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TPB AFK: Watch and Download The Pirate Bay Documentary

161 points by derpenxyne 14y ago

dewey 14y ago
If you enjoy this movie you should also watch http://www.stealthisfilm.com/ http://www.stealthisfilm.com/
mtgx 14y ago
Why doesn't Youtube have better font support for subtitles? Or is this the fault of the people uploading them? I almost always find subtitles on Youtube too small and hard to read from more than 1m distance.
paulhauggis 14y ago
Peter Sunde is all about freedom and "sharing". Yet, his site "Flattr" charges a higher service fee than any other service of its kind. Here is from the flattr site: "On incoming revenue you keep 90%. When you add money to give to others or withdraw money you earned you only pay a fee to the payment provider you choose." So, they charge 10%. Paypal doesn't even charge you anything close to this. I also like how they tried to make it sound like it's not that bad, by talking about how much you actually get to keep rather than the fee itself. I guess you need to make a profit/pay for server/infrastructure costs...so do artists, movie makers, and software developers. It's so easy to take the hard work of others and in most cases, against the wishes of the original content creator, and just give it out for free. Anybody can buy a couple of servers, index a bunch of content, and put it up in a foreign country. TPB isn't fighting for your freedom. They are helping in the demise of independent artists. Sure, you will always have a few people that play for free because it's fun, but because of the current state of the Internet (the new generation feels like they are entitled to music and anything else online, for free), it's going to be very difficult to actually make a living unless you are signed to a major label.
- capisce 14y ago
  On the App Store for instance 30 % goes to Apple.
- zacharydanger 14y ago
  > TPB isn't fighting for your freedom. They are helping in the demise of independent artists. I think you've been misinformed about the effects of content piracy.
- lelandbatey 14y ago
  Indeed, it's disheartening to see people try to defend what is most certainly a crime. No matter what you call it, the artists are not getting paid for their content when they have the right to require payment. That is not right, no matter how you slice it. I'm tired of people saying "but look how evil the artists/labels/companies are!" I don't care, it's no excuse. You're correct that they're shady, but just because you're correct doesn't make your actions right.
  - Wilduck 14y ago
    > You're correct that they're shady, but just because you're correct doesn't make your actions right. You're correct that there are laws against sharing, but that doesn't make those laws right. > Indeed, it's disheartening to see people try to defend what is most certainly a crime. I guess your point is that things are illegal for a reason? There is certainly some truth to that. However, trying to enforce old ideas of copyright when digital distribution has created fundamental changes in how media is consumed seems shortsighted to me. Perhaps you'd be less disheartened if you recognized how many people, both artists and consumers, are successfully navigating digital distribution without resorting to draconian copyright and drm.
  - belorn 14y ago
    If you are talking about morality, I would stay away from those that want to deny peoples access to general useful information. To quote professor Eben Moglen: The great moral question of the twenty-first century is this: if all knowing, all culture, all art, all useful information can be costlessly given to everyone at the same price that it is given to anyone; if everyone can have everything, anywhere, all the time, why is it ever moral to exclude anyone?
    - paulhauggis 14y ago
      So a movie is information now? A song is information? Even the dictionary doesn't agree with your definition: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/information?s=t http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/information?s=t How about your name, address, ssn, CC number, and bank account information. Information wants to be free, right?
- Permit 14y ago
  >TPB isn't fighting for your freedom. They are helping in the demise of independent artists. Sure, you will always have a few people that play for free because it's fun, but because of the current state of the Internet (the new generation feels like they are entitled to music and anything else online, for free), it's going to be very difficult to actually make a living unless you are signed to a major label. Did independent artists ever subsist off album sales prior to the internet/TPB?
- chinmoy 14y ago
  >Yet, his site "Flattr" charges a higher service fee than any other service of its kind Could you show me another service 'of its kind' as awesome as Flattr? Probably not. Speaking of the the services not of its kind, Flattr's 10% is well reasoned. Appstore/Google Play charges 30%. Have you heard about Envato? They charge 50% on all sales until you make $70,000. Thousands of people make a living out of Envato and Appstore/Play. Also don't forget that Flattr is dealing with micro transactions. With Flattr you can give $1 to 10 different content creators. Could you do that with Paypal? I think not. So, I would say that Flattr's 10% fee is well reasoned and acceptable.
