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I'm curious how they expect them to pay the $4 million...
http://www.pcworld.com/article/163339/the_pirate_bay_verdict_and_the_future_of_file_sharing.htmlThe four people involved in running The Pirate Bay, one of the most widely used BitTorrent trackers for music, movies and software, have been found guilty by the Stockholm district court of being accessories to crimes against copyright law. The court handed down its verdict on Friday morning.
The four,Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Peter Sunde and Carl Lundström, were each sentenced to one year in prison, as the prosecutor had asked. The court also ordered them to pay around 30 million Swedish kronor (US$3.6 million) in damages, less than the 117 million kronor that movie, music and gaming companies had asked for.
"Even if I had money, I would rather burn everything I own and not even give them the final dust from the burning," said Sunde. -
In a January 2008 interview, Slyck interviewed Pirate Bay spokesman Peter Sunde. In the interview, we postulated a worst case scenario in their case against the entertainment industry.
"Slyck.com: Let’s assume a worst case scenario for a moment. If The Pirate Bay loses the initial trial round, what does that mean to the end user?
"TPB: Nothing. The Pirate Bay is not in Sweden any more. We don't know where ourselves, so it's gonna be hard to prove where the site is."
When The Pirate Bay was raided back in 2006, their tracker and web server was located in a centralized location in Gothemburg, and then moved to Stockholm. No longer located in Sweden, The Pirate Bay's network of trackers is globally distributed. And Peter was right - as we realize the gravity of the verdict, The Pirate By is online and operating normally.
In the short term, there’s not much to expect anyway. The defense has already stated they plan to appeal, a process that could take months or years to resolve. While it’s possible a ruling could ultimately lead to the incarceration of the four, it may have little or no impact on The Pirate Bay’s ability to survive and expand. However, even if The Pirate Bay remains online, today’s ruling focuses the remaining weak link in BitTorrent technology – centralized trackers.
http://www.slyck.com/story1849_The_Pirate_Bay_Guilty_as_Charged -
They will be all trackerless soon.
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not as efficient tho. Probably they will put the tracker inside the proxy cloud. Somebody probably will come up with better P2P indexing scheme soon.
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This does nothing to The Pirate Bay it's self. The Pirate Bay four, not the site, were under trial. Other than that, this is far from over. The defendants plan to appeal and blah blah blah, this will go on for at least another year if not more.
I was actually surprised by the verdict. They have done nothing illegal. They provide a method to search for user uploaded metadata - no copyright infringing data is on the site at all. If The Pirate Bay is guilty of letting users search for this then Google is clearly in the red as well. -
Hmm, aren't we being deliberately obtuse in not recognizing the very distinct difference between Google and The Pirate Bay? Ya know, intent? TPB makes it very plain what they are there for. You'd have a hard time arguing Google's sole purpose is to facilitate distribution of copyrighted files, whereas TPB stamps it as their mission statement and brags about it at every opportunity. I'm not arguing for or against them, but the Google argument just doesn't work on a common sense level.
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it's not about common sense, it's about energizing the base and making them think they are "righteous" for using the pirate bay. COMMODIFY THAT DISSENT BABY
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I agree with you to an extent Sean, certainly for criminal proceedings you need to show intent.
However, Google has always shown a complete disregard for intellectual property, as with their book scanning exercise or image search. Whilst it doesn't promote piracy, Google does pride itself on being disruptive, and it certainly is so with copyright. I'm surprised with the outcome of the case with the Authors' Guild, as they could have got more out of that in my opinion, whereas now Google has gained near monopoly over such scanning and display services.
Intent is a major difference between the two, but so are the backers of the organisations and their central function. TPB utilises technology to provide a service for indexing and sharing files, whilst Google provides both the technology and the font-facing services. A company may complain about copyright infringement on Youtube for example, but that is not Google, it is just one of its outlets. If it was Bittorrent that was being sued for creating the software then I would say you culd then throw Google into the same ring.
