The Pirate Bay Is Back Online, Properly

New submitter cbiltcliffe writes: About a month ago, we discussed news that the Pirate Bay domain name was back online. This story mentioned a timer, which supposedly showed the time since the police raid. I didn't notice at the time, but a more recent check showed this counter was counting down, not up, with a time set to reach zero at the end of January. Sometime around a week ago, the waving pirate flag video changed to a graphic of an orange phoenix, and a disabled search box showed up. I've been watching the site since, and now, about 12 hours before the timer was to reach zero, the site is back up, complete with searches.

Comments

Problems with the staff

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems they have problems with the staff though.
More info here

Re:Problems with the staff

[BronsCon]

Yeah... staff locked out? Seems fishy, almost as though LEOs took over the domain and brought the site back up. Someone brew some tea, I think there's a pot of honey around here somewhere.

Re: Problems with the staff

[ihtoit]

there is a Flash exploit that STILL isn't patched, that only requires a user to visit a site with a bit of compromised embedded flash content like a banner ad, and BOOM, owned. You don't even have to click a link, just visit a domain hosting the content on a page.

Think "Autoplay", that's how fucking easy it is.

Re: Problems with the staff

[ArcadeMan]

Slashdot. Where a simple "edit" button is too much to ask.

Sorry about the typos in my comment above, it won't happne agian.

Re: Problems with the staff

[FrankSchwab]

You have a weird definition of "virus" and "malware".

In my world, Malware includes everything that gets installed on your machine (surreptitiously or not) that does "bad" things ("mal" = (french) bad, evil). That would include worms, viruses, rootkits, unwanted toolbars, home page redirectors, Stuxnet, Cryptolocker, and just about every other form of third-party computer abuse.
Virus is a subset of malware. /frank

And the game continues

[TheReaperD]

And the futile game of whack-a-mole continues. I wonder just how long media companies will take to realize that this is futile? My guess is they'll go out of business first.

Re:And the game continues

[martin-boundary]

That argument makes little sense. Of course people get paid for their work. The TBP operates in the pipeline _after_ people already got paid. Movies or whatnot don't get made without people getting paid. The carpenters who build sets and models get paid. The costume designers get paid. The extras get paid, the camera people, etc.

It's best to think of piracy as a form of spoilage. The example is harvesting apples. That's a lot of work, and the pickers must get paid, but once the apples are put in storage, some percentage of the apples will spoil. You don't see farmers being ideologically opposed to spoilage, do you? It's not an ideology or an ethical problem. It's a natural part of the lifecycle of apples. There are ways to minimize it, but it gets expensive and often is not worth it.

Media have a lifecycle too. Once enough people got to see them, some people will make copies, using cams or otherwise. With news it's even worse. Once enough people hear about the latest terrorist bombing, they'll paraphrase using their mouths. That's piracy: It's only a matter of numbers, and of probabilities.

Economically in fact, piracy is a good thing just like any form of spoilage. Imagine if you bought 10,000 apples and they never, ever, spoiled? You'd still be eating those apples when you were 80 years old. You'd never have bought another apple in your life. You'd have expensive storage costs over 80 years. The farmer would be out of business already, since after everyone bought a lifetime's worth they wouldn't buy any more. And apple prices would be much higher in a futile bid to compensate.

Same with movies and media. The myth of a piracy free hollywood is a nightmare in disguise. Don't waste your time believing their lies.

Re:And the game continues

[AthanasiusKircher]

Every person involved was already paid. The Grip and such got paid cash on the day they worked. Stealing it after hurts nobody who "worked" on it.

To this, I offer the following parable:

There once was a man who wanted to open a series of restaurants. He hired an architect, interior designers, and a team of construction contractors to build the first restaurant. After a year of planning and building, the restaurant was finished.

The man went on Slashdot and then did read posts by AK Marc and martin-boundary and others, who told him that "every person involved was already paid."

So the man decided not to open his restaurant. Burglars came and stole the food. Squatters came and took up residence in the building. But the man was unconcerned, since "every person involved was already paid."

At the end of the year, the man went to his accountant. Lo, his accountant was not pleased. "Why didst thou spend thy money upon this restaurant?" saith the accountant.

The man saith unto his accountant, "'Every person involved was already paid.' AK Marc and martin-boundary hath told me so. Thus I decided customers were not necessary and figured the project was finished."

But the account then pointed out that the man had not been paid. And lo, the man was sore aggrieved. Thenceforth, he built no more restaurants, and construction business dried up in town. His architect and his designers and his construction workers lost their jobs and never were paid again.

But, as the Slashdot posters had said:

Stealing it after hurts nobody who "worked" on it.

But the workers were quite confused, since they lost their jobs.

Here endeth the lesson.

(P.S. In case this is too unclear to the dense posters and mods who rated such comments highly -- yes, for a particular movie project, the people who "worked" on it were already paid. But the corporations and investors who paid all of them were depending on future profits to make back their initial capital outlay. If they don't receive enough profits, they will stop funding future projects, and "the grip and such" will likely not get as much work. You may or may not think this is a bad idea -- and I'm NOT defending the current copyright system by any means -- but pretending that "every person involved was already paid" and there will be no future impact on their lives is just ridiculous.)

Re:SubjectsInCommentsAreStupid

[Marginal Coward]

How do we know it's legit?

Hey, it's The Pirate Bay - what's not to be legit?

Re:SubjectsInCommentsAreStupid

[kimvette]

Is it legitimately illegitimate?

Re:Countdown

[ihtoit]

tell that to Kim Dotcom.