ThePirateBay.org Raided and Shut Down
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Wed May 31, 2006 08:14 AM
from the surprised-it-lasted-this-long dept.
from the surprised-it-lasted-this-long dept.
An anonymous reader writes "ThePirateBay.org, a longtime fixture of the BitTorrent community, is currently under investigation. Slyck.com is reporting their servers have been seized by the Swedish police." What's really interesting about them is the strange political power that they held in their homeland. There was much discussion even of a political party. This will be interesting to watch unfold.
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Your Rights Online: ThePirateBay Will Rise Again? 465 comments
muffen writes "IDG.se has an interesting article up giving more details about the raid on PirateBay, and a little history of the organization. The news organ reports that nearly 200 servers were taken, and many of them had nothing to do with the torrent-serving group. After yesterday's raid, the site is back up with a single page explaining the situation. Brokep, one of the people behind PirateBay, claims that the site will be up and running within a couple of days. He also says that there is no legal basis for the raid against them and that he is certain that the case will not go to trial." From the site: "The necessity for securing technical evidence for the existence of a web-service which is fully official, the legality of which has been under public debate for years and whose principals are public persons giving regular press interviews, could not be explained. Asked for other reasoning behind the choice to take down a site, without knowing whether it is illegal or not, the officers explained that this is normal."
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Your Rights Online: U.S. Joins Hollywood in War on Piracy 358 comments
Section_Ei8ht writes to mention a Washington Post article about a new joint initiative between the U.S. government and the entertainment industry. The government will now be aiding efforts abroad to stop copyright infringement. They cite the recent Pirate Bay fiasco, as well as the problems Russia is having with the WTO as a result of their thriving IP black market. From the article: "The intellectual property industry and law enforcement officials estimate U.S. companies lose as much as $250 billion per year to Internet pirates, who swap digital copies of 'The DaVinci Code,' Chamillionaire's new album and the latest Grand Theft Auto video game for free."
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This is the sort of publicity you can't buy. (Score:5, Informative)
What we probably have here is pressure (who doesn't doubt it didn't go down like this [wikipedia.org]) from a foreign organisation to shut down something that's legal under Swedish law. (The torrent files themselves contain no copyrighted information).
Is this going to permanently shutdown thepiratebay.org? I doubt it.
Is this going to help the Pirate Party's chances for election in the September elections and be detrimental to the content oligopolist's interests in the long run? Hell yes.
Mildly offtopic, if TPB is shutdown, the thing I'm going to miss most is their 'legal' section (with legal threats + responses) - here's one of my favorite responses (via google cache [64.233.183.104]): (in response to a threat from Sega europe)
It wasn't the police. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:It wasn't the police. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:It wasn't the police. (Score:5, Funny)
...
And join forces to take out those damn dirty Vikings!
Re:This is the sort of publicity you can't buy. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:This is the sort of publicity you can't buy. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:This is the sort of publicity you can't buy. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is the sort of publicity you can't buy. (Score:5, Interesting)
Legal circumstances of other actions on the Internet are different in that there are serious but legitimate differences in the laws of different countries. The best example of which I can think are Europe's anti-Nazi laws, of which Yahoo famously ran afoul. Trading Nazi memorabilia in France and Germany is strictly forbidden (at least for private parties -- museums may have more leeway), while no court in the United States would entertain such restrictions for very long. In Russia, you have the legal authority to break DRM encryption for the purposes of making a personal backup (though not for warez trading), hence Elcomsoft's legal dilemma with the PDF cracker.
I can't speak to the situation here, because Swedish copyright law may or may not be on the side of TPB, and I'm not familiar with Swedish law in general, but the overall situation may not be nearly as cut and dried as you seem to believe.
The Political Pirate Party (Score:5, Informative)
From the first link, the aims of the Pirate Party seem to be:
Re:The Political Pirate Party (Score:5, Interesting)
Not every bit. They want a five-year commercial-only copyright term; allowing for non-commercial copying and use during that period.
Also, personal information and trademarks are to retain their protection.
> Disregard WIPO and WTO completely. Even though the US will "go bananas" as they put it.
