If the appeal is upheld and they really do have to pay $3.6m in fines, I don't think they would have much difficulty raising it online. I'd be up for a C-note no problem and I don't doubt there are plenty of others, especially if they throw in a special edition t-shirt or something.
The Pirate Bay website is pretty awful but they're a tremendously important tracker, used by many others. There is a genuine need for such a service. I'm not exactly a l33t w4r3z d00d but I greatly appreciate what these guys have done, and while I have some questions about the workability of their principles on filesharing I greatly respect their integrity in walking the walk. They're no mere pirates, they started a political party for fuck's sake, and the movies they made may suck but they gave them away just as they promised. I got a lot of respect for those guys and will gladly put my money where my mouth is.
Good luck to them and may the Pirate Bay reach ever new heights!
I have a Virtual Private American on Slicehost so that I can continue giving Amazon money for my favorite TV episodes. I know that is technically not allowed, but they mostly don't make it possible for me to buy them in yen or I would do it.
Well, I use them for regular browsing while I am on public internet access and I have not found any problems. As for download/uploads - haven't used them for torrents, but Hulu streams just fine. That's from Europe.
Under what law? Generally I think it's legal to take a copy of a copyrighted work that you obtained legally and take it to another country, say, in your luggage. How is this any different?
Edit: Under the law that makes "import or export" a right exclusive to the copyright holder, apparently. Thanks for the correction!
Uploading or downloading works protected by copyright without the authority of the copyright owner is an infringement of the copyright owner's exclusive rights of reproduction and/or distribution.
Several exclusive rights typically attach to the holder of a copyright:
- to produce copies or reproductions of the work and to sell those copies (mechanical rights; including, sometimes, electronic copies: distribution rights)
An item is considered an export whether or not it is leaving the United States temporarily, if it is leaving the United State but is not for sale (a gift), or if it is going to a wholly owned U.S. subsidiary in a foreign country.
(I personally think this is all bullshit when applied to the Internet, but my opinion doesn't matter.)
International Use. Hulu's goal is to bring you as much Content as is legally available. That said, we are limited by the rights that our content licensors grant to us. Using technologies to access the Content from territories where Hulu does not have rights is prohibited.
(Of course, in some countries you can ignore Terms of Use.)
I would argue that the user experience is not better. You are still seeing ads, and you still are limited to what the networks decide to put on hulu. Often they will take down episodes after a few weeks, and on top of that, there are plenty of networks that haven't made deals with hulu, and their content is not available.
I use linode for this and while it works on other sites like pandora, no dice on hulu. I get a "sorry, unable to stream this video. check your internet connection" message. Figured maybe they ban IP address blocks belonging to known hosts.
Have you tried by setting up a VPN instead of just a proxy server? I'm wondering if it's possible that Hulu's flash doesn't respect the proxy settings.
I don't think $10 will save you if the situation is serious, this will complicate the situation more.If they want to find, they'll contact the host and if you paid via a Verified (Real) Credit Card and they have your credentials, then you can say "Good Bye" as (I think) you'll be penalized more..
You don't understand. The point wasn't to use a proxy to make illegal downloading untrackable. It was to use a proxy to access US-only (legal) media, like Hulu or South Park.
3) Set firefox's proxy to localhost:8118 for all protocols.
Oh, maybe step 1.5 should have been to turn off privoxy's logging, both because it could log something private, and because log files aren't needed in this case. I also disable privoxy's ad blocking because it breaks the NYTimes.
In addition to "relocating" you, this has the effect of allowing one to use unencrypted wireless APs in cafes and only worry about the same amount of network sniffing one might worry about from one's own ISP. This is why I decided on this set up to begin with, in fact.
It's easier to use -D 8118 and set a SOCKS5 proxy in Firefox instead of an HTTP proxy. Then you don't need to install Privoxy. I use this method to keep my passwords from going across untrusted wireless networks in plaintext.
I think implicit in that is an acknowledgment that the content most in demand for pirating comes from the U.S. Which I find relevant because countries like Sweden might find less need for strong copyright laws because copyright-able materials are not seen as a valuable, exportable commodity, at least compared to the U.S.
Not really...shows like that, people want to discuss with others. If you have to wait 24 hours for the show to be upped, you miss out on all the watercooler talk the next day.
If torrents can up a show within 20 minutes, surely the show's creators can do it as well. If you are upping the thing anyways...I see no reason why your fans should have to wait an extra day.
Hulu used to take a day (or maybe the whole weekend) to post Battlestar Galactica. Pirate Bay would take only a few hours, and would have it in HD, too.
One reason is that the Linux version of Flash is terrible last time I used it. Not even from a "open web principles" or "proprietary software is evil!" point of view, but rather in a "it crashes the browser on every 2nd or 3rd video viewing" perspective.
Also, I think Flash on OSX buffers more slowly than on Windows. It's why whenever I want to see something online I have to reboot into my Windows partition, where the video almost never has to stop to buffer. On OSX however, buffering for several minutes only leads to about 20-30 seconds of the actual video being loaded.
I don't get that, at least on 32bit Ubuntu at home, although I hear people have a pretty crap experience. Have always found it pretty stable on Fedora / Ubuntu for the last decade actually - I get the feeling they do all their testing on major distros only.
However we've just moved to 64bit Linux Flash 10 alpha on RHEL at work - which I suspect might change my impression. It has Z axis issues at least which the current 32bit one doesn't.