It is also a matter of PR as Google always at least superficially offers an olive branch to those it disrupts, offering them a way to partner and grow alongside, whilst TPB prides itself on disrupting and then completely ignoring those it affects. -
practically speaking, yeah pirate bay is just providing search and maintaining tracker. In term of practical result, it's no difference than google + free uploading service.
With cost of server and bandwidth keep plummeting and more countries have access to wide fat pipe, it will be impossible to make people stop exchanging file.
I like pirate bays, because they are old skool net libertarian. (information wants to be free) they are not looking to take over the world, or killing people.Closer to being 'that annoying crafty bastards' who keeps improving tools.
The fact that they have created a system that can withstand censor and direct onslaught of legal attack, means the system will survive any totalitarian regime attempt to stop information flow. distributing pirated movie is trivial crime, compared to having a system that can withstand any attack to distribute news and images when war crime is committed somewhere in the world. -
never thought I'd say this.... I *heart* you, squashed
xoxo,
Tart -
dittonever thought I'd say this.... I *heart* you, squashed
xoxo,
Tart -
The fact that they have created a system that can withstand censor and direct onslaught of legal attack, means the system will survive any totalitarian regime attempt to stop information flow. distributing pirated movie is trivial crime, compared to having a system that can withstand any attack to distribute news and images when war crime is committed somewhere in the world.
That is a very compelling way to frame this argument. Though I'm not convinced the TPB boys had any such noble intentions. -
woo hoo, thanks tart, olnoyce. I'll be here all week. try the veil...
on related news. It's pirate bay vs. greedy major labels. (there are only 3 left. I don't think Sony is even breathing.)Entertainment industry's greedy lobbying is their undoing
Here's my latest column for Internet Evolution: "Big Entertainment Wants to Party Like It's 1996" explains how the entertainment industry's greedy, naked lobbying tactics will be their undoing, since these victories end up backfiring because they arouse such public ire.It's not that these companies can't get their laws on the agenda, and not that they can't cook the process to make it run favorably for themselves. For example, when Canada was considering its own version of the WCT, the entertainment giants saw to it that the parliamentarians in charge of the process only talked to multinational entertainment giants, without conducting any kind of embarrassing public consultation. They wouldn't even talk to the Canadian record companies -- just the multinationals.The proposed laws -- Bill C60 and Bill C61 -- were complicated and took a lot of explaining. But here's what didn't take any explaining at all: "Your government is about to introduce sweeping, controversial regulations to the Internet, and they won't talk with anyone except the jerks who are suing all those music downloaders in the States about it -- they won't even talk to Canadian record companies!"
This made the Canadian lawmakers who backed the proposal look like sellouts (which they were); made the laws look like conspiracies (which they were); and made the geeks who cared about this stuff look like heroes (which they were). The complicated story about the law became a simple story about the process.
Likewise in New Zealand, where a new copyright provision called "Section 92A" made every geek in the country freak out in unison. 92A allows a rightsholder to have your Internet connection terminated by filing three unsubstantiated accusations of copyright infringement against you. No judge and no jury: just a rightsholder standing over you, able to administer the death penalty to your participation in electronic life without showing a shred of evidence.
Now, this is a little easier to explain to the general public -- the entertainment lobby isn't just stupid about process, they're also greedy in what they ask for -- but 92A was rammed through Parliament in a dodgy process that got those people who weren't interested in copyright or the Internet outraged anyway.
New Zealand's brilliant, tireless geeks organized around the clock, mounted a huge, high-profile global campaign through Twitter and blogs (they probably tripled the amount of international coverage New Zealand received), and forced the government to back down on its plans, sending the entertainment industry packing.
In France, the "colorful" Nicolas Sarkozy faced a revolt after trying to pass the New Zealand law there -- where it was called HADOPI -- and having it rejected by his own government.
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ooops....
