10 ms·

Pirate Bay officially loses case

226 points by chris11 18y ago

Mazy 18y ago
Summary: Everyone received 1 year in prison. They plan to appeal, which means the final verdict could take years. The website and tracker are staying up.
- chris11 18y ago
  I am surprised that the site and tracker is still staying up. I was under the impression that the prosecution was also going after the site.
  - davidw 18y ago
    Yeah, my bet was more on fines and forcing them to shut down the site rather than jail time.
    - froo 18y ago
      I think this what is called being a "scape goat" - perhaps under political pressure, the courts are deciding to make an example out of them. If jail time became the norm for running torrent sites/trackers, those who have the know how to put these things online will be more deterred than if the penalty were only financial loss.
      - iujnhytgh 18y ago
        So the record companies are paying off more politicians than the telcos! How things have changed.
  - trickjarrett 18y ago
    The admins are savvy enough, and they've previously relocated the servers to other countries before, so I have no doubt the site will continue.
    - Celcius 18y ago
      Not only that but they are only four people of a much larger swarm maintaining the pirate bay. Even if they go to jail it wouldn't mean anything to the site being up or not.
      - electromagnetic 18y ago
        I believe they said after their servers were raided that they don't even know what country some of the new servers are located.
paul7986 18y ago
Thanks to these guys and ones prior to them (ShareReactor) we now enjoy free content on Hulu and other sites! I no longer use Bit Torrent, but do thank these guys for forcing old media's hand!
- mingdingo 18y ago
  Seriously. The South Park guys caught on, and with every single episode available on their site, why would you even bother to pirate the episodes? Side note: Even when people were pirating their stuff, they were just happy that people liked the show.
  - vegai 18y ago
    There's one reason: flash. When we get a good video standard over the web, then yes, there's one less reason to pirate stuff like that.
    - nailer 18y ago
      Why isn't Flash H264 good?
      - halo 18y ago
        One reason is that the Linux version of Flash is terrible last time I used it. Not even from a "open web principles" or "proprietary software is evil!" point of view, but rather in a "it crashes the browser on every 2nd or 3rd video viewing" perspective.
        staunch 18y ago
        Run it in nspluginwrapper, so that when Flash crashes it doesn't take down the browser. You just have to refresh the page for the Flash object to run again. Flash crashes less than once a day for me, and I use Flash a lot.
        Scriptor 18y ago
metatronscube 18y ago
This verdict wont change anything for file sharing (may change a lot for their operators) but this will only serve to push file sharing further underground and make superstars out of its operators.
- josefresco 18y ago
  Reminds me of the 'war on terror'.
  - harpastum 18y ago
    Except that terrorism is almost exclusively seen by the public as morally wrong, it's just the governments attempts to 'fight' it that are misguided. Terrorism is used as a tactic by militant groups that are too small to be taken seriously otherwise -- file sharing is supported by a near-majority (obviously opinion/personal experience, but as far as I can tell, there is wide support) and has only grown in strength in response to the ridiculous tactics used by the record and film industries to stop it. Even those that do not download illegal content can experience the benefits that file sharing has influenced (to varying degrees): almost all major networks have content online, and services like Hulu have been growing at an extremely fast rate. There is also the enormous benefit to content providers (media & software) that can now use the well-established P2P protocols [1] (mainly bittorrent). The only similarity I can see between 'The war on P2P' and 'The war on terror' is that neither is likely to be successful. [1] http://linuxtracker.org/ http://linuxtracker.org/
  - dmpayton 18y ago
    Substitute terror with drugs, guns, poverty, or christmas. It's all just a bunch of hoopla.
habibur 18y ago
At least Piratebay isn't closing down: "As for the fate of the site, Peter has already promised that The Pirate Bay will continue. The site itself was never on trial, only the four individuals listed above."
moeffju 18y ago
They will appeal and the trial will be drawn out for months if not years. And even if they finally lose, the servers and the infrastructure will not be affected - they withstood raids, DDoS's, server moves, etc. This will only serve to make the structures even less obvious. "Organized" filesharing, anyone?
deleted 18y ago
[deleted]
miracle 18y ago
They should go to jail since they are making big money out of other people's copyrighted work. And hopefully they will.
- jvdh 18y ago
  I'm sorry, they are making big money? Rly? What makes you think that? They have a big site, without any advertising banners...doesn't sound like a very commercially attractive deal to me. [edit] Oops, my bad, they do have some banners, my ad blocking tools turned out to be far more effective than I thought they would be. Even if they serve those banners, I really can't imagine they are making "big money". [/edit]