Run it in nspluginwrapper, so that when Flash crashes it doesn't take down the browser. You just have to refresh the page for the Flash object to run again. Flash crashes less than once a day for me, and I use Flash a lot.
actually, the version on the southpark site is higher resolution than the torrents, the only issue i've had is that the content delivery network stutters enough that dowloading yields a better quality of experience
You can stream using whatever media player you like. We already have good video standards, it's just that people don't like dealing with their native video player and websites somehow feel that streaming Flash is easier.
The only thing that bothers me about their site is that every advertisement is the same and often just sucks. I'll take one of those annoying Sonic commercials, but seeing them over and over somewhat grates my nerves. It's a small price to pay though, since the ads are very short themselves and the video quality is good.
thought the tweet was funny: @brokep [Pirate Bay founder] Really, it's a bit LOL. It used to be only movies, now even verdicts are out before the official release.
Summary: Everyone received 1 year in prison. They plan to appeal, which means the final verdict could take years. The website and tracker are staying up.
Not only that but they are only four people of a much larger swarm maintaining the pirate bay. Even if they go to jail it wouldn't mean anything to the site being up or not.
I think this what is called being a "scape goat" - perhaps under political pressure, the courts are deciding to make an example out of them.
If jail time became the norm for running torrent sites/trackers, those who have the know how to put these things online will be more deterred than if the penalty were only financial loss.
""There has been a perception that piracy is OK and that the music industry should just have to accept it. This verdict will change that," he (the chairman of industry body the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) John Kennedy) said."
No, society has decided that companies profiting exclusively from the distribution of the creative work of others without added value has no future. In case you are confused I'm talking about the "Phonographic Industry".
I think this allegation betokens a certain ignorance of how the music industry works. Firstly, producers, recording engineers and assistants, mixing engineers, and mastering engineers certainly do add value -- where "value" is defined in the narrow artistic sense. These roles are certainly part of the "Phonographic Industry".
In addition, just because record labels, promoters, publishers, managers, and agents, etc. don't
"create" music doesn't mean they don't add value. When they do their job well -- which, granted, is not always the case -- they allow the artist(s) to focus solely on the music, rather than on tasks which they're not particularly suited to, like organizing international, multi-leg tours, getting ads on billboards, doing distribution deals with the likes of iTunes, Spotify, and the traditional music retailers, plugging artists' music into commercial radio stations. Record labels also act as a quasi insurance policy for artists; by using a portion of the revenue streams from "hit" and established artists, they can finance new acts. There is certainly value to that. Jazz music was, after all, only a niche art form known to very few before Norman Granz's efforts to popularize it. In this sense, while he was certainly no Miles Davis or Bird, his work had an immense impact on generations of listeners. (I'd add that in an age of segregation and prejudice against blacks, he stuck his neck out to sign them, and insisted on equal pay for all colours and genders -- see wikipedia) Again: no value?
I find it curious that the tech-savvy world of Hacker News, which should be comfortable with the idea of specialization in modern capitalist economies, seems to pine for a return to a "cottage" music industry, where the musician is to perform all of the afore-mentioned roles himself. Am I alone in thinking this would be a step back, rather than forward?
Sadly, in order for this system to work, people need to pay for records (but obviously, they should be much cheaper than in the heady 90s days). I therefore applaud the Swedish courts for upholding the rule of law and holding the facilitators of rampant piracy accountable for their actions -- which have, unquestionably, led to much misery for many low-level, up-and-coming musicians (myself included ;)
As a musician and songwriter I find it amusing that the large media conglomerates 'The Majors' did anything but create an closed system, that only that the anointed could enter.
I have watched the heavy-handed tactics of ASCAP / BMI in their 'enforcement', bulldozing anyone who would stand in their way. Not to mention the dragnet of lawsuits from the RIAA, using their copyright bludgeon.
The value you speak, was not created through true market forces but a controlled system of monopolies that relied on payola and 'insider information' to sustain their industry. It was 'services' such as Napster that opened people’s eyes to the true diversity of music, which never existed on mainstream radio.
The 'cottage industry' you refer is the power the 'modern musician' has at their fingertips, V.S. the controlled environment of the rent-a-studio producer and engineer, with a union watchdog that would make it impossible for the 'Artist' to touch a knob. If this story is to have a happy ending it will be the relegation of the Majors to marketing and distribution, signaling the end of their unsustainable business model.
I find it curious that the tech-savvy world of Hacker News, which should be comfortable with the idea of specialization in modern capitalist economies, seems to pine for a return to a "cottage" music industry, where the musician is to perform all of the afore-mentioned roles himself.
That would be tantamount to a programmer founding a company.
No; it's tantamount, upon observing that single programmers can and do form companies, to calling for the death of all software companies that employ more than one person. Like google. Or the pirate bay.
True, but not exhaustive. As I explicitly mention above, they also find (in some sense, act as a filter) and finance new acts. And, in any case, you seemed to have ignored my point that recording engineers, producers, etc. are very much a part of the phonographic industry. Care to explain how "new communication methods" have rendered them obsolete?
> New communication methods mean old ways of promotion and distribution no longer work.
The millions of drivers in the world who listen to the radio disagree with you. And do you really think that just because the internet exists, people don't register offline advertising anymore?
> New ideas like TheSixtyOne.com etc. are great approaches to new means of connecting musicians with music lovers.
