Hollywood hunts The Pirate Bay; site down again
Update: 11:05 p.m. Monday: To note that the site was down most of Monday.
The Pirate Bay was inaccessible most of the day Monday after a group representing copyright owners forced the BitTorrent search engine's bandwidth provider to cut off service, according to a published report.
NForce, the Pirate Bay's latest Internet service provider, complied with a request to shut off service to The Pirate Bay made by Netherlands-based antipiracy group Brein, according to online news site Tweakers.net.
Monday's outage followed a three-hour blackout of The Pirate Bay on Friday. The blackouts are the result of work performed by attorneys based in Sweden who are employed by the big movie studios, according to my film industry sources. The lawyers are hunting down whoever provides bandwidth to The Pirate Bay and then using the threat of lawsuits to pressure the ISPs to stop.
Black Internet, the Pirate Bay's onetime ISP, was threatened with fines in Sweden unless it cut off service. The Pirate Bay then moved to an a Ukrainian ISP, which also received threats, according to the blog TorrentFreak. NForce was next and now that company has had to comply.
Just where The Pirate Bay will go next or how long the site will be down isn't clear. The founders of the site have vowed to continue operating the site no matter what.
Greg Sandoval covers media and digital entertainment for CNET News. He is a former reporter for The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. E-mail Greg, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/sandoCNET. 
http://web.archive.org/web/20040201224502/www.anakata.hack.se/coding/
See any patterns here?
Its easy to look at the big companies and not feel sorry for them - but behind them are many people who work hard and put in time and effort to bring the product to the market. Sure the prices are outrageous sometimes but thats free market for ya.
Do I like stuff that i can download for FREE? Heck yea, but i know there are repercussion that have domino effect from the top to the very bottom.
There's always one ****** bag who whines about stealing. I love that you imply that outrageous prices are a product of "free market," yet you clearly miss that free online distribution is free market.
Your viewpoint simply suggests you are one of the many that exploit this network, download many things you don't own.. and never help the community grow by seeding. You are the kind of person that is harmful to the network as a whole. Most reliable torrent up loaders simply say in the notes, as they know people will download without owning it.. "If you like this then support the author!!"
So no. The Pirate Bay should and will live on.
This is not a copyright battle at all. Piratebay hosts absolutely NO copyrighted material. They are only a search engine. Google does it by web crawlers, Pirate bay has people submit trackers to whatever they want to share. Type in a google search "five finger death punch torrent download warez" and see how many direct links google really links to.
This is a censorship battle, for Hollywood and WGM who have been after TPB for YEARS for "hosting" illegal content. At this point, this is harassment, nothing more. If they succeed in taking down TPB permanently, they will be setting a standard for the entire P2P network that the supreme court of the United States upheld (Limewire's right to provide a client for the community users.) Limewire does not host any content themselves. Limewire even makes money on selling their client!!! TPB DOESN'T!!!! THIS IS THE SAME BATTLE!!
Piratebay is not responsible for people misusing their service. That would be like saying Microsoft is responsible for providing the browser that allows people to view websites that are against the law.. just as retarded as that sounds is this entire attempt to remove TPB.
http://torrentfreak.com/images/tpb-shirt.jpg < The PirateBay's Last response to the last shutdown on August 24, 2009
"In September 2007, a large number of internal emails were leaked from anti-piracy company MediaDefender by an anonymous hacker. Some of the leaked emails discussed hiring hackers to perform DDOS attacks on The Pirate Bay's servers and trackers.[55] In response to the leak, The Pirate Bay filed charges in Sweden against MediaDefender clients Twentieth Century Fox Sweden AB, EMI Sweden AB, Universal Music Group Sweden AB, Universal Pictures Nordic AB, Paramount Home Entertainment (Sweden) AB, Atari Nordic AB, Activision Nordic, Ubisoft Sweden AB, Sony BMG Music Entertainment (Sweden) AB, and Sony Pictures Home Entertainment Nordic AB,[56] but the charges were not pursued.[55] MediaDefender's stocks fell sharply after this incident, and several media companies withdrew from the service after the company announced the leak had caused $825,000 in losses.[57] Later, The Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde accused police investigator Jim Keyzer of a conflict of interest when he declined to investigate MediaDefender. Keyzer later accepted a job for MPAA member studio Warner Brothers.[58] The leaked emails revealed that other MPAA member studios hired MediaDefender to pollute The Pirate Bay's torrent database, contradicting the MPAA's earlier claim that its member studios were not MediaDefender clients.[59]"
ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pirate_Bay
When this silly, specious argument is tossed out (again and again and again), it serves only to show that it's proponents are either a) entirely ignorant of the ways in which the serious discussion of the subject has advanced b) entirely ignorant of the relevant laws being discussed c) morons d) all of the above
Do please try to bring something to the table beyond the most rudimentary, poorly-informed, trite 20th century notions of intellectual property rights. Understand SOMETHING of the subject of which you speak.