Again, not completely. The WTO regulates some non-IP issues, on which the Pirate Party has no opinion.
Re:The Political Pirate Party (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:The Political Pirate Party (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Voting as a message (Score:5, Insightful)
I disagree however with the idea that one should only vote for parties that 'have a chance' of winning or anything like that. People should vote for the party that represents them and their interests the better, no matter how important they are right now. Small parties usually are small just because of people thinking that way. If you think something, and believe some party is proposing a good response to your expectations, you should put your vote where your mouth is, and vote them. Otherwise, don't complain when the government does something you don't like, because they will be doing it with your implicit approval (except if they deviate from their own political viewpoint).
Re:The Political Pirate Party (Score:5, Funny)
IPv6 will sort that out
The Pirate Party (Score:5, Informative)
odd (Score:5, Interesting)
(coralized link)
http://www.btflux.com.nyud.net:8080/archives/news
Re:odd (Score:5, Informative)
I talkt to the Pirate Party leader, he confirms the raid, confiscated servers (Both Pirate Parties and The Pirate Bay), saying there were 50 policemen in the raid this afternoon (14:00 Cent Eur time).
Re:odd (Score:5, Funny)
-Grey [wellingtongrey.net]
Re:odd (Score:5, Funny)
Legal? (Score:5, Interesting)
According to The Pirate Party, a Swedish copyright reform organization, the raid also seized Piratbyrån's (the Pirate Bureau) servers. In addition, The Pirate Party reports "...the servers where located in a protected area, to which the police had no legal right to enter..." Approximately 50 police participated in the raid, which placed into custody two PirateBay.org personnel.
Now I remember reading the legal threats page, and the phrase normally went along the lines of "US Copyrights Mean Nothing Here".
What changed? Sending letters is one thing, but something pretty heavy must be going on to warrant that kind of response.
Can any of our swedish friends fill in the gaps here? I'm sure we're missing something.
Re:Legal? (Score:5, Informative)
Nothing as I can see it. It's still perfectly legal to link to copyright violating material in Sweden. The police probably hopes that they store some violating material on the servers. Which, hopefully, they don't.
That, or they're after the logs so that they can do it the American Way (tm) and start suing blind 90 year olds and quadriplegics.
Re:Legal? (Score:5, Funny)
What changed? Sending letters is one thing, but something pretty heavy must be going on to warrant that kind of response.
Can any of our swedish friends fill in the gaps here? I'm sure we're missing something.
It's really quite simple.
Terrorists can download .torrent files. And if terrorists can download .torrent files, then terrorists can obtain unlimited copies of material by Britney Spears, Kelly Clarkson, etc.
This will (obviously) lead to a greater hatred of America, and western culture in general.
This will impact the safety of all of our children as terrorists with big boners from watching Britney in that video with the short skirt will erupt into testosterone-fueled rages ... and this will greatly impact our war on terror.
This has nothing to do with copyright law, and everything to do with the safety of the free world.
I don't understand what you don't get about it?
Re:Legal? (Score:5, Funny)
o <- Joke
O
/--\ <-You
|
/ \
TEXT if slashdotted (Score:5, Informative)
As one of the largest trackers, ThePirateBay.org largely replaced the demise of the SuprNova.org search engine. SuprNova.org met its demise in late 2004, when it was under pressure from the entertainment industry to shut it operation down. Conversely, such pressure has been ineffective against ThePiratebay.org.
When such political pressure fails, the use of force is typically the next course of action. In a move that many thought would never come, Slyck.com learned this morning that ThePirateBay.org was raided by Swedish police.
"...The police right now is taking all of our servers, to check if there is a crime there or not (they are actually not sure)," ThePirateBay.org spokesperson "brokep" told Slyck.com.
The seizure of ThePirateBay.org's entire server farm will guarantee this BitTorrent tracker will remain offline until the police complete their investigation. Whether this will keep ThePirateBay.org offline indefinitely is another matter.
"We are not sure when it will return, but we are moving it to another country if necessary," brokep said.
