11 ms·

The Pirate Bay's statement on PIPA/SOPA

305 points by llambda 15y ago

samstave 15y ago
As a father of two girls, I love this comment: "...what they really do is stuff like selling overpriced plushy dolls and making 11 year old girls become anorexic. Either from working in the factories that creates the dolls for basically no salary or by watching movies and tv shows that make them think that they're fat." --- I try to minimize the exposure of my kids to the plastic reality of disney - but it is nearly impossible. The system for indoctrinating girls into the consumption servitude archetype is insidiously powerful. It is threaded in our society and very very hard to avoid.
- benologist 15y ago
  I like the bit where TPB didn't mention what they really do .... line their pockets with the revenue from billions of ad impressions a month.
inexplicable 15y ago
'Some facts (years, dates) are probably wrong in this press release. The reason is that we can't access this information when Wikipedia is blacked out. Because of pressure from our failing competitors. We're sorry for that.' To me this was the best part of the entire message.
- artursapek 15y ago
  I found it laughable, because of how Wikipedia's blackout is easily circumventable, and because I didn't see a single year or date.
  - prawn 15y ago
    That's how wrong they were. ;)
    - Sapient 15y ago
      Wrong morally, or wrong factually? If factually, then which parts are wrong?
      - prawn 15y ago
        Joking that the dates/years were so wrong that they weren't even there.
        Sapient 15y ago
        Ah thanks, I missed that!
citricsquid 15y ago
Not sure I understand the point beyond the initial foundation of Hollywood. If this was say Linux vs. Windows they would have a point, but to say "...we crushed their monopoly by giving people something more efficient. We allow people to have direct communication between eachother, circumventing the profitable middle man..." when they're talking about content created by these profitable companies it makes no sense and it seems like they're trying to make it into some sort of moral crusade for freedom. Strange.
- tlholaday 15y ago
  The profitable companies are not really the creators of the content, are they? Did DC create The Watchmen, or was it Alan Moore? A consumer-pays-in-advance subscription model would provide better price signals to the real creators, wouldn't it?
  - bunderbunder 15y ago
    Film studios specifically try to organize things so that the company that creates the content never turns a profit. Supplying a Wikipedia link today seems silly, but you could Google "Hollywood Accounting". (oh what the hey: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting)
- samlev 15y ago
  Funded by isn't the same as created by. Granted, without these companies there to throw massive amounts of money at writers/directors/actors, then we probably wouldn't have much of the content that we do today (at least not how it is). That doesn't mean that culture can't exist without them. Anyway, these companies (on the music side in particular) love to talk about the "poor starving artists", but fail to change their own habits to give those artists a better deal. They aren't content creators. They're content funders and distributors, but the content would still be created in some form without them. In this sense, the pirate community does actually perform one of the actions (distribution), and seems to perform it much more efficiently than the big companies. They just haven't got the 'funding' part figured out yet, but when they do, that will truly signal the death of the majors. (P.S. No, it won't - nothing will truly kill them, but it will at least give them genuine competition)
jgn 15y ago
I don't take TPB's "press releases" too seriously, and I don't think they do either. It's interesting to hear how Hollywood came about but not significant or relevant to what TBP does. As far as arguments for piracy go, there was a much better submission here earlier today: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3478850 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3478850 I'm actually shocked TPB hasn't participated in the blackout themselves. They made it clear they're international, but SOPA/PIPA are international too. Edit: I wasn't very clear, what I really meant to say was that I'm shocked TPB hasn't acknowledged blackout day somehow, especially considering how often they change their image.
- wvenable 15y ago
  The pirate bay being blocked is the intended result of SOPA/PIPA. Reddit, Wikipedia, and Google getting blocked by SOPA/PIPA are the unintended consequences.
- jensnockert 15y ago
  Possibly because they are one of the few sites that are effectively immune to SOPA. And TPB being blacked out would just play the SOPA people into their hands and prove their point.
- MiguelHudnandez 15y ago
  I suspect TPB did not black out because they will not shut themselves down in response to pressure from the US Gov't. Even though they might make a living, I don't think they see TPB as a business. Instead, I think they see it as a mission, or a calling. I glean from the tone of their writing that they are convinced they are doing good in the world.
dazbradbury 15y ago
Really interesting article, and I particularly like the opening paragraph. Impressed how the pirate bay stand out as having such a well reasoned stance with regard to SOPA. Much better than simply attacking the bill in my opinion. "Over a century ago Thomas Edison got the patent for a device which would "do for the eye what the phonograph does for the ear". He called it the Kinetoscope. He was not only amongst the first to record video, he was also the first person to own the copyright to a motion picture."
andrewcamel 15y ago
I don't really understand how they can have such a radical view... If the pirate bay were to be the only media distribution system left after all of the traditional "Hollywood" corporations went out of business (b/c of the pirate bay), there would be no more movies which the pirate bay could distribute. I don't know about you guys, but I do like my movies. EDIT: Please note this was just I thought an interesting topic to think about - I by no means think this is going to happen. TPB's statement gave me the feeling that they didn't want the traditional Hollywood to exist any longer, which is why I brought this up. Call it what you want, but what a ton of people are doing in downloading movies off the pirate bay is taking something that they haven't paid for. Maybe one can say that isn't stealing, but I find it hard to call it anything else. Maybe I'm missing something in their stance? EDIT: I know we're talking about the middleman and not the producing companies, but the pirate bay is still facilitating the act of taking revenues away from producers, right?