It would be kinda nice - comforting even - if the issues we face were all as simple as many seem to think them. Wouldn't it be grand if they could all be solved with lazy analogies and pithy, fascile declaratory statements?
They aren't. They can't. Join us here in the 21st century.
I wont pretend to know the laws that surround this controversy, or try and convince you that what I do should not be considered stealing. I just have a few thoughts that I'd like to see some discussion on.
I've read through most of these posts and I've seen alot of talk of stealing and theft, but not much talk about Fair Use and how that connects to alot of P2P file sharing. There are some things that I understand need to be paid for, at least in the short term, i.e. when Movies are first released in the Theater that is the only place they are able to be seen. You buy a ticket, sit in a seat and watch your movie. However when the same movie gets released to DVD, Blu-Ray, Digital Download, and finally TV, I don't see how then downloading a file of that movie is theft? If I can turn on my TV and watch a movie on HBO, decide I like it, why can't I then go the TPB and find the torrent for the same movie and DL it? How is that any Different from recording that movie onto my DVR to keep for however long I want? Or I buy a DVD for my Kids, that dosn't include a digital copy and I want a backup in case they scratch it so I don't have to go out and buy another one. I think the same holds true for music, tv shows, or anything else I am exposed to in a legal manner. What I mean by that is if I buy a movie ticket, if I pay my cable bill(including premium channels), if I buy products that advertisers make me listen to and/or watch on tv and/or radio, havn't I already paid for whatever media I'm watching or listening to? Basically, after all I'm dishing out, aren't I allowed some kind of ownership of it? If I buy a DVD its mine right? If I pay my cable bill and have to pay extra to get HBO, shouldn't I be able to keep a copy of what I paid for?
Now my use of torrents is mostly focused on collecting TV Shows. I'll watch a show I've DVR'd (I work nights so I can't watch them when they air), then I'll go to TPB and DL a copy of it to keep. So basically I have a library of stuff I've already watched so in the future I can enjoy them again at my leasure. I believe my use of P2P this way to be that of "Fair Use" and not stealing.
I would like to read your views on this kind of P2P use to see if there are those who agree.
I've read through most of these posts and I've seen alot of talk of stealing and theft, but not much talk about Fair Use and how that connects to alot of P2P file sharing. There are some things that I understand need to be paid for, at least in the short term, i.e. when Movies are first released in the Theater that is the only place they are able to be seen. You buy a ticket, sit in a seat and watch your movie. However when the same movie gets released to DVD, Blu-Ray, Digital Download, and finally TV, I don't see how then downloading a file of that movie is theft? If I can turn on my TV and watch a movie on HBO, decide I like it, why can't I then go the TPB and find the torrent for the same movie and DL it? How is that any Different from recording that movie onto my DVR to keep for however long I want? Or I buy a DVD for my Kids, that dosn't include a digital copy and I want a backup in case they scratch it so I don't have to go out and buy another one. I think the same holds true for music, tv shows, or anything else I am exposed to in a legal manner. What I mean by that is if I buy a movie ticket, if I pay my cable bill(including premium channels), if I buy products that advertisers make me listen to and/or watch on tv and/or radio, havn't I already paid for whatever media I'm watching or listening to? Basically, after all I'm dishing out, aren't I allowed some kind of ownership of it? If I buy a DVD its mine right? If I pay my cable bill and have to pay extra to get HBO, shouldn't I be able to keep a copy of what I paid for?