Thanks for letting me know about that site, it looks really cool!
I guess I'm imagining that artists and recording engineers etc. could connect themselves without giving away the majority of the profits to a third party. I don't know enough about the industry to know if this is possible.
Offline advertising still works I'm sure but I guess because of the circles I'm in even "regular" (non-geek) people are willing to use technology to find the music they like. I don't know how hard it is for small artists to sell their stuff on iTunes but like I said sites like TheSixtyOne help but ultimately I think that the role of the broadcaster is becoming diminished (and this is evident in all broadcast industries such as t.v., newspapers, movies, music, gaming and more) as people look for better ways to connect with content creators that don't involve both them and the creators being shortchanged.
You are right about radio being popular but this is more a case of being everywhere. I think it's role is being diminished as you see a lot more people walk around with mp3 players etc. listening to the music they want.
The point I'm awkwardly making is that the value of traditional distribution is not necessarily so valuable now. To borrow an Australian example, it's like Telstra (the central phone company) trying to punish people back into using them and not competitors after years of being shafted when there was no competition.
I'd like to see companies considering initial piracy a marketing cost - the people that don't end up buying probably wouldn't have anyway and you'll end up gaining loyal customers who like what they've seen/heard.
> I'd like to see companies considering initial piracy a marketing cost - the people that don't end up buying probably wouldn't have anyway and you'll end up gaining loyal customers who like what they've seen/heard.
I'd very much like to see it as that also, but sadly it flies in the face of most of the evidence. Anecdotal stories to the contrary notwithstanding, the majority of studies indicate that filesharing replaces demand for (paid) recorded music, rather than stimulating it. Moreover, a bird's-eye view, it is difficult to reconcile the piracy-as-free-publicity (and hence as a stimulus to demand for music) with the rather obvious fact that, even adjusting for lower average prices for music (due to the renewed strength of the singles market thanks to iTunes), revenues from recorded music have fallen drastically over the last ten year (not adjusting for the singles/iTunes effect, revenues are down by 50% in less than ten years).
>that filesharing replaces demand for (paid) recorded music, rather than stimulating it
"Altin asked Wallis if there is any connection between illicit downloads and lost sales in the music industry. Contradicting the opinion of John Kennedy of the IFPI in his testimony yesterday, Wallis said that downloading caused an increase in sales of live event tickets and although there has been a reduction in CD sales, this won’t continue.
Wallis went on to explain that while some people download, these people also tend to buy more CDs than others that don’t. It’s not just downloading causing competition for the industry, other things have an effect such as the growth of computer games, he said."
"Professor and media researcher Roger Wallis appeared as an expert witness at the Pirate Bay trial yesterday. He was questioned on the link between the decline of album sales and filesharing. Wallis told the court that his research has shown that there is no relation between the two."
I suppose you did read TFA and related so you know who the man with the flower-showered wife is.
I find it curious that the tech-savvy world of Hacker News, which should be comfortable with the idea of specialization in modern capitalist economies, seems to pine for a return to a "cottage" music industry, where the musician is to perform all of the afore-mentioned roles himself. Am I alone in thinking this would be a step back, rather than forward?
You could have smaller companies created that consist only of audio engineers, music marketers, distributors, etc. allowing musicians to pick & choose which company helps them out. Currently it seems like the labels force you to use certain people and if you don't like it, too bad.
Only a short time ago, planning a trip without a travel agent would be crazy. Travel agents allow the vacationer(s) to focus solely on the vacation, rather than on tasks which they're not particularly suited to, like organizing international, multi-leg flights, getting deals on hotels, and finding fun things to do once they get there.
In... The Age of the Internet... the networking ability of a music industry studio is less useful. The equipment is much cheaper, and the techniques are more accessible, so you can have cross country collaborations that produce music that sounds better than the Beyonce sound debacle.
The musician doesn't need to perform all of the roles himself, but it would help if he could choose the roles he needs without signing a 6 CD 3 pence a tour date contract.
I find it curious that the tech-savvy world of Hacker News, which should be comfortable with the idea of specialization in modern capitalist economies, seems to pine for a return to a "cottage" music industry, where the musician is to perform all of the afore-mentioned roles himself. Am I alone in thinking this would be a step back, rather than forward?
Specialization is great, but only when it's necessary and efficient - I find it particularly interesting that you make this complaint here, in a startup forum, where programmers are acting as CEOs, web designers, PR men, testers, etc., often quite successfully. You can trim a lot of crap out of the equation and still do quite well if you're motivated.
Many of the roles you mentioned are all but irrelevant to most musicians, and given the great advances in software, they can replicate them themselves as needed, quite easily compared to the difficulty of mastering an instrument: a good musician that spends a couple weeks learning what to do can produce music that approaches release quality by himself on a laptop with a few $100 microphones. Learning about recording is now almost a prerequisite for taking on the job description "musician." The other things, which musicians rightly have no interest in learning to do for themselves (managing tours, etc.) are what managers should be doing, and I don't think anyone is arguing that managers be taken out of the equation, because they unquestionably add value, much like a secretary adds value to a business person.