- nazgulnarsil 15y ago
  if you're a consequentialist then you only care about outcomes. Every economic analysis I've seen indicates piracy rate does not affect the returns to creators.
  - andrewcamel 15y ago
    I'm sure the economic analyses are well thought out, but isn't it just common sense that some proportion of those people who download content for free would have purchased that content had they not been able to download it for free? That would obviously mean decreased revenues for the content creators... The main reason I brought up the end game stuff was because the article gave me the feeling the TPB doesn't want Hollywood to exist any longer. They are talking about the people that allow Hollywood to make money as if those people are criminal scum that are just selling plush toys and anorexia. Just thought it was an interesting scenario to consider given the apparently largely negative feelings toward Hollywood's existence.
    - baddox 15y ago
dangrover 15y ago
> Because of Edisons patents for the motion pictures it was close to financially impossible to create motion pictures in the North american east coast. The movie studios therefor relocated to California, and founded what we today call Hollywood. The reason was mostly because there was no patent. I don't understand -- aren't patents federally enforced?
- grecy 15y ago
  > I don't understand -- aren't patents federally enforced? I can only assume they were not federal back then.
- sdkmvx 15y ago
  I found it confusing too. Edison built the Kinetograph in 1891, back when traveling across the country was quite difficult, and I'm going to assume that it was slightly easier to get ignored in California than in New York, and that is probably what they mean.
- cbs 15y ago
  Yes they apply federally. However, back in the day the sheer distance from Hollywood to Edison on the east cost made it infeasible for him to bring court action needed to enforce the patents.
- philwelch 15y ago
  Yes, but the Ninth Circuit Court, which has federal jurisdiction over California, was not too bullish on patent enforcement at the time.
trouble 15y ago
"The word SOPA means "trash" in Swedish. The word PIPA means "a pipe" in Swedish. This is of course not a coincidence." An interesting statement overall, but sentences like the one above have to make you wonder how seriously TPB is thinking about the issue.
- msandin 15y ago
  Not very it would seem given that "pipa" does not mean "pipe" in the sense TPB are using it but rather only in the sense of a "pipe for smoking". A pipe in the sense TPB use it would be "rör". But relating the combination "trash" and "pipe for smoking" to their line of reasoning seems at least a little harder/more far fetched.
  - nixy 15y ago
    Well, "pipa" also means muzzle, which is perhaps a bit closer to their analogy.
lukejduncan 15y ago
The Pirate Bay is held up as the ultimate example of what SOPA aims to kill. However, isn't it hosted out of Swedish Parliament (http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-party-to-run-tpb-from-parliament-010702/ http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-party-to-run-tpb-from-parliam...)? Aren't we in essence attacking a friendly government, and consequently afraid of pissing them off politically?
- barrybe 15y ago
  There's nothing about the US's past behavior which suggests that we're afraid of pissing off friendly countries. :) We're a bunch of international bullies, basically.
- nixy 15y ago
  Actually, no, TPB is not hosted from the Swedish parliament. The Pirate Party did not manage to scramble the votes needed to get into parliament, and thus are unable to host any servers there.
deleted 15y ago
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earbitscom 15y ago
The argument of efficiency is stupid. Of course I can do a better job distributing hot dogs than the hot dog guy if I just put out a massive table of hot dogs I got for free and let people run up and grab one without paying for it. But that model doesn't work if I have to pay for my hot dogs. If you invest millions of dollars in movies or a music album, you have to charge money to make it back. As we can see from Spotify and others, ad supported models do not pay enough to cover the high costs of creating expensive products. But of course alternative revenue is enough to pay for the costs of selling something that doesn't belong to you and costs nothing for you to distribute. And once you have to charge, of course people will prefer to get it where they don't have to pay. It has little to do with convenience. The number one thing that will impact the conversion rate on a shopping cart funnel (besides SSN) is asking for a credit card, regardless of how few seconds it takes to fill it out. People are wary of putting their card in online, they're lazy, and they're cheap. You're not more efficient, you're just catering to the lowest common denominator of people. There is virtually no reason why companies could not distribute products the way TPB does, except that they'd still have to charge money for those products. The minute you do that, someone who gives away hot dogs they didn't pay for wins. To pretend like it's some noble effort is a joke. You earn your livings off the backs of people who make things people want. Try charging your users for the things you offer and see how long your "more efficient" platform does well. Sure, people will go on and on about how they get higher quality files, whole discographies in one click, and blah blah blah. Most people do not do that and they still pirate things. Taking things you didn't pay for and selling them cheaper than someone who did is not more efficient. Just start calling a spade a spade so we can move on and talk like adults.
- pyre 15y ago