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/23/1159216
"The judge who handed down the harsh sentence to the four accused in the The Pirate Bay trial was biased, writes Sveriges Radio (Sweden Public Radio): sr.se (swedish). Google translation. The judge is member of two copyright lobby organizations, something he shares with several of the prosecutor attorneys (Monique Wadsted, Henrik Pontén and Peter Danowsky). The organizations in question are Svenska Föreningen för Upphovsrätt (SFU) and Svenska föreningen för industriellt rättsskydd (SFIR)."
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/04/23/pirate-bay-judge-had.html
(those asshats better never get cought in corruption scandal. This smells. people are going to start digging into his financial transaction.) -
As a Swedish law student i must say I was surprised by the harshness of the ruling. The verdict has already been appealed though and chances are that this will be settled by the Supreme court.
When it gets there I think the professor in judicial sociology, Håkan Hydén, (quoted in this article in Swedish: http://www.sr.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=1012&artikel=2787875) made some good points. Firstly, the accused were convicted of aiding a crime, not of committing the actual crime (which have been committed by all the millions of downloaders, of which were standing trial in this case). Secondly, the persons who have aided the crime are forced to pay for the damages caused, not by themselves, but by those committing the crime. And thirdly, they were sentenced to prison for aiding a crime that if you're convicted of the actual crime you're not even risking prison; the people aiding the crime gets harsher punishment than the actual perpetrators.
Arnie Becker,
McKenzie, Brackman, Chaney & Kuzak -
has this judge ever involved in copyright case before? I think the guy get something for his verdict.
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ding ding ding... corruption watch.
http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/25/1723222
from the Swedish press, of our discussion the other day about the biased trial judge in the Pirate Bay case. "The turmoil concerns Tomas Norström, the presiding judge of The Pirate Bay trial, who is suspected of bias after reports surfaced of affiliation with copyright protection organizations. For this he has been reported to the appeals court (in Swedish; translation here). The circus around the judge is currently focused on three points. First, his personal affiliation with at least four copyright protection organizations, a state the potential bias of which he himself fails to see and refuses to admit. Secondly, Swedish trials use a system of several lay assessors to supervise the presiding judge. One of these, a member of an artists' interest organization, was forced by Mr. Norström to resign from the trial for potential bias. The judge's failure to see the obvious contradiction in this (translation) casts doubts on his suitability and competence. Thirdly, according to professor of judicial sociology Håkan Hydén (translation), the judge has inappropriately 'duped and influenced the lay assessors' during the trial: 'a judge that has decided that "this is something we can't allow" has little problem finding legal arguments that are difficult for assisting lay assessors to counter.'" Click the link below to read further on Professor Hydén's enumeration of "at least three strange things in a strange trial." On a related note, reader Siker adds the factoid that membership in the Pirate Party exploded 150% in the week following the verdict. The Pirate Party now surpasses in size four smaller parties in Sweden, and is closing in on a fifth. Political fallout could ensue as soon as June, when an election for EU parliament will be held. -
the google pirate is coming...
The Pirate Google: making the point that Google's as guilty of linking to torrents as The Pirate Bay
When The Pirate Bay was ordered shut down by the Swedish courts because it linked to infringing torrents on the Internet, many people pointed out that Google links to whole mountains' -- whole planets' -- worth of infringing stuff. Now, to make the point, comes The Pirate Google, a Google mashup that finds torrent files: "The intention of this site is to demonstrate the double standard that was exemplified in the recent Pirate Bay Trial. Sites such as Google offer much the same functionality as The Pirate Bay and other Bit Torrent sites but are not targeted by media conglomerates such as the IFPI as they have the political and legal clout to defend themselves unlike these small independent sites." -
I don't think IFPI has enough money to go after google.
cause google can then simply implement the chinese "music search engine" and turn it on in remote places, such as afghanistan or latvia... and let the entire planet download music.
combined with underground campaign to stop buying music. The industry will collapse within a year. Long before expensive decadal trial. -
This is all still operating under the assumption that Google is equal to TPB simply because they both link to torrents, when in reality Google happens to link to torrents while TPB exists to link to torrents.
