear/read it.
      only if you keep it private.

      you are confusing the issue by imposing an apple in between two oranges and then describing values and issues that only effect oranges.

    40. Re:The Pirate Bay by QilessQi · · Score: 2

      I care because I know people who make their entire living doing music or writing.

      In order to sell what they produce, artists (meaning musicians, authors, etc.) make deals with publishers who in turn can market their work to distributors far and wide. Those publishers sign contracts based on how marketable the artist is, or how marketable think the artist will be. Marketability boils down to how much money the artist will bring to the publisher, because after all this is a business arrangement. The more sales by distributors (like amazon.com), the more the publisher makes, and the more successful the artist is. The more pirated downloads, the less the publisher makes -- which not only means that the artist makes less, but the publisher might not care to sign with the artist in the future. So the artist goes broke, and can't make their art anymore, because they need to do other things to put food on the table and pay rent.

      If you like an artist, you support their work by paying for it exactly as they intended. If you think the artist should have a different way of making a living, you can suggest that to the artist.

    41. Re:The Pirate Bay by QilessQi · · Score: 2

      Have I ever downloaded something that I didn't have rights to - yes, but not enough for anybody to care.

      You can't claim anything about how much a hypothetical individual would or would not care.

      The equivalent of a kid sneaking into a movie theater to watch a movie once or twice.

      Unless you're 12 years old or under, you don't get to apply that standard to yourself. If you're an adult and you sneak into a movie theater to watch a film -- even if there were empty seats -- that's wrong. If you intentionally download something that you don't have the rights to, that's wrong too.

      It's okay; we're human, we all do things from time to time that we know we're not supposed to, but let's not fool ourselves when we do. You can make all sorts of rationalizations to make yourself feel better about illegal downloading, and other people who do it will no doubt support you, but it's still wrong. If you don't understand that, I really can't say anything more to convince you, except that maybe you should discuss the matter with your parents or (if you're religious) your minister or equivalent, and hear what they have to say about it.

    42. Re:The Pirate Bay by CaptainDork · · Score: 2

      It's theft and you are rationalizing by saying it's something you wouldn't buy anyway. That is not an excuse that will hold up in court.

      --
      It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
  2. We need more open file storage by hessian · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I appreciate the reasons for the war on piracy, but TPB was more than a pirate nexus: it was a great place to links to downloads via bittorrent that everyone could get to.

    The internet needs to return to its wild west days of open file storage. True, lots of people are going to pirate, but that's technologically inevitable. The anti-piracy people are destroying necessary stuff along with what they fear.

    1. Re:We need more open file storage by BreakBad · · Score: 2

      Collateral data.

  3. Subject by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    How much do you wanna bet the only reason he quoted the movie Spartacus is because he just torrented it?

  4. Attention by koan · · Score: 2

    but people should be wary of scams.

    This is a warning worth noting, as previous "pirate" domains have been taken over it becomes difficult to know who is running what.
    That's means the MPAA (or other entity) could run a pirate site and easily gather more than enough evidence in the process.

    --
    "If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
    1. Re:Attention by lister+king+of+smeg · · Score: 2

      Actually if they were to run a torrent site they would loose any right to sue as they would be distributing said files and it would no longer be illegal.

      --
      ---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
  5. Re:"wouldn't be so s****y" by ArcadeMan · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Slashdot is run by people who live in the United States of America, where you can show people getting shot or worst on live TV, but you can't say "shit" or show a nipple.

  6. Has its uses by bogie · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Regardless of the licensing, a lot of the content on the site is useful because its just unavailable otherwise.

    I wonder this about Youtube. What if it was just shutdown? At this point you can laugh but it has historical value. Beyond the cat videos there are documentaries, content from laserdisc, obscure commercials, very useful user howtos and reviews etc. This list goes on and on. If all you search for on youtube is funny videos then you are missing out on a treasure trove of content that spans many decades.

    At some point I think the site will have to become a public archive. Which it kind of already is, it just needs the legal status so that some greedy corporation can't just turn off the switch. Now if only we could cut down on the crap that is a result of everyone trying to monetize youtube. But I guess that's wishful thinking because without that Google might just shut down Youtube outright.

    --
    If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
  7. Re:Whats 10100100000 ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Not R. Rnull.
    Ahnold.

    Skynet is watching.

  8. You mean... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    the 800 pound Gorilla, George Lucas, vs the 1200 pound Mouse, Disney?