  > It has little to do with convenience. This is discounting how much it has to do with convenience. People love Netflix's streaming service, but it's plagued by the fact that the studios are reluctant to give them access to a wider catalog (as I understand it, not a Netflix subscriber). There are tons of examples where the MPAA/RIAA members could have switched distribution methods, but chose not to for a very long time because they are too conservative. Once they shuttered Napster, they could have paid a team to develop something similar to the iTunes music store, and organized a set of standards to govern music players with electronics companies. They could have owned the new distribution medium by ushering it in themselves. Instead they spent time on legal teams playing wack-a-mole with the pirates and lobbying various legislative bodies across the globe to try and prevent the Internet from happening. The only investment that they want to make in the future is attempting to extend the ecosystem of the past into the future as far as possible.
bonch 15y ago
Pretty amusing how so many sites shut down functionality today, but Pirate Bay couldn't be bothered. Torrenting went on uninterrupted. Kind of self-serving, to be honest.
chernevik 15y ago
"our rules are very similar to the founding ideas of the USA." Well, John Calhoun's, anyway. If you don't like the rules everyone has agreed to play by, go make your own. Don't know what I'm talking about? Read this -- http://goo.gl/643Wv http://goo.gl/643Wv -- for a real understanding of "freedom" and "equality" and "law". Or just look it up on Wikipedia when they come back up.
wmblaettler 15y ago
Honestly, this argument is REALLY weak. Hollywood spends millions of dollars to create these movies. To pirate it and not compensate the companies involved is irresponsible, selfish and ignorant -- it is stealing. There is is great amount of financial investment that goes into creating these movies. Today with the internet, the distribution avenue exists for people to produce and self publish, independent of Hollywood, but there is so much more to creating a successful movie: expensive sets, actors' salaries, special effects, post processing, marketing, the list goes on... In order to be successful these movies require great financial outlay and to expect the final product to be free is ridiculous. If these people really believe in free movies and music, they'd boycott Hollywood productions (they very stuff they call 'trash') and instead trade independent creations where the artist or writer chooses to give it away. This argument is not about freedom of exchanging original ideas or even sharing bits of "copyrighted" information, it's about the wholesale stealing of movies which took a great deal of time money and effort to create, even if they are considered 'trash'. In the end, TPB and it's users only pander to the "culture" that they supposedly so despise by consuming such media, they just don't like paying for it. The "great game" referenced (Civilization, at least the most recent version: 5), is ironically available to download on The Pirate Bay. I suppose this is not worth paying Sid Meier and the development studios he worked with to create this game either. Pretty much the only thing I don't disagree with are the buried statements about Fox News and the media's control over the public opinion and the inhumane conditions in foreign factories. FWIW, I OPPOSE SOPA and PIPA, I called my congressmen and voiced my concern today, the proposed law is useless to curb this behavior, but will instead hurt those who DO want to freely exchange ideas and information.
- andrewcamel 15y ago
  I completely agree. It's time for all of the pirates to stop justifying their stealing by putting up the facade of protecting online freedoms in front of the obvious primary motive, not paying for content. Steal if you want to, but stop trying to call it something else.
  - pyre 15y ago
    > It's time for all of the pirates to stop justifying > their stealing by putting up the facade of protecting > online freedoms Does this mean you feel it's ok to take away our freedoms just so long as it's in order to fight piracy? > Steal if you want to, but stop trying to call > it something else So anyone that insists that copyright infringement be called copyright infringement is "just a pirate trying to justify their theft?" That's a false dichotomy if I've ever seen one.
drewblaisdell 15y ago
Just a note regarding most of the piracy discussion I have seen take place on HN in the last day or so: everyone who refers to internet piracy as theft is doing a disservice to the argument. They can call it immoral, dangerous, or harmful, but it to equate it with theft is just not accurate. The people who most frequently refer to internet piracy as theft/stealing are the ones who want to censor the internet and pay off congress. I hope that, regardless of where they stand on the piracy issue, HN users can be a little more articulate about why piracy is or is not permissible and stop referring to it inaccurately.
- dino5050 15y ago
  So then, by your logic, walking up to a record store, and sneaking out with a cd that you did not pay for, is not theft then.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
    - baddox 15y ago
      That's still stealing. If I break into your house, take your computer, and leave behind $1000 dollars, I have still completely stolen your computer regardless of how much it is worth.
      - mulletbum 15y ago
        It would be more like replicating the computer from outside the house using telephone lines. Leaving the original in your house, but having an identical one for their own.
        nexneo 15y ago
        Its more like you tell me Joke and I tell same joke to everyone without asking you first or paying anything.
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dino5050 15y ago
I'm sorry, but the reason such a legislation of this magnitude is floating around congress is because of sites--like The Pirate Bay. I mean the friggen arrogance of justifying such a thing as "free speech" or whatever they like to call it other than what it really is, stealing, let's not BS ourselves now. And they exist because they operate in a safe haven (Sweden) which seems to have "sane" copyright laws, is that right? SO THEN, HOW MANY PEOPLE THAT GO ON PIRATE BAY DOWNLOAD THIS GLORIOUS SWEDISH ENTERTAINMENT/SOFTWARE? 'CAUSE IT SEEMS TO ME LIKE MOST OF THE STUFF PEOPLE GET OFF THE SITE THAT'S WORTH A DAMN COMES FROM A COUNTRY WITH "INSANE" COPYRIGHT LAWS, ISN'T IT? GEE, I WONDER WHY?