Now my use of torrents is mostly focused on collecting TV Shows. I'll watch a show I've DVR'd (I work nights so I can't watch them when they air), then I'll go to TPB and DL a copy of it to keep. So basically I have a library of stuff I've already watched so in the future I can enjoy them again at my leasure. I believe my use of P2P this way to be that of "Fair Use" and not stealing.
I would like to read your views on this kind of P2P use to see if there are those who agree.
Talk about hopeless.
If I come into your home without your permission & take a painting - thats stealing.
But if you invite me into your home & then I paint my own copy of your painting - thats different.
However if you take a photograph of a copyrighted work and reproduce it in any way then you have broken the law and potentially are required to serve jail time or pay a large fine. That is because a mechanical reproduction can be perfect and as such is highly illegal.
These laws were introduced because inventors and artists were always being ripped off prior to legal protections. Leonardo da Vinci as an inventor never received a penny for any of his inventions from locks for canals to oil lamps and cotton mill machinery allk of which were in widespread use during his lifetime. Because greedy people refused to pay inventors and artists, they tended to keep their ideas secret which lead to economic losses for the economies of countries like Italy. The adoption of legal protections saw a proliferation of invention and with the invention of recording of music an industry that was able support artists.
People who originate ideas whether they be inventions or songs are human beings who need to life and pay the rent or mortgage just like you do. Calling the theft of their IP as mere copying is disingenuous if being polite but if I as an artist was confronting you I would definitely accuse you of being a common thief.
I as an artist also hate gallery owners and record company executives because they are leeches but in the end despite their percentage, at least some of the money from a sale is intended for the artist.
I have kids too. When you steal Ip from me you are taking food out of my children's mouth. You need to understand that and stop excusing your immoral activity. if you want to be a thief then do it but don't try to justify it as somehow not being wrong.
How dare you compare something like inventing a lock for a canal with painting a picture.
Get off your high horse.
Furthermore, since musicians' income is largely earned while touring, and movie revenue is earned mostly via the box office, the income loss off of downloads is felt almost exclusively by management (ie the rich guys who form the RIAA and MPAA).
You clearly do not understand copyright law. Keep in mind, reading something on wikipedia does not make you an expert. You drop out of high school to pursue an art "carer" and you instantly know everything...
Let's imagine that anyone wanted to take a picture of one of your paintings... Then they decide to reproduce and sell this picture, making millions. No matter how much you whine and complain... it's STILL NOT ILLEGAL.
In the United States of America, copyright infringement is a civil matter not a criminal one. No one has ever gone to jail for violating copyright laws.
Copyright laws were NOT introduced "because inventors and artists were being ripped off prior to legal protections." Did you pull this out of your ass? Copyright law was introduced right after the printing press was invented. Although I wasn't there, when I read England's Statute of Anne (first copyright law), I get the impression that the law was created to prevent just anyone from printing whatever they wanted. There was this fear back then, that freedom of information would lead to chaos.
God, the rest of your writing just doesn't make sense... So you're saying that society is worse off because Leonardo da Vinci's ideas are free to the public? Really? I'd have to say I disagree.
"People who originate ideas" do so by inspiration. The only way in which a person acquires a new idea, is by the combination or association of two or more ideas in such a manner as to discover a relationship among them of which they were not previously aware.
Do you kids a favor... go get a real job. It is absolutely impossible for someone downloading a file through P2P to somehow take food out of your kids mouth.
PirateBayFan, you clearly misunderstood what artistjoh was saying about the inventions of Leo da Vinci. When he said
"Because greedy people refused to pay inventors and artists, they tended to keep their ideas secret which lead to economic losses for the economies of countries like Italy. The adoption of legal protections saw a proliferation of invention and with the invention of recording of music an industry that was able support artists."
it's clear he didn't mean that we are worse off because his inventions were made publicly available, it's that society is degraded every time an inventor or artist keeps their creations a secret for fear of wasting resources and effort without compensation. By having copyright laws in place, the country is protecting those resources and allowing the creator to be more productive and get the full value from their effort.
Although I personally use PirateBay quite a bit, I completely agree with artisjoh in what he's saying. I am doing something wrong in downloading copies of what I do not own and take personal responsibility for that immorality, and I would not excuse it by saying it's not wrong (whether I called it stealing, or copying, or what have you, it's still illegal on my part).