  - ErrantX 18y ago
    Actually they DO have ads on the site. Im sure they dont make a lot of money out of it though (running costs perhaps) EDIT: @jvdh - heh yeh I only happened to notice because I was using IE (spit) at the time.
  - acro 18y ago
    I would imagine they can easily make more than mininova, and mininova apparently has revenues over one million per year, see: http://torrentfreak.com/behind-the-scenes-at-mininova-090316/ http://torrentfreak.com/behind-the-scenes-at-mininova-090316... This is just quessing, i have no confirmed information.
    - nopassrecover 18y ago
      Revenues != profits
    - ErrantX 18y ago
      There is earning potential for certain: do they use it? For a group that list openness and freedom amongst their ideals [sic] I dont see any openness about the revenue TPB generates. They release no figures or data. Personally I consider that a double standard (and I have to confess I do believe they make a profit: perhaps not a huge amount but... logically they could make quite a bit and I dont see a decent argument for why they wouldnt)
sho 18y ago
If the appeal is upheld and they really do have to pay $3.6m in fines, I don't think they would have much difficulty raising it online. I'd be up for a C-note no problem and I don't doubt there are plenty of others, especially if they throw in a special edition t-shirt or something. The Pirate Bay website is pretty awful but they're a tremendously important tracker, used by many others. There is a genuine need for such a service. I'm not exactly a l33t w4r3z d00d but I greatly appreciate what these guys have done, and while I have some questions about the workability of their principles on filesharing I greatly respect their integrity in walking the walk. They're no mere pirates, they started a political party for fuck's sake, and the movies they made may suck but they gave them away just as they promised. I got a lot of respect for those guys and will gladly put my money where my mouth is. Good luck to them and may the Pirate Bay reach ever new heights!
- vaksel 18y ago
  they currently have 2.7 million users, they should have no trouble raising the cash...provided they need it And if they can't, they still have all those people signed up for their VPN service, so should be able to cover the rest nicely.
  - juanpablo 18y ago
    Peter Sunde said: “We can’t pay and we wouldn’t pay if we could. If I would have money I would rather burn everything I owned.”
manchesterseo 18y ago
thought the tweet was funny: @brokep [Pirate Bay founder] Really, it's a bit LOL. It used to be only movies, now even verdicts are out before the official release.
- jyu 18y ago
  As witty and funny as this comment was, is it really worth 60 upvotes?
  - palish 18y ago
    Upvotes are probably worthless, depending on how you define 'worth'.
nopassrecover 18y ago
""There has been a perception that piracy is OK and that the music industry should just have to accept it. This verdict will change that," he (the chairman of industry body the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) John Kennedy) said." No, society has decided that companies profiting exclusively from the distribution of the creative work of others without added value has no future. In case you are confused I'm talking about the "Phonographic Industry".
- seertaak 18y ago
  > ... without added value. I think this allegation betokens a certain ignorance of how the music industry works. Firstly, producers, recording engineers and assistants, mixing engineers, and mastering engineers certainly do add value -- where "value" is defined in the narrow artistic sense. These roles are certainly part of the "Phonographic Industry". In addition, just because record labels, promoters, publishers, managers, and agents, etc. don't "create" music doesn't mean they don't add value. When they do their job well -- which, granted, is not always the case -- they allow the artist(s) to focus solely on the music, rather than on tasks which they're not particularly suited to, like organizing international, multi-leg tours, getting ads on billboards, doing distribution deals with the likes of iTunes, Spotify, and the traditional music retailers, plugging artists' music into commercial radio stations. Record labels also act as a quasi insurance policy for artists; by using a portion of the revenue streams from "hit" and established artists, they can finance new acts. There is certainly value to that. Jazz music was, after all, only a niche art form known to very few before Norman Granz's efforts to popularize it. In this sense, while he was certainly no Miles Davis or Bird, his work had an immense impact on generations of listeners. (I'd add that in an age of segregation and prejudice against blacks, he stuck his neck out to sign them, and insisted on equal pay for all colours and genders -- see wikipedia) Again: no value? I find it curious that the tech-savvy world of Hacker News, which should be comfortable with the idea of specialization in modern capitalist economies, seems to pine for a return to a "cottage" music industry, where the musician is to perform all of the afore-mentioned roles himself. Am I alone in thinking this would be a step back, rather than forward? Sadly, in order for this system to work, people need to pay for records (but obviously, they should be much cheaper than in the heady 90s days). I therefore applaud the Swedish courts for upholding the rule of law and holding the facilitators of rampant piracy accountable for their actions -- which have, unquestionably, led to much misery for many low-level, up-and-coming musicians (myself included ;)
