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I have written software and released it under the GPL, and I am likely to do so in the future. If someone violated the GPL on my software, I wouldn't be happy.

I have written software and released it under the GPL, and I am likely to do so in the future. If someone violated the GPL on my software, I wouldn't be happy. But what Google is doing isn't like that. They aren't infringing copyright, instead they: 1. have a front page (which doesn't contain any copyright-infringing material) allowing people to type in search terms, upon which ... 2. Google display a page (which doesn't contain any copyright-infringing material) with links to others pages (which may include pages from TPB) 3. if you follow a link to one of those pages (which doesn't contain any copyright-infringing material) ... 4. and then from that page download a .torrent file (again, which doesn't contain any copyright-infringing material) ... 5. and feed the .torrent file into a BitTorrent client ... 6. then the BitTorrent client may copy some data across the internet in a way that breaches copyright. Google are at least 6 steps away from breaching copyright. If what they are doing is deemed illegal, where will the music industry stop? At prosecuting miners for digging up ores using in making chips that make computers that might infringe copyright? Do we really want to rewrite the fundamental architecture of the net, to take freedom away from the whole of humanity, just so the music industry can hang on to its obsolete business model for a few years longer?

nailer 16y ago
Q1. Is Google doing something illegal by indexing the internet? No. * Google doesn't exist solely for the purposes of facilitating piracy. * The pirate bay does. The law makes a distinction (ask a lawyer) so only TPB is doing something illegal. Q2. Is Google not applying its Terms of Service consistently? Most likely - sites that break it's ToS are still indexed with high PageRank. This could be worth taking them to court over. I hope this happens - TPB illegally distributes materials that a lot of my colleagues worked very hard on, in clear violation of the law and Google's ToS. The 'obsolete business model' arguments are irrelevant to whether something is illegal or not and waste both our time. TPB illegally distributes across all industries, including independent artists and major contributors to open source.
- dantheman 16y ago
  TPB does not exist for only facilitating copyright violation (it's not piracy), it legitimately distributes torrents to files that are licensed to be freely distributed. Here's a tv show made for torrent based distribution, it's on the front page of the pirate bay: http://vodo.net/pioneerone http://vodo.net/pioneerone
  - nailer 16y ago
    That TPB indexes some legal content does not change that the TPB's reason for existence is piracy. You shouldn't need me to explain why The Pirate Bay exists for piracy. If you do, I suggest we end this conversation.
    - cabalamat 16y ago
      Let's do a thought experiment: assume all copyright laws were abandoned tomorrow. In this instance, nothing TPB did would be copyright infringement or indudcement thereof. Now ask yourself the question: would the owners of TPB shut the site down, or keep it running. If they would shut it down, then TPB exists for the purpose of copyright infringement. If they would keep it up, then TPB exists for the purpose of facilitating transfer of content, and any copyuright infringement involved is a side-issue as far as the owners of TPB are concerned. I think they would keep it up.
      - nailer 16y ago
        You still haven't answered my questions, but sure, I'll answer yours. If copyright law stopped existing, and authors could no longer be compensated for what they'd made, TPB would stagnate: * There would be no incentive to run servers in exotic locations (Sealand, Saudi Arabia, etc) that don't respect creators rights. * Sites that own content would distribute their own data so it could be released and consumed quicker (it would probably be ad-supported since selling IP isn't possible anymore) * There would be no need to pirate anything as nobody has to pay for anything anymore. The domain would expire, or the servers have a prob, or the hosting bills come in, and not get fixed/paid as there'd be no point to stealing anything anymore.

nailer 16y ago

Q1. Is Google doing something illegal by indexing the internet? No. * Google doesn't exist solely for the purposes of facilitating piracy. * The pirate bay does. The law makes a distinction (ask a lawyer) so only TPB is doing something illegal. Q2. Is Google not applying its Terms of Service consistently? Most likely - sites that break it's ToS are still indexed with high PageRank. This could be worth taking them to court over. I hope this happens - TPB illegally distributes materials that a lot of my colleagues worked very hard on, in clear violation of the law and Google's ToS. The 'obsolete business model' arguments are irrelevant to whether something is illegal or not and waste both our time. TPB illegally distributes across all industries, including independent artists and major contributors to open source.

dantheman 16y ago
TPB does not exist for only facilitating copyright violation (it's not piracy), it legitimately distributes torrents to files that are licensed to be freely distributed. Here's a tv show made for torrent based distribution, it's on the front page of the pirate bay: http://vodo.net/pioneerone http://vodo.net/pioneerone
- nailer 16y ago
  That TPB indexes some legal content does not change that the TPB's reason for existence is piracy. You shouldn't need me to explain why The Pirate Bay exists for piracy. If you do, I suggest we end this conversation.
  - cabalamat 16y ago
    Let's do a thought experiment: assume all copyright laws were abandoned tomorrow. In this instance, nothing TPB did would be copyright infringement or indudcement thereof. Now ask yourself the question: would the owners of TPB shut the site down, or keep it running. If they would shut it down, then TPB exists for the purpose of copyright infringement. If they would keep it up, then TPB exists for the purpose of facilitating transfer of content, and any copyuright infringement involved is a side-issue as far as the owners of TPB are concerned. I think they would keep it up.
    - nailer 16y ago
      You still haven't answered my questions, but sure, I'll answer yours. If copyright law stopped existing, and authors could no longer be compensated for what they'd made, TPB would stagnate: * There would be no incentive to run servers in exotic locations (Sealand, Saudi Arabia, etc) that don't respect creators rights. * Sites that own content would distribute their own data so it could be released and consumed quicker (it would probably be ad-supported since selling IP isn't possible anymore) * There would be no need to pirate anything as nobody has to pay for anything anymore. The domain would expire, or the servers have a prob, or the hosting bills come in, and not get fixed/paid as there'd be no point to stealing anything anymore.