Perhaps I misunderstood what artistjoh was saying, but I have no idea what your point is...
"It's clear he didn't mean that we are worse off because his inventions were made publicly available, it's that society is degraded every time an inventor or artist keeps their creations a secret for fear of wasting resources and effort without compensation."
So he didn't mean we are worse off, he meant that society is degraded? Am I missing something, isn't that the same thing? Or is your point that Leonardo da Vinci kept his creations a secret for fear of wasting resources and effort without compensation? That obviously not true!
Can you name one example throughout history where society has actually been degraded due to the free exchange of ideas (excluding religion)?
Imagine what the Renaissance would have been like if intellectual property law was the same as it is today. Could you imagine Giotto di Bondone trademarking highly realistic linear perspective? Or Copernicus and Galileo spending all their time in court arguing over who controlled the rights to the scientific method?
The Renaissance spread because of the free exchange of ideas. In fact, the single greatest catalyst for the spread of the Renaissance could very well be the printing press. The very device that copyright law was established to control. Now I don't know when exactly the Renaissance was officially declared over, but I'm going to say it was probably around 1710 when the first copyright law was introduced.
It is clear that you are not a producer of IP whether it be an arts product like music or paintings or an industrial product like software or an invention and that you do not face the issue of your income impacted by piracy. In my case you have a poor choice of sparring partner as I am at the forefront of developing new economic models for the way an artist gains income from the audience. By default I am not opposed to the free distribution of digital files. There is a lot of difference, however, in an artist offering you a free file in such a way that it can lead to sales of other things which I am sure you would agree is reasonable for any worker whether in the arts or any other profession to expect remuneration for work, and a consumer (without authority from the artist or copyright holder) unilaterally deciding to take possession of a copy of the product. As far as the law is concerned it is immaterial that it is the copy that is being consumed as opposed to the original. It has to be that way because many artistic products such as prints exist only in the form of copies.
FYI the Renaissance ended almost 200 years before the date you selected to conveniently prove your point about the evils of legal protections of intellectual property. Those early laws were introduced to counter the economic damage piracy of ideas was wreaking on the industrial revolution and had nothing to do with the Renaissance. Da Vinci has already been mentioned here and it is instructive to compare him with Edison and the effects of IP protection versus none. Da Vinci was a major inventor but received no benefit from his inventions. Some inventions became common knowledge and were exploited by others but more than 90% of his inventions remained secret and most were not rediscovered until the 19th & 20th centuries. The inventions that were adopted (eg carding machinery for cotton mills, lock gates for canals, rotating windmills, scissors, an improved oil lamp etc) had a huge economic impact as the industrial revolution progressed but the inventions he kept secret had no benefit for the wider community. Leonardo quickly learned that revealing his ideas to others generally provided no benefit for himself and he had no incentive to release them to the public despite your belief in a mythical free exchange of ideas at the time. Leonardo buried his ideas in his private books most of which were never published until recently.
On the other hand you have Edison, another great inventor, who was able to benefit from the protection afforded by over 1,000 patents. His income was substantial as a result and he had great incentive to patent new ideas and then safely reveal them to the world. As a result he made a significant contribution to the growth of the United States as an economic power during the 19th century. Incidentally since we are talking about pirating of recorded music here, it should be pointed out that the phonograph was one of his inventions.
As an artist I am keenly aware that a lot of people like yourself excuse theft with arguments that essentially boil down to a dislike of big companies. few producers of intellectual property like a middleman who waltzes in and takes advantage of our work in order to make large profits for themselves and most of us are quite pleased that they have a shrinking role as wholesalers of our products. However they do have a role to play and we need them often just as they need us. Despite your quaint belief that we make no significant income from the middlemen it is not as simple as that and the percentages vary widely and income does trickle down to us at the bottom of the heap. We do lose money when you steal our products whether originals or copies and the difference is only one of degree.
In this new world wise artists of all kinds utilize free distribution of music and other IP as part of a process of promotion and income producing. That is perfectly legal and moral for you to accept and enjoy. You will know it is a morally acceptable thing to do because the originator of the file will be telling you that it is a free giveaway. When you have take it without the knowledge or authority of the creator that is simply immoral because it does harm the creator of the product, even if it is only a little bit.
