9 ms·

The Pirate Bay Trial Day 10: Calls for Jail Time

43 points by adnymarc 18y ago

ErrantX 18y ago
They are almost sure to get nailed for it now I think - and a good thing too. Neither side winning is a good outcome for the rest of us but I prefer to see the idiots dealt some of their own punishment for once ;D
- josefresco 18y ago
  Agreed, you're talking about the Movie Companies/IFPI getting nailed right?
- randallsquared 18y ago
  Actually, I'd argue that TPB winning would be a good outcome for the rest of us, but even if they don't, it's only a matter of time. Patterns are not things, and the only way to paper over the difference is to make it harder to work with patterns... but that's not the way technology is going.
  - ErrantX 18y ago
    I dont buy that. Please explain why that would be good? If the music companies win then perhaps the idiot pirates start to acutally get scared. Then us sensible lot can sit down with the companies and get them to do things right. Stuff is moving in the right direction (Apple going non-DRM for instance) these guys are dinosaurs and holding things back. Send em down. I fail to see how anyone can condone TPB ever.... they damage the file sharing community like nothing else before. (ps am amused at the downmodding of my comment.... way to support piracy.. ;))
    - allenbrunson 18y ago
      you're not being downmodded because everybody here supports piracy. it's because you used the word "idiot," among other things. you can make almost any point on hacker news and get away with it, if you're respectful to all involved.
      - ErrantX 18y ago
        Why? They treat everyone else with the same degree of snootiness and vitriol... calling them idiots is barely disrespectful :)
        allenbrunson 18y ago
        you've perhaps heard that two wrongs don't make a right? pg started this site, and he has inculcated it with his values. imagine pg writing an essay about the pirate bay. do you suppose he would call them "idiots?" like it or not, the culture around these parts tends towards respect. you violate local customs at your own peril.
        ErrantX 18y ago
        I dont buy that. It is expressing an opinion. I do respect the excellent way they are using the media and the internet to show off their cause. I dont respect what they do. I disagree calling them idiots is disrespectful: because, well, they are.... (in my opinion):) There is a huge difference between respect and dislike. Perhaps I should be clear and say they act like idiots. Then its an opinion... I would edit the original but I cant any more.. oh well. Slowly losing a lot of respect for some of the posters here... :(
        mixmax 18y ago
        Idiot is a pretty strong word, and using it requires some arguments and substance besides "in my opinion they are idiots". Intelligent discourse is based on good arguments and respect for the other party.
        ErrantX 18y ago
        I wish I had never used the word: I really dont see it as particularly strong... perhaps it is cultural differences getting in the way. But a single word is getting in the way of a good debate elsewhere in the thread - which is a bit sad. (for the record I think I did back up my statement: they are idiots because they are helping and encouraging people the steal with no thought as to the consequences and believe they are above the law to the point of being. And, importantly, refuse to be reasoned with - and yes I have tried.) I agree with the good arguments - but respect should not be automatic. I would look for it to be earned in an argument (probably I did not do much to earn any yesterday). My other point, of course, is that TPB (at whom my remark was directed) are not here and so are not one of the debating parties... :) EDIT: I am not particularly worried by the downmods. People can express their opinions. However downmodding based on wording feels a bit short sighted... downmodding based on percieved bias (which a friend of mine pointed out) I would agree with (because it did introduce a bias.. which was a mistake). (Also it's a bit sad to see this bumped up to the first page... this surely is stuff for the "back room")
    - randallsquared 18y ago
      It would be good because it will cause far more attention than the reverse verdict, and there will be some people who would otherwise have feared unspecific consequences for sharing who will thereby be reassured. It's a PR victory for the forces of anti-copyright (and, to a lesser extent, copyleft), and a conviction would be a draw (there's no way that the music companies can actually win, as far as I can see). I'm interested to hear what you believe the endgame for copyright is, given that you think that those currently ignoring copyright are in the wrong, but that Apple, et al, should go non-DRM? I'm against copyright, and I dislike DRM, but I don't have anything in principle against DRM, as I do against copyright.
