[VonLipwig]

Hmm.

"""What binds us all together is a strong belief that what we do is good."""

What is 'good' about the pirate bay? A site which is 95% dedicated to sharing copyrighted content?

The Pirate Bay exists to make money for its founders. This is why it has so many intrusive ad's constantly popping up. They aren't on any mission. They are just raking in money at other people's expense.

"""Our 3 friends and blood brothers have been sentenced to prison. This might sound worse than it is. Since no one of them no longer lives in Sweden, they won't go to jail. They are as free today as they were yesterday."""

Does this mean they are on the run? As they have been sentenced to 4-10 month's I would just serve the time and be done with it. Surely this is better than constantly watching your back and avoiding being extradited back to Sweden.

"""But what enrages us to our inner core is that the system, the empire, the governments, are still allowed to try to boss you and us around with one law crazier than the other"""

Yes.. the system.. the empire.. surprised they didn't mention the people in black suits? The pirate bay is such a target because the people who run it humiliate and insult people with very deep pockets. They aren't victims, they enjoy the attention.

[toyg]

A site which is 95% dedicated to sharing copyrighted content

[citation needed]

The Pirate Bay exists to make money for its founders. This is why it has so many intrusive ad's constantly popping up.

The Pirate Bay exists to make it possible for people to share content, but bandwidth and infrastructure is not free.

The pirate bay is such a target because the people who run it humiliate and insult people with very deep pockets.

And? Is it written anywhere that people with deep pockets should not be insulted? If anything, their position of privilege should make them less prone to knee-jerk reactions.

They aren't victims, they enjoy the attention.

I think you should talk to your analyst about that complex, hating extrovert people is quite the negative attitude.

[the-cakeboss]

Can you honestly say that the pirate bay isn't dedicated, and almost exclusively used for the distribution of material protected by copyright? Drawing attention to the fact that he hasn't cited any specific research on what is plainly evident for everyone does nothing to promote an adult discussion about the topic. Furthermore, claiming that the author hates extroverts due to some underlaying psychological issues is really unnecessary.

Why is it so hard to have an open, honest, mature discussion about piracy and the pirate bay? All the attempts to make P2P out to be some political statement, is highly disingenuous in my opinion. I pirate quite regularly. But it is never about some lofty ideals regarding personal freedoms, or commentary on corporate influence, in truth, I just want something, which happens to be easily and readily accessed, free of charge. Is this stealing? I'm not sure, but I'm inclined to think its a close cousin. Is it a plus for society, and something that ought to be fostered? Quite possibly.

Why not talk about this stuff and stop acting like piracy is some noble pursuit?

I find it hard to believe that anyone seriously believes that the pirate bay is an agent promoting peace within the world, and liberating oppressed peoples. Why do we kid ourselves?

[toyg]

Can you honestly say that the pirate bay isn't dedicated, and almost exclusively used for the distribution of material protected by copyright?

Well, we don't know. There might be zillions of long-tail torrents with one seeder and three peers, distributing legal stuff, but I personally don't go around spouting numbers like the parent poster.

Furthermore, claiming that the author hates extroverts due to some underlaying psychological issues is really unnecessary.

Yup, it was an ad-hominem as much as parent's statement was an ad-hominem ("they enjoy the attention", etc etc).

Why is it so hard to have an open, honest, mature discussion about piracy and the pirate bay?

Because of the Overton window.

Agents on one side (the copyright mafia) lie through their teeth and have access to every propaganda channel and every established power. Internet people always end up on the defensive, and the window is pushed further and further into insanity.

For twenty years, us geeks have had open, honest, mature discussions about piracy, both among ourselves and with the copyright mafia, and it has done exactly ZERO amount of good, they are still pushing as hard as in the Napster days; now it's our time to be unreasonable. It's not our responsibility to be reasonable or amenable, we simply build and use the technology and make our requests very clear; the political system will have to work out a "just" balance or compromise of some sort, or criminalize us all and live with the consequences.