"movie revenue is earned mostly via the box office"
<b>I agree with you,</b> but I still must correct you. From the stats I have seen this is not true for most movies.
What makes it clear that I am not a producer of Intellectual Property? Isn't my writing here IP? Is it that my writing somehow lacks study, reflection, and speculation, and is thus not intellectual? Perhaps I am not a producer of Intellectual Property because I do not label myself an artist... because I am not. I work for a living (Mechanical Engineer).
You spit out all this drivel and still are unable to come up with one example throughout history where society has actually been degraded due to the free exchange of ideas.
FYI, the end of the Renaissance is purely subjective. While you, as an artist, might view the completion of the Sistine Chapel ceiling (1510 ish) as the end of the Renaissance, many scientists would disagree. Johannes Kepler and Galileo Galilei didn't hit full stride until at least a hundred years later. Perhaps I was wrong in connecting the dawn of copyright law with the end of the Renaissance, but my speculation was nothing compared to yours. "Those early laws were introduced to counter the economic damage piracy of ideas was wreaking on the industrial revolution." You really believe this?
But I digress...
There seems to be an underlying confusion in your writing about the differences between copyrights, patents, and trademarks. The issue with piracy is copyright infringement. It is NOT about patent infringement or trademark violation (although it could be). Edison did not copyright the light-bulb, he patented it. You are missing the difference. If someone took a picture of Edison's light bulb, you think he would complain about copyright violation?
That last part of your comment is my favorite. "Few producers of intellectual property like a middleman who waltzes in and takes advantage of our work in order to make large profits for themselves." I find it absolutely hilarious how you imply that creation of an idea is somehow labor. It seems we have completely different definitions of work.
You are not an artist, you are a hustler. You make it very clear that you are not in it for the betterment of society, but instead only worry about making a quick buck. At the bottom of it all lies greed.
Let me ask yu a question do yu have any better way to give artists incentive to do what they do?
Or how come the price is so different from country to country for the same product and they rig the players to ensure we cannot buy cheaper? When morality works both ways and they stop ripping us off, then maybe sites like TPB will not be so highly supported. Think!
If I invite you over to my house and let you watch a movie, that's stealing?
It can be argued until the end of the century, why you think court stuff is still going on??
You guys.. Grow a brain... Sharing files is no stealing.
Big corporations (like hollywood) don't like it because we are putting a couple million dollar dent in their MULTI BILLION DOLLAR INDUSTRY.
Wake up please... thanks.
Your analogy is terrible.
and yet, if he played a radio for his employee's and the right person walked in they would try to charge him a fee for the broadcast.
There is a line in there somewhere. I can bring a bunch of friends over and watch a movie but a lesser number of dorm kinds watching one and that's a problem.
If its a movie, I do it because either its not available in theaters in my area at the time or because its not worth buying(the rental store has a very small collection of videos and new releases are usually rented out for at least 1-2 weeks)
If its a game, I do it because many newer games aren't as great as many of the older games and game companies just seem to be focusing more on graphics than game-play so it takes me less than a week to play to the end and I no longer want to play it. Now if I play it, like it and it has multiplayer then I might buy it if my friends owns a copy as well.
I also pirate because I cant afford to be buying every single game/movie I think might be worth it and then finding out its complete rubbish, so if you want me to pay for your crappy product then either give me a job or make your game/movies better or better yet, do both!
You say "I pirate a few things once in a while:
If its a movie, I do it because either its not available in theaters in my area at the time or because its not worth buying(the rental store has a very small collection of videos and new releases are usually rented out for at least 1-2 weeks)
If its a game, I do it because many newer games aren't as great as many of the older games and game companies just seem to be focusing more on graphics than game-play so it takes me less than a week to play to the end and I no longer want to play it. Now if I play it, like it and it has multiplayer then I might buy it if my friends owns a copy as well.
I also pirate because I cant afford to be buying every single game/movie I think might be worth it and then finding out its complete rubbish, so if you want me to pay for your crappy product then either give me a job or make your game/movies better or better yet, do both!"
Wow... Would you like some cheese with that whine?? Your sense of entitlement knows no bounds... Gimme a job, gimme better games, gimme, gimme gimme!!!! Waahhhh... All of itl weak justifications for you to civilly infringe the intellectual property of that game, movie, etc that you are getting without legal permission.