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Judge Reviewing Pirate Bay Trial Bias Is Removed
oh-my-god sends word that the Swedish judge assigned to review whether the trial judge in the Pirate Bay trial was biased has now been removed — for bias. Here's a local news account in Swedish, which Google fails to translate. We've discussed the convolutions of this case on more than one occasion.
http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/22/1528212
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/05/judge-reviewing-pirate-bay-trial-bias-is-removed-for-bias/
The judge assigned to review whether the trial judge in the Pirate Bay trial was biased has now been removed — for bias, of course.The convoluted web of potential scandal further complicates the April 17 copyright infrigment convictions of the four founders of The Pirate Bay, the world’s most notorious BitTorrent tracker.
Judge Ulrika Ihrfelt was assigned to investigate whether the four should be granted a retrial based on revelations that the original trial judge is a member of industry copyright-protection groups. But Ihrfelt was removed from the case Wednesday amid allegations that she was a member of the same organizations, a Swedish newspaper reports.
The defendants charged that the Stockholm trial court secretly steered the case to Norstrom. The defendants claim Norstrom was hostile to the defense because of his affiliations with the Swedish Copyright Association and the Swedish Association for the Protection of Industrial Property.
Pirate Bay administrators Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg and Peter Sunde were found guilty in the case, along with Carl Lundström, who was convicted of funding the five-year-old operation.
Fredrik Wersall, the appellate court’s president, said the claims of trial bias would be resolved “in a few weeks at the maximum.”
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Artists Abused in Pirate Bay Trial Strike Back
Written by Ernesto on June 02, 2009Hiphop group Advance Patrol was used by the music industry in the Pirate Bay trial, portrayed as artists suffering losses from illegal downloading. However, the group itself was never consulted, and they are now striking back at the music industry by releasing their new album for free - on The Pirate Bay, of course.
During the Pirate Bay trial, the prosecution showed how various torrents linking to infringing material could be downloaded from the Pirate Bay, including an album by the Sweden-based hiphop group Advance Patrol. The music industry lawyers then claimed that the Pirate Bay was aiding in copyright infringement and that the artists and labels were losing millions of dollars.Interestingly, the bands and artists, including Advance Patrol, were never informed that they were to feature in the trial. Even worse, Advance Patrol feels that they were abused by the labels, as they are using BitTorrent themselves, and encourage their fans to do the same.
...
http://torrentfreak.com/artists-abused-in-pirate-bay-trial-strike-back-090602/
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Pirate Bay Judge Indeed Handpicked
Written by Ernesto on May 28, 2009In the aftermath of the Pirate Bay verdict the controversy surrounding judge Tomas Norström grows bigger and bigger. Most recently, defense lawyer Per E Samuelsson sent a letter to the Appeal Court in which he explains that the younger generation has lost faith in the legal system because of the shady selection procedure.
Unlike other criminal trials in Sweden, the judge in the Pirate Bay trial wasn’t selected at random. Instead, he was chosen because of his expertise with copyright related issues. Indeed, as a member of various pro-copyright organizations, Norström is very involved in the issue.
However, the ties to these lobby groups might also cloud his judgment and thus the verdict, some claim. It is therefore highly dubious that Norström was handpicked and not randomly assigned as is normal procedure in cases like this.
Defense lawyer Per E Samuelsson has now sent a letter to the Court of Appeal where he addresses the issue and seems to confirm earlier rumors he shared with the press. “The young generation’s trust in the judicial system is at stake here,” he told the Swedish news agency (TT) in a comment.
http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-judge-indeed-hand-picked-090528/
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The proprietor of Oink tried to make the same, "google is just as implicit in the crime as I am" argument when he was raided and tried. Does anybody know what happened in that case?