  - paulhauggis 14y ago
    "Appstore/Google Play charges 30%. Have you heard about Envato? They charge 50% on all sales until you make $70,000. Thousands of people make a living out of Envato and Appstore/Play." Those services are for giving donations to people? Can you show me where they state this, because I can't find it anywhere.. "I would say that Flattr's 10% fee is well reasoned and acceptable." Are you a shill for Flattr? Your comments make me think that you work for the site..
- aspensmonster 14y ago
  Independent artists aren't going anywhere, and neither are record labels. Independent artists and labels alike have been helped and harmed by the changing paradigm that global networking has brought about. Pick whichever sign for the delta you want, but money isn't and hasn't been the driving force behind artistic expression. The overwhelming majority of all musicians never break even on the time and money they put into their work. It's been that way for decades. Most artists --signed and independent alike-- are far more concerned with the size of their audience than their wallets. And in the quest for an audience, the internet has far outdone its predecessors. From my perspective, the "current state of the Internet" is not a state in need of repair. Rather, business models are in need of an update. Humanity has dragged them forward into new technologies kicking and screaming every time, and every time the show has gone on.
  - chimeracoder 14y ago
    > It's been that way for decades. Try centuries.
- Natsu 14y ago
  I'm not sure that a payment processor is the best thing to compare Flattr to, but if they believe it offers no value beyond that, artists are free to do everything themselves and use Paypal or whatever else.
- makerbreaker 14y ago
  http://www.billboard.com/charts/hot-100 http://www.billboard.com/charts/hot-100 There is an indie artist #1 on the charts right now, first time in 20 years, and second time in history. "...won’t talk about how much money they’ve made, but it’s enough to make a major label’s advance offers seem inconsequential." Is this an anomaly or is this a trend?
  - paulhauggis 14y ago
    It can happen, but very rarely. Indy artists are like startups that have no funding for marketing or just don't know how to market themselves properly.
- GBiT 14y ago
  Try to give to artist 10, 20 or 50 cents trough paypal. You will pay minimum 200% transfer fee.
- Raphael 14y ago
  Kickstarter also charges 10%.
- vibrunazo 14y ago
  FYI, the name of this logical fallacy is "poisoning the well". "He made X before, so Y must be Z"
  - paulhauggis 14y ago
    No, it's called hypocrisy and it's pretty clear. But because he is the darling of the HN community (which seems odd, since many people here are interested in running startups), nobody cares. I find the same thing happens with Al Gore. He made carbon credit laws that made him a billionaire and his supporters don't see this as filthy, corporate, greed. Yet, complain about the banks.
    - illuminate 14y ago
      The only way to adjust business practices in a society that fetishizes deregulation is transferring money around. If the businesses can't/won't self-regulate, some action will be taken within the boundaries of what America will tolerate. A much better action would certainly be to regulate, empowering the EPA and international health/safety standards bodies and skip over the middlemen entirely.
- subsystem 14y ago
  Great, another thread ruined by a lowest common denominator discussion.
- belorn 14y ago
  Such a horrible arguments, no wonder it got down voted. If you think you can do better than Flattr and produce a service that charge less, feel free to implement it. Competition is healthy, and there is no software patents in Sweden, thus no state enforced monopoly to stop you. As for the TPB site itself, there are not a single peer reviewed research that say that independent artists was harmed by the site. Now days with the promo-bay, they have done more good than most labels but without charging a single dime.
  - paulhauggis 14y ago
    "Such a horrible arguments, no wonder it got down voted." Like most things that go against that go against the mainstream opinion of HN, my opinion is silenced by the masses. "If you think you can do better than Flattr and produce a service that charge less, feel free to implement it. Competition is healthy, and there is no software patents in Sweden, thus no state enforced monopoly to stop you." I don't need to. I'm also not trying to defend to the world why I'm freely sharing other peoples content and making money on it (through ad revenue). "As for the TPB site itself, there are not a single peer reviewed research that say that independent artists was harmed by the site" You are really tying to tell me that If I am selling a product and everyone knows they can get it for free from a website online, that people will buy it from me instead if downloading it for free and I won't get "harmed"? You can defend this all you want, but when it hits your industry, don't start blaming anyone. It will cause job loss in the future. "Now days with the promo-bay, they have done more good than most labels but without charging a single dime." Prove it. There is no peer-reviewed research on the subject.
- dylangs1030 14y ago