[idiocracyreigns]

Can you honestly say that the pirate bay isn't dedicated, and almost exclusively used for the distribution of material protected by copyright?

No, but I can't say that about the Internet at-large, either. Practically everything is protected by copyright, including the beloved Linux source.

[the-cakeboss]

Fair enough. Perhaps I should clarify, and say "the illegal distribution of material protected by copyright".

Its incredible how obtuse people become when discussing this issue.

[burgerbrain]

Would you be distressed if I made a website dedicated to encouraging and facilitating jaywalking? That is quite illegal in some jurisdictions you know.

How about one dedicated to supporting/encouraging arson as political speech? Horror of all horrors: http://www.speedcam.co.uk/gatso2.htm !

This "some places it is illegal" == "it is immoral" attitude is rather tyring.

[the-cakeboss]

The focus of my comment was never about the morality of pirating, but rather my perceived difficulty in having an intelligent and honest conversation about it. While I did briefly touch on my thoughts about its morality, I made sure to state that matter was up for debate.

When we are talking about piracy I am amazed that people entertain the notion that the Pirate Bay is somehow liberating oppressed peoples all over the world ( as was implied in the release... ). We aren't talking about leaked government documents here, we are talking about last night's episode of Glee. All of this nonsense merely detracts and distracts for the real issue at hand.

Furthermore, I have found time and time again that people become exceedingly argumentative and obtuse when these issues are discussed, denying and arguing every claim no matter how well accepted or understood it is. I mean, can we really not agree that the Pirate Bay is primarily dedicated to distributing copyrighted material illegally? Is it really necessary for me to dig up a source and provide a citation for that claim?

In direct response to your question, I would not be distressed by such a site, nor does the existence of the pirate bay cause me distress. What might irritate me about such a site however is if it were to claim that jaywalking laws were not in place to control traffic and provide safe crossing to pedestrians, but instead to oppress the people of a city or some other nonsense along the same lines. It would irritate me if its supporters some deep conviction for it and when questioned about their beliefs, immediately assume those unlike them derive their morality from law.

I pirate content a lot. I am a member of a private tracker, and for awhile I rented out a seedbox to maintain my ratio. Never once though, have I ever felt entitled to the things I downloaded. Never once did I try to justify my downloading with anything other than the fact that it is super convenient and free. Why you think I'm so dull as to never question the word of law is beyond me. I never once said anything to suggest legality is equivalent to morality. I may even go so far as to say this conclusion you've made is indicative to the very thing I'm speaking of. I mean, it takes some rather large assumptions to reach that conclusion based upon my comments.

[funkah]

> Its incredible how obtuse people become when discussing this issue.

You said it, cake boss.

[waterhouse]

> an open, honest, mature discussion about piracy

If you'd be satisfied with the discussion in a book (as opposed to interactive discussion on a forum), you might look here: http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/againstfinal.ht...

[VonLipwig]

"""[citation needed]"""

Sure, however I doubt I am far off. The site is called The PIRATE Bay. Shall we play a game of spot the legitimate content? http://thepiratebay.se/top/300

"""The Pirate Bay exists to make it possible for people to share content, but bandwidth and infrastructure is not free."""

Of course it isn't however the owners are making no attempt to remove infringing content. They know their business is helping to distribute copyrighted digital content and they profit from it. Sure, they need to cover their costs but they don't run it to be a beacon of freedom. They run it for the $$$.

Take WikiLeaks, before it started publishing unredacted content they served a purpose. They broke some laws but they set information free. There was a positive reason for it's existence.

What has the Pirate Bay done of value over the last decade?

"""And? Is it written anywhere that people with deep pockets should not be insulted? If anything, their position of privilege should make them less prone to knee-jerk reactions."""