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It happened in October of 2007. It was right after my birthday and I was depressed for a good month afterwords.
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omg, this is hilarious. I may have to rethink about pirate party not taking over the world.
They actually get a EU parliament seat!
http://news.slashdot.org/story/09/06/07/2044217/Pirate-Party-Wins-At-Least-One-European-Parliament-Seat
"According to TorrentFreak, with half of polling stations now closed in Sweden the Pirate Party has at least one guaranteed seat in the EU Parliament. Currently the party is sitting with 7% of the vote. Depending on how the remaining districts voted, the Pirate Party could win another seat for a total of two." Reader lordholm adds a link to an article about exit polls in Sweden (link in Swedish) indicating that the Pirate Party will score two seats, writing "According to the polls, the pirate party is the largest party in the 18-30 year age category of voters. The final counting of votes (including around a million postal votes) will not be done until later next week." -
ahahaaahahahaa....... Thumbs up for the swedes
Pirate Party takes two EuroParl seats!
The Pirate Party, a Swedish copyright reform party that was inspired by The Pirate Bay, has won two seats in the European Parliamentary election. The party attributes its success in part to the scandal surrounding the trial of The Pirate Bay's operators, which was conducted by a judge who failed to disclose that he was a prominent member of a copyright-industry-friendly copyright-expansion association.This should be interesting.
When we asked Pirate Party leader Rick Falkvinge about the outcome, he told TorrentFreak: "We've felt the wind blow in our sails. We've seen the polls prior to the election. But to stand here, today, and see the figures coming up on that screen... What do you want me to say? I'll say anything""Together, we have today changed the landscape of European politics. No matter how this night ends, we have changed it," Falkvinge said. "This feels wonderful. The citizens have understood it's time to make a difference. The older politicians have taken apart young peoples' lifestyle, bit by bit. We do not accept that the authorities' mass-surveillance," he added.
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Pirate Bay Retrial Denied, Judge Declared Unbiased
"A Swedish court has ruled that the judge in the PirateBay trial is unbiased and there will be no retrial. Stockholm District Court defended the judge's membership in copyright organizations as a necessity to 'keep up with developments in the field' and that merely endorsing the idea of copyright law was not grounds for a mistrial. The defendants must now rely on the appeal process, while one defendant has written on his Twitter account that the PirateBay will also be suing Sweden for human rights violations."
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/06/26/005225/Pirate-Bay-Retrial-Denied-Judge-Declared-Unbiased -
After initially being taken offline by Swedish authorities, and after its first escape route failed, The Pirate Bay has returned with all guns blazing. With a modified copy of one of Churchill’s most famous speeches, The Pirate Bay team tells the public that they will defend the Internet, with or without the site.
When The Pirate Bay was shut down yesterday many believed that this was the end for the Internet’s largest BitTorrent tracker.However, despite the fact that the site is set to be sold later this week, the Pirate Bay team worked around the clock to serve their users in these final hours.
A mere three hours after it went offline the site reappeared from a different location, but because of technical issues at the new ISP a full comeback took almost a day. The site is back online and the tracker is expected to follow soon.
The Pirate Bay team has always anticipated an unwanted disconnection of the site. After their servers were raided in 2006 several measures were taken to ensure that the site could simply come back online from a new location in a few hours, and this is the first time that this backup plan had been executed.
With its reemergence the people behind the site hope to show the authorities and the entertainment industry that the war is not over just yet. Perhaps it’s only the beginning of a battle on a different front. The future will tell.
A few minutes ago, the Pirate Bay team released the following statement, adapted from Churchill’s famous “We Shall Fight On the Beaches” speech. Make of it what you will.
We have, ourselves, full confidence that if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected, and if the best arrangements are made, as they are being made, we shall prove ourselves once more able to defend our Internets, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone.