  A major label isn't a guarantee of money. In fact, quite the opposite. Royalties don't earn much of a living until you reach the very high echelons of musical popularity. The most money is really earned from touring and live performances.
ameen 14y ago
Rather than glorifying the act of piracy, this movie does a wonderful job of exposing the founders. One of them is an Alcoholic right-wing racist, another a drug addict. Peter Sunde seems to be the only person who who seems vaguely normal. I wish teenagers, children and other "pirates" realize that there is no glory in associating themselves with these sociopaths.
- Matti 14y ago
  By right-wing racist, are you talking about Fredrik whose children are mixed-race (note the clips where he got married in Laos) or Carl who's married to a jewish woman?
  - ameen 14y ago
    You do realize that there are other races as well right? How would you explain the "dirty immigrants" quote?
    - dfc 14y ago
      Xenophobia != Racism
    - Matti 14y ago
      It's a mistranslation, and you are ignoring the context. He points out that every time he has been beaten up or robbed the assailants have been immigrants. And by immigrants, he clarifies, he is not talking about 7th generation Finns but about "turkblattejävlar". The phrase he uses can't be directly translated. It's a generalized racial slur of moderate intensity with a clear subtext of social class. In the context, and when contrasted with "7th generation Finns", he is using the phrase to refer to a certain demographic: young males of low socioeconomic status, most likely originating from the Middle-east or North Africa. In polite conversation this is the subset of the population that you would euphemistically refer to as "ungdomsgäng" or "youths". But, as you can see, he is not in a polite conversation: he's in a pub, he's drunk, and he has just called brokep "a fucking vegetarian leftist bitch ass bastard" who's driven by "ideological pussy-inflicted instincts". In that setting and with that tone the phrase was at most a less than appropriate way of referring to his attackers — hardly an exhibit of "right wing racism".
jiggy2011 14y ago
Is anyone else getting a terrible download speed for this? I'm on the 720p torrent and getting 65kps despite there being thousands of seeds.
- aspensmonster 14y ago
  On 1080p. Started out around 50 KBps. Now getting a steady 430 KBps.
- caissy 14y ago
  Bursted at 10mb/sec a few seconds after starting my download.
- skcin7 14y ago
  I was getting around 500 KiB/s for the 1080p version just a few minutes into the download. You could also just rip the 1080p version from YouTube with "Easy YouTube Video Downloader" browser add-on, or a similar add-on (there are tons of these). The YouTube servers typically support downloads of around 1-1.5 MiB/s which is better than torrents in most cases (on residential Internet lines).
MrJagil 14y ago
Ugh, the color-grading puts me off immediately...
grecy 14y ago
For all the people arguing this is glorifying breaking the law, it's worth keeping in mind all the people that stood up against segregation in the southern US states, or Apartheid in South Africa, or any number of laws that were considered "immutable" and carried severe penalties. Yes, these actions are against current laws, but at citizens of the world we have a responsibility to stand up and make our voices heard if we ever hope to change anything. Many people will go to jail and pay big fines in the near future, but that is the way it has always been to influence great change.
- dot 14y ago
  Equating piracy laws with state run human rights abuse is a bit of a stretch.
  - grecy 14y ago
    I didn't equate the laws themselves, I equated the people struggling to change them. You could apply it to any law in history that has been changed through the action of a few people.
    - misterbwong 14y ago
      Not to get too meta, but you did both. Consider this: For all the people arguing this is glorifying breaking the law, it's worth keeping in mind all the people that stood up against raising the speed limit to 65 in the southern US states, or requiring seat belts in cars, or any number of laws that were considered "immutable" and carried severe penalties. Yes, these actions are against current laws, but at citizens of the world we have a responsibility to stand up and make our voices heard if we ever hope to change anything. Many people will go to jail and pay big fines in the near future, but that is the way it has always been to influence great change. --- That extra oomph that's missing is you equating the apartheid and segregation laws (and their egregious nature) to copyright law. While I agree with your underlying point, the solution isn't to blow things out of proportion and compare them to some heinous human rights laws. It's a short hop from there to Nazis, a la Godwin's Law. edited for clarity
orangethirty 14y ago
May anyone offer a good synopsis of the movie? If you know of a good blog post about it you may post it too. Thank you.
mattbarrie 14y ago
At 1:02:30 you can probably figure out his laptop password.
dylangs1030 14y ago