      - ErrantX 18y ago
        yes maybe it would get more attention - but what kind of attention? Basically it would amount to the Swedish coaurts saying that providing the infrastructure ot share Copyrighted material was ok.. which it is not. In the face of that could we expect media companies to be reasonable and sit at the table to work out new ways to provide access to digital media/software? This is not a 2 sided battle in my eyes. TPB are as much an enemy to the consumer as the IPFI. And why shouldnt the sharers get some fear? Perhaps it will dissuade them from sharing. Bearing in mind I am massivley pro copyright (as a software developer and writer - even though the majority of my work is open source). In terms of copyright - I too am not too worried by DRM. I would like to see DRM dropped but can understand why it is there. In the Apple case they had to impose stupidly strict DRM just to get the store off the ground. The fact they can now release that music more freely is a testamount to how much the music companies are starting to come round to the consumers viewpoint. I am never one to blame the music companies for wanting to protect their material: even though I do disagree with the prices they charge, how they screw over the artists and how they insist (till now) on locking stuff up in super restrictive DRM. I never fully understood the arguments against copyright. Care to explain?
        randallsquared 18y ago
        Let me preface by noting that I, too, am a software developer, and ran/was an ISV catering primarily to small business from 2001 to 2008. Nevertheless, I am anti-copyright. There are several arguments against copyright, but the one I like most is this: property is necessary because two people cannot both (exclusively) use the same property at the same time. The idea of property solves this, and everyone can agree that that is yours while this is mine. The nature of things is that they can't be available for the exclusive use of two or more people. Ideas (copyright and patents, at least; trademarks are less clear) can be used by more than one person without any impact on others using it: everyone can exclusively use an idea at the same time. The reason for this is that "an idea" isn't a thing at all, but a category of things -- a description of a group, each instance of which is owned by virtue of someone owning the physical thing that instantiates it. In summary: I don't believe in ownership of categories of things, only things themselves. If you look at the origins of copyright, even its supporters didn't believe it was real property; it was purely a utilitarian attempt to encourage production of ideas by extending an analogy of property to idea production, for a limited time. There are still reasonable arguments to be made about whether it's an net economic win or lose for a legal system to include copyright and patent, and other people can argue that point better than I.
  - sfk 18y ago
    I disagree. Should the pirate bay win, politicians can argue that current laws aren't strong enough to prevent illegal activities on the Internet. Thus, freedoms that we enjoy nowadays might be taken away in the future. This is a classic case where the misbehavior of one segment of the population (in this case quite a large segment) could make stricter legislation necessary. I think that real world traffic laws are a good analogy here: Most people are violating speed limits, and speeding in moderation is socially acceptable. Compare moderate speeding to moderate file sharing, i.e. sharing files with say only 10 of your best acquaintances. Legislation would not be required. However, gross violation of speed limits by a certain group of drivers brought us the traffic police and radar controls. I hope that the gross copyright violations of a certain group of people do not ruin the Internet for everyone.
davidw 18y ago
Here's my bet: they are found guilty for something, don't get jail time or much of a fine, but are required to shut down or modify their operations. If I were a judge, I would see the prosecution's claims as exaggerated, but would probably look askance at the fact that these guys have done nothing at all to remove trackers pointing to copyrighted material, and have actually made fun of those requests.
- bep 18y ago
  Indeed. I guess if they will be force between changing something or move, they will move to another country. So nothing will change anwyay.
  - ErrantX 18y ago
    As far as I knew since the '03 (I think 03) raid their servers are located in a different country anyway.
    - dag 18y ago
      2008, Egypt (http://thepiratebay.org/blog/102 http://thepiratebay.org/blog/102 , it only took a few seconds to find, and bests AFAIK-ing)