Even though large parts of Internets and many old and famous trackers have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Ifpi and all the odious apparatus of MPAA rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the ef-nets and darknets, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Internets, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the baywords.org, we shall fight on the /. and on the digg, we shall fight in the courts; we shall never surrender, and if, which I do not for a moment believe, the Internets or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the Anon Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in Cerf’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.
Signed;
The Pirate Bay Crew – Now until needed.
http://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-bay-returns-with-guns-blazing-090825/
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Man, what a total pigfuck. On one side, a group with the philosophy "information wants to be free"--which is so illogical and deterministic (information doesn't want shit. It's dumb information. People decide what it "wants")--as to be laughable. On the other side, the "industry wonks" who are arguing about "save our artists--the ones who we play the 1% of revenues we recoup that don't go to bullshit middlemen or the YACHT FUND". It's about as Fellini-esque a debate, between doofuses on both sides, as...well, the US's health care conversation. Hell, even I would start to believe Hitler if the alternative was an ever-shifting, 1200-page ringed binder of industry exceptions and legal gobbledygook.
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And the Pirate Bay's main problem is still the fact that these guys don't understand the difference between dissent and deviance. Between calling attention to a perceived "injustice" (like that awful, tyrannical music industry) by refusing to opt into the system (the former), and raising a big theatrical stink and "dropping out" of the realm of rational discourse altogether. Sure, the music industry is ridiculous, and unfair to artists. But losers like the Pirate Bay are only making the situation worse, by saying: "let's fuck them by just taking everything free that we can haha lol and also, let's be really performative about it" and parading around like Robespierre or some shit. They're irresponsible, and their only goal is...what, exactly? (I do need to read more about their legislative aspirations--that's a start) When we think about dorks like these guys, we have to wonder--seriously--what we wonder anytime someone, or some group, deviates from social norms. "What if everyone behaved like this? Would we really be better off?"
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On average since they aim to destroy the concentration of power in the hand of very few, I am all for it. They may seem silly, but the result undermine the status quo in very meaningful way. (eg. not the money perse, but the technological foundation that gives rise to distribution monopoly by industry cartel.)
I figure the big labels and movie industry has enough money to fight for decades. But digital brought about change of landscape and consumer preference. And Pirate bay facilitate that. That's the big point.
Once there is new audio/video standard that can run on cheap open computer/hardware. The battle is won. Major labels are irrelevant. -
I mean, the only arguments i really see here in favor of the Pirate Bay are all located in the emergent legal nebula caused by networked distribution. "They did nothing illegal!" Wow. Way to take a moral high-ground. It's an argument that puts people in a camp with sleazy money-laundering lawyers looking for loopholes. Bah. Hurumph.
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It's all illegal/legal (depending on jurisdiction) and how corrupt a particular country legal system is. The question is nonsensical, since the status quo define what is "fair use" which in turn really about monopolizing distribution and definition of IP use.
Pirate bay makes a mockery of that notion. And they are going to win, since the US government itself is facilitating the development of technology to penetrate electronic filtering by countries that US don't like (Iran/China) and those country use exact same technology, in even wider scope than basic western ISP.
so from technological stand point, in the foreseeable future pirate bay can keep fighting and bleed the major. Technology is behind them. No amount of expensive lawyering can prevent that.
since information indeed wants to be free. There is no different between blockbuster movie or a video of torture to destabilize a regime. There is no different between a music or a opposition speech. They are all bits. -
This is such a bullshit argument, with a ridiculously circuitous logic--in order to create and publicize a system to "withstand any attack to distribute news and images when war crime is committed somewhere in the world," these guys have to create a massive operation by which they distribute ripped DVD torrents? Haha. This is what's called "deviance." It's not dissent--which is what they claim to be representing. They've got a mental disorder. It's called greed and lust for publicity.Posted by: squashed
The fact that they have created a system that can withstand censor and direct onslaught of legal attack, means the system will survive any totalitarian regime attempt to stop information flow. distributing pirated movie is trivial crime, compared to having a system that can withstand any attack to distribute news and images when war crime is committed somewhere in the world.
