ThePirateBay.org Raided and Shut Down 1189
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.
odd (Score:5, Interesting)
(coralized link)
http://www.btflux.com.nyud.net:8080/archives/news
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.
The Pirate Party (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
They were too cocky (Score:3, Interesting)
The should have stopped taunting the MPAA, RIAA, and just about every Hollywood movie house. Those entities combined have an enormous amount of influence and power. It was just a matter of time unfortunately.
http://religiousfreaks.com/ [religiousfreaks.com]Re:The Political Pirate Party (Score:5, Interesting)
Mixed feelings... (Score:2, Interesting)
Interesting to say the least! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Strange political power (Score:3, Interesting)
TPB shutdown clearly visible in graphs (Score:4, Interesting)
Oh shit (Score:3, Interesting)
Distributed tracking (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:The Political Pirate Party (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Strange political power (Score:2, Interesting)
What's wrong with porn ads if they're legal? Either something is legal, and thus ok for society as a whole (as opposed to any particular slice of society), or it's not ok for society as a whole, in which case it should be made illegal.
To put it another way: don't you want the people in charge to do the utmost not to waste your money unnecessarily? An ad-supported government should have fiscal conservatives everywhere salivating in anticipation.
And salivating further, no doubt if the administration gained further income by auctioning image, video or live access to a yearly interdepartmental gay/straight orgy. Anything to reduce the cost of government, right?
Bad guys win after all? (Score:3, Interesting)
With any legal system there are a million of loopholes, that his how the lawyers make their big bucks. It seems like one of those MPAA/RIAA/Microsoft/Adobe lawyers found a loophole in the Swedish law after all.
It seems the like the guys at the piratebay.org has fun with the legal threats, insulting all those idiots, I wouldn't be surprised that a good number of them took it personally, knowing how big and inflamed their egos are. Does it mean the bad guys win after all?
Re:Mixed feelings... (Score:2, Interesting)
I welcome any opposition to that, and the PirateBay's replies were hilarious
Re:The Political Pirate Party (Score:2, Interesting)
Yes, it would, more than ever. Without any protection, anyone could take GPL code, bake it into their own and refuse to share any alterations.
Removing all copyright would constitute a massive shift in power towards the largest holders.
Has it not occured to anyone (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Strange political power (Score:3, Interesting)
Anglo-saxon culture views the State/Government as something bad, for which it is demeaning to work for. So the brightest people tend to work in business, whilst those unsuccessful in business but with still an ounce of ambition will be drawn towards politics, where they will apply their businessmen credo, which is to line their pockets.
It's okay for a private businessman to line his pockets; that's what businesses are for: fatten their executives, and, if there's some left, the shareholders.
But it cannot work for the Government, because it acts for the whole society, but politicians act like businessmen and still stuff their pockets at public expense...
Re:come on, let's face it (Score:3, Interesting)
I wonder if this is an attempt/hope that they'll have carried actual infringing material on the server to set a crime in stone. I mean, if all they needed was some stupid
Re:This is the sort of publicity you can't buy. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:same as a drug dealer (Score:3, Interesting)
A person walks up to a police officer and says "Sir, that man across the street is selling illegal drugs!" The police officer's response: "You're under arrest for providing information as to where illegal drugs can be purchased."
Re:TEXT if slashdotted (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Strange political power (Score:1, Interesting)
The fact that the voter turnout for american idol was far and wide better then that of the last presidential election is proof enough that the REAL election winner is APATHY due to lack of a decent choice.
Re:Mixed feelings... (Score:4, Interesting)
Given the dishonest, beligerent, outrageous, overbearing and insulting nature of the legal threats in question, thepiratebay's response was completely justified.
Re:Just a Hoax -- dunno (Score:3, Interesting)
saying that they got raided, along with it peppering the news feeds over there
in Sweden, I have some reservations about it being just a hoax.
That's not to say it's not- it's just I wouldn't be so certain as there's too much
going on right at the moment that run counter to that assessment.
Re:This is the sort of publicity you can't buy. (Score:3, Interesting)
If you want us to take action, please provide us with a legal title that is valid in our country or cooperate with local law enforcement. Otherwise we will not respond to claims.