According to The Pirate Party, a Swedish copyright reform organization, the raid also seized Piratbyrån's (the Pirate Bureau) servers. In addition, The Pirate Party reports "...the servers where located in a protected area, to which the police had no legal right to enter..." Approximately 50 police participated in the raid, which placed into custody two PirateBay.org personnel.
The premature departure of ThePirateBay.org marks a significant turning point in the BitTorrent community. Although it's not currently known what, if any, entertainment entity is behind this raid, failure to secure ThePirateBay.org's permanent removal will only bolster this tracker's position of defiance.
Re:TEXT if slashdotted (Score:5, Insightful)
Someone's house/appt? You know, cops can't just walk into any building and take what they want. Unless, of course, they don't like the person who lives there.
An open letter to Sweden. (Score:5, Funny)
24 (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe they were warned about it... (Score:5, Funny)
Story unfolds... (Score:5, Informative)
For the benefit of those who don't speak swedish, here's a short summary:
3 people have been arrested, age 22, 24 and 28. They have not been charged, but are taken in because they the police suspect they have violated copyright laws. The persons are directly connected to TPB.org. They are as of an hour ago still under interrogation. 50 police men have worked on the case.
Re:Story unfolds... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Story unfolds... (Score:5, Insightful)
"...The police right now is taking all of our servers, to check if there is a crime there or not (they are actually not sure)," ThePirateBay.org spokesperson "brokep" told Slyck.com.
Aw shucks. . . (Score:5, Funny)
-CR
What the Swedish antipiracy firm (ATB) has to say (Score:5, Informative)
"The Pirate Bay nedstängd
Polisen genomförde idag en rad husrannsakningar mot lokaler där The Pirate Bay bedriver sin verksamhet. Klockan 12 30 stängdes sidan thepiratebay.org ned.
The Pirate Bay var fram tills igår knutpunkten för en stor del av världens illegala fildelning. Enligt egna uppgifter fanns det en dryg miljon användare som kunde laddade upp och ned främst filmer, spel och musik. Genom sin storlek och uttalade målsättning att hänga ut och håna berörda upphovsmän gjorde man The Pirate Bay känd över hela världen. Sverige blev internationellt känt som en fristad för dem som begick upphovsrättsbrott på Internet. Detta utnyttjades ekonomiskt för en omfattande försäljning av annonser, porreklam och insamling av donationer.
Det är bra att den svenska polisen nu prioriterar denna typ av brottslighet. Det är upphovsrätten som finansierar nyskapandet inom film, datorspel, musik och övrig kultur. Den som bryter mot upphovsrättslagen stjäl från framtidens kreatörer och biopublik. Därför är stängningen av The Pirate Bay bra för alla oss som uppskattar ny film och underhållning säger Henrik Pontén, jurist på Antipiratbyrån.
Svenska produktioner drabbas i hög grad av den illegala nedladdningen, säger Per-Erik Wallin, Föreningen Sveriges Filmproducenter. Om svenska filmer finns tillgängliga på nätet före premiären innebär det minskade chanser att filmerna ska spela hem produktionskostnaden och mindre medel för att göra nästa film. Det drabbar både manusförfattare, regissörer, skådespelare och filmarbetare."
Roughly translated
"The pirate bay closed
Today the police raided multiple places were The Pirate Bay conducts its operations. At 12.30 the site thepiratebay.org was closed.
The pirate Bay was until yesterday the center for a large part of the worlds illegal filesharing. According to piratebay itself there was over a million users who could upload or download foremost movies, games and music.
By its size and outspoken goal of ridiculing authors The pirate Bay got known all over the world.
Sweden got known internationally as an asylum for those who commited copyright crimes on the internet. This was use economicaly for a large scale sale of adds, pornadds and donations.
It is good that the swedish police now priority this kind of crime. It is the copyright that finances creation in movies, computergames, music and other culture. Whoever breaks the copyright steals from future auothors and cinema audience. Therefore the closing of The Pirate Bay is good for all of us that apreciate new Movies and entertainment says Henrik Pontén, legal advisor at Antipiratbyrån.