Anyhow, as someone that has at one point worked on both sides of the music industry (as a musician and in production), I'd suggest that the vast majority of musicians have always been in the "cottage" music industry mode, but have still been happily and consistently producing fantastic amounts of music. The friends that I have that remained in the industry as musicians almost all make livings by playing shows and teaching lessons; the few that have gotten record deals with real companies have all ended up feeling cheated, and tend to wish they'd never signed the damn papers. Google the horror stories yourself: I assure you, this crap happens all the time, I've seen it from both sides and it's pretty sickening.
Most working musicians have no need for copyright protection, as it doesn't tend to affect their careers one bit. There will always be demand for live music and lessons, and the financial rewards from those things allow them to do what they love and produce new music constantly. Even when they do produce their own CDs (usually to sell at shows), they don't rely on copyright to sell them - to the contrary, most of them freely share almost everything they produce online anyways, as they tend to be more interested in forming new partnerships and gaining respect and attention than locking in sales.
I won't argue with the point that the music industry adds some value to some acts, as I've seen how much work has to happen behind the scenes to get a major label release out the door; but the fact remains, if every big studio was to up and disappear overnight, we would still see tons of music coming out, and the huge demand for music would lead to the popularization of the best stuff in a quite natural fashion (exactly the way it does with websites, videos, and everything else on the Internet).
This is the fundamental problem the music industry is faced with: while at one time it was the only way to produce, popularize, and distribute music, and added massive amounts of value to the market, now these things could all happen without it. Its primary current value is its ability to elevate a few acts high above the din very quickly by throwing lots of money towards promotion, and it's true that this might not happen without it.
But in my personal opinion (one I suspect is shared by many), the ability to create these overnight hits is exactly what is wrong with the music industry, and I would be happy to migrate to a situation where such things could not happen, where quality acts had to fight their way through the rest of the noise to reach stardom. Without the huge acts in the way, the smaller ones would have a greater chance of getting bigger. If this is accelerated by people stealing music online, they you know what? Burn it down and salt the earth. We'll do just fine without that particular industry, and perhaps something better and more interesting will emerge in its place.
Personally speaking only, I've spent about $1,000 (conservatively) over the past few years that I absolutely would not have spent if it had not been for edonkey, bittorrent, and other technologies.
My interest and time for music waned completely after high school, and had it not been for the ease and zero price of these technologies, there's no way I would have found the artists who produced the hundreds of CDs I've bought in that time, or the dozens of concerts I've attended.
This is just supposition, but my guess is that so-called "pirates" consume much more music and movies (paid) than non-pirates.
"This is just supposition, but my guess is that so-called "pirates" consume much more music and movies (paid) than non-pirates."
This gets supposed in both directions, so I would be legitimately curious about any studies that show whether pirates or non-pirates purchase more media.
Probably. I like to think that a lot of people find and ultimately buy stuff they wouldn't have encountered otherwise. Having said that I'm kind of biased by the industry's use of figures.
For instance, if I pirate it then buy it my pirating is still measured as a lost sale. If I pirate it twice it counts as two lost sales. If I buy it because I pirated, it does not count as a gained sale from piracy.
True and that second part is a fair point (and a statistical issue). I dont think it affects the point though.
I am certain that the majority of people on here that do pirate will probably have the consience to purchase what they took if they like it a lot.
But what about the 100's of thousands of youngsters pirating all that music. I seriously doubt many of them buy even 10% of what they download.
And what about the argument whereby if you download something to "try" it and decide it is not quite worth your money does it then get deleted? Again a doubt it... :)
No, not an excuse to allow them to pirate stuff. The fact is, they are pirating stuff. That is not going to go away. It's just observing a fact.
Criminalizing a whole generation is more morally wrong, to me, than bemoaning lost profits that are not even really lost (movie receipts are way up, for instance).
Oh yeh fair point. Although I would like to think I didnt mean to appear criminalize the generation. Mostly it is an education problem coupled with the huge availabilty of the material.
That needs to be worked on too.
EDIT: according to the BBC reports last week Cinema attendance is at a record low so I think the data is not 100% cut and dried on your example. Also not convinced piracy would impact on cinema too much - based on the face that Cinema offers an extra experience that DVD's / Pirated copies dont.
I'm glad the material is available. If only the music, movie and other industries didn't spend so much time fighting it, and instead learned to profit from it.
It might be fairly parochial, but I only know about the US -- but you are right, per capita cinema attendance has been declining since 1930, well before BitTorrent was on the scene, to say the least.
> I'm glad the material is available. If only the music, movie and other industries didn't spend so much time fighting it, and instead learned to profit from it.
Spotify. Last.fm. Itunes. All legit ways to get the exact same music :) (at various cose).
Movies: well yeh still a bit laggy there. But things are improving. Though frankly I am not one to blame the industry for trying to get rid of the pirates (even if it is fruitless) before opening up their catalogues.
IMO these are different issues that quickly get confused by people :)
not really. Student Editions are usually cheaper to encourage students to purchase the product. Thse that are free handouts are, yes, to encourage later sales. But I dont think you can draw a comparison. A piece of software is usually adaptable and reusable in the future. A lot of film and music is just dropped (tastes change etc.).
I doubt the number of youngsters who pay for music once they have the means is huge. Would you pay for the Spice Girls song you downloaded 4 or 5 years ago and havent listened to for the last 2 yrs. No, probably not - but you might have had 2-3yrs enjoyment out of it... where do you draw the line?
I dont see any justification for downloading music you cant afford when there are free sites to listen to it on.... it's not as if that lack of funds is depriving said person of the ability ot hear and enjoy the song. It perhaps does inhibit how and in what context they can listen to the song (i.e. no ipods etc.).
