19 ms·

You can take down Pirate Bay, but you can’t kill the Internet it created

352 points by Libertatea 12y ago

mahouse 12y ago
Unfortunately, lately TPB was something which is far away from what it should have been; too many ads, the lack of daily archives of magnet links and buggy and closed software.
furyg3 12y ago
I can't wait for new tracker services developed with inspiration from decentralized services like bitcoin.
- eloisant 12y ago
  The decentralisation nature of bittorrent means that there are dozens of websites similar to TPB that existed before the raid and are still up today.
- agorabinary 12y ago
  I don't see why you couldn't put trackers on the blockchain (or a sidechain?). Goodluck taking that down.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - forgottenpass 12y ago
    There are plenty of p2p protocols, why complicate the adoption of bitcoin by tying the blockchain to piracy?
    - DennisP 12y ago
      Right, we only need blockchains when we need global consensus.
mkoryak 12y ago
> Before the birth of the torrent protocol in the early aughts, sharing big files, like TV shows or movies was virtually impossible Unless you knew about usenet
- beedogs 12y ago
  or IRC channels
  - rullgrus 12y ago
    or FTP:s or Direct Connect...
    - icebraining 12y ago
      Or eDonkey.
      - deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
      - Syssiphus 12y ago
        Or your local trader who would fill up a harddisk with warez, movies and series for you each week (for a fee).
        btown 12y ago
        This is still the way it's done in many cities in Africa and South America!
        crucialfelix 12y ago
        very true. I was in zimbabwe and I could go to a shop where the guy would select music for me and fill up a 1GB USB stick for $2. that's how many people distribute music there. they plug the USB stick into a TV or into a little player in their car that plugs into the cigarette lighter jack. some music labels in that area have gone back to making cassettes because its much harder to copy those. CDs get ripped right away
larssorenson 12y ago
I think the article misses the point of why piracy was a big thing. It was not always (necessarily) about getting what you want free of charge, but the free flowing access to the media and content. For instance, the reason Game of Thrones is watched via torrent downloads more than via HBO is because a large portion of the audience wants to either just watch HBO or just watch Game of Thrones. But to do that, you have to have an HBO subscription through some cable provider, who does not provide a direct subscription for only HBO. Thus, if all you want to watch is Game of Thrones and nothing else, your only option is to torrent/pirate it.
- barking 12y ago
  If you watch Game of Thrones on Sky Atlantic you have to put up with a long ad break after about every 10 minute of the show. It's unwatchable. And to add insult to injury you're paying a subscription. Television in Britain has 3 main models: 1: BBC tv paid for by licence, no advertising. 2: ITV, paid for by ads, no subscription (much less advertising than sky) 3: Sky, big subscription and wall to wall ads. Having been weaned on the former BBC, ITV duopoly there a distinct feeling that Sky are gougers and deserve to be punished.
- k-mcgrady 12y ago
  >> "Thus, if all you want to watch is Game of Thrones and nothing else, your only option is to torrent/pirate it." I get your point but that's incorrect. Alternatives include: - paying for the cable + HBO subscription and only watching GoT. - waiting for the blu ray/dvd/iTunes release Both those options allow you to watch GoT and nothing else. The problem is that people don't want to wait for an official release or want a cheaper way to get it 'right now' (i.e. a cheaper HBO only subscription). I think GoT is a big torrent is because it's not available on TV in a lot of countries or there is a big delay between the US airing and the local airing. Another reason is that people don't pay for something when they can get it for free. I would like to see how many people who torrent GoT (but say they would pay for it if it was available to them on their terms) would pay $3-5 for an episode via a torrent if there was a button to pay (and get it legally) and a button to get it for free (illegally).
  - 12y ago
mkoryak 12y ago
a few months ago I read an article posted here about how the cloud/vms has made TPB virtually impossible to take down. What happened to that?
- eloisant 12y ago
  I think they boasted to be raid proof but aren't such good sysadmins. Or maybe they could bring it back by switching the DNS of one of their numerous domains to a server still up, but don't really want to/feel like they're done with TPB. Basically, I think the raid took down their load balancers. So they probably still have servers up in the cloud, but without load balancer as an entry point it's useless.
scrrr 12y ago
Coming up: peer to peer chat (tox.im), hidden services (tor), distributed social networking, yadayada.. dont see how you can stop this, unless you turn off the power grid.
- icebraining 12y ago