People aren't arguing the same things here. One side argues that piracy is a misnomer; that there are no true claims to digital property and that sharing is allowed at no cost for everyone. They highlight the injustices of the entertainment industry and "big business" poisoning both artists and consumers. The other side argues that piracy is stealing with no room for moral relativism, and that people measurably suffer as a result of it. We need to condense these and actually argue against the same things. First, let's examine what qualifies as fair use for sharing. It is true that the internet allows people to share media and idea in an unprecedented way, and that we are allowed access to things as a basic right, no matter where in the world we are. Sharing and public access to material is virtually universal, this is something that is agreeable. Now let's examine property rights and intellectual ownership. Property is anything that can be owned, although one could introduce semantics and change the definition to anything which is of value, or a resource. In either case, patents, copyrights and trademarks are all viable forms of property in the same way land is property. That it is easier to steal a virtual form of property than it is to steal a house does not diminish the fact that media is a valuable resource which can be represented by a medium of exchange (e.g. money, currency). In other words, when you pirate something, you are stealing media which is property. Property can be leased, bought, gifted and sold. It can also be partitioned and divided into smaller units. This brings us to a feasible view of property that can preside over both land and virtual media - property is the archetype itself, and property represents the greatest whole unit - under this definition, an album is a whole unit which could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Similarly, a movie could be worth a billion dollars. But they are sold in much smaller units which are mirror forms of the original, albeit in single form. And this represents property for the same reason that selling an acre of a much larger form represents property - you are still selling a portion of a greater whole. We have thus eliminated one of the biggest arguments against virtual media representing property, and being ineligible for protection from forms of stealing. So we can now come to a reasonable agreement that piracy represents taking a form of property without paying for it, be it leasing or purchasing. And thus, piracy is equivalent to stealing. The only remaining point is whether or not stealing is justified in light of the often unethical business practices the entertainment industry subjects its incumbents to, most notably the artists. This is a much greater discussion to have, but I am of the opinion that it is not fair to those who produce or create the media to steal it. You do not know how much money they will lose, and you also do not know how much you would really "stick it to the man" to steal. Is it worth depriving a farmer of his grain to send a message to the government? The answer must agree with your answer to whether or not it is fair and justified to steal from an artist to send a message to the industry supporting him. So, now I bring my point full circle. Is sharing a universal right? Yes. But you do not share your property at no cost. Are people given the right of access? Yes, but that access is limited to surveying and browsing property. You are not allowed to squat on a home, and neither are you allowed to steal media. But you are given basic access to both of these things and presented with a choice to buy them or turn them down. These are the two options implicit in access. The problem is that people believe there are other options implicit in the right to access, and they act accordingly. What further confuses the issue is ideological baggage associated with the "warez" culture. Adding a label to your identity is a handy antidote to guilt and ethical considerations, but it does not hold up to raw logical examination.
austinl 14y ago
I thought the arguments about how the market should evolve to handle piracy were very interesting. With that, I truly appreciate Gabe Newell's perspective on the issue: "Our goal is to create greater service value than pirates, and this has been successful enough for us that piracy is basically a non-issue for our company... prior to entering the Russian market, we were told that Russia was a waste of time because everyone would pirate our products. Russia is now about to become our largest market in Europe." [1] Valve's solution: Create an altogether better service. Be more convenient than piracy. It's a challenge for many industries to replicate what Valve has done, but I know for a fact that I buy games on Steam I could easily pirate because the quality of service is so great. http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-11-28-valve-piracy-a-non-issue-for-steam http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-11-28-valve-piracy-a-...
dieordigg 14y ago
Done watching. Quite inspiring I gotta say. I sure do hope the people who ruled their sentences will watch this too, and thus maybe at least begin to grasp a tiny little bit what freedom in the internet means and the ways of thinking of those who understand the technology underneath. And that killing a man with an axe produced by Fiskars isn't a crime done by Fiskars and so on.
contingencies 14y ago
Wow. What a tremendously strong and difficult gesture, surrendering the less than impressive nature of their internal struggles and personal character flaws to the public through a documentary like this. Much respect to all of those involved, including the film maker. With examples like this we can look ahead with the hopes of a better world.