      - ErrantX 18y ago
        re read the blog post... spot the irony? ;) Fairly certain that the servers are not in the Sainai :)
        rms 18y ago
        I don't get it, could you explain please?
        ErrantX 18y ago
        Well fairly certain that Tiamo does not live in Egypt. Also they claim to have Fibre connections to XYZ countries? hmmm. (bearing in mind that that kind of thing leaves a paper trail and there doesnt appear to be one) Smacks a little too much of irony to me :)
mixmax 18y ago
Continually blogging about the courtcase, partying, inviting livebloggers and sending live feeds from the court is an excellent PR strategy for Thepiratebay. If they're found guilty there'll be an uproar, and the Swedish authorities and judges know they're being watched closely by an international community.
- cabalamat 18y ago
  > the Swedish authorities and judges know they're being watched closely by an international community Do the Swedish authorities particularly care if a group of people who they consider to be criminals and pirates don't like them? I doubt it.
  - kaens 18y ago
    You'd think they would give a little more weight to the group, considering that the users of TPB are a good chunk of the internet-using population of the world.
  - mixmax 18y ago
    They are politicians, and politicians are at the mercy of their voters which happen to consist of a large chunk of filesharers. When the Pirate Bay's servers were raided a few years ago it turned into a political scandal, and (if I remember correctly) a minister was fired. Also, The Pirate Party was very close to getting elected into parlaiment at the last election in Sweden. If I was a Swedish politician or authority I would definitely care.
- tlb 18y ago
  There are even more people sympathetic to pot smokers facing jail time. But authorities don't seem inclined to soften the sentences. Courts really shouldn't worry about public reaction. That's the job of lawmakers.
chris11 18y ago
Could anyone estimate the costs of running The Pirate Bay? I've heard that the site could be grossing millions a year from advertising, but I'm also assuming that the costs are extremely high. I was interested in finding out financial information for the site, but it looks like it won't be released.
- deleted 18y ago
  [deleted]
- lethain 18y ago
  I imagine it's less than you're suggesting, because they're not serving the files themselves, so their bandwidth would be relatively low compared to a photo or video sharing site.
  - sam_in_nyc 18y ago
    Doesn't tracking millions of torrents require a massive amount of bandwidth? I'm no expert on bittorrent protocol, but I'm sure millions of clients pinging "I'm a seeder" or "I'm a leecher" adds up.
amix 18y ago
I think the Pirate Bay is a shady operation. They probably earn millions on giving other peoples work for free. I don't understand the model of "free copying" - if everyone is leeching and nobody is paying how will we get movies like Star Wars, Lord of the Rings or a game like Halo (they cost millions of $ to produce)? I hope an alternative comes where you actually pay for the stuff you leech (especially for movies). And the argument with "trying stuff out", does not really hold - you don't go and try an ice cream for free, you buy it and if it's bad you don't buy ice creams from that store any longer.
- latortuga 18y ago
  > if everyone is leeching and nobody is paying how will we get movies like Star Wars, Lord of the Rings or a game like Halo It isn't really the end user's responsibility to fix a broken business model. I agree with you that it's problematic but trying to infringe upon the public's demand to copy with suing/drm/fear hasn't really done much to stem the tide of copying. And at this point it all just feels like a lack of creativity - charge everyone a yearly subscription fee to a site that allows you to download anything for free at high quality/speeds. That's just one idea off the top of my head; get 30 smart people in a room for a week and I'm sure they could come up with tons of viable alternatives.
- cdr 18y ago
  "Probably earn millions"? You a) don't seem to be following the case, where the people running it credibly claim to be pretty much broke, b) don't seem to know much about such websites - they're almost universally giant money sinks.
  - amix 18y ago
    Their traffic is the triple of plentyoffish.com and their site is filled with advertising 1). I doubt it's that expensive to run a tracker and especially when they run it in Egypt. I can't really see how they could be broke - they probably state this to not pay taxes and to get people on their side. 1) Check http://i40.tinypic.com/hv77kx.jpg http://i40.tinypic.com/hv77kx.jpg for reference