  Simple; you force ISPs to block any incoming connections to services/machines that don't have the proper governmental license. Any servers that allow two client nodes to communicate freely (like a proxy, or VPN) won't get a license. To prevent smartasses from using servers in countries without these restrictions, you further force ISPs to prevent any large amounts of data from being uploaded to those countries (cumulative, to avoid tricks like uploading small parts to many servers). E.g. back in the early 00s, some of our ISPs used to have different traffic caps for national vs international connections, here in Portugal. It's not that hard if you're willing to go the full mile.
  - scrrr 12y ago
    There's still peer to peer networks (see firechat and hong kong protests), there's still the whole field of steganography (hide data in pictures of cats for example), finally, there's still offline transport. (usb sticks with copies of wikipedia in Cuba for example)
  - tomjen3 12y ago
    That would be one strategy for making the next generation of kids experts in networking, but for the scheme to work you would be putting whatever lame ass the government can hire to implement the system against every hacker in that country. The government would have to win every time, the hacker only once - and he would instantly get respect and social standing in his circles.
  - Omniusaspirer 12y ago
    Even that wouldn't really stomp out filesharing, local groups and p2p networks would crop up. The genie is out of its bottle and I'm skeptical that it can ever be put back inside.
Illniyar 12y ago
"Before the birth of the torrent protocol in the early aughts, sharing big files, like TV shows or movies was virtually impossible" This phrase is a bit misleading. While not discounting the power of the torrent protocol, there were many p2p software before it which were more popular then it (napster, kazza, edunkey/eMule) . The reason why sharing tv-shows and movies is so easy now then before is that we have broadband. In 2000 most people had dial-up. If at all, the greatest achievement of the torrent protocol is allowing for discovery of files without a central repository.
- josefresco 12y ago
  The BT protocol was a significant change in technology allowing files previously too large to share on traditional P2P networks to be shared. Napster and the like were great for 3-4MB files, but anything larger would cause issues. You'd rely mostly on one-source, and if the connection to that source was shaky, the download would take days/weeks, even longer. BT changed this, and turned the idea of popular file=congested networks on it's ear completely. With BT, the more popular the file, the faster your download would go.
  - Illniyar 12y ago
    I used to download huge files in eMule(eDonkey) and Kazza. I've never used Napster, so I can't say about it, but eMule had (and has) the ability to download the same files from multiple users simultaneously. I'm pretty sure Kazza had such an ability as well (the more popular files downloaded faster).
    - vinceguidry 12y ago
      I used both Napster and Kazaa, both were entirely too slow to download large files on. I mean, you could, but you'd be waiting a long time. I don't think it really had a whole lot to do with the protocols themselves though, but rather that broadband penetration in the States ramped up really quickly at about the same time Bittorrent came onto the scene. There was probably a short period of time where you could have downloaded TV shows on Kazaa, but that protocol died really fast. Not many people used eDonkey back then. I tried. It was hard to find the stuff I wanted. Right after Kazaa died, both eDonkey and Bittorrent started taking off. Bittorrent just became the most popular protocol.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
tomp 12y ago
Apparently, it's online again: http://thepiratebay.cr/ http://thepiratebay.cr/
- feld 12y ago
  Extremely amusing to see how resilient the service is.
- fathertime 12y ago
  TF claims it's just a proxy. Seems like it's got fresh content though. https://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-bay-has-not-been-resurrected-yet-141210/ https://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-bay-has-not-been-resurre...
- ikt 12y ago
  that's a mirror, not the real thing, you can't upload anything to it.
chrishawkes 12y ago
Apparently it's already back up
- fathertime 12y ago
  I'm not so sure. https://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-bay-has-not-been-resurrected-yet-141210/ https://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-bay-has-not-been-resurre... Although for being just a proxy, it has fresh content.
pervycreeper 12y ago
Is it just me or has the Washington post been kicking a lot of ass these past few weeks? Is traditional journalism on the cusp of getting disrupted... from the inside?
- mrfusion 12y ago
  Why do you say that?
  - pervycreeper 12y ago
    Maybe Bezos streamlined things somehow. Quality seems up, and also appears to be bucking a number of intangible journalistic trends (content-wise). Disclaimer: pure uninformed speculation.
marrs 12y ago
I'm really curious to see how productions of the future are going to be funded, because I think the current business model is on borrowed time. I simply don't watch a lot of TV any more because I can't cope with all the adverts, and everyone I talk to about this says that they don't watch TV in real time any more and just skip all the adverts. So I have to wonder what the actual value of advertising is in the first place; probably a lot less than what retailers are currently paying. And if the value of advertising is inflated, TPB might well become the least of the industry's worries.