161 points by derpenxyne 14y ago

dewey 14y ago

If you enjoy this movie you should also watch http://www.stealthisfilm.com/ http://www.stealthisfilm.com/

mtgx 14y ago

Why doesn't Youtube have better font support for subtitles? Or is this the fault of the people uploading them? I almost always find subtitles on Youtube too small and hard to read from more than 1m distance.

paulhauggis 14y ago

Peter Sunde is all about freedom and "sharing". Yet, his site "Flattr" charges a higher service fee than any other service of its kind. Here is from the flattr site: "On incoming revenue you keep 90%. When you add money to give to others or withdraw money you earned you only pay a fee to the payment provider you choose." So, they charge 10%. Paypal doesn't even charge you anything close to this. I also like how they tried to make it sound like it's not that bad, by talking about how much you actually get to keep rather than the fee itself. I guess you need to make a profit/pay for server/infrastructure costs...so do artists, movie makers, and software developers. It's so easy to take the hard work of others and in most cases, against the wishes of the original content creator, and just give it out for free. Anybody can buy a couple of servers, index a bunch of content, and put it up in a foreign country. TPB isn't fighting for your freedom. They are helping in the demise of independent artists. Sure, you will always have a few people that play for free because it's fun, but because of the current state of the Internet (the new generation feels like they are entitled to music and anything else online, for free), it's going to be very difficult to actually make a living unless you are signed to a major label.