I guess the claiming companies cooperated with local law enforcement
Not unprecedented (Score:2, Interesting)
But then, the British Crown gave protection and rewards to many pirates. Of course, the politically correct term was "privateers". Guys like Sir Francis Drake, [wikipedia.org] Sir Henry Morgan, [wikipedia.org] and Governor Woodes Rogers [wikipedia.org] may have been regarded by other nations as murderers, thieves, slavers, and rapists, but to the British they were plucky men of renown.
So for ThePirateBay.org, this may not be the end, but only the beginning!
Re:The Pirate Bay (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Strange political power (Score:3, Interesting)
There are other dynamics at work as well:
1. You can vote from your phone for American Idol, you have to trudge out to the polls to vote for the next president, on a work day on top of it.
2. Politics are more difficult to follow then American Idol. Almost everyone can watch American Idol and decide if someone can sing well or not. How many Americans do you think understand or care about foreign policy? How many care about fiscal policy? How many care about Social Security other then it 'being there' for them?
3. American Idol tends to be more 'tribal'. What I mean by that is it often puts people of different ethnic backgrounds or gender against one another, and the media plays upon those differences to encourage more votes. For president, you typically end up with rich WASP male #1 vs rich WASP male #2.
How many women do you think will turn out to vote for Hillary just because she's a women in 2008? Don't discount that type of motivation from a previously disenfranchised group, it's a strong one.
Re:Strange political power (Score:3, Interesting)
Excuse me for being a bit dim but I fail to see a great deal of difference.
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.
Re:come on, let's face it (Score:3, Interesting)
and you couldn't find the guys who were stealing the chocolate out of the stores (although you could probably find them if you asked the newspaper guys), what would you do?
You'd question the newspaper, make sure you got the info needed to get the theives and make sure ads like that stopped appearing. Aka: kill the torrent site.
First, in the case of torrents there is no secret information about who is doing it. Every IP address seeding or downloading via a torrented file are publicly viewable. No need to even bother the "newspaper".
They didn't "question the newspaper" they shut it down (at least for now).
"make sure ads like that stopped appearing" OK, if we want to run a society based on what arbitrary people think is the right thing to do in a given case then that would be fine. However, if you perfer living in a place that is governed by some set of laws you'd better make sure there is a law on the books saying that posting such ads is illegal. If not, I think your computer should be siezed for writing REALLY bad analogies on
Re:Strange political power (Score:5, Interesting)
I had a problem (Score:1, Interesting)
Today I have an even bigger problem with the Swedish police. Unless there's something they know and I don't, it's still legal to link to copyrighted property in Sweden. Whether I like it or not, it's right or wrong, it's legal. So if that's all they're doing, why did the ops get busted?
I do NOT agree with The Pirate Bay's operator's personal beliefs. But I will voice my disagreement with those who wrongly opress the operators who have (to the best of my knowledge) not broken any laws. This is public, national power brought down on an individual. It's neither fair, nor right. Even less right than what the Pirate Bay did. I would compare it to the U.S. vs Iraq. Iraq may be in the bad, may have broken internation laws, but just because they did doesn't mean the U.S. can act lawlessly as it pleases. (FYI, I'm American, in case my previous comments were't obvious enough.)
Re:Strange political power (Score:2, Interesting)
At least you'd know where you stood with them unlike the current incumbents who say one thing and do another.
Re:An open letter to Sweden. (Score:3, Interesting)
Why I am pro-closing ThePirateBay.org (Score:1, Interesting)
If you buy a marketspace in Moscow, you are in charge of making sure that no illegal activity is going on in the market.
Hit me with your mods.
Backups? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The Pirate Bay (Score:3, Interesting)
Exactly due to the risks involved, I'm willing to bet quite alot they kept their own computers clean.
Even if they had stuff on their own computers, I'm very unsure if they actually could be charged. I imagine Sweden, as Norway, have pretty stricts laws on how police can gather information, and in which situations the information gathered can be used. After all, we don't want any random policeman with a grudge to be able to ruin somebodies life.
Re:Why people really are reading this thread is... (Score:4, Interesting)
Art19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Score:3, Interesting)
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to
seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
Now who is the pirate again? As I see it, people that call us pirates because we gladly spread information through informatic media are really violating one of the most forgoten articles in the bill of human rights, which in fact was signed by almost all the countries in the world.
Please spread your ideas throught europe and the rest of the world, because we need paladins for a cause that most people wont even see it until we reach a police or fascist state.