43 points by adnymarc 18y ago

They are almost sure to get nailed for it now I think - and a good thing too. Neither side winning is a good outcome for the rest of us but I prefer to see the idiots dealt some of their own punishment for once ;D

josefresco 18y ago
Agreed, you're talking about the Movie Companies/IFPI getting nailed right?
randallsquared 18y ago
Actually, I'd argue that TPB winning would be a good outcome for the rest of us, but even if they don't, it's only a matter of time. Patterns are not things, and the only way to paper over the difference is to make it harder to work with patterns... but that's not the way technology is going.
- ErrantX 18y ago
  I dont buy that. Please explain why that would be good? If the music companies win then perhaps the idiot pirates start to acutally get scared. Then us sensible lot can sit down with the companies and get them to do things right. Stuff is moving in the right direction (Apple going non-DRM for instance) these guys are dinosaurs and holding things back. Send em down. I fail to see how anyone can condone TPB ever.... they damage the file sharing community like nothing else before. (ps am amused at the downmodding of my comment.... way to support piracy.. ;))
  - allenbrunson 18y ago
    you're not being downmodded because everybody here supports piracy. it's because you used the word "idiot," among other things. you can make almost any point on hacker news and get away with it, if you're respectful to all involved.
    - ErrantX 18y ago
      Why? They treat everyone else with the same degree of snootiness and vitriol... calling them idiots is barely disrespectful :)
      - allenbrunson 18y ago
        you've perhaps heard that two wrongs don't make a right? pg started this site, and he has inculcated it with his values. imagine pg writing an essay about the pirate bay. do you suppose he would call them "idiots?" like it or not, the culture around these parts tends towards respect. you violate local customs at your own peril.
        ErrantX 18y ago
        I dont buy that. It is expressing an opinion. I do respect the excellent way they are using the media and the internet to show off their cause. I dont respect what they do. I disagree calling them idiots is disrespectful: because, well, they are.... (in my opinion):) There is a huge difference between respect and dislike. Perhaps I should be clear and say they act like idiots. Then its an opinion... I would edit the original but I cant any more.. oh well. Slowly losing a lot of respect for some of the posters here... :(
        mixmax 18y ago
        Idiot is a pretty strong word, and using it requires some arguments and substance besides "in my opinion they are idiots". Intelligent discourse is based on good arguments and respect for the other party.
        ErrantX 18y ago
        I wish I had never used the word: I really dont see it as particularly strong... perhaps it is cultural differences getting in the way. But a single word is getting in the way of a good debate elsewhere in the thread - which is a bit sad. (for the record I think I did back up my statement: they are idiots because they are helping and encouraging people the steal with no thought as to the consequences and believe they are above the law to the point of being. And, importantly, refuse to be reasoned with - and yes I have tried.) I agree with the good arguments - but respect should not be automatic. I would look for it to be earned in an argument (probably I did not do much to earn any yesterday). My other point, of course, is that TPB (at whom my remark was directed) are not here and so are not one of the debating parties... :) EDIT: I am not particularly worried by the downmods. People can express their opinions. However downmodding based on wording feels a bit short sighted... downmodding based on percieved bias (which a friend of mine pointed out) I would agree with (because it did introduce a bias.. which was a mistake). (Also it's a bit sad to see this bumped up to the first page... this surely is stuff for the "back room")
  - randallsquared 18y ago