yason 18y ago
This is little in comparison to other people who have walked ahead of the front lines of various past revolutions. It hasn't been uncommon to get killed in there. Maybe intellectual revolutions are different, then.
lucumo 18y ago
I feel torn about this. On the one hand I use The Pirate Bay for my own pleasure sometimes and I'm disappointed that the makers have been ruled to encourage illegal activity with it. On the other hand, last night I read this: http://jeff-vogel.blogspot.com/2009/04/more-evidence-of-overwhelming-piracy.html http://jeff-vogel.blogspot.com/2009/04/more-evidence-of-over... And I feel all pirates should be put in jail... Yeah, I'm a hypocrite :( Edit: Submitted http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=566693 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=566693
- seertaak 18y ago
  > On the one hand I use The Pirate Bay for my own pleasure sometimes Thanks for your honesty, but really: you shouldn't. Especially if you live in the US, UK, or Germany, there are good, legal alternatives. If you're in Europe, why not give Spotify a spin? It's only GBP 1 / day to try out. Less than a pint... I sympathize with those that, out of frustration with the record industry for not offering music in the format and with the ease we want, turn to filesharing. But if that's why you originally did it, morally speaking, you should at least make an effort to acquire your music through legal means.
  - lucumo 18y ago
    > Especially if you live in the US, UK, or Germany, there are good, legal alternatives. I live in The Netherlands. "Legal" to me seems a word that's terrible marketing. Maybe we should use words like "artist-supporting" and "moral" to indicate it. I don't think people care about the legal aspects as much as they do about the moral aspects of it. > I sympathize with those that, out of frustration with the record industry for not offering music in the format and with the ease we want, turn to filesharing. But if that's why you originally did it, morally speaking, you should at least make an effort to acquire your music through legal means. It's not really the music that sends me to TPB; it's movies (which I don't watch all that much anymore nowadays). Do you know any alternatives for those? I think the main reason why TPB is my first resort is habit. It's a very easy go-to point where you can get anything you want, when you want it. It's interesting how "easy" can supersede "morality" so easily :/
knightinblue 18y ago
"The verdict was leaked from the court. I have to think about what effects that can have on the sentence. It is unacceptable that the court is leaking." If that's not ironic, then I don't know what is.
Goronmon 18y ago
I sometimes wonder what the music/movie/television industry expects to gain from all of this. Though I don't really pirate anything but TV shows (television reception is pretty terrible in my apartment), I honestly don't see myself spending any more on those types of media. I have to wonder if the end result of no more pirated media just means that people consume less overall.
sjs382 18y ago
There's jail time involved: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090417.wpiratebay0417/BNStory/Technology/home http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090417....
jpwagner 18y ago
Anyone read the wired article on this?... http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/04/pirateverdict.html http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/04/pirateverdict.html Apparently, the prosecution cited a case from 1963 wherein a man was convicted of a crime for holding his friend's coat while the friend was in a fist-fight. Amazing that such a case happened, and amazing that it was cited as relevant to this case.
- jimbokun 18y ago
  Obviously holding the coat of a man in a fight is an extreme case, but isn't being an accessory to law breaking commonly used as a justification for prosecution?
  - jpwagner 18y ago
    I just don't equate that as accessory. What about the valet that parked his car? What if the man had stolen his coat?
lucumo 18y ago
FTA: "The defense put it to the judge that he had folded under intense political pressure. The judge denied this stating that the court made its decision based on the case presented. At one point the judge was asked if he was concerned for his personal safety after handing down this decision. The judge said he hadn’t received any harassment and was quite surprised at the question." Classy. Edit: Oeh, this part is also good: "Rasmus Fleischer, one of the founders of Piratbyrån commented, “The sentence has no formal consequence and no juridical value. We chose to treat the trial as a theater play and as such it’s been far better than we ever could have believed.”"
- ErrantX 18y ago
  > We chose to treat the trial as a theater play and as such it’s been far better than we ever could have believed This is the guy that, at one of the press conferences, said they were planning to take the trial fairly seriously because they new they would win and were there to prove a point to the industry.....