I bet you are on welfare, GA or some other type of state assistance aren't you? You don't seem to be too interested in making a legitimate living but instead you want to leech off of others instead.... Guess who pays for your hubris? All the people who pay inflated prices for things because piracy exists....
Here's a thought: If you cant afford to wait to rent it or buy it, don't pirate it!! Naw, that's too easy isn't it ..
"I bet you are on welfare, GA or some other type of state assistance aren't you?"
What the hell does this have to do with anything? Are you people so ignorant that you can't see you are being led and programmed to hate people? You may as well call him a jew or a **** or some other more suiting and recognizable form of biggetry(not sure on that spelling)
"You don't seem to be too interested in making a legitimate living "
I believe he did in fact say give me a job that will afford any ammenities. Have you not noticed the current unemployment rates. So how about me I am in the field of architecture which has all but dried up this last year right along with a good majority of construction work in this country. If i or the thousands of others asked for a job or even your horrible terrible godforsaken government assistance which I remind you I have paid many tax dollars to support and so have you oh great thrower of words, would you say they and I too are leechers and uninterested in making a living? Judging from your assumptive prowess I would venture to say yes. Am I wrong?
"Guess who pays for your hubris? All the people who pay inflated prices for things because piracy exists...."
This has to be the most ignorant statement by far. Inflation was here before the internet dumbarse. Inflation is something controlled by the FED not hollywood. Do not confuse the two. If anything piracy actually saves the idiots more money than they no. I for one do not by products from companies that consistently let me down. There is a thing called trust, good companies keep there clients by gaining that trust. Did Ozzy go broke from the more than a million copied bootlegged albums made from his music? No You see there is this thing called product familiarity take a marketing course maybe they will cover it there. Anyway the more times a product name gets mentioned to more people the more familiar it becomes, and the more likely a person that sees that name will be to purchase it. The people that cant afford the items they download are not going to save there money and go buy it later. This is because the more than 90% of people gaining this material in this manner do so because most of there money goes to bills. Now im not saying that to justify anything, rather just to help you gain a bit of insight.
So as those people get to see these titles they begin to TALK to there friends and there kids talk to there friends and pretty soon people that never may have even bothered to look at it like me because of mistrust or whatever other issues may exsist for others will likely think twice. So you tell me, sell your product to a few patrons? Or help spread the word and sell it to millions?
Whatever happened to the saying "there is no such thing as bad publicity"?
Either way dont get down on people for relying on a system you support and helped create.(GA,and Whatever)
That's what the internet is for... lmao.
I don't have to invite 10k people to my house when the internet lets me do that minus the crowd.
My analogy is perfect. If I pay for a movie and want to share it with others, then I can.
However, burning/copying DVD's except for private use IS stealing. I'm a consumer, not a distributer.
They take all the risk for me.
mrorie, you aren't too bright. Coming at me with a statement as EASY as that, I can defend myself EASY as that.
Actually that depends on where you live - theft is defined as taking something physically and not returning it. Since it exists in the original and many other copies it might not be classified as theft in some regions. Given the willingness of the industry to make money time and again from the same product, perhaps they should use the intellect that thought up the process of reproduction and attempt to find a fairer, cheaper and less restrictive method of selling their products. Think!
I re-posted this because I think more people need to read it, in case people are skimming.
Perfectly put.
When the printing press was invented, it was feared that an educated society would be ungovernable, so the first copyright laws were passed. Many ?pirate? printers and writers were imprisoned in the Bastille.
The British church-government also influenced the distribution of knowledge: Ignorance became Innocence, Curiosity became Sin, and Mankind was born ?defective? with an ?original sin? of taking of the ?tree of knowledge?. Science became the enemy of Faith, and the enemy of uppity church clubs.
Today, restricting knowledge is an effective method of combating ?crime?, and censorship restricts almost every information-bearing medium, choking inspiration and holding back creativity.
Sharing opinions and inspiration is now piracy, fighting for creativity and freedom of information is terrorism, knowledge corrupts youth and history itself is censored.
Defiant curiosity and defiant creativity, the most beautiful civil liberties, are now sacrificed to perpetuate the class system.