    It would be good because it will cause far more attention than the reverse verdict, and there will be some people who would otherwise have feared unspecific consequences for sharing who will thereby be reassured. It's a PR victory for the forces of anti-copyright (and, to a lesser extent, copyleft), and a conviction would be a draw (there's no way that the music companies can actually win, as far as I can see). I'm interested to hear what you believe the endgame for copyright is, given that you think that those currently ignoring copyright are in the wrong, but that Apple, et al, should go non-DRM? I'm against copyright, and I dislike DRM, but I don't have anything in principle against DRM, as I do against copyright.
    - ErrantX 18y ago
      yes maybe it would get more attention - but what kind of attention? Basically it would amount to the Swedish coaurts saying that providing the infrastructure ot share Copyrighted material was ok.. which it is not. In the face of that could we expect media companies to be reasonable and sit at the table to work out new ways to provide access to digital media/software? This is not a 2 sided battle in my eyes. TPB are as much an enemy to the consumer as the IPFI. And why shouldnt the sharers get some fear? Perhaps it will dissuade them from sharing. Bearing in mind I am massivley pro copyright (as a software developer and writer - even though the majority of my work is open source). In terms of copyright - I too am not too worried by DRM. I would like to see DRM dropped but can understand why it is there. In the Apple case they had to impose stupidly strict DRM just to get the store off the ground. The fact they can now release that music more freely is a testamount to how much the music companies are starting to come round to the consumers viewpoint. I am never one to blame the music companies for wanting to protect their material: even though I do disagree with the prices they charge, how they screw over the artists and how they insist (till now) on locking stuff up in super restrictive DRM. I never fully understood the arguments against copyright. Care to explain?
      - randallsquared 18y ago
        Let me preface by noting that I, too, am a software developer, and ran/was an ISV catering primarily to small business from 2001 to 2008. Nevertheless, I am anti-copyright. There are several arguments against copyright, but the one I like most is this: property is necessary because two people cannot both (exclusively) use the same property at the same time. The idea of property solves this, and everyone can agree that that is yours while this is mine. The nature of things is that they can't be available for the exclusive use of two or more people. Ideas (copyright and patents, at least; trademarks are less clear) can be used by more than one person without any impact on others using it: everyone can exclusively use an idea at the same time. The reason for this is that "an idea" isn't a thing at all, but a category of things -- a description of a group, each instance of which is owned by virtue of someone owning the physical thing that instantiates it. In summary: I don't believe in ownership of categories of things, only things themselves. If you look at the origins of copyright, even its supporters didn't believe it was real property; it was purely a utilitarian attempt to encourage production of ideas by extending an analogy of property to idea production, for a limited time. There are still reasonable arguments to be made about whether it's an net economic win or lose for a legal system to include copyright and patent, and other people can argue that point better than I.
- sfk 18y ago
  I disagree. Should the pirate bay win, politicians can argue that current laws aren't strong enough to prevent illegal activities on the Internet. Thus, freedoms that we enjoy nowadays might be taken away in the future. This is a classic case where the misbehavior of one segment of the population (in this case quite a large segment) could make stricter legislation necessary. I think that real world traffic laws are a good analogy here: Most people are violating speed limits, and speeding in moderation is socially acceptable. Compare moderate speeding to moderate file sharing, i.e. sharing files with say only 10 of your best acquaintances. Legislation would not be required. However, gross violation of speed limits by a certain group of drivers brought us the traffic police and radar controls. I hope that the gross copyright violations of a certain group of people do not ruin the Internet for everyone.