While I might not completely agree with Raphael_Amiard he does raise the interesting point that the burden must be on the record industry to prove that they incur a cost (including an opportunity cost) if piracy is legal.
Having said that, I think both of us need to be aware of identity bias here. I don't necessarily support TPB but I do have strong views on liberty and on those who exploit the creative work of others. Similarly, I get the feeling that you have an emotional distate for TPB (based on their attitude) and identify yourself as belonging to the record industry so take the attacks personally.
I think I should make it clear that everyone here who opposes the "record industry" isn't talking about the people who do creative work, the engineers etc. but rather the people who previously had a monopoly on distribution and used this to exploit the creators and sound engineers. These people have lost their monopoly and can now be replaced by technology and so have taken to attacking the new competition. This doesn't just include TPB. It's like Kodak suing digital camera companies because the new medium allows reprints.
I am going to have to take you up on the point of downloading something to try and not liking it.
If it were up to the recording companies, would they refund me my money if I didn't like a CD I legally bought? Currently, the answer is no. That is on the same level of unfairness as pirating in my mind. Most of other retail stores allow you to return a purchased item, so why should music be any different?
As for the question of do I delete something I downloaded and didn't like, the answer would be yes. It's a yes, because that material takes up space on my hard disk that would be better served otherwise. And since I'm an unofficial tech support person for many people in my family, all of them being non-tech-savvy, I can attest that they do the same.
> If it were up to the recording companies, would they refund me my money if I didn't like a CD I legally bought? Currently, the answer is no.
Is it? I have previously returned music to a store within my stautory rights period.
Besides even if you do make a fair point lets reverse the situation: is it right to nick a CD from the store if you go back later to either put it on the shelf if you dont like it or pay for it if you do?
Anyway; Im not so much talking music you dont like actually (sorry, my fault). My point was focused on music you find acceptable and still would listen to occasionally but dont think is worth £9.99 or however much an album purchase is near you. I know several people with HUGE illegal music collections that would cost them thousands of pounds to purchase - how do they choose what to pay for, what to keep and what they should delete. Answer (for all of them) is they pay nothing and delete nothing....
I have had returns refused, since the CD was opened. How would I know if it's good or not, if I had not listened to it? And I'm not the only one.
I do agree that there are people who keep crap around when they don't need it. But, stealing a CD is not the same as downloading music from a torrent. Stealing implies that the owner of the CD is left permanently without it. A torrent is a copy of the original content. It's a fair distinction, and the point is that music store rules do not apply to the net.
Whilst I see the flaws in my arguments (and TBH I think they are minimal): I still dont see a legitimate case for calling the file sharing of copyrighted music legally or morally ok....
> I have previously returned music to a store within my stautory rights period.
Well, if it's still got the anti-tamper strips and such on it, I guess. I've never tried to return an unopened CD, so I dunno about that (and how would I know I didn't like it, then?), but back when I bought CDs, I never had any success trying to return one that was opened. The stores have a policy against this because they assume you copied it first (to tape, originally).
I might have missed your point here but am I right in thinking your sayign that many people cant afford to pay legit for all the material they download?
To which I say: so what right do they have to download it for free? Never spend beyond your means :)
I believe I have missed your point though: the use of the word relatively threw me (the ly is confusing and changes the context of the sentence :))
“We can’t pay and we wouldn’t pay if we could. If I would have money I would rather burn everything I owned.”
"As for the fate of the site, Peter has already promised that The Pirate Bay will continue. The site itself was never on trial, only the four individuals listed above."
I LOVE Peter's attitude. I will always be a big supporter of the Pirate Bay.
This verdict wont change anything for file sharing (may change a lot for their operators) but this will only serve to push file sharing further underground and make superstars out of its operators.
Except that terrorism is almost exclusively seen by the public as morally wrong, it's just the governments attempts to 'fight' it that are misguided.
Terrorism is used as a tactic by militant groups that are too small to be taken seriously otherwise -- file sharing is supported by a near-majority (obviously opinion/personal experience, but as far as I can tell, there is wide support) and has only grown in strength in response to the ridiculous tactics used by the record and film industries to stop it.
Even those that do not download illegal content can experience the benefits that file sharing has influenced (to varying degrees): almost all major networks have content online, and services like Hulu have been growing at an extremely fast rate.
There is also the enormous benefit to content providers (media & software) that can now use the well-established P2P protocols [1] (mainly bittorrent).
The only similarity I can see between 'The war on P2P' and 'The war on terror' is that neither is likely to be successful.
Apparently, the prosecution cited a case from 1963 wherein a man was convicted of a crime for holding his friend's coat while the friend was in a fist-fight.
Amazing that such a case happened, and amazing that it was cited as relevant to this case.
Obviously holding the coat of a man in a fight is an extreme case, but isn't being an accessory to law breaking commonly used as a justification for prosecution?
I don't know why there's this assumption that untracked distribution automatically leads to losses. In fact, it can lead to significant gains.
Consider two scenarios...
One, suppose a paying customer decides to buy something, then finds they don't like it, and wants to return it? In that case, the vendor incurs a cost for dealing with the return, which will mean no ultimate income from the sale. Whereas, a free download to try something and discard it, costs nothing to either side.