And let's remember, please. The Internet itself was developed in the 1940s to "withstand censor and direct onslaught of legal attack." But in order to kill people more efficiently. The Pirate Bay didn't "invent" shit. They hacked a way to get free movies and music on top of an existing system. -
Posted by: squashedIt's all illegal/legal (depending on jurisdiction) and how corrupt a particular country legal system is. The question is nonsensical, since the status quo define what is "fair use" which in turn really about monopolizing distribution and definition of IP use.
Pirate bay makes a mockery of that notion.
But to what end? What good have they done, other than create non-stop theatre for European newspapers, and chicken-feed for Torrentfreak? -
The thing with Pirate Bay is that they only started taking this false moral high ground once they got in trouble. They're playing the douchey legal version of the race card. As long as arguments in their favor are based purely within "but it's technically legal!" arguments, I refuse to pay any attention to them.
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Eric, thanks for articulating what I've been thinking for some time now.
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Posted by: eric marathonpacks
This is such a bullshit argument, with a ridiculously circuitous logic--in order to create and publicize a system to "withstand any attack to distribute news and images when war crime is committed somewhere in the world," these guys have to create a massive operation by which they distribute ripped DVD torrents? Haha. This is what's called "deviance." It's not dissent--which is what they claim to be representing. They've got a mental disorder. It's called greed and lust for publicity.Posted by: squashed
The fact that they have created a system that can withstand censor and direct onslaught of legal attack, means the system will survive any totalitarian regime attempt to stop information flow. distributing pirated movie is trivial crime, compared to having a system that can withstand any attack to distribute news and images when war crime is committed somewhere in the world.
And let's remember, please. The Internet itself was developed in the 1940s to "withstand censor and direct onslaught of legal attack." But in order to kill people more efficiently. The Pirate Bay didn't "invent" shit. They hacked a way to get free movies and music on top of an existing system.
no, I said, that's just side effect. Even if that's the only result that comes out, the whole endeavor is worth it. But their main goal, to say "FU" to entertainment cartel cannot be underestimated.
dissent, deviance,...whatever....
The answer is in the pudding, distributive table, darknet P2P, clone of main pirate bay table, various new search techniques, and way to bypass filter, not to mention development of easy to use browser base client. -
Now, all this said, I have to commend them for working their way into the EU Parliament. I think their whole existence up to that point was a joke, but good on them for this step. If they're actually serious about using these seats to make peer-to-peer filesharing legal, that's a massive step. I would have to know a lot more about EU Parliament in order to think about how hard this is going to be, but hey, it's Europe. Who knows?
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Posted by: eric marathonpacksThe thing with Pirate Bay is that they only started taking this false moral high ground once they got in trouble. They're playing the douchey legal version of the race card. As long as arguments in their favor are based purely within "but it's technically legal!" arguments, I refuse to pay any attention to them.
They have always been border line illegal. duh...Everybody knows the taunting line and rethorics. But now they have to defend themselves in the court because of what they say, which they are smart enough to say the right thing. It is getting political (the natural strategy. Without political power all protest will be deemed illegal by a state, instead of legitimate voice.)
But the real important battle is still the technological race. Those darknet is very useful and powerful. That distributive table is brilliant.
PS. hijacking the speech that represent the very notion of "freedom is brilliant btw.
Just a reminder the entertainment cartel is VERY corrupt and has corrosive effect on freedom. -
Posted by: squashed
dissent, deviance,...whatever....Are you really not sure of the difference between these two? And which version is most directly responsible for 99% of real change in societies? I mean, think about it. Downloading Transformers from the Pirate Bay, and then defending yourself to your parents when they come down to the basement and yell at you (grandma's here, can't you come upstairs?) by saying "the MPAA is evil! This is my way of striking back at the man! <--that's "deviance." That does nothing for anyone other than the person who did it. Now, what the Pirate Bay is trying to do from within the realm of social reality--i.e. trying to change laws through debate--that's dissent. That's the form of resistance that can spread through a society and actually result in change other than the sort residing within the brains of the downloaders. Got me? It's the difference between the Civil Rights movement in the US during the 40s-early 60s (dissent) and the hippies that ran from all over the world to come to Berkeley as a result (deviance).
