The Pirate Bay

[Rex_Mundi_Incarnit]

So you all probably heard that the people behind the Pirate Bay (TPB) were found guilty by assisting copyright infringement and have to pay a fine of $3.5 million plus 1 year in prison. They insisted that they did nothing illegal by arguing that TPB does not host illegal content and merely acts as a search engine like google that one also can use to find torrents. The verdict is not final as the guys have gone for a higher appeal to the European court. Remember that in some countries in Europe, like Sweden, there is no jury so ordinary citizens did not have a say in this. Defendant Kolmisoppi argued that "the whole trial was political in nature".

This is all very interesting but probably has no effect whatsoever on shutting down torrent sites since they can equally well host torrents linking to legal content. It's hard to draw the line between what is right and wrong but comparing TPB to google is not very clever imo. Google is a general search engine and TPB is a specific one for finding torrents only. And we all know that most torrents link to illegal material ;) So in the end, im not surprised they were found guilty but a prison sentence... that is harsh.

[Toe]

C&P a post I made on another board:

Frankly, I don't get why this is such big news. IT DOESN'T MATTER AT ALL IF TPB GOES DOWN. How did TPB get popular in the first place? It filled a bit of the void when Suprnova was killed. You take one down, 10 others are guaranteed to spring up in its place. You'd think people would've figured that out a decade ago after Napster went kaput.

You might argue that the punishment doesn't fit the crime, but eh, there's only so much I can care about some guys in Sweden. It's not like they didn't know the risk.

[lillitnn92]

a person opens a phone book, looking specifically for a gun store, person finds store, buys gun, shoots five people.

do you sue the phone book for providing the information and location to buy buy gun?

i could go either way with torrent sites though. like Toe said, it's a lost cause.

[Todd The Kiwi]

you break the law, you get pwned, game over.
don't break the law, don't get pwned.

[Hanzo]

Just add the magic key to any Google query and you have a torrent search right there.

I think the RIAA had some to do with this. Anyhow, I know something similar will pop very shortly, or some other site will become popular instead.

[Rex_Mundi_Incarnit]

you break the law, you get pwned, game over.
don't break the law, don't get pwned.

If it were only so crystal clear what is legal and illegal. Those guys from TPB absolutely believe they didn't break any law in Sweden.

[Tokelil]

Yes that the problem in this case. The law has actually protected the people behind TPB until now, which has made them quite vocal in the Swedish media. They have clearly stepped on a lot big shot toes in Sweden and the music business. Their official standpoint has been that they are a search engine and they don't believe in censorship. (Contrary to what Google and others do. Well they do remove some content, like childs porn.) This is the small guys fighting censorship in some ways, though you always wonder how much of it is "the real deal" and how much is for the show. (They are making good money as well.)

As I come from one of the countries in the world with the most Internet censorship, I wish them the best of luck.

[regener8ed]

i think it's al gore's fault, for creating teh interwebs.

[Willow of Oz]

you break the law, you get pwned, game over.
don't break the law, don't get pwned.
As below: is it really against the law?
They don't actually host torrents, they just show you how to get them.
Try google some time. Really, how different is it to something like the google search:



filetype:torrent wolverine

[Tokelil]

Try google some time. Really, how different is it to something like the google search:
filetype:torrent wolverineThat works much better than TPB seach anyway... ;)

[Hanzo]

Agreed...

[idefiXX]

I reccomend Superfundo (http://superfundo.org/) for DVD-Rips, ZeroSec (http://www.zerosec.ws/) for the latest scene releases and Mininova (http://www.mininova.org/) and BTjunkie (http://btjunkie.org/) for everything else.
Who cares for TPB :)

[Rex_Mundi_Incarnit]

Demonoid (http://www.demonoid.com/) is still out there too. They went offline for a while but I can't remember the nature of the problem then.

I use the same Idefixx mentioned.

[idefiXX]

Demonoid (http://www.demonoid.com/) is still out there too. They went offline for a while but I can't remember the nature of the problem then.
They got shut down for a while. But like Toe said - it doesn't really matter.

I sense a change in attitude, though. Slowly, more and more of my friends are switching to streams, which might be a small success for those who fight p2p. I hate streams - crappy quality, if it works at all !

[lillitnn92]

I reccomend Superfundo (http://superfundo.org/) for DVD-Rips, ZeroSec (http://www.zerosec.ws/) for the latest scene releases and Mininova (http://www.mininova.org/) and BTjunkie (http://btjunkie.org/) for everything else.
Who cares for TPB :)

isoHunt (http://isohunt.com/) is pretty good to. Demonoid would be awesome if i had an account, anybody got an invite to give or however that works.

[Todd The Kiwi]

how can it possibly be legal, you are getting for free what others pay for?

what a mind fuck

[Rex_Mundi_Incarnit]

Todd, don't worry. Others will do the thinking for you :) It's not about the actual illegal material. TPB doesnt host any of that. Since it is p2p, people at home are sharing that illegal material and TPB is linking us to that material. But it's just a link.

What I believe is that eventually the cost of movies and music will have to come down. It's the only way to combat piracy. If a movie is released in digital at the same time it is released in the cinema all over the world at the same time, then I can guarantee you that illegal downloading will quickly go out of fashion. Same for tv shows. They should be released on DVDs at the same time they are aired on the telly.

It's pretty artificial anyway to judge how much one should pay for a CD or DVD. The set price is meaningless if you can buy it legally in digital form online for much less.

[Todd The Kiwi]

riiiight :ponder:

[Qaz]

Here's the latest twist: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/04/23/pirate_bay_judge_accused_of_bias/

[Tokelil]

Well the newest development is for me that I can't access the site any more... Might be temporary though, who knows.

[Willow of Oz]

Works fine for me.
I was only going there to check it for you, you know.
:cyclops:

[Tokelil]

I think they may have changed IP addresses or something. The site is officially banned from all ISPs here, so I either need to go throguh OpenDNS (which I prefer not to use) or via hosts file settings. (Which I use atm., but they are working any more.)

[Hanzo]

Maybe you can set OpenDNS as the third server option in your router or TCP/IP settions? If I remember correctly, if the address resolution cascades in case of errors...