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Pirate Bay found Guilty...

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polycounter lvl 18
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oXYnary polycounter lvl 18
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8003799.stm

Watcha think?

Personally, I do like file sharing. Even though I don't use it much. That and media needs to change its revenue stream. Evolve or die. Don't attempt to place the same copyright laws as regular hard media on digital items. Make people want to pay. Offer them something. If they download the album, they can if they then buy the official version get discounts on tickets to a concert. Things like that.

Now before calling me a hypocrite because of what I do. My boss actually released our current game (albeit a un upgradable older version) on the Pirate Bay to garner more interest. Thats a hell of alot of eyes seeing it than otherwise.

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  • Andreas
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    Andreas polycounter lvl 11
    Sounds like what you are suggesting with the whole ticket thing is bribery. Peoples hard work should be rewarded financially. While piracy is now not as damaging to the industry as preowned games, it is still a major factor. I am glad these days games are so big they are pointless to download, especially PS3 games and for people with download caps.

    I've never used Pirate Bay.
  • eld
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    eld polycounter lvl 18
    there's no such thing as a download cap in sweden, nor slow internet, which is probably the problem :)
  • Mark Dygert
    MS took care of the game pirating problem when they decimated the PC market in order to make the Xbox a success. No game, no pirate, no problem. Oh wait but games drive PC sales and PC sales drive windows sales... ahh crap...

    I could give a rats ass about music piracy, I think its been dead for a while. Maybe I'm just out of touch with the pirate crowd but I think the problem was the industry dropped the ball (as with all US industries who thought they could just cash checks forever and not do anything new) they didn't provide people with a easy way to get cheap digital content. I think the majority of people don't mind paying small amounts for songs they like, via i-tunes or other online stores. Didn't Hip-Hop do more to kill the music industry then piracy (yea yea flame on, I dislike most hip-hop. Big shocker, move on)

    So I guess its probably mostly movies that get passed around these days? But is that even an issue? I don't have time for those either, but what I do catch is though digital cable or netflix. Meh, 2.99-4.99 and watch it now, or download who knows what and hassle with a media center or burning a DVD.

    As for TPB, meh long time coming, as with all these types of things, it gets popular enough that someone smells money and they go in for the kill. Something else springs up, wash rinse repeat.

    People like electricity follow the path of least resistance. Whatever is cheap and easy they will take advantage of.
  • leilei
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    leilei polycounter lvl 14
    I've never used Pirate Bay.
    ^
  • Marine
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    Marine polycounter lvl 19
    steam has done well for games, i'm far less likely to warez a game if it's readily available. i'd love to be able to register my old games so i can download them instead of having to dig out the case and hope the disc is inside it. had to download diablo2 because the game disc is missing :(
    same for tv, if i could access hulu, i'd have no need to download tv shows. i'd be willing to pay a monthly fee if it meant i'd get to see the shows as soon as they were broadcast in their country of origin instead of waiting for the uk broadcast, if they even get picked up.

    for me it's less to do with not wanting to pay, it's not wanting to wait, the internet has created a global audience, you can't give something to one group and tell the other to fuck off.
  • glynnsmith
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    glynnsmith polycounter lvl 17
    It's about time, tbh. I don't feel sorry for them at all, even though they'll be appealing and will drag that on for the next couple of years. Apparently something was leaked from the court, so they're now able to sue for defamation of character or something as ridiculous as that.

    It's not the piracy that pisses me off about The Pirate Bay (You'll never be able to stop it and if TBP shut down, it'll just get spread to other sites) - The thing that makes me happy they've been jailed is their higher-than-thou attitudes that no one could possibly convict them. That they were doing some kind of awesome thing in facilitating the stealing of other people's properties.