Two, suppose the downloaders really like what they see, and share it with friends? And the friends, in turn, share with friends. The item may eventually reach several people who are more than willing to actually buy the product (if it's good). The paradox is that the act of preventing a single "illegitimate" download was blocking many more legitimate sales.
Both of these scenarios highlight perhaps the one thing that vendors are refusing to admit, which is that quality matters most. Anything that is inherently good should have no problem making money even if it's pirated. Their beef might be that they can no longer push crap on the public and make money based on the shininess of their packaging.
Well the whole thing is that, do they still have that right?
Is it right that I have to wait an entire year to see the movie on DVD, when they know full well from before production starts that it will be released on DVD. It's just a tactic to try and force people into the cinema: "You like the look of this movie... ooh, only in cinema!"
With the amount of Cam rips and TS's out there, and have been out there for a long time, people are clearly telling the movie industry that we expect not to wait a year for a movie to release on DVD.
The concept of a right involves the fact that it still exists even if other people disapprove of how it is exercised. A "right" defines a certain domain in which the party holding the right has freedom of action. If its exercise were constrained to manners that were popular among third parties, then it would not be a right at all.
The fact that you feel entitled to enjoy artists' work in the manner that you wish does not negate those artists' legal rights (or their agents to whom they have delegated those rights).
I'm sorry, I don't know where you're from. These concepts might be unique to anglo law. Property rights might work differently elsewhere.
I feel torn about this. On the one hand I use The Pirate Bay for my own pleasure sometimes and I'm disappointed that the makers have been ruled to encourage illegal activity with it.
> On the one hand I use The Pirate Bay for my own pleasure sometimes
Thanks for your honesty, but really: you shouldn't. Especially if you live in the US, UK, or Germany, there are good, legal alternatives. If you're in Europe, why not give Spotify a spin? It's only GBP 1 / day to try out. Less than a pint...
I sympathize with those that, out of frustration with the record industry for not offering music in the format and with the ease we want, turn to filesharing. But if that's why you originally did it, morally speaking, you should at least make an effort to acquire your music through legal means.
> Especially if you live in the US, UK, or Germany, there are good, legal alternatives.
I live in The Netherlands.
"Legal" to me seems a word that's terrible marketing. Maybe we should use words like "artist-supporting" and "moral" to indicate it. I don't think people care about the legal aspects as much as they do about the moral aspects of it.
> I sympathize with those that, out of frustration with the record industry for not offering music in the format and with the ease we want, turn to filesharing. But if that's why you originally did it, morally speaking, you should at least make an effort to acquire your music through legal means.
It's not really the music that sends me to TPB; it's movies (which I don't watch all that much anymore nowadays). Do you know any alternatives for those?
I think the main reason why TPB is my first resort is habit. It's a very easy go-to point where you can get anything you want, when you want it. It's interesting how "easy" can supersede "morality" so easily :/
> It's not really the music that sends me to TPB; it's movies (which I don't watch all that much anymore nowadays). Do you know any alternatives for those?
I use iTunes, from which I watch mostly TV series, occasionally movies. Their selection is by no means exhaustive, and it's not cheap, but at least it's easy! It would be nice if we could get something like hulu in Europe.
> But if that's why you originally did it, morally speaking, you should at least make an effort to acquire your music through legal means.
While I have some sympathy for the sentiment you're making, I can't help thinking that if an Internet-based service requires an "effort" to use it, it's unlikely to succeed.
That blog post is ridiculously short on facts. Stardock (Gas Powered Games) didn't put paid authentication on their public multiplayer areas. There's a difference between having DRM and having a paid-to-access service. It's kind of like putting your money on the ground in the middle of a crowded market and walking away expecting it to still be there when you come back in a few hours. Pay-to-play multiplayer online games are proven to be moneymakers, with or without DRM (see: Valve, Blizzard)
Yeah, that decision seems a bit daft. Copyright infringement doesn't cause any direct financial harm to the publisher, as one pirated copy doesn't necessarily equal one lost sale. So even if piracy is at 90%, you may not have lost many sales. But if you're letting people use your bandwidth and processing time for free, there is a direct financial loss, and 90% suddenly becomes a huge problem.
"As for the fate of the site, Peter has already promised that The Pirate Bay will continue. The site itself was never on trial, only the four individuals listed above."
I'm sorry that you are getting downmodded. I agree with your sentiment. The Pirate Bay exists to facilitate copying of copyrighted works without paying the license fees involved.
And they have advertising on their site, hence they are making money from this activity.
It's a pity that everyone calls this 'file sharing' (which sounds so innocent) when the entire purpose of a site like TPB is to allow people to make copies of copyright works.
The purpose of the site, and many other sites, is to allow people to share works. They are guilty, in the moral sense, of not taking any steps to prevent copyrighted content from being shared, even though they were well aware that that was happening. The danger of your phrasing is that people start to think that any torrentsite is illegal, which is not, and should never be, the case.
> The Pirate Bay exists to facilitate copying of copyrighted works without paying the license fees involved.
Not entirely true. TPB exists to facilitate copying of digital content. Copyright and license fees are irrelevant; if the whole of copyright law as abilished tomorrow, TPB and the BitTorrent infrastructure would still work, exactly the same as it does now.
> And they have advertising on their site, hence they are making money from this activity.
The one doesn't follow from the other; for example, the avertising revenue may not cover the costs of running the site.