bering 15y ago
Could someone copy/paste the text of the blog entry here? I am in a country (Denmark) that already has DNS-blocking and I can't access The Pirate Bay (without changing my DNS settings... and I am too lazy to do that right now).
- ComputerGuru 15y ago
  Here you go: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3483394 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3483394
  - bering 15y ago
    Thanks!
ComputerGuru 15y ago
The text of the linked article, for those that do not have access to TPB (oh, the irony....): INTERNETS, 18th of January 2012. PRESS RELEASE, FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE. Over a century ago Thomas Edison got the patent for a device which would "do for the eye what the phonograph does for the ear". He called it the Kinetoscope. He was not only amongst the first to record video, he was also the first person to own the copyright to a motion picture. Because of Edisons patents for the motion pictures it was close to financially impossible to create motion pictures in the North american east coast. The movie studios therefor relocated to California, and founded what we today call Hollywood. The reason was mostly because there was no patent. There was also no copyright to speak of, so the studios could copy old stories and make movies out of them - like Fantasia, one of Disneys biggest hits ever. So, the whole basis of this industry, that today is screaming about losing control over immaterial rights, is that they circumvented immaterial rights. They copied (or put in their terminology: "stole") other peoples creative works, without paying for it. They did it in order to make a huge profit. Today, they're all successful and most of the studios are on the Fortune 500 list of the richest companies in the world. Congratulations - it's all based on being able to re-use other peoples creative works. And today they hold the rights to what other people create. If you want to get something released, you have to abide to their rules. The ones they created after circumventing other peoples rules. The reason they are always complainting about "pirates" today is simple. We've done what they did. We circumvented the rules they created and created our own. We crushed their monopoly by giving people something more efficient. We allow people to have direct communication between eachother, circumventing the profitable middle man, that in some cases take over 107% of the profits (yes, you pay to work for them). It's all based on the fact that we're competition. We've proven that their existance in their current form is no longer needed. We're just better than they are. And the funny part is that our rules are very similar to the founding ideas of the USA. We fight for freedom of speech. We see all people as equal. We believe that the public, not the elite, should rule the nation. We believe that laws should be created to serve the public, not the rich corporations. The Pirate Bay is truly an international community. The team is spread all over the globe - but we've stayed out of the USA. We have Swedish roots and a swedish friend said this: The word SOPA means "trash" in Swedish. The word PIPA means "a pipe" in Swedish. This is of course not a coincidence. They want to make the internet inte a one way pipe, with them at the top, shoving trash through the pipe down to the rest of us obedient consumers. The public opinion on this matter is clear. Ask anyone on the street and you'll learn that noone wants to be fed with trash. Why the US government want the american people to be fed with trash is beyond our imagination but we hope that you will stop them, before we all drown. SOPA can't do anything to stop TPB. Worst case we'll change top level domain from our current .org to one of the hundreds of other names that we already also use. In countries where TPB is blocked, China and Saudi Arabia springs to mind, they block hundreds of our domain names. And did it work? Not really. To fix the "problem of piracy" one should go to the source of the problem. The entertainment industry say they're creating "culture" but what they really do is stuff like selling overpriced plushy dolls and making 11 year old girls become anorexic. Either from working in the factories that creates the dolls for basically no salary or by watching movies and tv shows that make them think that they're fat. In the great Sid Meiers computer game Civilization you can build Wonders of the world. One of the most powerful ones is Hollywood. With that you control all culture and media in the world. Rupert Murdoch was happy with MySpace and had no problems with their own piracy until it failed. Now he's complainting that Google is the biggest source of piracy in the world - because he's jealous. He wants to retain his mind control over people and clearly you'd get a more honest view of things on Wikipedia and Google than on Fox News. Some facts (years, dates) are probably wrong in this press release. The reason is that we can't access this information when Wikipedia is blacked out. Because of pressure from our failing competitors. We're sorry for that. THE PIRATE BAY, (K)2012
masonlee 15y ago
Perhaps it is not banal to say "INTERNETS" if you are indeed writing about the problem of network fragmentation?
zupatol 15y ago
The claim that Hollywood was created to evade Edison's patents is dubious. According to "A history of narrative film" by David A. Cook "The reason why a full-scale Eastern-based industry moved its entire operation to southern California during these years has never been completely clear, but the general contours of the phenomenon are obvious enough". He then lists these reasons: - the type of temperate climate required for year-round production (most shooting was done outdoors at the time) - a wide range of topography within a 50 mile radius - the status of Los Angeles as a professional theatrical center - a low tax base - cheap and plentiful labor and land
tedsbardella 15y ago
The kind of people who are so worried about "internet piracy" also want to sterilize poor people