    OINK hasn't had his trial yet. Doesn't really bode well for him :S

    And yeah. Steam is ace for me. I get all my games through it now.
  • Mark Dygert
    Yea what few PC games I do play, are through Steam, it has been great in that respect, now that I feel like I can trust it. Been through a few installs and always been able to bring my games back.
  • Peris
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    Peris polycounter lvl 17
    4 poor guys i jail, piracy will just continue, entertainment industry will get absolutely nothing out of it. Idiots
  • notman
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    notman polycounter lvl 18
    I was a bit surprised by it. I thought they had a pretty good defense going, based on the laws there. I didn't expect their courts to be as tight-ass as ours. I think the sentences are pretty harsh, and I think the lawsuit was driven by anger relating to the sarcastic responses the pirate bay would always give the studios when asked to take content down.

    I guess they are guilty of helping to share content, but I thought the argument was that they were actually sharing the content... not 'helping'. I think the punishments are a bit harsh for the 'crime'.

    Again I'll say it, I wish filesharing was somehow shut down for a period (maybe a year), and then help prove how it doesn't translate to lost sales. I rarely bit torrent, but when I do, I usually download something that I wouldn't buy/rent anyway. If it's music, and I end up really digging it, I'll either buy the album, or buy the next one from that artist... depending on the price.
    My daughter's friend downloads EVERYTHING. I started commenting to her about actually purchasing music, but then realized that she falls into the other category, which are the people who download because they can't afford it. So, if they couldn't download, they wouldn't go buy it either. They would have to just go without the music/movies.
  • carlo_c
    I don't think this will help stop piracy one bit, the website will just keep functioning and they'll be out in a year and back to what they were doing before.

    No-one wins, and 4 guys are going to get made someones bitch in prison.
  • Rox
    I don't get it... I've been kinda-following this for a while, through Gizmodo's amusing journalism. I'm reading a bunch of articles on it and watching the TPB's press releases. I still don't get what happened. They were found guilty for copyright infringement...? How? They own a site that other people can upload junk on. Junk that isn't actually content, even, it just links to the actual content which is elsewhere.

    I don't condone piracy. But I do like my file sharing. I've used Pirate Bay lots of times. In fact, several times I found myself watching old classic TV shows and stuff on Youtube, and after several episodes I decided, hey, if I can find some place to download these I don't have to watch them in my browser! Poof, Pirate Bay.

    So, a lot of my illegal filesharing started with Youtube. And Youtube actually hosts the actual content, unlike the Pirate Bay. Which is why still don't understand what the hell is going on here. And they made it clear that the "team" was found guilty, it wasn't about the site. So the site will remain up and unchanged for now. So what difference does it make?
  • glynnsmith
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    glynnsmith polycounter lvl 17
    In a similar vein, the guy from TV-Links was arrested for owning a site that linked to youtube (and other privately-owned, public websites), yet there isn't anyone going after google about it. Not fair, tbh.

    I think in the Pirate Bay's case, it's the point that they've developed the website and the infrastructure for people to share illegally. It wasn't an accident, and they didn't close it down when they "realised" what people were using it for.

    Instead, they carried on developing it and, for whatever reason, decided to paint themselves a target by daring the law to come after them (reading their "legal threats" page angers me, rather than makes me see them as the Robin Hood figures they obviously see themselves as) and mocking anyone that eventually did.

    Most British torrent sites get slapped with a Conspiracy to Defraud charge, which makes sense. My opinion of TPB aside, charging them with Copyright Infringement doesn't make any sense.
  • ae.
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    ae. polycounter lvl 12
    The sentence was crazy, especially the amount they wanted from the 4. does the pirate bay even make any money from there site?

    i buy cds and movies 14 to 20 dollars aint alot to pay for something you like.
  • glynnsmith
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    glynnsmith polycounter lvl 17
    ae. wrote: »
    The sentence was crazy, especially the amount they wanted from the 4. does the pirate bay even make any money from there site?

    i buy cds and movies 14 to 20 dollars aint alot to pay for something you like.
    I'd bet they make quite a substantial amount of cash through it, yeah.
  • breakneck
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    breakneck polycounter lvl 13
    Vig wrote: »
    Didn't Hip-Hop do more to kill the music industry then piracy

    lolz, i couldn't agree more.
    But really, this does nothing to the piracy going on. I mean come on, 4 guys 1 year in jail? thats a frickin joke. The website is still up ( the home page is at least) so they didn't really stop anything did they? But whatever. You get one of these a year. nothing changes.
  • aesir
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    aesir polycounter lvl 18
    ae. wrote: »
    The sentence was crazy, especially the amount they wanted from the 4. does the pirate bay even make any money from there site?

    i buy cds and movies 14 to 20 dollars aint alot to pay for something you like.