> It's a pity that everyone calls this 'file sharing'
I agree, but ont for your reasons. It isn't "file sharing" because the files aren't shared; everyone ends up with their own copy. An accurate term would be P2P file copying.
> to allow people to make copies of copyright works
You probably meant to say "to allow people to make unauthorised copies of copyright works"; making copies of copyright works is in itself perfectly legal; I do it all the time, as does everyone else with a computer.
I don't see why it's any business of the government to restrict what people share with each other. I support copyright in what I see as its primary role of policing "passing-off" type activity - ie, trying to sell something you have no right to sell - but restricting private citizen A sending $whatever to private citizen B? No way. And TPB facilitates the latter, not the former.
"It's a pity that everyone calls this 'file sharing' (which sounds so innocent)"
People call it "file sharing" because it's about, get this, sharing files. What those files are is basically beside the point. I do not have a contract with the RIAA or MPAA to refrain from storing or transmitting data which may be derived from their works; if they can't make money in a world where people can exchange information freely, well, sucks to be them.
It's all moot anyway really. File sharing is a fait accompli. All these court actions are doing is speeding the development of the next generation, and then the war will truly be lost.
"I support copyright in what I see as its primary role of policing "passing-off" type activity - ie, trying to sell something you have no right to sell - but restricting private citizen A sending $whatever to private citizen B? No way. And TPB facilitates the latter, not the former."
So if you wrote a piece of software you wouldn't have a problem with me taking that piece of software and not paying you for it. Right?
Your only concern would be if someone started trying to sell your software and make money from it. Right?
In both cases someone enjoyed the fruits of your labor without compensating you for it.
"In both cases someone enjoyed the fruits of your labor without compensating you for it."
What labour? I didn't expend any labour at all making a copy of that program. Why should I be compensated? Why should I even know?
Your thesis relies upon an arbitrary, and I would say quite baseless, link between a piece of information of whatever form and some kind of implied reward for its originator. But this system breaks down completely when copies can be made at almost zero cost. The labour and hence reward does not and should not multiply automatically in proportion to the number of copies in existence. How could it?
As an example of how arbitrary and harmful your belief system is, take, say, mathematical theorems. As you know, we have many mathematicians around the world. They work, very hard, on extending mathematical knowledge. And yet, unlike a movie or a song, a mathematical theorem is not copy-protectable.
You use any number of those theorems every day, if not directly then in the products in your life. No mathematicians are being compensated for your use of their labours. No-one suggests that unless mathematics are copy protected (life plus 75), that people will stop doing maths. Why isn't that protected too? Especially considering mathematics is rather more important for our society than a few movies?
Information in and of itself has no "reward" value, zip, zero. It may, of course, have immense "use to society" value - hence the importance of its sharing, as wide as possible and as easily as possible.
More along the "examine your beliefs" theme: why is there such a discrepancy between patents and copyrights? I happen to believe in patents, if done properly. They encourage innovation in manufacturing and technology. They are of immense importance. And yet patents are generally 20 years.
Why so short? To encourage innovation, of course.
Why are copyrights so long? To encourage innovation, of course.
Do you detect any cognitive dissonance in the two above statements?
Right, I'll stop before I go any further off along this tangent : )
Software companies have been taking exactly the same approach as music labels, with similar results.
I write software, and no, I don't care if anyone ever pays for it "properly". Software is buggy enough already without having protection mechanisms in place that could also have bugs (and they do; I have been burned before, with programs refusing to run that were convinced my original disk was somehow not valid).
Yes and no. Do remember that bullets don't kill people, it's people kill people.
TPB is just another tool for sharing files, it's people's actions that infringe copyright. They really should be after the folks who rip the content and upload them in the first place.
Get to the source of the incident, not the distribution channel.
Disagree. TPB has made its name by being "anti-establishment" and they flaunt that. In their Usage Policy they state:
"The responsibility lies upon the user to not spread malicious, false or illegal material using the tracker."
which is tantamount to saying that they turn a blind eye to what's happening on their service. On their legal threats page they respond to various letters. For example, in replying DreamWorks who were annoyed about distribution of Shrek 2 they wrote:
"It is the opinion of us and our lawyers that you are ....... morons, and
that you should please go sodomize yourself with retractable batons.
Go fuck yourself."
So basically they either turn a blind eye, or defend the actions of people using the tracker for the copying of copyrighted works without authorization.
If you read the letters they send they claim that they are not breaking the law in Sweden. I guess the court disagreed with that.
- They have an anti-establishment attitude NOT a pro-file sharing one. So I dont ever count them as part of the (legit) file sharing community
- They have an attitude problem.. there is no reason sharers cant work with copyright holders. But said holders have no reason to trust sharers when people like TPB tend to be the public face (through creating a media circus).
What's wrong with their attitude? They have a set of beliefs and they loudly espouse them. Their arguments are well-reasoned and, usually, politely stated. The only "establishment" they are against is the status quo of copyright law, it's not like they're anarchists.
They might slip into immaturity sometimes (see their "responses to legal threats page", for example) but it's not like the other side are angels either.
> Their arguments are well-reasoned and, usually, politely stated
Really? Mostly they just fall back on the usual anti-capitalist rethoric. Nothing particularly wrong with that but they certainly dont do it politely from what I have seen :)
In terms of the other side: true both have their faults. But why does that mean we should side with the pirates :) they have done something wrong.