305 points by llambda 15y ago

As a father of two girls, I love this comment: "...what they really do is stuff like selling overpriced plushy dolls and making 11 year old girls become anorexic. Either from working in the factories that creates the dolls for basically no salary or by watching movies and tv shows that make them think that they're fat." --- I try to minimize the exposure of my kids to the plastic reality of disney - but it is nearly impossible. The system for indoctrinating girls into the consumption servitude archetype is insidiously powerful. It is threaded in our society and very very hard to avoid.

benologist 15y ago
I like the bit where TPB didn't mention what they really do .... line their pockets with the revenue from billions of ad impressions a month.

inexplicable 15y ago

'Some facts (years, dates) are probably wrong in this press release. The reason is that we can't access this information when Wikipedia is blacked out. Because of pressure from our failing competitors. We're sorry for that.' To me this was the best part of the entire message.

artursapek 15y ago
I found it laughable, because of how Wikipedia's blackout is easily circumventable, and because I didn't see a single year or date.
- prawn 15y ago
  That's how wrong they were. ;)
  - Sapient 15y ago
    Wrong morally, or wrong factually? If factually, then which parts are wrong?
    - prawn 15y ago
      Joking that the dates/years were so wrong that they weren't even there.
      - Sapient 15y ago
        Ah thanks, I missed that!

citricsquid 15y ago

Not sure I understand the point beyond the initial foundation of Hollywood. If this was say Linux vs. Windows they would have a point, but to say "...we crushed their monopoly by giving people something more efficient. We allow people to have direct communication between eachother, circumventing the profitable middle man..." when they're talking about content created by these profitable companies it makes no sense and it seems like they're trying to make it into some sort of moral crusade for freedom. Strange.

tlholaday 15y ago
The profitable companies are not really the creators of the content, are they? Did DC create The Watchmen, or was it Alan Moore? A consumer-pays-in-advance subscription model would provide better price signals to the real creators, wouldn't it?
- bunderbunder 15y ago
  Film studios specifically try to organize things so that the company that creates the content never turns a profit. Supplying a Wikipedia link today seems silly, but you could Google "Hollywood Accounting". (oh what the hey: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting)
samlev 15y ago
Funded by isn't the same as created by. Granted, without these companies there to throw massive amounts of money at writers/directors/actors, then we probably wouldn't have much of the content that we do today (at least not how it is). That doesn't mean that culture can't exist without them. Anyway, these companies (on the music side in particular) love to talk about the "poor starving artists", but fail to change their own habits to give those artists a better deal. They aren't content creators. They're content funders and distributors, but the content would still be created in some form without them. In this sense, the pirate community does actually perform one of the actions (distribution), and seems to perform it much more efficiently than the big companies. They just haven't got the 'funding' part figured out yet, but when they do, that will truly signal the death of the majors. (P.S. No, it won't - nothing will truly kill them, but it will at least give them genuine competition)

jgn 15y ago

I don't take TPB's "press releases" too seriously, and I don't think they do either. It's interesting to hear how Hollywood came about but not significant or relevant to what TBP does. As far as arguments for piracy go, there was a much better submission here earlier today: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3478850 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3478850 I'm actually shocked TPB hasn't participated in the blackout themselves. They made it clear they're international, but SOPA/PIPA are international too. Edit: I wasn't very clear, what I really meant to say was that I'm shocked TPB hasn't acknowledged blackout day somehow, especially considering how often they change their image.

wvenable 15y ago
The pirate bay being blocked is the intended result of SOPA/PIPA. Reddit, Wikipedia, and Google getting blocked by SOPA/PIPA are the unintended consequences.
jensnockert 15y ago
Possibly because they are one of the few sites that are effectively immune to SOPA. And TPB being blacked out would just play the SOPA people into their hands and prove their point.
MiguelHudnandez 15y ago
I suspect TPB did not black out because they will not shut themselves down in response to pressure from the US Gov't. Even though they might make a living, I don't think they see TPB as a business. Instead, I think they see it as a mission, or a calling. I glean from the tone of their writing that they are convinced they are doing good in the world.

dazbradbury 15y ago

Really interesting article, and I particularly like the opening paragraph. Impressed how the pirate bay stand out as having such a well reasoned stance with regard to SOPA. Much better than simply attacking the bill in my opinion. "Over a century ago Thomas Edison got the patent for a device which would "do for the eye what the phonograph does for the ear". He called it the Kinetoscope. He was not only amongst the first to record video, he was also the first person to own the copyright to a motion picture."

andrewcamel 15y ago

I don't really understand how they can have such a radical view... If the pirate bay were to be the only media distribution system left after all of the traditional "Hollywood" corporations went out of business (b/c of the pirate bay), there would be no more movies which the pirate bay could distribute. I don't know about you guys, but I do like my movies. EDIT: Please note this was just I thought an interesting topic to think about - I by no means think this is going to happen. TPB's statement gave me the feeling that they didn't want the traditional Hollywood to exist any longer, which is why I brought this up. Call it what you want, but what a ton of people are doing in downloading movies off the pirate bay is taking something that they haven't paid for. Maybe one can say that isn't stealing, but I find it hard to call it anything else. Maybe I'm missing something in their stance? EDIT: I know we're talking about the middleman and not the producing companies, but the pirate bay is still facilitating the act of taking revenues away from producers, right?