    They have 7 figure salaries.
  • t4paN
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    t4paN polycounter lvl 10
    glynnsmith wrote: »
    It's about time, tbh. I don't feel sorry for them at all, even though they'll be appealing and will drag that on for the next couple of years. Apparently something was leaked from the court, so they're now able to sue for defamation of character or something as ridiculous as that.

    It's not the piracy that pisses me off about The Pirate Bay (You'll never be able to stop it and if TBP shut down, it'll just get spread to other sites) - The thing that makes me happy they've been jailed is their higher-than-thou attitudes that no one could possibly convict them. That they were doing some kind of awesome thing in facilitating the stealing of other people's properties.

    OINK hasn't had his trial yet. Doesn't really bode well for him :S

    And yeah. Steam is ace for me. I get all my games through it now.

    So, you're happy they were sentenced to jail because you think they're douchebags? Ok.
    breakneck wrote: »
    lolz, i couldn't agree more.
    But really, this does nothing to the piracy going on. I mean come on, 4 guys 1 year in jail? thats a frickin joke. The website is still up ( the home page is at least) so they didn't really stop anything did they? But whatever. You get one of these a year. nothing changes.


    I think it's more of an intimidation tactic so that other site owners are scared to follow their example.

    There are only two ways around the piracy issues in my mind: either the various industries will have to learn to adapt to digital distribution (eg Valve with Steam) or governments all over the world will start monitoring your online activity and start jailing people to set examples.

    Hopefully it's the first solution that goes through in teh future, but those suits are hell bent on the second, since it requires less effort on their part.
  • JordanW
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    JordanW polycounter lvl 19
    carlo_c wrote: »
    I don't think this will help stop piracy one bit, the website will just keep functioning and they'll be out in a year and back to what they were doing before.

    No-one wins, and 4 guys are going to get made someones bitch in prison.

    This argument is flawed. It's like saying "Even though we sent this guy to prison for murder/stealing/whatever others are going to keep doing it and they'll be out in X years and be doing what they were before thus = a no win"

    Just because something doesn't completely "fix" a problem doesn't make it worthless.


    PS I'm not saying these guys should or shouldn't have been found guilty :)
  • JesterBox
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    JesterBox polycounter lvl 18
    ----DoublePost----
  • JesterBox
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    JesterBox polycounter lvl 18
    "AAHHHH-SEE-BEEN-YA-HAMA-LAY-MIMALAY"

    ITS THE CIRCLE OF THE INTER-BUUUUUUUUUUUTTS!
    AND IT MOVES THE SOOOOOOOOOUL!
    IN THE CIRCLE....
    THE CIRCLE.......
    OF INTER-BUTTS
  • glynnsmith
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    glynnsmith polycounter lvl 17
    t4paN wrote: »
    So, you're happy they were sentenced to jail because you think they're douchebags? Ok.
    Do not pass go. Do not collect $200.

    I think they deserved to go to jail because they were acting like douchebags whilst organising a massively huge piracy website and making money off of it.

    By all intents, they are criminals. They acted like schmucks whilst being criminals. Should I be ok with that?
  • Andreas
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    Andreas polycounter lvl 11
    t4paN wrote: »
    So, you're happy they were sentenced to jail because you think they're douchebags? Ok.

    No, as he explained, they are criminals. We aren't talking about 25 years, we are talking about a year. Still wouldn't want to be them, but that might wipe the smirk off their faces without being a very cruel conviction. I agree with you, it may scare people off following their example. That's not a bad thing.

    I think its a landmark case and I hope they do not save themselves jail time by appealing. People think they are safe to do whatever they damn please because its the internet. This sends out a message to say that if you break the law, you will pay, irrespective of the platform.