- cabalamat 18y ago
  The European Parliamentary elections are in 2 months' time, I expect the Pirate Party hope the publicity will do them good.
k0n2ad 18y ago
oh noes!
makecheck 18y ago
I don't know why there's this assumption that untracked distribution automatically leads to losses. In fact, it can lead to significant gains. Consider two scenarios... One, suppose a paying customer decides to buy something, then finds they don't like it, and wants to return it? In that case, the vendor incurs a cost for dealing with the return, which will mean no ultimate income from the sale. Whereas, a free download to try something and discard it, costs nothing to either side. Two, suppose the downloaders really like what they see, and share it with friends? And the friends, in turn, share with friends. The item may eventually reach several people who are more than willing to actually buy the product (if it's good). The paradox is that the act of preventing a single "illegitimate" download was blocking many more legitimate sales. Both of these scenarios highlight perhaps the one thing that vendors are refusing to admit, which is that quality matters most. Anything that is inherently good should have no problem making money even if it's pirated. Their beef might be that they can no longer push crap on the public and make money based on the shininess of their packaging.
- jacoblyles 18y ago
  I think the point of the court case is that the vendor has the right to decide which scenario he will choose.
  - electromagnetic 18y ago
    Well the whole thing is that, do they still have that right? Is it right that I have to wait an entire year to see the movie on DVD, when they know full well from before production starts that it will be released on DVD. It's just a tactic to try and force people into the cinema: "You like the look of this movie... ooh, only in cinema!" With the amount of Cam rips and TS's out there, and have been out there for a long time, people are clearly telling the movie industry that we expect not to wait a year for a movie to release on DVD.
    - jacoblyles 18y ago
      The concept of a right involves the fact that it still exists even if other people disapprove of how it is exercised. A "right" defines a certain domain in which the party holding the right has freedom of action. If its exercise were constrained to manners that were popular among third parties, then it would not be a right at all. The fact that you feel entitled to enjoy artists' work in the manner that you wish does not negate those artists' legal rights (or their agents to whom they have delegated those rights). I'm sorry, I don't know where you're from. These concepts might be unique to anglo law. Property rights might work differently elsewhere.
sebastian 18y ago
“We can’t pay and we wouldn’t pay if we could. If I would have money I would rather burn everything I owned.” "As for the fate of the site, Peter has already promised that The Pirate Bay will continue. The site itself was never on trial, only the four individuals listed above." I LOVE Peter's attitude. I will always be a big supporter of the Pirate Bay. File sharing is NOT stealing.
jimbokun 18y ago
Can anyone comment as to the actual legal issues involved? Is there any reason to think this will be overturned on appeal? The Pirate Bay Four seem to be responding to the moral righteousness of their cause, more so than the reality of Swedish law.
braz2 18y ago
http://comentariobovino.com/ http://comentariobovino.com/
jacoblyles 18y ago
>"The judge said that the users of The Pirate Bay committed the first offense by sharing files and the four assisted this. >It appears that the court chose to not take any of the technical details into account and only judged based on intent. They find it clear that the intention of the defendants is to facilitate sharing of copyrighted works and based their verdict on this." While I don't agree with the justice of the law, I do think the judge's logic is 100x more clear and believable than the "king kong" defense.
nazgulnarsil 18y ago
if you never buy anything because of advertising then pirating TV shows is financially neutral anyway.
dexen 18y ago
For those who like to compare copyright infringement to theft, here goes my take: Suppose a neighbor of buys that new awesome European car, great style, full option . The car is instant hit among neighbors, since they all suffer form products of Detroit Big Four. `Chicks dig him', so to say. Enter copyright infringement. One night you venture near the car, wielding necessary tools, dark clothed and masked. You write down every detail carefully. You visit local distributor next morning, you order exact same car, down to last detail. Later on you show off, driving in it around. Will the neighbor be angry at you? Surely you deprived him of some of the car's value (uniqueness). Yet you stole nothing anything from him. You copied information. No theft of property. Is this example legal? I guess it is. Is this morally OK? What if the neighbor in question lived off of a business model based on having the best car around (scarcity, perhaps artificial)?
schtog 18y ago
If these guys aren't making money, how do they support themselves?