- butwhy 12y ago
  They'll get funding, but the models will change and adapt. Ie. Spotify and Netflix are early carnations of what what could come.
  - e40 12y ago
    Spotify and Netflix are early carnations of what what could come. Yet both of these companies you mention are reviled by the content producers. What the content producers want is their own walled garden. You want their content, you come to their app or website. It's pathetic. I would pay a reasonable fee for TV and movies (and often do, btw). There are some movies you can't get in any format but DVD. Ghostbusters, for example. The owners of that particular title refuse to let it be licensed for streaming of any kind. So, I downloaded it (in a completely safe way, of course). Much has been written about the licensing nightmare for content, though. It's going to be the undoing of Netflix, unless they can get enough of their own content to keep them alive. I'm not sure they can. Whenever I look, it's very hard to find stuff that I want to watch. All the newly added stuff is really 2nd and 3rd tier stuff.
    - EStudley 12y ago
      I think content producers are going to come to the realization that they can't create large-scale applications for their shows that users will actually WANT to use.
    - tomjen3 12y ago
zwetan 12y ago
I don't agree that TPB created this Internet, it was existing before. Internet, de facto (kill 1 server and the network still works), and web sites, social network, and people using them are a lean mean copying machine, everything is build around that very same principle: how to distribute (and share) data fast and efficiently to the biggest number. Before TPB, you had ppl cracking software, other ppl organising "copy party", then burning CDs, FTP, IRC, binary usenet, etc. After TPB, a lot of "mini" pirate bay all over the place by the thousands. And even more ways to copy and share files on the Internet. To me, it's Napster happening again.
zwetan 12y ago
I don't agree that TPB created this Internet, it was existing before. Internet, de facto (kill 1 server and the network still works), and web sites, social network, and people using them are a lean mean copying machine, everything is build around that very same principle: how to distribute (and share) data fast and efficiently to the biggest number. Before TPB, you had ppl cracking software, other ppl organising "copy party", then burning CDs, FTP, IRC, binary usenet, etc. After TPB I don;t know there is probably 1000 and 1 ways to copy and share files i No, what is sad is that the same thing happened in 2001 with Napster and it is just happening again with The Pirate Bay, even a decade does not change some corporation mentality. Provided that TPB is really shut down for good, what is that same thing that will happen ? A lot of "mini" pirate bay all over the place by the thousands, simply put: unstoppable. You can not approach this problem by shutting down web sites or blocking them or the people using them, hoping you will punish them enough so they will change their habits. People are social (FB, twitter, g+, etc.), they do like to share stuff and it will never stop, ever.
zwetan 12y ago
I don't agree that TPB created this Internet, it was existing before. Internet, de facto (kill 1 server and the network still works), and web sites, social network, and people using them are a lean mean copying machine, everything is build around that very same principle: how to distribute (and share) data fast and efficiently to the biggest number. Before TPB, you had ppl cracking software, other ppl organising "copy party", then burning CDs, FTP, IRC, binary usenet, etc. After TPB I don;t know there is probably 1000 and 1 ways to copy and share files i No, what is sad is that the same thing happened in 2001 with Napster and it is just happening again with The Pirate Bay, even a decade does not change some corporation mentality. Provided that TPB is really shut down for good, what is that same thing that will happen ? A lot of "mini" pirate bay all over the place by the thousands, simply put: unstoppable. You can not approach this problem by shutting down web sites or blocking them or the people using them, hoping you will punish them enough so they will change their habits. People are social (FB, twitter, g+, etc.), they do like to share stuff and it will never stop, ever.
zwetan 12y ago
I don't agree that TPB created this Internet, it was existing before. Internet, de facto (kill 1 server and the network still works), and web sites, social network, and people using them are a lean mean copying machine, everything is build around that very same principle: how to distribute (and share) data fast and efficiently to the biggest number. Before TPB, you had ppl cracking software, other ppl organising "copy party", then burning CDs, FTP, IRC, binary usenet, etc. After TPB I don;t know there is probably 1000 and 1 ways to copy and share files i No, what is sad is that the same thing happened in 2001 with Napster and it is just happening again with The Pirate Bay, even a decade does not change some corporation mentality. Provided that TPB is really shut down for good, what is that same thing that will happen ? A lot of "mini" pirate bay all over the place by the thousands, simply put: unstoppable. You can not approach this problem by shutting down web sites or blocking them or the people using them, hoping you will punish them enough so they will change their habits. People are social (FB, twitter, g+, etc.), they do like to share stuff and it will never stop, ever.