    I mean, how stupid were they in the first place to reveal their identities? How did that come about?
  • Mark Dygert
    I mean, how stupid were they in the first place to reveal their identities? How did that come about?
    I think that was the douchebag "you can't touch us" mentality talked about previously. hahaha =P
  • Daaark
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    Daaark polycounter lvl 17
    Good!

    I love how they say that what is happening is just 'theater for the media'. Everything these guys have done has always been just that. Included when they claimed to buy their own country. They constantly want to thumb their nose at the law publicly. So I'm glad they went down.

    If you want something, go and buy it.
  • marks
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    marks greentooth
    I think the scarier prospect here is that if you follow through with the reasoning behind the conviction, this sets a precedent for all automated search engines which index copyrighted material (hi Google) - to be brought before a court.
    I wonder if TPB had been run by a large corporation, if the result would have been the same? I highly doubt it.

    Money-grabbing corporate douchebags 1 - 0 Consumer.
  • notman
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    notman polycounter lvl 18
    Daaark wrote: »
    If you want something, go and buy it.

    The site doesn't just offer copyrighted material. I know the site's been glorified for having copyrighted content, but they also have legal downloads. That was their argument (though weak), was that they offered ANY content, and it was too difficult to filter what was legal and what wasn't. Obviously, if they really wanted to, they could have filtered content when requested, but even that isn't a guarantee. I could have Ironman available as a download, but call the torrent ManIron, and you wouldn't be able to filter that out without knowing I changed the name.
  • Andreas
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    Andreas polycounter lvl 11
    Daaark wrote: »
    Good!

    I love how they say that what is happening is just 'theater for the media'.

    They won't feel the same way the first time they drop the soap, thats for sure. They really are delusional egotistical fucknuggets. The more I learn about them, the more they irritate me.
  • glib
    I often use TPB to watch TV that either isn't broadcasted in Canada, or I pick up the eastern feed so I don't have to watch it so late at night. I pay way too much for cable, but I only really use it to watch hockey. Now it's completely legal for me to buy a tivo and record the tv, automatically stripping the commercials, then watch in the next day. But if I download it and watch it the day of, it's infringement? It's insanity if you ask me.
  • Andreas
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    Andreas polycounter lvl 11
    Well, there is a little thing called advertisement and ratings...
  • glynnsmith
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    glynnsmith polycounter lvl 17
    glib wrote: »
    I often use TPB to watch TV that either isn't broadcasted in Canada
    Sorry to pick this point out, but I think that is illegal, yeah. Or atleast it's teetering on the edge of it.

    This is why cable / satellite services charge for channels that'll bring that content to you (atleast they do in the UK) rather than piping it to you with the base package. That, plus they release shows on DVD, on a seasonal basis, now.
  • Andreas
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    Andreas polycounter lvl 11
    Can't fucking wait for the bluray Lost collection :D
  • [Deleted User]
    Uh, as long as what they're doing in Sweden is legal in Sweden (and it is), the conviction is wrong. Just because you disagree with piracy doesn't mean you should vault over the law to punish it. Change the law that allows them to do what they do, then go after them, but not the other way around.
  • EarthQuake
  • Mark Dygert
    Kaskad wrote: »
    Uh, as long as what they're doing in Sweden is legal in Sweden (and it is), the conviction is wrong. Just because you disagree with piracy doesn't mean you should vault over the law to punish it. Change the law that allows them to do what they do, then go after them, but not the other way around.
    I agree.

    It's a sad fact that legislators haven't caught up to technology yet. Any way they go about trying to shut them down is going to look cooked up and special case. The least they could have done is make sure the laws where in order first. As it is, they are right, it wasn't much more then media grandstanding. "we locked em up! they'll appeal and it will probably be overturned but your next Sally Johnson of 123 Apple Lane!!"

    It's great to see some crack down of such flagrant "defenders" of piracy but yea, get the laws in order first before you go trying to enforce them. It just works out for a bigger media win for them when it gets overruled and they end up never seeing a cell or paying anything.
  • Daaark
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    Daaark polycounter lvl 17
    Heh.