nazgulnarsil 15y ago
if you're a consequentialist then you only care about outcomes. Every economic analysis I've seen indicates piracy rate does not affect the returns to creators.
- andrewcamel 15y ago
  I'm sure the economic analyses are well thought out, but isn't it just common sense that some proportion of those people who download content for free would have purchased that content had they not been able to download it for free? That would obviously mean decreased revenues for the content creators... The main reason I brought up the end game stuff was because the article gave me the feeling the TPB doesn't want Hollywood to exist any longer. They are talking about the people that allow Hollywood to make money as if those people are criminal scum that are just selling plush toys and anorexia. Just thought it was an interesting scenario to consider given the apparently largely negative feelings toward Hollywood's existence.
  - baddox 15y ago

dangrover 15y ago

> Because of Edisons patents for the motion pictures it was close to financially impossible to create motion pictures in the North american east coast. The movie studios therefor relocated to California, and founded what we today call Hollywood. The reason was mostly because there was no patent. I don't understand -- aren't patents federally enforced?

grecy 15y ago
> I don't understand -- aren't patents federally enforced? I can only assume they were not federal back then.
sdkmvx 15y ago
I found it confusing too. Edison built the Kinetograph in 1891, back when traveling across the country was quite difficult, and I'm going to assume that it was slightly easier to get ignored in California than in New York, and that is probably what they mean.
cbs 15y ago
Yes they apply federally. However, back in the day the sheer distance from Hollywood to Edison on the east cost made it infeasible for him to bring court action needed to enforce the patents.
philwelch 15y ago
Yes, but the Ninth Circuit Court, which has federal jurisdiction over California, was not too bullish on patent enforcement at the time.

trouble 15y ago

"The word SOPA means "trash" in Swedish. The word PIPA means "a pipe" in Swedish. This is of course not a coincidence." An interesting statement overall, but sentences like the one above have to make you wonder how seriously TPB is thinking about the issue.

msandin 15y ago
Not very it would seem given that "pipa" does not mean "pipe" in the sense TPB are using it but rather only in the sense of a "pipe for smoking". A pipe in the sense TPB use it would be "rör". But relating the combination "trash" and "pipe for smoking" to their line of reasoning seems at least a little harder/more far fetched.
- nixy 15y ago
  Well, "pipa" also means muzzle, which is perhaps a bit closer to their analogy.

lukejduncan 15y ago

The Pirate Bay is held up as the ultimate example of what SOPA aims to kill. However, isn't it hosted out of Swedish Parliament (http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-party-to-run-tpb-from-parliament-010702/ http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-party-to-run-tpb-from-parliam...)? Aren't we in essence attacking a friendly government, and consequently afraid of pissing them off politically?

barrybe 15y ago
There's nothing about the US's past behavior which suggests that we're afraid of pissing off friendly countries. :) We're a bunch of international bullies, basically.
nixy 15y ago
Actually, no, TPB is not hosted from the Swedish parliament. The Pirate Party did not manage to scramble the votes needed to get into parliament, and thus are unable to host any servers there.

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earbitscom 15y ago

The argument of efficiency is stupid. Of course I can do a better job distributing hot dogs than the hot dog guy if I just put out a massive table of hot dogs I got for free and let people run up and grab one without paying for it. But that model doesn't work if I have to pay for my hot dogs. If you invest millions of dollars in movies or a music album, you have to charge money to make it back. As we can see from Spotify and others, ad supported models do not pay enough to cover the high costs of creating expensive products. But of course alternative revenue is enough to pay for the costs of selling something that doesn't belong to you and costs nothing for you to distribute. And once you have to charge, of course people will prefer to get it where they don't have to pay. It has little to do with convenience. The number one thing that will impact the conversion rate on a shopping cart funnel (besides SSN) is asking for a credit card, regardless of how few seconds it takes to fill it out. People are wary of putting their card in online, they're lazy, and they're cheap. You're not more efficient, you're just catering to the lowest common denominator of people. There is virtually no reason why companies could not distribute products the way TPB does, except that they'd still have to charge money for those products. The minute you do that, someone who gives away hot dogs they didn't pay for wins. To pretend like it's some noble effort is a joke. You earn your livings off the backs of people who make things people want. Try charging your users for the things you offer and see how long your "more efficient" platform does well. Sure, people will go on and on about how they get higher quality files, whole discographies in one click, and blah blah blah. Most people do not do that and they still pirate things. Taking things you didn't pay for and selling them cheaper than someone who did is not more efficient. Just start calling a spade a spade so we can move on and talk like adults.