Cheers: Z
Re:This is the sort of accessories you can't buy. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Bullshit. (Score:3, Interesting)
No. They have one and only one "right" by which to control the distribution of their work - Never commit it to any form accessible outside their own head.
Once they accept the idea of utilizing legal restrictions on distribution for the purpose of making a profit, they have accepted an implicit (and to some degree explicit) contract between themselves and society.
Originally that meant that I as a human would not copy your (a fellow human's) work without permission or some form of compensation. In exchange, you turn a buck (hopefully thereby allowing you to create more) and eventually the work goes into the public domain to benefit us all.
When "you" no longer refers to something born of woman; when "eventually" means "so far into the distant future that we have a good chance of no copies surviving long enough"; when "the work" refers to something so laden with DRM that even if a copy existed, no one could use it - Then "you" have failed to uphold your end of that social contract.
If the BBC owns the rights to Dr. Who, and decides to chuck them all out, why shouldn't they be able to?
I don't mean this caustically, but if you don't see why we should consider an act of uncreation as nothing short of "evil", I don't think I can explain it to you.
Re:This is the sort of publicity you can't buy. (Score:3, Interesting)
Some countries have one choice in elections. Some have two. Real democracies have as many as there are people to set them up.
Re:come on, let's face it (Score:3, Interesting)
I strongly encourage everyone to go here [thepiratebay.org] and start downloading.
Now arrest me.
Re:Voting as a message (Score:5, Interesting)
In America the Democrats and Republicans are both part of a larger group, a power monopoly. They take "sides" in order to make it seem like there's a choice. The last several elections were almost exactly 50-50 divided. The media and the politicians like to say this means the country is "Strongly" divided. I say that it means the two "sides" are closer together than ever, so it doesn't really matter which side you pick, you are voting for people who are part of a single group, the power monopoly.
Voting for some wierd outsider would be great for the country. We need to get 2 or 3 totally weird outsiders into the senate and congress. These weirdos would not necessarily have any influence with their few votes, but you know for a fact they are going to:
1. Attend every vote
2. Read and understand every bill
3. Debate every pork barrel/hidden law/etc etc.
4. Generally put all the other people on the spot.
Those people up there are supposed to represent our states and help to make the country a better place also. Instead, they all live in Washington, DC, go to the same parties, and rarely if ever come back to their states to find out what's really going on. And if they do talk to someone from the state, it'll be some rich millionaire or business that probably does more than it's own share of subverting the will and freedom and comfort of the residents.
A weirdo elected would
1. Not be invited to those parties
2. Would not be able to find a place to live in Washington DC
3. Would not know any millionaires
Therefore he would probably come back to his house in the state he's from during the recess and actually talk to people and find out what's going on.
The only real problem is that he would shake things up so much that the power monopoly would hire one of their many hit squads and he would die in a tragic "accident".
I want to see some Henry Clay style beatings in congress though. Put someone like a Jessie Ventura in and have him PHYSICALLY BEAT people like Tom Delay (not just a clever name), Orrin Hatch, John Kerry, etc. BEAT THEM INTO SUBMISSION like the frail moneyed frat boys they are. Instead, it's just getting more aristocratic up there, because the American people think they have to go with a sure winner--when really going with the weirdest person running would be the best for everyone.
Re:Why I am pro-closing ThePirateBay.org (Score:3, Interesting)
Microsoft should be held liable for producing a product (M$ Word, M$ Outlook) which can be used to document and disseminate documentation of methods by which terrorist activities could be carried out?
GM should be held liable should some wank use his Camaro as a getaway car for a bank robbery?