If you really think a $100 speeding ticket affects a 12K/yr cook the same as a 90K/yr manager, you cannot see past the empty title of a plastic ?democracy?. Capitalism opposes real Democracy. The poor are forcibly kept uneducated by the richer in order to provide an animalistic working class. Their sole weapons are the copyright law and organized religion.
With the American separation of Church and State, Copyright is the only legal weapon the rich can employ to halt education.
When you share text, music, or videos, you are sharing an opinion of the world around you. You influence society.
Filesharing allows anyone to publish anything. Why should the rich have exclusive restriction of communication/inspiration/comprehension/understanding?
I am not saying that this documentary is, in itself, world-altering stuff, but again neither are hip-hop music or Terminator movies.
I do not know the answer to this age old problem, I doubt seriously that there even is a good answer. In many cases in life, there is no clear-cut right or wrong answer and we are forced take the lesser of the 2 evils. In this case, I believe the Lesser evil is in the enforcement of the Copyright laws and the protections afforded to the creators of the Intellectual Properties that they have developed. To side with Free-Distribution at the expense of those that worked hard to create the IP's would only create a total lack of motivation to continue to create the things that most of us are more than willing to pay for.
One thing that would be interesting to note: An estimated 90% of all pirated IP could be considered Luxury Items, things not things necessary for day to day existence. If this controversy surrounded the illegal download of materials that could teach someone to read, or how to grow corn, this could be an entirely different conversation. Instead, we have people downloading Luxury Items (Movies, Video Games, Computer Programs, etc.) that do not support normal life functions or facilitate the continued existence of the downloader, it only allows them to do something enjoyable that they would normally need to pay for, such as a carribean cruise or a Lexus. Given, my analogies are very over-dramatic, they are intended only to make my point very obvious. The download of Copyright protected material, in any form, is currently viewed as wrong. Perhaps a Government, or Private, subsidy program could be created that could help off-set the costs of the creation of items that would benefit society in a free-distribution system. Of course, that would only leave Big Brother standing there with his hand out as well... hmmm, I think I was right in saying that there may not be a solution to this problem.
By saying that software piracy is "robbing those who worked," you are assuming that those that download Adobe Photoshop would purchase it if they were not been able to pirate it. What basis do you have for making this assumption? Isn't it possible that people are more inclined to try a product if it's free, even if they would never purchase it?
If I offered you software that made your computer smell like fresh baked cookies, would you say no if I said it was free? Would you buy it if I said it was $200/month? Is it fair for me to assume that everyone that downloaded it for free was stealing $200 a month from me?
I think most people just really don't understand how P2P file sharing works or what The Pirate Bay actually does. TPB provide a link to a file, that links to people, that may be violating copyright laws.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnr8P_zYA20
Look, now this website is violating copyright law the same way Pirate Bay does. The Youtube user has no right to post the video, nor does Youtube have any right to provide access to it. This website has no right to link to it.
Do you believe that it would be okay to shut down this website, or better yet their ISP, for providing a link to copyright protected material?
What is the case here is that the RIAA's business model of selling stuff is competing with the exact same stuff they're selling being available for free. No, I don't think that they're right to presume that EVERY download is akin to a lost sale, but if you could get $ITEM for free instead of paying for the exact same $ITEM, would you at least consider it? Herein lies the issue.
Joey
(1)
The MPAA is saying:
Because of piracy, we laid off employees.
But,
Do laying off the employees attributed to piracy?
Or
Do you ONLY lay off employees because of piracy?
(2)
MPAA says piracy hurts employment.
but it's the firms that have final says on laying off employees.
You can choose to OR choose not to lay off someone.
Piracy doesn't lay off people; it's the firms that do.
- by pirate--hustler October 5, 2009 8:54 PM PDT
- it's times like this that remind me of the south park episode that I pirated about all the "hardships" that all the multi millionaire celebs had to go through because of all the pirating on the internet they could only buy thirty cars instead of fifty. I feel absolutely zero guilt about taking a few dollars out of some rich suckers pocket just because I don't wanna pay to hear his music. the way i see it is you don't have to pay for something you perceive with your ears or eyes, nobody owns it. it should be a free-for-all.
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