userbinator 12y ago
I see a lot of the antipiracy efforts now being directed towards end-user devices; in particular, mobile. I think the trend of walled-garden environments with app stores, the app-centric model of interaction, and all the increasingly locked-down (always in the name of security) features of modern OSs are where the real battle is being fought, and it's one that they seem to be winning: with data being managed by and hidden behind apps, touted as a feature of convenience, the users of these new consumption-oriented devices are being distanced from direct control of their data, and this greatly increases the effort required for them to pirate. If the majority of the population eventually only has access to one of these heavily locked-down devices (and traditional desktops/laptops become a niche product), then it's easy to see how file sharing could become virtually nonexistent - almost everyone will not even know what a file is, much less see any ways to copy and share the contents of one. The only sharing they would know of is that explicitly featured in the apps they use. It wouldn't be too dissimilar to the world of Stallman's Right To Read ( https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html ). Fortunately most computer users today still know about files and torrents, and hopefully that knowledge continues to thrive, but I do see large-scale attempts at fundamentally changing how we interact with computing devices that could eliminate that knowledge and those freedoms associated with it in the future. Taking down TPB and chasing the other torrent sites isn't quite as effective as systematically eliminating the knowledge that makes those sites possible; in other words, remove the concept of filesharing and "the Internet it created" will essentially kill itself.
- commentzorro 12y ago
  Well put! You've identified the next major battle to take place here in the states. Big Business vs. the people via control of hardware. And the funny thing is we're going to see most Americans running into the open arms of Big Business under the guise of "Security and safety", "Business has the right to lock down their hardware ... don't limit business", and, of course, "open systems open the door to terrorists." You've perfectly identified the battle, but, sadly, I suspect the war has already been lost.
  - mikegioia 12y ago
biomimic 12y ago
The dandelion principle... Factory Records https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIXz80LnDjo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIXz80LnDjo
joeblau 12y ago
Does anyone know what percentage of the Internet the torrent protocol is responsible for using?
- xtracto 12y ago
  3.35% according to [this webpage]( http://researchcenter.paloaltonetworks.com/app-usage-risk-report-visualization/#sthash.8wYww5gT.dpbs http://researchcenter.paloaltonetworks.com/app-usage-risk-re...( cited by [BitTorrent wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitTorrent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitTorrent) Impressive how it went from being the 35% of traffic in 2004.
  - jstanek 12y ago
    That's also partly due to Netflix' extreme web market share: They account for ~31% of all global aggregate internet usage, and combined with Youtube, the major video streamers account for ~43% of all global aggregate internet usage. That's probably because their business models necessitate a lot of traffic, since content needs to be re-downloaded on each viewing/listening.
    - kalleboo 12y ago
      Well according to xtracto's link, Netflix is only 0.85% (and YouTube is 5.7%), so I don't think numbers can be compared across sources - the methods of measuring traffic seem to vary wildly.
UhUhUhUh 12y ago
Internet provided people with way to much freedom, a fact that could not be left un-addressed by powers around the globe. People's freedom needs to be constrained, controlled and supervised because if it isn't, it will eventually invade more concerning areas than music, porn etc. It will leave the realm of distractions to that of action. It will suck the profit out of everything, negate merchandise and generate so many ideas and praxis that the center of power will eventually shift away from its current centers. Free connections between people and free access to uncensored, unlimited knowledge resources therefore is a present and significant threat to the way human affairs are run at this time. It will be met with staunch opposition and will need a constant guerrilla around hardware, software and networks to plough its way through. That's the bottom line.
Nux 12y ago
It looks like IsoHunt has revived the TPB "content" at http://oldpiratebay.org/ http://oldpiratebay.org/
karsus 12y ago
I was a little surprised by this take down. I thought they'd put major effort into making sure there was nothing much constant to take down.
avodonosov 12y ago
You can do both
wazoox 12y ago
Tangentially related, read Cory Doctorow's "Pirate Cinema". An excellent read about our near future.
known 12y ago
https://proxybay.info/list.txt https://proxybay.info/list.txt