226 points by chris11 18y ago

Mazy 18y ago

Summary: Everyone received 1 year in prison. They plan to appeal, which means the final verdict could take years. The website and tracker are staying up.

chris11 18y ago
I am surprised that the site and tracker is still staying up. I was under the impression that the prosecution was also going after the site.
- davidw 18y ago
  Yeah, my bet was more on fines and forcing them to shut down the site rather than jail time.
  - froo 18y ago
    I think this what is called being a "scape goat" - perhaps under political pressure, the courts are deciding to make an example out of them. If jail time became the norm for running torrent sites/trackers, those who have the know how to put these things online will be more deterred than if the penalty were only financial loss.
    - iujnhytgh 18y ago
      So the record companies are paying off more politicians than the telcos! How things have changed.
- trickjarrett 18y ago
  The admins are savvy enough, and they've previously relocated the servers to other countries before, so I have no doubt the site will continue.
  - Celcius 18y ago
    Not only that but they are only four people of a much larger swarm maintaining the pirate bay. Even if they go to jail it wouldn't mean anything to the site being up or not.
    - electromagnetic 18y ago
      I believe they said after their servers were raided that they don't even know what country some of the new servers are located.

paul7986 18y ago

Thanks to these guys and ones prior to them (ShareReactor) we now enjoy free content on Hulu and other sites! I no longer use Bit Torrent, but do thank these guys for forcing old media's hand!

mingdingo 18y ago
Seriously. The South Park guys caught on, and with every single episode available on their site, why would you even bother to pirate the episodes? Side note: Even when people were pirating their stuff, they were just happy that people liked the show.
- vegai 18y ago
  There's one reason: flash. When we get a good video standard over the web, then yes, there's one less reason to pirate stuff like that.
  - nailer 18y ago
    Why isn't Flash H264 good?
    - halo 18y ago
      One reason is that the Linux version of Flash is terrible last time I used it. Not even from a "open web principles" or "proprietary software is evil!" point of view, but rather in a "it crashes the browser on every 2nd or 3rd video viewing" perspective.
      - staunch 18y ago
        Run it in nspluginwrapper, so that when Flash crashes it doesn't take down the browser. You just have to refresh the page for the Flash object to run again. Flash crashes less than once a day for me, and I use Flash a lot.
      - Scriptor 18y ago

metatronscube 18y ago

This verdict wont change anything for file sharing (may change a lot for their operators) but this will only serve to push file sharing further underground and make superstars out of its operators.

josefresco 18y ago
Reminds me of the 'war on terror'.
- harpastum 18y ago
  Except that terrorism is almost exclusively seen by the public as morally wrong, it's just the governments attempts to 'fight' it that are misguided. Terrorism is used as a tactic by militant groups that are too small to be taken seriously otherwise -- file sharing is supported by a near-majority (obviously opinion/personal experience, but as far as I can tell, there is wide support) and has only grown in strength in response to the ridiculous tactics used by the record and film industries to stop it. Even those that do not download illegal content can experience the benefits that file sharing has influenced (to varying degrees): almost all major networks have content online, and services like Hulu have been growing at an extremely fast rate. There is also the enormous benefit to content providers (media & software) that can now use the well-established P2P protocols [1] (mainly bittorrent). The only similarity I can see between 'The war on P2P' and 'The war on terror' is that neither is likely to be successful. [1] http://linuxtracker.org/ http://linuxtracker.org/
- dmpayton 18y ago
  Substitute terror with drugs, guns, poverty, or christmas. It's all just a bunch of hoopla.

habibur 18y ago

At least Piratebay isn't closing down: "As for the fate of the site, Peter has already promised that The Pirate Bay will continue. The site itself was never on trial, only the four individuals listed above."

moeffju 18y ago

They will appeal and the trial will be drawn out for months if not years. And even if they finally lose, the servers and the infrastructure will not be affected - they withstood raids, DDoS's, server moves, etc. This will only serve to make the structures even less obvious. "Organized" filesharing, anyone?

deleted 18y ago

[deleted]

miracle 18y ago

They should go to jail since they are making big money out of other people's copyrighted work. And hopefully they will.