    You know, I'm sure people who stuff the bodies of dead hookers in their basement use that basement for legitimate reasons too. ;) It doesn't matter what ELSE the Pirate Bay did. They broke the law and flaunted it in public for years. Doesn't make a different if they helped old ladies cross the street on the side.
  • EarthQuake
    Daaark wrote: »
    Heh.

    You know, I'm sure people who stuff the bodies of dead hookers in their basement use that basement for legitimate reasons too. ;) It doesn't matter what ELSE the Pirate Bay did. They broke the law and flaunted it in public for years. Doesn't make a different if they helped old ladies cross the street on the side.


    This is a pretty dumb statement, there is no technicality in the law that lets you get away with this if the dead hooker's shoes never touched your carpet.

    As the law is now, everything that TPB has done is perfectly legal, now you can argue the morality of that all you like, but its a pointless argument. Until the law is changed, that is the reality of the situation.
  • Rox
    Daaark wrote: »
    You know, I'm sure people who stuff the bodies of dead hookers in their basement use that basement for legitimate reasons too. ;) It doesn't matter what ELSE the Pirate Bay did. They broke the law and flaunted it in public for years. Doesn't make a different if they helped old ladies cross the street on the side.

    But... that's the thing... What law did they break? You obviously have a better grip on the jurid...ist.. whatever, thingamajig than I do, despite me living in Sweden. Can you explain to me why this happened, exactly? I've been pondering it all day I still don't get how they could come to this conclusion. Copyright infringement, was that it? If so... how?
  • Target_Renegade
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    Target_Renegade polycounter lvl 11
    Its hard to form an opinion on file sharing, TPB got charged for supplying an infrastructure, whats going to happen to Youtube? They surely have to send Youtube down for copyright infringement otherwise its a complete pile of hypocritical bullshit.

    The corporations have always made lots of money and still do, hip-hop and music types haven't got anything to do with the debate, its the money music companies throw at advertising, distribution and hype.

    Straight outta Compton.
  • glib
    glynnsmith wrote: »
    Sorry to pick this point out, but I think that is illegal, yeah. Or atleast it's teetering on the edge of it.

    This is why cable / satellite services charge for channels that'll bring that content to you (atleast they do in the UK) rather than piping it to you with the base package. That, plus they release shows on DVD, on a seasonal basis, now.

    Well as an example, I started watching Battlestar Galactica on a british channel.. I think it was SKY? I downloaded episodes of it because it wasn't being broadcasted in canada yet. After it was picked up by SPACE, they were 6 montsh behind, so I continued to download it.

    So what you're saying is it's completely legal for me to watch Battlestar TIVO'd in June with no commercials, but illegal for me to watch it in January? Despite the fact that I've been paying the same amount for cable all along? That nothing at all is different other than the date? I'm sorry, that's insane. Like that's more than Prohibition-insane, its a new level of stupid.

    Blender: Ads are stripped in either of my options. One was is legal, other way is illegal somehow. As for ratings, my understanding is that unless I have a neilson box attached to my cable connection outside my house, nobody knows what I'm watching anyway?
  • Mark Dygert
    In any other type of case like a wheelman for a robbery he does time too. Less then the guy that robs the bank but he does time too for facilitating a crime and aiding a criminals escape. But technically in THIS CASE there is no law YET cover it. Fuckin sucks but its the truth.

    If we start jumping around the law when we feel like it then the law is useless, we're subject to backwoods good ol boy mob justice, and then we have no system to actually protect us, only a system that prosecutes.