Knee Jerk reactions? Really? Content owners file DCMA take down requests and take other actions. The pirate bay respond by goading them.

http://thepiratebay.se/legal

There is little doubt that TPB is costing content owners real money by helping people access torrents. The amount is obviously up for debate however when you insult, goad and cause losses to Billion dollar companies you are asking to be engaged by an army of lawyers and politicians.

The Pirate Bay could just quieten down. "You do your thing, we do ours." They don't though do they. Instead they adopt the. "Ha ha ha ha ha ha you can't get us."

Well sorry but you know, if millions of dollars of copyrighted content is being accessed via your company. Large content owners will work to lobby and pressure politicians to take action.. this isn't knee-jerk. This just natural escalation.

"""I think you should talk to your analyst about that complex, hating extrovert people is quite the negative attitude."""

ROFL.. sure because that was exactly what I was saying...

[toyg]

What has the Pirate Bay done of value over the last decade?

I don't know, maybe stuff like founding the only political party that really cares about policies for the internet age? Promoting the free exchange of art, content and ideas on the internet? Sponsoring cultural events across Europe?

Oh, but they must be in it for the money, of course. Because risking jail and having very powerful people come after you, while you're developing a free search engine built on a highly redundant architecture designed to bypass censorship attempts, is such an easy way to rake in the millions. I wonder why Zuckerberg didn't think about that.

They might not have started a revolution in Tunisia, but they've still done more to change the world of ideas than 95% of the tech companies out there (yeah, my 95% is as bad as your 95%, lol).

I won't waste time challenging your half-assed assertions that "there is little doubt that TPB is costing content owners real money by helping people access torrents". That's what the copyright mafia says, whereas an increasingly large amount of research says this is quite a dubious claim at best, and at worst exactly the opposite of what's really happening. If companies like Adobe and Microsoft really hated piracy as much as they say, they'd have stopped long ago to distribute "demo" and "trial" versions which could be easily cracked.

Quiet people sit at the back of the bus, while progress is made by unreasonable people; but considering your attitude towards people who "enjoy the attention", I don't doubt that you'll struggle to understand where I'm coming from.

[burgerbrain]

You make the mistake of assuming that "pirating" is inherently and obviously "wrong".

I, and many others, reject that premise.

If you disagree, so what? We're quite used to people disagreeing, and have gotten rather good at not caring.

PS:

"Instead they adopt the. "Ha ha ha ha ha ha you can't get us.""

This attitude makes zero sense to me. Why is it so wrong if they are extroverted?

[jrockway]

The attitude is antagonistic rather than extroverted. Anyway, it all boils down to a business strategy. The Pirate Bay enrages copyright holders, who then go after all "piracy sites". The weaker ones die because of the increased legal scrutiny, while TPB continues to live. I'm guessing that TPB served more pages after MegaUpload died than they did before. And that is money in the founders' pockets.

[toyg]

Copyright holders were going after "piracy sites" well before TPB -- see Napster, Grokster, Kazaa, etc etc etc. Considering the founders are now facing jail, and they've always been politically active, I'd say they are in it for more than just "money in their pockets". I know, in this day and age, this is hard to believe, but sometimes it's actually true.

[zanny]

Thats neat, a lot of the top torrents on TPB are just redistributions of open source stuff. I also figure a lot of the windows 7 torrents are used to restore broken installations after losing the cds, because 99% of people don't build their own PCs and thus come with windows pre installed.

The photoshop / vegas being so high isn't coincidence either. Those products are prohibitively expensive for everyone that would use them except businesses.

[redthrowaway]

>What has the Pirate Bay done of value over the last decade?

All sorts of things get submitted to tpb. When Wikileaks looked like it could be raided and shutdown at any moment, they put their encrypted archives up for anyone to download, for one.

Also, as an aside, I hate python's comment syntax enough when coding. It's even more annoying when on a forum.

[mahcuz]

Off-topic: tell me about it! We get it... you're a pythonista. Now quote like a normal person.