jvdh 18y ago
I'm sorry, they are making big money? Rly? What makes you think that? They have a big site, without any advertising banners...doesn't sound like a very commercially attractive deal to me. [edit] Oops, my bad, they do have some banners, my ad blocking tools turned out to be far more effective than I thought they would be. Even if they serve those banners, I really can't imagine they are making "big money". [/edit]
- ErrantX 18y ago
  Actually they DO have ads on the site. Im sure they dont make a lot of money out of it though (running costs perhaps) EDIT: @jvdh - heh yeh I only happened to notice because I was using IE (spit) at the time.
- acro 18y ago
  I would imagine they can easily make more than mininova, and mininova apparently has revenues over one million per year, see: http://torrentfreak.com/behind-the-scenes-at-mininova-090316/ http://torrentfreak.com/behind-the-scenes-at-mininova-090316... This is just quessing, i have no confirmed information.
  - nopassrecover 18y ago
    Revenues != profits
  - ErrantX 18y ago
    There is earning potential for certain: do they use it? For a group that list openness and freedom amongst their ideals [sic] I dont see any openness about the revenue TPB generates. They release no figures or data. Personally I consider that a double standard (and I have to confess I do believe they make a profit: perhaps not a huge amount but... logically they could make quite a bit and I dont see a decent argument for why they wouldnt)

sho 18y ago

If the appeal is upheld and they really do have to pay $3.6m in fines, I don't think they would have much difficulty raising it online. I'd be up for a C-note no problem and I don't doubt there are plenty of others, especially if they throw in a special edition t-shirt or something. The Pirate Bay website is pretty awful but they're a tremendously important tracker, used by many others. There is a genuine need for such a service. I'm not exactly a l33t w4r3z d00d but I greatly appreciate what these guys have done, and while I have some questions about the workability of their principles on filesharing I greatly respect their integrity in walking the walk. They're no mere pirates, they started a political party for fuck's sake, and the movies they made may suck but they gave them away just as they promised. I got a lot of respect for those guys and will gladly put my money where my mouth is. Good luck to them and may the Pirate Bay reach ever new heights!

vaksel 18y ago
they currently have 2.7 million users, they should have no trouble raising the cash...provided they need it And if they can't, they still have all those people signed up for their VPN service, so should be able to cover the rest nicely.
- juanpablo 18y ago
  Peter Sunde said: “We can’t pay and we wouldn’t pay if we could. If I would have money I would rather burn everything I owned.”

manchesterseo 18y ago

thought the tweet was funny: @brokep [Pirate Bay founder] Really, it's a bit LOL. It used to be only movies, now even verdicts are out before the official release.

jyu 18y ago
As witty and funny as this comment was, is it really worth 60 upvotes?
- palish 18y ago
  Upvotes are probably worthless, depending on how you define 'worth'.

nopassrecover 18y ago

""There has been a perception that piracy is OK and that the music industry should just have to accept it. This verdict will change that," he (the chairman of industry body the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) John Kennedy) said." No, society has decided that companies profiting exclusively from the distribution of the creative work of others without added value has no future. In case you are confused I'm talking about the "Phonographic Industry".

seertaak 18y ago
> ... without added value. I think this allegation betokens a certain ignorance of how the music industry works. Firstly, producers, recording engineers and assistants, mixing engineers, and mastering engineers certainly do add value -- where "value" is defined in the narrow artistic sense. These roles are certainly part of the "Phonographic Industry". In addition, just because record labels, promoters, publishers, managers, and agents, etc. don't "create" music doesn't mean they don't add value. When they do their job well -- which, granted, is not always the case -- they allow the artist(s) to focus solely on the music, rather than on tasks which they're not particularly suited to, like organizing international, multi-leg tours, getting ads on billboards, doing distribution deals with the likes of iTunes, Spotify, and the traditional music retailers, plugging artists' music into commercial radio stations. Record labels also act as a quasi insurance policy for artists; by using a portion of the revenue streams from "hit" and established artists, they can finance new acts. There is certainly value to that. Jazz music was, after all, only a niche art form known to very few before Norman Granz's efforts to popularize it. In this sense, while he was certainly no Miles Davis or Bird, his work had an immense impact on generations of listeners. (I'd add that in an age of segregation and prejudice against blacks, he stuck his neck out to sign them, and insisted on equal pay for all colours and genders -- see wikipedia) Again: no value? I find it curious that the tech-savvy world of Hacker News, which should be comfortable with the idea of specialization in modern capitalist economies, seems to pine for a return to a "cottage" music industry, where the musician is to perform all of the afore-mentioned roles himself. Am I alone in thinking this would be a step back, rather than forward? Sadly, in order for this system to work, people need to pay for records (but obviously, they should be much cheaper than in the heady 90s days). I therefore applaud the Swedish courts for upholding the rule of law and holding the facilitators of rampant piracy accountable for their actions -- which have, unquestionably, led to much misery for many low-level, up-and-coming musicians (myself included ;)