Swedish productions are very much affected by illegal downloading, say Per-Erik Wallin, Föreningen Sveriges Filmproducenter. If swedish movies are availible on the net before the premiere chances are smaller that the movies will get the production cost back and less means to make the next movie. It affects both scriptwriters, directors, actors and filmcrews."
Note that this truly is a crappy translation.
Damnit! (Score:5, Funny)
First hand information here: (Score:5, Informative)
The Pirate Bureau have set up a temporary news blog to inform the public about this whole incident: http://piratbyran.blogspot.com/ [blogspot.com]
Shutting down The Pirate Bay can be compared to shutting down Google, by Swedish laws. Both sites supply a search engine with which you can find legal and illegal material on the internet. TPB will prevail.
Ahhhhhhh (Score:5, Funny)
The Pirate Bay (Score:5, Insightful)
However, as the main goal of the pirate bay is to facilitate copyright infringement, I find it very hard to believe that none of these guys had any illegal copies of stuff at home, on their laptops, etc.
Since their homes apparently also were raided, this is probably a way for the authorities to get to them, even if the Pirate Bay itself does nothing illegal. When you are involved in something like The Pirate Bay, it is too tempting to use it yourself.
Of course, if Swedish copyright law allows for downloading copyrighted material for personal use, then this will be fine as well.
Why people really are reading this thread is... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:come on, let's face it (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:come on, let's face it (Score:5, Informative)
Whether Sweden has anything like this, I have no idea.
Re:come on, let's face it (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:come on, let's face it (Score:5, Insightful)
So you'd prefer another country to have hold over what is and is not legal in your own?
What if the shoe was on the other foot? What if the law being violated was, for example, Iranian, and the website was American? I'm sure there are thousands of porn sites hosted in California that are just as blatantly illigal in repressive countries as TPB is in America. Would you be so quick to say "It doesn't matter what country they're in, it's still illegal in the prosecuting country, so that makes cracking down on them OK" ?
And no, it doesn't matter that the prosecuting country in question is "unfreindly" - in case you missed the memo, what matters legally are local laws and possibly extradition treaties. Plus, many Swedes would undoubtably view American law as repressive on IP issues, just as many Americans would view Iranian law as oppressive on free speach issues.
The "not in my country" defense is otherwise known as national sovereignty. Don't like it? Tough. You either abide by it, or accept the idea that another nation can enforce it's laws upon you remotely. If you wish legal sovereignty for your own nation, you must allow others the same right. To grant them any less makes you little more than a hypocritic shill.
Re:come on, let's face it (Score:5, Informative)
And here's where you're wrong and trolling:
We're not talking about the DMCA, we're talking about basic theft.
NO, NO, NO, WRONG.
Theft is when YOU HAVE SOMETHING, SOMEONE ELSE TAKES IT, and YOU NO LONGER HAVE IT.
This is copyright infringement. It is NOT the same thing as theft. In a way, the copyright owner has something, someone else takes (an exact replica of) it, but the copyright owner STILL HAS IT.
It is not as simple as "reduce the problem down to something you can understand and digest easily", and "repeat it often enough, it becomes true". You can't make a simple analogy out of this; it is not a simple problem. Attempt to understand it. Bring yourself to it's level; not vice versa. This works for all complex problems, be it micro v. macro kernel, evolution v. creation, pro-choice v. pro-life, etc. Elevate your understanding.
~Wx
Re:come on, let's face it (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:come on, let's face it (Score:5, Informative)
Maybe some of the content was illegal, but what Pirate Bay did was not - at least by Swedish law (IANASwedeL). All they did was host tiny text files and provice a search database. They were a tracker, not a host.
This is basically the same as American cops raiding Bell because the Yellow Pages lists the phone number of a paper mill, and paper can potentially be used to write harassing letters.
Re:come on, let's face it (Score:5, Insightful)
I think a better analogy would be cops raiding a house because the guy was distributing directions on where to buy [drugs,hookers,whatevers illegal].
Re:come on, let's face it (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:TPB shutdown clearly visible in graphs (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:TPB shutdown clearly visible in graphs (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:A quote (Score:5, Funny)
A Møøse once bit my sister ...