capisce 14y ago
On the App Store for instance 30 % goes to Apple.
zacharydanger 14y ago
> TPB isn't fighting for your freedom. They are helping in the demise of independent artists. I think you've been misinformed about the effects of content piracy.
lelandbatey 14y ago
Indeed, it's disheartening to see people try to defend what is most certainly a crime. No matter what you call it, the artists are not getting paid for their content when they have the right to require payment. That is not right, no matter how you slice it. I'm tired of people saying "but look how evil the artists/labels/companies are!" I don't care, it's no excuse. You're correct that they're shady, but just because you're correct doesn't make your actions right.
- Wilduck 14y ago
  > You're correct that they're shady, but just because you're correct doesn't make your actions right. You're correct that there are laws against sharing, but that doesn't make those laws right. > Indeed, it's disheartening to see people try to defend what is most certainly a crime. I guess your point is that things are illegal for a reason? There is certainly some truth to that. However, trying to enforce old ideas of copyright when digital distribution has created fundamental changes in how media is consumed seems shortsighted to me. Perhaps you'd be less disheartened if you recognized how many people, both artists and consumers, are successfully navigating digital distribution without resorting to draconian copyright and drm.
- belorn 14y ago
  If you are talking about morality, I would stay away from those that want to deny peoples access to general useful information. To quote professor Eben Moglen: The great moral question of the twenty-first century is this: if all knowing, all culture, all art, all useful information can be costlessly given to everyone at the same price that it is given to anyone; if everyone can have everything, anywhere, all the time, why is it ever moral to exclude anyone?
  - paulhauggis 14y ago
    So a movie is information now? A song is information? Even the dictionary doesn't agree with your definition: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/information?s=t http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/information?s=t How about your name, address, ssn, CC number, and bank account information. Information wants to be free, right?
Permit 14y ago
>TPB isn't fighting for your freedom. They are helping in the demise of independent artists. Sure, you will always have a few people that play for free because it's fun, but because of the current state of the Internet (the new generation feels like they are entitled to music and anything else online, for free), it's going to be very difficult to actually make a living unless you are signed to a major label. Did independent artists ever subsist off album sales prior to the internet/TPB?
chinmoy 14y ago
>Yet, his site "Flattr" charges a higher service fee than any other service of its kind Could you show me another service 'of its kind' as awesome as Flattr? Probably not. Speaking of the the services not of its kind, Flattr's 10% is well reasoned. Appstore/Google Play charges 30%. Have you heard about Envato? They charge 50% on all sales until you make $70,000. Thousands of people make a living out of Envato and Appstore/Play. Also don't forget that Flattr is dealing with micro transactions. With Flattr you can give $1 to 10 different content creators. Could you do that with Paypal? I think not. So, I would say that Flattr's 10% fee is well reasoned and acceptable.
- paulhauggis 14y ago
  "Appstore/Google Play charges 30%. Have you heard about Envato? They charge 50% on all sales until you make $70,000. Thousands of people make a living out of Envato and Appstore/Play." Those services are for giving donations to people? Can you show me where they state this, because I can't find it anywhere.. "I would say that Flattr's 10% fee is well reasoned and acceptable." Are you a shill for Flattr? Your comments make me think that you work for the site..
aspensmonster 14y ago
Independent artists aren't going anywhere, and neither are record labels. Independent artists and labels alike have been helped and harmed by the changing paradigm that global networking has brought about. Pick whichever sign for the delta you want, but money isn't and hasn't been the driving force behind artistic expression. The overwhelming majority of all musicians never break even on the time and money they put into their work. It's been that way for decades. Most artists --signed and independent alike-- are far more concerned with the size of their audience than their wallets. And in the quest for an audience, the internet has far outdone its predecessors. From my perspective, the "current state of the Internet" is not a state in need of repair. Rather, business models are in need of an update. Humanity has dragged them forward into new technologies kicking and screaming every time, and every time the show has gone on.
- chimeracoder 14y ago
  > It's been that way for decades. Try centuries.
Natsu 14y ago
I'm not sure that a payment processor is the best thing to compare Flattr to, but if they believe it offers no value beyond that, artists are free to do everything themselves and use Paypal or whatever else.
makerbreaker 14y ago
http://www.billboard.com/charts/hot-100 http://www.billboard.com/charts/hot-100 There is an indie artist #1 on the charts right now, first time in 20 years, and second time in history. "...won’t talk about how much money they’ve made, but it’s enough to make a major label’s advance offers seem inconsequential." Is this an anomaly or is this a trend?
- paulhauggis 14y ago
  It can happen, but very rarely. Indy artists are like startups that have no funding for marketing or just don't know how to market themselves properly.
GBiT 14y ago
Try to give to artist 10, 20 or 50 cents trough paypal. You will pay minimum 200% transfer fee.
Raphael 14y ago
Kickstarter also charges 10%.
vibrunazo 14y ago
FYI, the name of this logical fallacy is "poisoning the well". "He made X before, so Y must be Z"
- paulhauggis 14y ago
  No, it's called hypocrisy and it's pretty clear. But because he is the darling of the HN community (which seems odd, since many people here are interested in running startups), nobody cares. I find the same thing happens with Al Gore. He made carbon credit laws that made him a billionaire and his supporters don't see this as filthy, corporate, greed. Yet, complain about the banks.
  - illuminate 14y ago
    The only way to adjust business practices in a society that fetishizes deregulation is transferring money around. If the businesses can't/won't self-regulate, some action will be taken within the boundaries of what America will tolerate. A much better action would certainly be to regulate, empowering the EPA and international health/safety standards bodies and skip over the middlemen entirely.
subsystem 14y ago
Great, another thread ruined by a lowest common denominator discussion.
belorn 14y ago
Such a horrible arguments, no wonder it got down voted. If you think you can do better than Flattr and produce a service that charge less, feel free to implement it. Competition is healthy, and there is no software patents in Sweden, thus no state enforced monopoly to stop you. As for the TPB site itself, there are not a single peer reviewed research that say that independent artists was harmed by the site. Now days with the promo-bay, they have done more good than most labels but without charging a single dime.
- paulhauggis 14y ago
  "Such a horrible arguments, no wonder it got down voted." Like most things that go against that go against the mainstream opinion of HN, my opinion is silenced by the masses. "If you think you can do better than Flattr and produce a service that charge less, feel free to implement it. Competition is healthy, and there is no software patents in Sweden, thus no state enforced monopoly to stop you." I don't need to. I'm also not trying to defend to the world why I'm freely sharing other peoples content and making money on it (through ad revenue). "As for the TPB site itself, there are not a single peer reviewed research that say that independent artists was harmed by the site" You are really tying to tell me that If I am selling a product and everyone knows they can get it for free from a website online, that people will buy it from me instead if downloading it for free and I won't get "harmed"? You can defend this all you want, but when it hits your industry, don't start blaming anyone. It will cause job loss in the future. "Now days with the promo-bay, they have done more good than most labels but without charging a single dime." Prove it. There is no peer-reviewed research on the subject.
dylangs1030 14y ago
A major label isn't a guarantee of money. In fact, quite the opposite. Royalties don't earn much of a living until you reach the very high echelons of musical popularity. The most money is really earned from touring and live performances.

ameen 14y ago

Rather than glorifying the act of piracy, this movie does a wonderful job of exposing the founders. One of them is an Alcoholic right-wing racist, another a drug addict. Peter Sunde seems to be the only person who who seems vaguely normal. I wish teenagers, children and other "pirates" realize that there is no glory in associating themselves with these sociopaths.