yason 18y ago

This is little in comparison to other people who have walked ahead of the front lines of various past revolutions. It hasn't been uncommon to get killed in there. Maybe intellectual revolutions are different, then.

lucumo 18y ago

I feel torn about this. On the one hand I use The Pirate Bay for my own pleasure sometimes and I'm disappointed that the makers have been ruled to encourage illegal activity with it. On the other hand, last night I read this: http://jeff-vogel.blogspot.com/2009/04/more-evidence-of-overwhelming-piracy.html http://jeff-vogel.blogspot.com/2009/04/more-evidence-of-over... And I feel all pirates should be put in jail... Yeah, I'm a hypocrite :( Edit: Submitted http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=566693 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=566693

seertaak 18y ago
> On the one hand I use The Pirate Bay for my own pleasure sometimes Thanks for your honesty, but really: you shouldn't. Especially if you live in the US, UK, or Germany, there are good, legal alternatives. If you're in Europe, why not give Spotify a spin? It's only GBP 1 / day to try out. Less than a pint... I sympathize with those that, out of frustration with the record industry for not offering music in the format and with the ease we want, turn to filesharing. But if that's why you originally did it, morally speaking, you should at least make an effort to acquire your music through legal means.
- lucumo 18y ago
  > Especially if you live in the US, UK, or Germany, there are good, legal alternatives. I live in The Netherlands. "Legal" to me seems a word that's terrible marketing. Maybe we should use words like "artist-supporting" and "moral" to indicate it. I don't think people care about the legal aspects as much as they do about the moral aspects of it. > I sympathize with those that, out of frustration with the record industry for not offering music in the format and with the ease we want, turn to filesharing. But if that's why you originally did it, morally speaking, you should at least make an effort to acquire your music through legal means. It's not really the music that sends me to TPB; it's movies (which I don't watch all that much anymore nowadays). Do you know any alternatives for those? I think the main reason why TPB is my first resort is habit. It's a very easy go-to point where you can get anything you want, when you want it. It's interesting how "easy" can supersede "morality" so easily :/

knightinblue 18y ago

"The verdict was leaked from the court. I have to think about what effects that can have on the sentence. It is unacceptable that the court is leaking." If that's not ironic, then I don't know what is.

Goronmon 18y ago

I sometimes wonder what the music/movie/television industry expects to gain from all of this. Though I don't really pirate anything but TV shows (television reception is pretty terrible in my apartment), I honestly don't see myself spending any more on those types of media. I have to wonder if the end result of no more pirated media just means that people consume less overall.

sjs382 18y ago

There's jail time involved: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090417.wpiratebay0417/BNStory/Technology/home http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090417....

jpwagner 18y ago

Anyone read the wired article on this?... http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/04/pirateverdict.html http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/04/pirateverdict.html Apparently, the prosecution cited a case from 1963 wherein a man was convicted of a crime for holding his friend's coat while the friend was in a fist-fight. Amazing that such a case happened, and amazing that it was cited as relevant to this case.

jimbokun 18y ago
Obviously holding the coat of a man in a fight is an extreme case, but isn't being an accessory to law breaking commonly used as a justification for prosecution?
- jpwagner 18y ago
  I just don't equate that as accessory. What about the valet that parked his car? What if the man had stolen his coat?

lucumo 18y ago

FTA: "The defense put it to the judge that he had folded under intense political pressure. The judge denied this stating that the court made its decision based on the case presented. At one point the judge was asked if he was concerned for his personal safety after handing down this decision. The judge said he hadn’t received any harassment and was quite surprised at the question." Classy. Edit: Oeh, this part is also good: "Rasmus Fleischer, one of the founders of Piratbyrån commented, “The sentence has no formal consequence and no juridical value. We chose to treat the trial as a theater play and as such it’s been far better than we ever could have believed.”"