    Because no offense, but Lucas hasn't been a little guy since the 70s. And he's certainly fucked over plenty of ACTUAL creative types thanks to long term copyright (Look at the way they've shat all over the extended universe. Most or all of which I believe they own, since one of the stipulations for using GL's valuable Star Wars IP was assigning the copyrights to one of the LucasBrand copyright arms.) Nevermind all the studios they shuttered just before the Disney deal, and the years of butchering their creative talent prior to that.

    Furthermore since Disney would only get the 14+ year old version of things and not all the major changes in storyline etc that happened in the intervening years they might very well license it so they could creative material that was up to date and properly aligned with the current generations expectations of the Star Wars universe are. And in the case they weren't, and stuck to that 14+ year old storyline, it would most likely be due to the new creative material sucking, and the Free Market demanding an alternative canon 'fork' that aligned closer with what the consumers want out of Star Wars. Funny how under the current copyright terms that can't happen, eh? The free market and aligning with consumer demand are in fact being impaired by excessive copyright terms, thus stifling both creative and commercial competition to IPs which are in many cases based off public domain works with a 'spin' to begin with.

  9. This just in: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3

    Live performance now equivalent to recorded media!

    But seriously, Sparky, musicians used to make ALL their income from live performance. If your music's worth a damn, people will gladly pay to hear you play it. Recorded media should be viewed simply as a way to get new fans on board. Or do you actually *believe* the record labels' business model is legitimate? If so, please explain why most artists don't make much, if anything, off recorded media sales to begin with?

    Also, if there weren't such blatant monopolies and price-fixing by media distributors and (re)broadcasters, then prices for such might actually be reasonable enough for everyone to not mind paying. As things stand now, people pay hundreds of dollars per month for stations they don't even want and aren't allowed to just cherry-pick-and-pay for the handful they actually do want.

    So get off your high horse.

  10. I'm Happy to Pay by Kunedog · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Working hard since 2003 to preserve your right to consume media without the annoyance of paying.

    More like "without paying twice" or "without paying in perpetuity."

    DRM and copy protection are very much about crippling second-hand sales. Hell, they're about stopping first-hand sales too, in favor of forcing pay-per-view and rental models.

  11. So the media dick-waving goes into the next round by Opportunist · · Score: 2

    All the while ignoring the main issue. The problem isn't whether or not people copy stuff without paying. The problem is people not paying. And sorry, this won't be fixed by more stings, more domain hijacking, more rigid DRM because the only thing this accomplishes is that I get even more discouraged to buy any content. It's already bad enough since, well, there is very little content worth watching, let alone paying for it. And no, before anyone jumps to conclusions, it's not even worth wasting the bandwidth downloading it.

    Not that the movie, the game, the song, the whatever was bad. Oh, far from it. There's great movies, songs, games and whatever else out there. I just cannot agree with the licensing terms. Dear copyright industry (I used to call you content industry, but let's call a spade a spade and be honest here, your business focus is copyright, not content anymore): A contract needs two parties agreeing on it. And I simply cannot agree to your conditions, while you're unwilling to offer conditions that I could agree with. In other words, no sale will take place here.

    And I am by no stretch alone, or a minority. There are people who would be very willing to pay for your content.

    But not at these conditions. We do not want malware on our PCs. We do not want to watch your annoying ads or "FBI warnings". Has it ever occurred to you that the ONLY people who get to watch this "copying is stealing" bullshit are exactly those that did NOT copy it? Because rest assured, the first thing stripped from whatever is to be spread is dead weight like that. It's, quite literally, a waste of bandwidth. But back on topic.

    We want to pay for content. And we want to get what we pay for. Content. Nothing more, nothing less. Give us what we want and we will buy. Try to force us to jump through your hoops and beg for scraps like dogs and we'll lift our leg on you.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  12. Tribler works around site outages by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I'm surprised more people aren't using Tribler. It's an open source, cross-platform application which allows people to search for (and download/share) torrents in a peer-to-peer fashion. This removes the need for central torrent indexes like Pirate Bay or other big sites. http://tribler.org/

    If more people were sharing torrents in a P2P style rather than relying on sites like TPB, users wouldn't be affected by website outages like this.

  13. Piracy at the bay by Champaklal · · Score: 2
    1. Pirate bay also acted as information exchange system which would have opinions about the quality of movie and other things, which often are subdued
    2. some pretty old / kitsch movies, which otherwise these companies are not interested in selling, can be found here.
    3. I personally feel, there should not be a monopolistic situation in market