Matti 14y ago
By right-wing racist, are you talking about Fredrik whose children are mixed-race (note the clips where he got married in Laos) or Carl who's married to a jewish woman?
- ameen 14y ago
  You do realize that there are other races as well right? How would you explain the "dirty immigrants" quote?
  - dfc 14y ago
    Xenophobia != Racism
  - Matti 14y ago
    It's a mistranslation, and you are ignoring the context. He points out that every time he has been beaten up or robbed the assailants have been immigrants. And by immigrants, he clarifies, he is not talking about 7th generation Finns but about "turkblattejävlar". The phrase he uses can't be directly translated. It's a generalized racial slur of moderate intensity with a clear subtext of social class. In the context, and when contrasted with "7th generation Finns", he is using the phrase to refer to a certain demographic: young males of low socioeconomic status, most likely originating from the Middle-east or North Africa. In polite conversation this is the subset of the population that you would euphemistically refer to as "ungdomsgäng" or "youths". But, as you can see, he is not in a polite conversation: he's in a pub, he's drunk, and he has just called brokep "a fucking vegetarian leftist bitch ass bastard" who's driven by "ideological pussy-inflicted instincts". In that setting and with that tone the phrase was at most a less than appropriate way of referring to his attackers — hardly an exhibit of "right wing racism".

jiggy2011 14y ago

Is anyone else getting a terrible download speed for this? I'm on the 720p torrent and getting 65kps despite there being thousands of seeds.

aspensmonster 14y ago
On 1080p. Started out around 50 KBps. Now getting a steady 430 KBps.
caissy 14y ago
Bursted at 10mb/sec a few seconds after starting my download.
skcin7 14y ago
I was getting around 500 KiB/s for the 1080p version just a few minutes into the download. You could also just rip the 1080p version from YouTube with "Easy YouTube Video Downloader" browser add-on, or a similar add-on (there are tons of these). The YouTube servers typically support downloads of around 1-1.5 MiB/s which is better than torrents in most cases (on residential Internet lines).

MrJagil 14y ago

Ugh, the color-grading puts me off immediately...

grecy 14y ago

For all the people arguing this is glorifying breaking the law, it's worth keeping in mind all the people that stood up against segregation in the southern US states, or Apartheid in South Africa, or any number of laws that were considered "immutable" and carried severe penalties. Yes, these actions are against current laws, but at citizens of the world we have a responsibility to stand up and make our voices heard if we ever hope to change anything. Many people will go to jail and pay big fines in the near future, but that is the way it has always been to influence great change.

dot 14y ago
Equating piracy laws with state run human rights abuse is a bit of a stretch.
- grecy 14y ago
  I didn't equate the laws themselves, I equated the people struggling to change them. You could apply it to any law in history that has been changed through the action of a few people.
  - misterbwong 14y ago
    Not to get too meta, but you did both. Consider this: For all the people arguing this is glorifying breaking the law, it's worth keeping in mind all the people that stood up against raising the speed limit to 65 in the southern US states, or requiring seat belts in cars, or any number of laws that were considered "immutable" and carried severe penalties. Yes, these actions are against current laws, but at citizens of the world we have a responsibility to stand up and make our voices heard if we ever hope to change anything. Many people will go to jail and pay big fines in the near future, but that is the way it has always been to influence great change. --- That extra oomph that's missing is you equating the apartheid and segregation laws (and their egregious nature) to copyright law. While I agree with your underlying point, the solution isn't to blow things out of proportion and compare them to some heinous human rights laws. It's a short hop from there to Nazis, a la Godwin's Law. edited for clarity

orangethirty 14y ago

May anyone offer a good synopsis of the movie? If you know of a good blog post about it you may post it too. Thank you.