ErrantX 18y ago
> We chose to treat the trial as a theater play and as such it’s been far better than we ever could have believed This is the guy that, at one of the press conferences, said they were planning to take the trial fairly seriously because they new they would win and were there to prove a point to the industry.....
cabalamat 18y ago
The European Parliamentary elections are in 2 months' time, I expect the Pirate Party hope the publicity will do them good.

k0n2ad 18y ago

oh noes!

makecheck 18y ago

I don't know why there's this assumption that untracked distribution automatically leads to losses. In fact, it can lead to significant gains. Consider two scenarios... One, suppose a paying customer decides to buy something, then finds they don't like it, and wants to return it? In that case, the vendor incurs a cost for dealing with the return, which will mean no ultimate income from the sale. Whereas, a free download to try something and discard it, costs nothing to either side. Two, suppose the downloaders really like what they see, and share it with friends? And the friends, in turn, share with friends. The item may eventually reach several people who are more than willing to actually buy the product (if it's good). The paradox is that the act of preventing a single "illegitimate" download was blocking many more legitimate sales. Both of these scenarios highlight perhaps the one thing that vendors are refusing to admit, which is that quality matters most. Anything that is inherently good should have no problem making money even if it's pirated. Their beef might be that they can no longer push crap on the public and make money based on the shininess of their packaging.

jacoblyles 18y ago
I think the point of the court case is that the vendor has the right to decide which scenario he will choose.
- electromagnetic 18y ago
  Well the whole thing is that, do they still have that right? Is it right that I have to wait an entire year to see the movie on DVD, when they know full well from before production starts that it will be released on DVD. It's just a tactic to try and force people into the cinema: "You like the look of this movie... ooh, only in cinema!" With the amount of Cam rips and TS's out there, and have been out there for a long time, people are clearly telling the movie industry that we expect not to wait a year for a movie to release on DVD.
  - jacoblyles 18y ago
    The concept of a right involves the fact that it still exists even if other people disapprove of how it is exercised. A "right" defines a certain domain in which the party holding the right has freedom of action. If its exercise were constrained to manners that were popular among third parties, then it would not be a right at all. The fact that you feel entitled to enjoy artists' work in the manner that you wish does not negate those artists' legal rights (or their agents to whom they have delegated those rights). I'm sorry, I don't know where you're from. These concepts might be unique to anglo law. Property rights might work differently elsewhere.

sebastian 18y ago

“We can’t pay and we wouldn’t pay if we could. If I would have money I would rather burn everything I owned.” "As for the fate of the site, Peter has already promised that The Pirate Bay will continue. The site itself was never on trial, only the four individuals listed above." I LOVE Peter's attitude. I will always be a big supporter of the Pirate Bay. File sharing is NOT stealing.

jimbokun 18y ago

Can anyone comment as to the actual legal issues involved? Is there any reason to think this will be overturned on appeal? The Pirate Bay Four seem to be responding to the moral righteousness of their cause, more so than the reality of Swedish law.

braz2 18y ago

http://comentariobovino.com/ http://comentariobovino.com/

jacoblyles 18y ago

>"The judge said that the users of The Pirate Bay committed the first offense by sharing files and the four assisted this. >It appears that the court chose to not take any of the technical details into account and only judged based on intent. They find it clear that the intention of the defendants is to facilitate sharing of copyrighted works and based their verdict on this." While I don't agree with the justice of the law, I do think the judge's logic is 100x more clear and believable than the "king kong" defense.

nazgulnarsil 18y ago

if you never buy anything because of advertising then pirating TV shows is financially neutral anyway.

dexen 18y ago

For those who like to compare copyright infringement to theft, here goes my take: Suppose a neighbor of buys that new awesome European car, great style, full option . The car is instant hit among neighbors, since they all suffer form products of Detroit Big Four. `Chicks dig him', so to say. Enter copyright infringement. One night you venture near the car, wielding necessary tools, dark clothed and masked. You write down every detail carefully. You visit local distributor next morning, you order exact same car, down to last detail. Later on you show off, driving in it around. Will the neighbor be angry at you? Surely you deprived him of some of the car's value (uniqueness). Yet you stole nothing anything from him. You copied information. No theft of property. Is this example legal? I guess it is. Is this morally OK? What if the neighbor in question lived off of a business model based on having the best car around (scarcity, perhaps artificial)?

schtog 18y ago

If these guys aren't making money, how do they support themselves?