What I'm trying to say here, is "good job Pirate Bay, for working your way into a regime where actual change can be made." I hold that there are many different ways to gain publicity for one's party than by starting a global downloading ring, though.
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Defending the profit of "transformer II"
vs. having browser P2P plugin that can penetrate ISP filter because of new encryption?
FUCK man, I don't know about you.... The second one actually can topple government and change millions of life. The first one if just a fucking stupid movie.
THERE IS NO such thing as actual freedom of speech. Any device that can enhance distribution of information securely is worth having. Wait until you have to distribute a video recording that the government does not want anybody to see.
... That's real. That's meaningful.
PS. politics comes and goes. Even Obama will soon try to quashed information on the net when he needs to defend his administration. ALL REGIME in the world DOES THAT. Freedom of information does not actually exist without the tool. Legal protection only goes as far as the status quo let you get away with it. -
Are we seriously supposed to consider the difference in semantics between dissent and deviance from a person who states, "but hey, it's Europe. Who knows?"
laughing my way through my PhD in politics here,
xoxo -
a bit of history of internet
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_InternetTransition towards the Internet
The term "internet" was adopted in the first RFC published on the TCP protocol (RFC 675:[17] Internet Transmission Control Program, December 1974) as an abbreviation of the term internetworking and the two terms were used interchangeably. In general, an internet was any network using TCP/IP. It was around the time when ARPANET was interlinked with NSFNet in the late 1980s, that the term was used as the name of the network, Internet,.[18] being a large and global TCP/IP network.
The term "internet protocol" had also been used to refer to other networking systems such as Xerox Network Services.[19]
As interest in wide spread networking grew and new applications for it were developed, the Internet's technologies spread throughout the rest of the world. The network-agnostic approach in TCP/IP meant that it was easy to use any existing network infrastructure, such as the IPSS X.25 network, to carry Internet traffic. In 1984, University College London replaced its transatlantic satellite links with TCP/IP over IPSS. [20]
Many sites unable to link directly to the Internet started to create simple gateways to allow transfer of e-mail, at that time the most important application. Sites which only had intermittent connections used UUCP or FidoNet and relied on the gateways between these networks and the Internet. Some gateway services went beyond simple e-mail peering, such as allowing access to FTP sites via UUCP or e-mail.
Finally, the Internet's remaining centralized routing aspects were removed. The EGP routing protocol was replaced by a new protocol, the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), in order to allow the removal of the NSFNet Internet backbone network. In 1994, Classless Inter-Domain Routing was introduced to support better conservation of address space which allowed use of route aggregation to decrease the size of routing tables.[21]
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Music downloading penalties are harsher than arson, theft, or starting a dogfighting ring
Jesus Diaz looks at the $1.92m fine Jammie Thomas faces for downloading 1700 songs and compares it to the penalties for other crimes in America (valuing jail time at $50,233, the median US household income in 2007):• Child abduction: Fine of $25,000 and up to three years in prison, which can be accounted as $50,233 per year (that was the median household income in 2007, probably down because of the economic crisis). Total: $175,699.• Steal the CDs: A total of $275,000, $52,500 fine for the CDs.
• Steal a lawnmower from your neighbour: A total of $375,000.
• Burn someone's house while playing The Doors: Another $375,000.
• Stalk a Gizmodo editor (yes, you know who you are): A Class 4 felony that will result in just $175,000.
• Start a dogfighting ring: $50,000.
• Murder someone on the second degree, a Class 1 felony: $778,495, which accounts for a $25,000 fine and four to 15 years in prison.
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