352 points by Libertatea 12y ago

Unfortunately, lately TPB was something which is far away from what it should have been; too many ads, the lack of daily archives of magnet links and buggy and closed software.

furyg3 12y ago

I can't wait for new tracker services developed with inspiration from decentralized services like bitcoin.

eloisant 12y ago
The decentralisation nature of bittorrent means that there are dozens of websites similar to TPB that existed before the raid and are still up today.
agorabinary 12y ago
I don't see why you couldn't put trackers on the blockchain (or a sidechain?). Goodluck taking that down.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- forgottenpass 12y ago
  There are plenty of p2p protocols, why complicate the adoption of bitcoin by tying the blockchain to piracy?
  - DennisP 12y ago
    Right, we only need blockchains when we need global consensus.

mkoryak 12y ago

> Before the birth of the torrent protocol in the early aughts, sharing big files, like TV shows or movies was virtually impossible Unless you knew about usenet

beedogs 12y ago
or IRC channels
- rullgrus 12y ago
  or FTP:s or Direct Connect...
  - icebraining 12y ago
    Or eDonkey.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
    - Syssiphus 12y ago
      Or your local trader who would fill up a harddisk with warez, movies and series for you each week (for a fee).
      - btown 12y ago
        This is still the way it's done in many cities in Africa and South America!
        crucialfelix 12y ago
        very true. I was in zimbabwe and I could go to a shop where the guy would select music for me and fill up a 1GB USB stick for $2. that's how many people distribute music there. they plug the USB stick into a TV or into a little player in their car that plugs into the cigarette lighter jack. some music labels in that area have gone back to making cassettes because its much harder to copy those. CDs get ripped right away

larssorenson 12y ago

I think the article misses the point of why piracy was a big thing. It was not always (necessarily) about getting what you want free of charge, but the free flowing access to the media and content. For instance, the reason Game of Thrones is watched via torrent downloads more than via HBO is because a large portion of the audience wants to either just watch HBO or just watch Game of Thrones. But to do that, you have to have an HBO subscription through some cable provider, who does not provide a direct subscription for only HBO. Thus, if all you want to watch is Game of Thrones and nothing else, your only option is to torrent/pirate it.

barking 12y ago
If you watch Game of Thrones on Sky Atlantic you have to put up with a long ad break after about every 10 minute of the show. It's unwatchable. And to add insult to injury you're paying a subscription. Television in Britain has 3 main models: 1: BBC tv paid for by licence, no advertising. 2: ITV, paid for by ads, no subscription (much less advertising than sky) 3: Sky, big subscription and wall to wall ads. Having been weaned on the former BBC, ITV duopoly there a distinct feeling that Sky are gougers and deserve to be punished.
k-mcgrady 12y ago
>> "Thus, if all you want to watch is Game of Thrones and nothing else, your only option is to torrent/pirate it." I get your point but that's incorrect. Alternatives include: - paying for the cable + HBO subscription and only watching GoT. - waiting for the blu ray/dvd/iTunes release Both those options allow you to watch GoT and nothing else. The problem is that people don't want to wait for an official release or want a cheaper way to get it 'right now' (i.e. a cheaper HBO only subscription). I think GoT is a big torrent is because it's not available on TV in a lot of countries or there is a big delay between the US airing and the local airing. Another reason is that people don't pay for something when they can get it for free. I would like to see how many people who torrent GoT (but say they would pay for it if it was available to them on their terms) would pay $3-5 for an episode via a torrent if there was a button to pay (and get it legally) and a button to get it for free (illegally).
- 12y ago

mkoryak 12y ago

a few months ago I read an article posted here about how the cloud/vms has made TPB virtually impossible to take down. What happened to that?

eloisant 12y ago
I think they boasted to be raid proof but aren't such good sysadmins. Or maybe they could bring it back by switching the DNS of one of their numerous domains to a server still up, but don't really want to/feel like they're done with TPB. Basically, I think the raid took down their load balancers. So they probably still have servers up in the cloud, but without load balancer as an entry point it's useless.

scrrr 12y ago

Coming up: peer to peer chat (tox.im), hidden services (tor), distributed social networking, yadayada.. dont see how you can stop this, unless you turn off the power grid.