"It is the opinion of us and our lawyers that you are ....... morons, and that you should please go sodomize yourself with retractable batons.
Go fuck yourself."
I suppose this is one of the "responses to legal threats" you refer to.
If you read the whole thing, you'll note that the reason for that tone was that they were annoyed that DreamWorks had tried to send a DMCA takedown notice to a site obviously, and famously, far outside the USA.
As a dirty foreigner myself I can completely understand the annoyance with Americans who blithely assume that US law applies to the rest of the world, so maybe that wasn't the best example to raise. And as an American, I'm sure that if some Swedish company sent you a Swedish "takedown" notice under Swedish law and written in Swedish, you'd probably tell them to go fuck themselves, too.
probably just as the US companies are annoyed how TPB blithely assumes that being in a different country excludes them from copyright law...
The argument have 2 (probably even) sides with the majority of us stuck in the middle. Only one is refusing to budge and are acting like "dicks". So....
My problem was that the original parent comment (now deleted) made the claim that TPB was profiting off other copyright holders and therefore deserved punishment.
My retort was that they weren't necessarily hurting copyright holders and may even have helped with promotion.
What makes you think that? They have a big site, without any advertising banners...doesn't sound like a very commercially attractive deal to me.
[edit]
Oops, my bad, they do have some banners, my ad blocking tools turned out to be far more effective than I thought they would be.
Even if they serve those banners, I really can't imagine they are making "big money".
[/edit]
There is earning potential for certain: do they use it?
For a group that list openness and freedom amongst their ideals [sic] I dont see any openness about the revenue TPB generates. They release no figures or data.
Personally I consider that a double standard (and I have to confess I do believe they make a profit: perhaps not a huge amount but... logically they could make quite a bit and I dont see a decent argument for why they wouldnt)
The biggest reason they wouldn't is who they're advertising to. Google makes a lot of money because people who search there might often be looking for a place to buy something that pops up in the paid results. People who search piratebay aren't often looking to buy anything, and advertisers know that.
FTA:
"The defense put it to the judge that he had folded under intense political pressure. The judge denied this stating that the court made its decision based on the case presented.
At one point the judge was asked if he was concerned for his personal safety after handing down this decision. The judge said he hadn’t received any harassment and was quite surprised at the question."
Classy.
Edit: Oeh, this part is also good:
"Rasmus Fleischer, one of the founders of Piratbyrån commented, “The sentence has no formal consequence and no juridical value. We chose to treat the trial as a theater play and as such it’s been far better than we ever could have believed.”"
> We chose to treat the trial as a theater play and as such it’s been far better than we ever could have believed
This is the guy that, at one of the press conferences, said they were planning to take the trial fairly seriously because they new they would win and were there to prove a point to the industry.....
I sometimes wonder what the music/movie/television industry expects to gain from all of this. Though I don't really pirate anything but TV shows (television reception is pretty terrible in my apartment), I honestly don't see myself spending any more on those types of media.
I have to wonder if the end result of no more pirated media just means that people consume less overall.
"The verdict was leaked from the court. I have to think about what effects that can have on the sentence. It is unacceptable that the court is leaking."
This is little in comparison to other people who have walked ahead of the front lines of various past revolutions. It hasn't been uncommon to get killed in there.
Maybe intellectual revolutions are different, then.
They will appeal and the trial will be drawn out for months if not years. And even if they finally lose, the servers and the infrastructure will not be affected - they withstood raids, DDoS's, server moves, etc. This will only serve to make the structures even less obvious. "Organized" filesharing, anyone?
For those who like to compare copyright infringement to theft, here goes my take:
Suppose a neighbor of buys that new awesome European car, great style, full option . The car is instant hit among neighbors, since they all suffer form products of Detroit Big Four. `Chicks dig him', so to say.
Enter copyright infringement.
One night you venture near the car, wielding necessary tools, dark clothed and masked. You write down every detail carefully. You visit local distributor next morning, you order exact same car, down to last detail. Later on you show off, driving in it around.
Will the neighbor be angry at you? Surely you deprived him of some of the car's value (uniqueness).
Yet you stole nothing anything from him. You copied information. No theft of property.
Is this example legal? I guess it is.
Is this morally OK?
What if the neighbor in question lived off of a business model based on having the best car around (scarcity, perhaps artificial)?
>"The judge said that the users of The Pirate Bay committed the first offense by sharing files and the four assisted this.
>It appears that the court chose to not take any of the technical details into account and only judged based on intent. They find it clear that the intention of the defendants is to facilitate sharing of copyrighted works and based their verdict on this."
While I don't agree with the justice of the law, I do think the judge's logic is 100x more clear and believable than the "king kong" defense.
Can anyone comment as to the actual legal issues involved? Is there any reason to think this will be overturned on appeal? The Pirate Bay Four seem to be responding to the moral righteousness of their cause, more so than the reality of Swedish law.
The Pirate Bay website is pretty awful but they're a tremendously important tracker, used by many others. There is a genuine need for such a service. I'm not exactly a l33t w4r3z d00d but I greatly appreciate what these guys have done, and while I have some questions about the workability of their principles on filesharing I greatly respect their integrity in walking the walk. They're no mere pirates, they started a political party for fuck's sake, and the movies they made may suck but they gave them away just as they promised. I got a lot of respect for those guys and will gladly put my money where my mouth is.
Good luck to them and may the Pirate Bay reach ever new heights!