mattbarrie 14y ago

At 1:02:30 you can probably figure out his laptop password.

dylangs1030 14y ago

People aren't arguing the same things here. One side argues that piracy is a misnomer; that there are no true claims to digital property and that sharing is allowed at no cost for everyone. They highlight the injustices of the entertainment industry and "big business" poisoning both artists and consumers. The other side argues that piracy is stealing with no room for moral relativism, and that people measurably suffer as a result of it. We need to condense these and actually argue against the same things. First, let's examine what qualifies as fair use for sharing. It is true that the internet allows people to share media and idea in an unprecedented way, and that we are allowed access to things as a basic right, no matter where in the world we are. Sharing and public access to material is virtually universal, this is something that is agreeable. Now let's examine property rights and intellectual ownership. Property is anything that can be owned, although one could introduce semantics and change the definition to anything which is of value, or a resource. In either case, patents, copyrights and trademarks are all viable forms of property in the same way land is property. That it is easier to steal a virtual form of property than it is to steal a house does not diminish the fact that media is a valuable resource which can be represented by a medium of exchange (e.g. money, currency). In other words, when you pirate something, you are stealing media which is property. Property can be leased, bought, gifted and sold. It can also be partitioned and divided into smaller units. This brings us to a feasible view of property that can preside over both land and virtual media - property is the archetype itself, and property represents the greatest whole unit - under this definition, an album is a whole unit which could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Similarly, a movie could be worth a billion dollars. But they are sold in much smaller units which are mirror forms of the original, albeit in single form. And this represents property for the same reason that selling an acre of a much larger form represents property - you are still selling a portion of a greater whole. We have thus eliminated one of the biggest arguments against virtual media representing property, and being ineligible for protection from forms of stealing. So we can now come to a reasonable agreement that piracy represents taking a form of property without paying for it, be it leasing or purchasing. And thus, piracy is equivalent to stealing. The only remaining point is whether or not stealing is justified in light of the often unethical business practices the entertainment industry subjects its incumbents to, most notably the artists. This is a much greater discussion to have, but I am of the opinion that it is not fair to those who produce or create the media to steal it. You do not know how much money they will lose, and you also do not know how much you would really "stick it to the man" to steal. Is it worth depriving a farmer of his grain to send a message to the government? The answer must agree with your answer to whether or not it is fair and justified to steal from an artist to send a message to the industry supporting him. So, now I bring my point full circle. Is sharing a universal right? Yes. But you do not share your property at no cost. Are people given the right of access? Yes, but that access is limited to surveying and browsing property. You are not allowed to squat on a home, and neither are you allowed to steal media. But you are given basic access to both of these things and presented with a choice to buy them or turn them down. These are the two options implicit in access. The problem is that people believe there are other options implicit in the right to access, and they act accordingly. What further confuses the issue is ideological baggage associated with the "warez" culture. Adding a label to your identity is a handy antidote to guilt and ethical considerations, but it does not hold up to raw logical examination.

austinl 14y ago

I thought the arguments about how the market should evolve to handle piracy were very interesting. With that, I truly appreciate Gabe Newell's perspective on the issue: "Our goal is to create greater service value than pirates, and this has been successful enough for us that piracy is basically a non-issue for our company... prior to entering the Russian market, we were told that Russia was a waste of time because everyone would pirate our products. Russia is now about to become our largest market in Europe." [1] Valve's solution: Create an altogether better service. Be more convenient than piracy. It's a challenge for many industries to replicate what Valve has done, but I know for a fact that I buy games on Steam I could easily pirate because the quality of service is so great. http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-11-28-valve-piracy-a-non-issue-for-steam http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-11-28-valve-piracy-a-...

dieordigg 14y ago

Done watching. Quite inspiring I gotta say. I sure do hope the people who ruled their sentences will watch this too, and thus maybe at least begin to grasp a tiny little bit what freedom in the internet means and the ways of thinking of those who understand the technology underneath. And that killing a man with an axe produced by Fiskars isn't a crime done by Fiskars and so on.

contingencies 14y ago

Wow. What a tremendously strong and difficult gesture, surrendering the less than impressive nature of their internal struggles and personal character flaws to the public through a documentary like this. Much respect to all of those involved, including the film maker. With examples like this we can look ahead with the hopes of a better world.