I. Don't. Think. So.
Re:This is the sort of publicity you can't buy. (Score:1, Interesting)
Photoshop is a standard. I am not in the graphic design business... at all, by any stretch of the imagination. If I was, I'd buy Photoshop. I know how to pirate Photoshop, but I wouldn't do it for my business. If I'm making money off of a product, I'll buy it, that's a no-brainer. Back to the issue of a "standard". I didn't make Photoshop a standard. When I'm faced with wanting (yes, WANTING, not NEEDING) to do something to a jpeg or tiff or whatever, or if I need to import RAW images from a camera, or especially if I need to read a PSD file that someone has, I might be inclined to use Photoshop. I own Photoshop Elements, so the argument that I didn't/wouldn't buy it is specious, it came free with some expensive hardware I bought about a year ago. The fact of the matter is, since "everyone" uses Photoshop, it's the simplest and easiest thing for ME to use. Adobe Photoshop isn't FOR me, but I'll use it when it suits my needs. Now, you may have a moral problem with that. I don't. Why? Because (as you so eloquently put it) they didn't lose a sale. I wasn't going to buy Photoshop. Your ludicrous argument that I also didn't buy Paintshop Pro is completely off the beam. If I had BOUGHT Photoshop I wouldn't have bought Paintshop Pro. Get real. The fact of the matter is, since Photoshop has done their best to become a global standard, they are also going to have to face the fact that there are people who want to do something in their arena and not pay the entry fee. Again, I didn't bring up software, you did.
Back to Gigli. You're right that I didn't pay X, Y, Z or even BLUE for Gigli. That's because $19.95 wasn't the right price, nor was $5, $3, or even $2. As for not waiting til it was available free, that's not entirely true. I pay for cable. I also have premium channels, specifically HBO, Showtime, and Starz/Encore. Gigli may well have been shown on those channels, but that's not relevant to my point. Whoever is offering Gigli to me at a given price is selling me the chance to watch (or own, or whatever, depending on the specifics) Gigli. I don't want to watch Gigli... I want to see "what the big deal is" about how craptacular it is. That probably means about 15 minutes of rapid-fire fast-forwarding to catch some choice one-liners. I'm not willing to pay for that. Period. Now, you clearly take issue with that. I don't. That's why I do it and you don't. Congratulations, you've successfully proven that you aren't me. Want a cookie?
I'm not rationalizing, I'm explaining how a preceding argument didn't hold water. I know I had plenty of alternatives and that none had the appropriate perceived "value", that was the central thesis of my point. Something that may not be worth actual money might be worth 30 seconds of my time. Re-read what I wrote.
You can play your little word games about me just taking what I want when I want it and it being "justified" in my mind, but I gave very specific examples, tailored to illustrate the limited circumstances under which "copyright infringement" was "OK in my mind". YOU are the one who claims that means I take whatever I want when I want it and think that's fine. YOU are the one making sweeping generalizations and "justifying" why the behavior I described is "wrong". Thanks for playing though.
P.S. What does the MPAA pay you per hour? I might want to take a second job so I can afford to buy Gigli.
Re:More like... (Score:3, Interesting)
>It's more like photocopying the entire book and taking the copy home with you. You get to
>enjoy the content any time you want without going back to the store. And although reading
>the book in the store might be legal (but rude), photocopying the whole thing is certainly
>copyright infringement and against the law.
What if you just memorize what you read in the store?
I ask this before I go all prophetic, but it's important. We are realistically on the brink of massive advancements in technology that will dramatically change the nature of retention of experience. It's almost possible to manufacture cameras so small that they could realistically be implanted in the body comfortably. It's definitely possible to do the same with microphones. We have successfully performed experiments that intercept signals coming from a cat's eye via the optic nerve and display some of what's seen on a flat screen. We've got low multipixel displays being injected onto the optic nerve of some blind patients, enabling them to "see" things.
It is only the matter of a very short amount of time before Joe Average will realistically be able to digitally "remember" anything he ever sees or hears. He will be able to retain any sight or sound and replay it in perfect fidelity at will. I'm not talking about VR, but RR; replayed reality.
It's your experience. You had it once. Just because your grey cells alone can't retain it perfectly isn't a long-term profit market.
It may be a generation, or two, or even three, but it's going to happen that the entertainment industry won't be able to sell you an experience twice. Books, music, live performances of plays or concerts and virtually all other audio/visual markets will radically change. Forget peer-to-peer. This is just the start.
As an aside, really, strip clubs will be able to maintain themselves, happily, since consumers of pr0n tend to want to see NEW things each time.
Re:This is the sort of publicity you can't buy. (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, 1) How pathetic must you be to waste your time downloading shit you don't value? Either that or you're lying, and enjoy getting something for free.