icebraining 12y ago
Simple; you force ISPs to block any incoming connections to services/machines that don't have the proper governmental license. Any servers that allow two client nodes to communicate freely (like a proxy, or VPN) won't get a license. To prevent smartasses from using servers in countries without these restrictions, you further force ISPs to prevent any large amounts of data from being uploaded to those countries (cumulative, to avoid tricks like uploading small parts to many servers). E.g. back in the early 00s, some of our ISPs used to have different traffic caps for national vs international connections, here in Portugal. It's not that hard if you're willing to go the full mile.
- scrrr 12y ago
  There's still peer to peer networks (see firechat and hong kong protests), there's still the whole field of steganography (hide data in pictures of cats for example), finally, there's still offline transport. (usb sticks with copies of wikipedia in Cuba for example)
- tomjen3 12y ago
  That would be one strategy for making the next generation of kids experts in networking, but for the scheme to work you would be putting whatever lame ass the government can hire to implement the system against every hacker in that country. The government would have to win every time, the hacker only once - and he would instantly get respect and social standing in his circles.
- Omniusaspirer 12y ago
  Even that wouldn't really stomp out filesharing, local groups and p2p networks would crop up. The genie is out of its bottle and I'm skeptical that it can ever be put back inside.

Illniyar 12y ago

"Before the birth of the torrent protocol in the early aughts, sharing big files, like TV shows or movies was virtually impossible" This phrase is a bit misleading. While not discounting the power of the torrent protocol, there were many p2p software before it which were more popular then it (napster, kazza, edunkey/eMule) . The reason why sharing tv-shows and movies is so easy now then before is that we have broadband. In 2000 most people had dial-up. If at all, the greatest achievement of the torrent protocol is allowing for discovery of files without a central repository.

josefresco 12y ago
The BT protocol was a significant change in technology allowing files previously too large to share on traditional P2P networks to be shared. Napster and the like were great for 3-4MB files, but anything larger would cause issues. You'd rely mostly on one-source, and if the connection to that source was shaky, the download would take days/weeks, even longer. BT changed this, and turned the idea of popular file=congested networks on it's ear completely. With BT, the more popular the file, the faster your download would go.
- Illniyar 12y ago
  I used to download huge files in eMule(eDonkey) and Kazza. I've never used Napster, so I can't say about it, but eMule had (and has) the ability to download the same files from multiple users simultaneously. I'm pretty sure Kazza had such an ability as well (the more popular files downloaded faster).
  - vinceguidry 12y ago
    I used both Napster and Kazaa, both were entirely too slow to download large files on. I mean, you could, but you'd be waiting a long time. I don't think it really had a whole lot to do with the protocols themselves though, but rather that broadband penetration in the States ramped up really quickly at about the same time Bittorrent came onto the scene. There was probably a short period of time where you could have downloaded TV shows on Kazaa, but that protocol died really fast. Not many people used eDonkey back then. I tried. It was hard to find the stuff I wanted. Right after Kazaa died, both eDonkey and Bittorrent started taking off. Bittorrent just became the most popular protocol.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

tomp 12y ago

Apparently, it's online again: http://thepiratebay.cr/ http://thepiratebay.cr/

feld 12y ago
Extremely amusing to see how resilient the service is.
fathertime 12y ago
TF claims it's just a proxy. Seems like it's got fresh content though. https://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-bay-has-not-been-resurrected-yet-141210/ https://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-bay-has-not-been-resurre...
ikt 12y ago
that's a mirror, not the real thing, you can't upload anything to it.

chrishawkes 12y ago

Apparently it's already back up

fathertime 12y ago
I'm not so sure. https://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-bay-has-not-been-resurrected-yet-141210/ https://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-bay-has-not-been-resurre... Although for being just a proxy, it has fresh content.

pervycreeper 12y ago

Is it just me or has the Washington post been kicking a lot of ass these past few weeks? Is traditional journalism on the cusp of getting disrupted... from the inside?

mrfusion 12y ago
Why do you say that?
- pervycreeper 12y ago
  Maybe Bezos streamlined things somehow. Quality seems up, and also appears to be bucking a number of intangible journalistic trends (content-wise). Disclaimer: pure uninformed speculation.