davidw 18y ago

Here's my bet: they are found guilty for something, don't get jail time or much of a fine, but are required to shut down or modify their operations. If I were a judge, I would see the prosecution's claims as exaggerated, but would probably look askance at the fact that these guys have done nothing at all to remove trackers pointing to copyrighted material, and have actually made fun of those requests.

bep 18y ago
Indeed. I guess if they will be force between changing something or move, they will move to another country. So nothing will change anwyay.
- ErrantX 18y ago
  As far as I knew since the '03 (I think 03) raid their servers are located in a different country anyway.
  - dag 18y ago
    2008, Egypt (http://thepiratebay.org/blog/102 http://thepiratebay.org/blog/102 , it only took a few seconds to find, and bests AFAIK-ing)
    - ErrantX 18y ago
      re read the blog post... spot the irony? ;) Fairly certain that the servers are not in the Sainai :)
      - rms 18y ago
        I don't get it, could you explain please?
        ErrantX 18y ago
        Well fairly certain that Tiamo does not live in Egypt. Also they claim to have Fibre connections to XYZ countries? hmmm. (bearing in mind that that kind of thing leaves a paper trail and there doesnt appear to be one) Smacks a little too much of irony to me :)

mixmax 18y ago

Continually blogging about the courtcase, partying, inviting livebloggers and sending live feeds from the court is an excellent PR strategy for Thepiratebay. If they're found guilty there'll be an uproar, and the Swedish authorities and judges know they're being watched closely by an international community.

cabalamat 18y ago
> the Swedish authorities and judges know they're being watched closely by an international community Do the Swedish authorities particularly care if a group of people who they consider to be criminals and pirates don't like them? I doubt it.
- kaens 18y ago
  You'd think they would give a little more weight to the group, considering that the users of TPB are a good chunk of the internet-using population of the world.
- mixmax 18y ago
  They are politicians, and politicians are at the mercy of their voters which happen to consist of a large chunk of filesharers. When the Pirate Bay's servers were raided a few years ago it turned into a political scandal, and (if I remember correctly) a minister was fired. Also, The Pirate Party was very close to getting elected into parlaiment at the last election in Sweden. If I was a Swedish politician or authority I would definitely care.
tlb 18y ago
There are even more people sympathetic to pot smokers facing jail time. But authorities don't seem inclined to soften the sentences. Courts really shouldn't worry about public reaction. That's the job of lawmakers.

chris11 18y ago

Could anyone estimate the costs of running The Pirate Bay? I've heard that the site could be grossing millions a year from advertising, but I'm also assuming that the costs are extremely high. I was interested in finding out financial information for the site, but it looks like it won't be released.

deleted 18y ago
[deleted]
lethain 18y ago
I imagine it's less than you're suggesting, because they're not serving the files themselves, so their bandwidth would be relatively low compared to a photo or video sharing site.
- sam_in_nyc 18y ago
  Doesn't tracking millions of torrents require a massive amount of bandwidth? I'm no expert on bittorrent protocol, but I'm sure millions of clients pinging "I'm a seeder" or "I'm a leecher" adds up.

amix 18y ago

I think the Pirate Bay is a shady operation. They probably earn millions on giving other peoples work for free. I don't understand the model of "free copying" - if everyone is leeching and nobody is paying how will we get movies like Star Wars, Lord of the Rings or a game like Halo (they cost millions of $ to produce)? I hope an alternative comes where you actually pay for the stuff you leech (especially for movies). And the argument with "trying stuff out", does not really hold - you don't go and try an ice cream for free, you buy it and if it's bad you don't buy ice creams from that store any longer.

latortuga 18y ago
> if everyone is leeching and nobody is paying how will we get movies like Star Wars, Lord of the Rings or a game like Halo It isn't really the end user's responsibility to fix a broken business model. I agree with you that it's problematic but trying to infringe upon the public's demand to copy with suing/drm/fear hasn't really done much to stem the tide of copying. And at this point it all just feels like a lack of creativity - charge everyone a yearly subscription fee to a site that allows you to download anything for free at high quality/speeds. That's just one idea off the top of my head; get 30 smart people in a room for a week and I'm sure they could come up with tons of viable alternatives.
cdr 18y ago
"Probably earn millions"? You a) don't seem to be following the case, where the people running it credibly claim to be pretty much broke, b) don't seem to know much about such websites - they're almost universally giant money sinks.
- amix 18y ago
  Their traffic is the triple of plentyoffish.com and their site is filled with advertising 1). I doubt it's that expensive to run a tracker and especially when they run it in Egypt. I can't really see how they could be broke - they probably state this to not pay taxes and to get people on their side. 1) Check http://i40.tinypic.com/hv77kx.jpg http://i40.tinypic.com/hv77kx.jpg for reference