"Value" is not a boolean. There's plenty of stuff I don't value enough to buy, but I'll still borrow it from a friend or listen to it on the radio. I may even record it when it's on TV. I borrow books from the library as well. They're not completely free, since my taxes help pay for the library, but the artist definately isn't getting compensated for every person who borrows a book or CD. Conversely, some of the items at the library -- such as reference materials -- are invaluable to me, I would definately buy them if they weren't available for near-free at the library. So by that logic, the publishers have lost a sale.
Essentially people are, and always have been, paying for things when they need to, not when the selling party wants them to. The selling parties would like to change that, obviously, but I'm not convinced that such a change is either necessary or desirable for the public good. As long as there's a mechanism in place for content producers to be compensated by those who choose to compensate, I believe that's sufficient.
2) If you delete a bunch of vital information on a company's server, would you use the defense that "I didn't physically destroy anything, I just realigned some bits on a hard drive"?
There's a clear difference between reproducing something and destroying it -- namely one is commonly acceptable and the other is not. If I buy some corn, and then plant that corn instead of eating it, I can have the very same corn in my backyard that the farmer would have sold me next year had I not planted it. If I give away an ear, someone else can do the same thing. Is that fair? Of course, because I've done work to reproduce that corn. If I reproduce a CD, I've arguably done more work than the publisher. Perhaps the original content producer hasn't been compensated, but a) he was likely compensated a flat fee to begin with (royalties ARE rare), and b) it goes back to the point I made in response to the previous question: People pay when they must, not when the seller wants them to. But, you say, that's not the same thing! An artist has produced something new, not a piece of corn! True, but if I create a new vegetable, and then sell it to a farmer for exclusive distribution, whose fault is it when other people figure out they can just plant it themselves? I probably should have thought of that in the first place, and provided sufficient incentive for people to obtain it directly from me. There is merit to the idea that society should likewise provide some inventives for people to create new things (and copyright is one of those incentives), but an incentive is just that, and if it's not good enough, then perhaps we should explore alternative solutions. I would submit that copyright is "good enough" as it stands, or stood. That is; preventing other people, for a limited time, from reproducing/distributing a work for profit without permission from the creator should be a criminal offense. People who desire to compensate the creator have a means, and those who have no such desire will find other ways. Anything more is just creating more of a burden on society, and the benefits are questionable, at best. Making ALL copying a criminal act was, I believe, a mistake, in that it costs society more to make criminals out of people than to simply accept that such activity is impossible to control.
Its more of a Socialist mentality... (Score:3, Interesting)
I am a college student, with depleted financial resources. I do not wish to spend money on a product, unless I find it useful/enjoyable. I am a pirate. I pirate movies, programs, and music. Everything I dislike will be deleted in under a month, because I cannot waste storage space on my hard drive. Everything I find highly useful, I buy. In the end, I buy more then my "streight-edge" friends. I own a legal copy of dreamweaver and flash - something I always scoffed at, but once using I fell in love.
All of my DVD's were once pireted, and I now own all of my favorites (40 titles... Who needs food with all of the LOtR Special edition...) I even own porn on DVD, ones that I found myself watching again and again. (I dream of Jenna, DDDTR, DDD2000, Space nuts) And for music, I try an artist before I buy, I probably would never of bought half of the bands in my collecton without trying them first. I even pirated pages and keynotes, and after finding how easy and eye-catching they made my presintations, I ended up buying them (If I could of bought keynotes alone, I would of. I find LaTEX a better tool for reports.)
So, when it comes to "downloading shit I don't value", but that I hear lots of good things about, I end up trying before I buy. I want the product to earn my money. If you could of tried a disapointing game? Stopped yourself before selling 18 bucks to see "The Time Machine" in theaters, wouldn't you? Before picking up the new Opeth cd, only to discover it a steaming pile? Pirating thins the heard of bad movies, music, games, and software. In the end, a pirate develops a form of brand loyalty, and stays with a good product, buying it, and recomending it to co-workers. Pirates do not "waste" time downloading something they may not want: they are simply giving it a chance to be bought in the end. Does that not lead one to spend money where one would normally not? Does that not actually improve the earnings of the companies whos products you "stole"? Since Napster and the like, I have bought more music then I ever did before.
In the end, the only ones that do not get my money are those with truely horrid products. Rehashed movies, poor plots and forced acting in a movie, lackluster games, and sloppy software. Not to mention all of those pop bands that all sound the same. Explain to me how you can wate you money on seeing these? How can you waste you money on buying these?