pyre 15y ago
> It has little to do with convenience. This is discounting how much it has to do with convenience. People love Netflix's streaming service, but it's plagued by the fact that the studios are reluctant to give them access to a wider catalog (as I understand it, not a Netflix subscriber). There are tons of examples where the MPAA/RIAA members could have switched distribution methods, but chose not to for a very long time because they are too conservative. Once they shuttered Napster, they could have paid a team to develop something similar to the iTunes music store, and organized a set of standards to govern music players with electronics companies. They could have owned the new distribution medium by ushering it in themselves. Instead they spent time on legal teams playing wack-a-mole with the pirates and lobbying various legislative bodies across the globe to try and prevent the Internet from happening. The only investment that they want to make in the future is attempting to extend the ecosystem of the past into the future as far as possible.

bonch 15y ago

Pretty amusing how so many sites shut down functionality today, but Pirate Bay couldn't be bothered. Torrenting went on uninterrupted. Kind of self-serving, to be honest.

chernevik 15y ago

"our rules are very similar to the founding ideas of the USA." Well, John Calhoun's, anyway. If you don't like the rules everyone has agreed to play by, go make your own. Don't know what I'm talking about? Read this -- http://goo.gl/643Wv http://goo.gl/643Wv -- for a real understanding of "freedom" and "equality" and "law". Or just look it up on Wikipedia when they come back up.

wmblaettler 15y ago

Honestly, this argument is REALLY weak. Hollywood spends millions of dollars to create these movies. To pirate it and not compensate the companies involved is irresponsible, selfish and ignorant -- it is stealing. There is is great amount of financial investment that goes into creating these movies. Today with the internet, the distribution avenue exists for people to produce and self publish, independent of Hollywood, but there is so much more to creating a successful movie: expensive sets, actors' salaries, special effects, post processing, marketing, the list goes on... In order to be successful these movies require great financial outlay and to expect the final product to be free is ridiculous. If these people really believe in free movies and music, they'd boycott Hollywood productions (they very stuff they call 'trash') and instead trade independent creations where the artist or writer chooses to give it away. This argument is not about freedom of exchanging original ideas or even sharing bits of "copyrighted" information, it's about the wholesale stealing of movies which took a great deal of time money and effort to create, even if they are considered 'trash'. In the end, TPB and it's users only pander to the "culture" that they supposedly so despise by consuming such media, they just don't like paying for it. The "great game" referenced (Civilization, at least the most recent version: 5), is ironically available to download on The Pirate Bay. I suppose this is not worth paying Sid Meier and the development studios he worked with to create this game either. Pretty much the only thing I don't disagree with are the buried statements about Fox News and the media's control over the public opinion and the inhumane conditions in foreign factories. FWIW, I OPPOSE SOPA and PIPA, I called my congressmen and voiced my concern today, the proposed law is useless to curb this behavior, but will instead hurt those who DO want to freely exchange ideas and information.

andrewcamel 15y ago
I completely agree. It's time for all of the pirates to stop justifying their stealing by putting up the facade of protecting online freedoms in front of the obvious primary motive, not paying for content. Steal if you want to, but stop trying to call it something else.
- pyre 15y ago
  > It's time for all of the pirates to stop justifying > their stealing by putting up the facade of protecting > online freedoms Does this mean you feel it's ok to take away our freedoms just so long as it's in order to fight piracy? > Steal if you want to, but stop trying to call > it something else So anyone that insists that copyright infringement be called copyright infringement is "just a pirate trying to justify their theft?" That's a false dichotomy if I've ever seen one.

drewblaisdell 15y ago

Just a note regarding most of the piracy discussion I have seen take place on HN in the last day or so: everyone who refers to internet piracy as theft is doing a disservice to the argument. They can call it immoral, dangerous, or harmful, but it to equate it with theft is just not accurate. The people who most frequently refer to internet piracy as theft/stealing are the ones who want to censor the internet and pay off congress. I hope that, regardless of where they stand on the piracy issue, HN users can be a little more articulate about why piracy is or is not permissible and stop referring to it inaccurately.

dino5050 15y ago
So then, by your logic, walking up to a record store, and sneaking out with a cd that you did not pay for, is not theft then.
- deleted 15y ago
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  - baddox 15y ago
    That's still stealing. If I break into your house, take your computer, and leave behind $1000 dollars, I have still completely stolen your computer regardless of how much it is worth.
    - mulletbum 15y ago
      It would be more like replicating the computer from outside the house using telephone lines. Leaving the original in your house, but having an identical one for their own.
      - nexneo 15y ago
        Its more like you tell me Joke and I tell same joke to everyone without asking you first or paying anything.
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dino5050 15y ago

I'm sorry, but the reason such a legislation of this magnitude is floating around congress is because of sites--like The Pirate Bay. I mean the friggen arrogance of justifying such a thing as "free speech" or whatever they like to call it other than what it really is, stealing, let's not BS ourselves now. And they exist because they operate in a safe haven (Sweden) which seems to have "sane" copyright laws, is that right? SO THEN, HOW MANY PEOPLE THAT GO ON PIRATE BAY DOWNLOAD THIS GLORIOUS SWEDISH ENTERTAINMENT/SOFTWARE? 'CAUSE IT SEEMS TO ME LIKE MOST OF THE STUFF PEOPLE GET OFF THE SITE THAT'S WORTH A DAMN COMES FROM A COUNTRY WITH "INSANE" COPYRIGHT LAWS, ISN'T IT? GEE, I WONDER WHY?

bering 15y ago

Could someone copy/paste the text of the blog entry here? I am in a country (Denmark) that already has DNS-blocking and I can't access The Pirate Bay (without changing my DNS settings... and I am too lazy to do that right now).