    HANG EM HIGH! Just don't hang me!
  • Target_Renegade
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    Target_Renegade polycounter lvl 11
    What glynn is saying is true on technicalities. They used to show Lost on channel 4(UK) but then Sky bought the rights, so basically you now have to pay to watch Lost, channel 4 stopped showing it after season 2 i think. What gets me, is the fact that if I own an album/game on one platform its necessary to pay for the same game on another platform. Lets say PC-->Console and Vinyl-->CD. Technically you've bought the product but also haven't in a way. I have lots of vinyls, to enable me to listen to them on an ipod/PC would mean I'd have to record each of them and sit there for ages. Law states that I'd have to pay more money if I wanted them in a different format.
  • aesir
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    aesir polycounter lvl 18
    accessory to copyright infringement sounds logical as a crime
  • [Deleted User]
    aesir wrote: »
    accessory to copyright infringement sounds logical as a crime
    Would the owner of a restaurant at which mobsters congregate be an accessory to their crimes
  • JordanW
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    JordanW polycounter lvl 19
    are mobsters congregating a crime? :\
  • Mark Dygert
    What glynn is saying is true on technicalities. They used to show Lost on channel 4(UK) but then Sky bought the rights, so basically you now have to pay to watch Lost, channel 4 stopped showing it after season 2 i think. What gets me, is the fact that if I own an album/game on one platform its necessary to pay for the same game on another platform. Lets say PC-->Console and Vinyl-->CD. Technically you've bought the product but also haven't in a way. I have lots of vinyls, to enable me to listen to them on an ipod/PC would mean I'd have to record each of them and sit there for ages. Law states that I'd have to pay more money if I wanted them in a different format.
    There are different levels of work that go into creating it on different platforms, especially in our industry. If I buy Lego Star Wars for the DS, I should have to buy it again for the 360 or PC. Different game, made by a different team, entirely different bar codes and inventory items, different production costs and different prices.

    Same holds true for other forms as well. Just because you buy a CD, doesn't mean you're entitled to a copy of it in all its forms. If that's the case I'd like i-tunes to send me copies of every song I've bought, on tinfoil roll (just like the original Edison recordings) and every other form of recording sound known to man present past and future! That's just insane and not how it works.

    Now should you be stopped from putting it on another form of media? law says yes, but its a gray area and not likely someone will challenge you on it if its for personal use. Kind of like transferring old 8mil film to digital, as long as you're not selling it, you're probably ok, but watch out if backwood mobs ever come knocking at your door...
  • Pope Adam
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    Pope Adam polycounter lvl 11
    I like file sharing. I like pirate bay. I enjoyed the attitude they held for the law. It certainly isn't an attitude that I myself flaunt publicly, but I'm glad we live in a world where people can have these kinds of attitudes, and they can express it however they please, even if it pisses people off, and even if it ends up gettin them jailed.

    Revolutions spur change, so I think the age of digital piracy we live in will only spur new and inventive solutions to consumerism.

    Being a consumer in today's society is kindof a drag right now anyway so if this kind of illegal activity can bring about new methods of consuming, methods where the consumer drives the market instead of the advert. corporations, then I'm all for it.
  • Mark Dygert
    Yea but unfortunately, they just wait until they're big enough, and go after their cash.
  • Pope Adam
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    Pope Adam polycounter lvl 11
    /sigh

    ya i kno
  • Jeremy Wright
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    Jeremy Wright polycounter lvl 17
    Pope Adam wrote: »
    ....I think the age of digital piracy we live in will only spur new and inventive solutions to consumerism.

    I agree, and I like your beard.

    Honestly, these corporations need to realize that things have changed, and things are NEVER going back to the way they were.

    People will not buy a CD that has one good song on it.

    People WILL pay for things that are worth buying. The seller just needs to get with the times. Itunes and Steam are good examples of this, so is Radiohead's method of sellings it's latest albums.

    I'm amazed this thread hasn't turned into a frothing flamefest. You guys have pleasantly surprised me, today.
  • Andreas
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    Andreas polycounter lvl 11
    Kaskad wrote: »
    Uh, as long as what they're doing in Sweden is legal in Sweden (and it is), the conviction is wrong. Just because you disagree with piracy doesn't mean you should vault over the law to punish it. Change the law that allows them to do what they do, then go after them, but not the other way around.

    Its this broken sentiment that lets murderers and rapists walk. It is why 'the law' is a fucked up unjust system.

    Did you commit no crime?

    Then you don't go to prison.

    Did you commit a serious crime?

    The you go to prison.

    It should be that simple, and in this case it is. I am glad.
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