ComputerGuru 15y ago
Here you go: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3483394 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3483394
- bering 15y ago
  Thanks!

ComputerGuru 15y ago

The text of the linked article, for those that do not have access to TPB (oh, the irony....): INTERNETS, 18th of January 2012. PRESS RELEASE, FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE. Over a century ago Thomas Edison got the patent for a device which would "do for the eye what the phonograph does for the ear". He called it the Kinetoscope. He was not only amongst the first to record video, he was also the first person to own the copyright to a motion picture. Because of Edisons patents for the motion pictures it was close to financially impossible to create motion pictures in the North american east coast. The movie studios therefor relocated to California, and founded what we today call Hollywood. The reason was mostly because there was no patent. There was also no copyright to speak of, so the studios could copy old stories and make movies out of them - like Fantasia, one of Disneys biggest hits ever. So, the whole basis of this industry, that today is screaming about losing control over immaterial rights, is that they circumvented immaterial rights. They copied (or put in their terminology: "stole") other peoples creative works, without paying for it. They did it in order to make a huge profit. Today, they're all successful and most of the studios are on the Fortune 500 list of the richest companies in the world. Congratulations - it's all based on being able to re-use other peoples creative works. And today they hold the rights to what other people create. If you want to get something released, you have to abide to their rules. The ones they created after circumventing other peoples rules. The reason they are always complainting about "pirates" today is simple. We've done what they did. We circumvented the rules they created and created our own. We crushed their monopoly by giving people something more efficient. We allow people to have direct communication between eachother, circumventing the profitable middle man, that in some cases take over 107% of the profits (yes, you pay to work for them). It's all based on the fact that we're competition. We've proven that their existance in their current form is no longer needed. We're just better than they are. And the funny part is that our rules are very similar to the founding ideas of the USA. We fight for freedom of speech. We see all people as equal. We believe that the public, not the elite, should rule the nation. We believe that laws should be created to serve the public, not the rich corporations. The Pirate Bay is truly an international community. The team is spread all over the globe - but we've stayed out of the USA. We have Swedish roots and a swedish friend said this: The word SOPA means "trash" in Swedish. The word PIPA means "a pipe" in Swedish. This is of course not a coincidence. They want to make the internet inte a one way pipe, with them at the top, shoving trash through the pipe down to the rest of us obedient consumers. The public opinion on this matter is clear. Ask anyone on the street and you'll learn that noone wants to be fed with trash. Why the US government want the american people to be fed with trash is beyond our imagination but we hope that you will stop them, before we all drown. SOPA can't do anything to stop TPB. Worst case we'll change top level domain from our current .org to one of the hundreds of other names that we already also use. In countries where TPB is blocked, China and Saudi Arabia springs to mind, they block hundreds of our domain names. And did it work? Not really. To fix the "problem of piracy" one should go to the source of the problem. The entertainment industry say they're creating "culture" but what they really do is stuff like selling overpriced plushy dolls and making 11 year old girls become anorexic. Either from working in the factories that creates the dolls for basically no salary or by watching movies and tv shows that make them think that they're fat. In the great Sid Meiers computer game Civilization you can build Wonders of the world. One of the most powerful ones is Hollywood. With that you control all culture and media in the world. Rupert Murdoch was happy with MySpace and had no problems with their own piracy until it failed. Now he's complainting that Google is the biggest source of piracy in the world - because he's jealous. He wants to retain his mind control over people and clearly you'd get a more honest view of things on Wikipedia and Google than on Fox News. Some facts (years, dates) are probably wrong in this press release. The reason is that we can't access this information when Wikipedia is blacked out. Because of pressure from our failing competitors. We're sorry for that. THE PIRATE BAY, (K)2012

masonlee 15y ago

Perhaps it is not banal to say "INTERNETS" if you are indeed writing about the problem of network fragmentation?

zupatol 15y ago

The claim that Hollywood was created to evade Edison's patents is dubious. According to "A history of narrative film" by David A. Cook "The reason why a full-scale Eastern-based industry moved its entire operation to southern California during these years has never been completely clear, but the general contours of the phenomenon are obvious enough". He then lists these reasons: - the type of temperate climate required for year-round production (most shooting was done outdoors at the time) - a wide range of topography within a 50 mile radius - the status of Los Angeles as a professional theatrical center - a low tax base - cheap and plentiful labor and land

tedsbardella 15y ago

The kind of people who are so worried about "internet piracy" also want to sterilize poor people