marrs 12y ago

I'm really curious to see how productions of the future are going to be funded, because I think the current business model is on borrowed time. I simply don't watch a lot of TV any more because I can't cope with all the adverts, and everyone I talk to about this says that they don't watch TV in real time any more and just skip all the adverts. So I have to wonder what the actual value of advertising is in the first place; probably a lot less than what retailers are currently paying. And if the value of advertising is inflated, TPB might well become the least of the industry's worries.

butwhy 12y ago
They'll get funding, but the models will change and adapt. Ie. Spotify and Netflix are early carnations of what what could come.
- e40 12y ago
  Spotify and Netflix are early carnations of what what could come. Yet both of these companies you mention are reviled by the content producers. What the content producers want is their own walled garden. You want their content, you come to their app or website. It's pathetic. I would pay a reasonable fee for TV and movies (and often do, btw). There are some movies you can't get in any format but DVD. Ghostbusters, for example. The owners of that particular title refuse to let it be licensed for streaming of any kind. So, I downloaded it (in a completely safe way, of course). Much has been written about the licensing nightmare for content, though. It's going to be the undoing of Netflix, unless they can get enough of their own content to keep them alive. I'm not sure they can. Whenever I look, it's very hard to find stuff that I want to watch. All the newly added stuff is really 2nd and 3rd tier stuff.
  - EStudley 12y ago
    I think content producers are going to come to the realization that they can't create large-scale applications for their shows that users will actually WANT to use.
  - tomjen3 12y ago

zwetan 12y ago

I don't agree that TPB created this Internet, it was existing before. Internet, de facto (kill 1 server and the network still works), and web sites, social network, and people using them are a lean mean copying machine, everything is build around that very same principle: how to distribute (and share) data fast and efficiently to the biggest number. Before TPB, you had ppl cracking software, other ppl organising "copy party", then burning CDs, FTP, IRC, binary usenet, etc. After TPB I don;t know there is probably 1000 and 1 ways to copy and share files i No, what is sad is that the same thing happened in 2001 with Napster and it is just happening again with The Pirate Bay, even a decade does not change some corporation mentality. Provided that TPB is really shut down for good, what is that same thing that will happen ? A lot of "mini" pirate bay all over the place by the thousands, simply put: unstoppable. You can not approach this problem by shutting down web sites or blocking them or the people using them, hoping you will punish them enough so they will change their habits. People are social (FB, twitter, g+, etc.), they do like to share stuff and it will never stop, ever.

zwetan 12y ago

userbinator 12y ago

I see a lot of the antipiracy efforts now being directed towards end-user devices; in particular, mobile. I think the trend of walled-garden environments with app stores, the app-centric model of interaction, and all the increasingly locked-down (always in the name of security) features of modern OSs are where the real battle is being fought, and it's one that they seem to be winning: with data being managed by and hidden behind apps, touted as a feature of convenience, the users of these new consumption-oriented devices are being distanced from direct control of their data, and this greatly increases the effort required for them to pirate. If the majority of the population eventually only has access to one of these heavily locked-down devices (and traditional desktops/laptops become a niche product), then it's easy to see how file sharing could become virtually nonexistent - almost everyone will not even know what a file is, much less see any ways to copy and share the contents of one. The only sharing they would know of is that explicitly featured in the apps they use. It wouldn't be too dissimilar to the world of Stallman's Right To Read ( https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html ). Fortunately most computer users today still know about files and torrents, and hopefully that knowledge continues to thrive, but I do see large-scale attempts at fundamentally changing how we interact with computing devices that could eliminate that knowledge and those freedoms associated with it in the future. Taking down TPB and chasing the other torrent sites isn't quite as effective as systematically eliminating the knowledge that makes those sites possible; in other words, remove the concept of filesharing and "the Internet it created" will essentially kill itself.

commentzorro 12y ago
Well put! You've identified the next major battle to take place here in the states. Big Business vs. the people via control of hardware. And the funny thing is we're going to see most Americans running into the open arms of Big Business under the guise of "Security and safety", "Business has the right to lock down their hardware ... don't limit business", and, of course, "open systems open the door to terrorists." You've perfectly identified the battle, but, sadly, I suspect the war has already been lost.
- mikegioia 12y ago

biomimic 12y ago

The dandelion principle... Factory Records https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIXz80LnDjo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIXz80LnDjo

joeblau 12y ago

Does anyone know what percentage of the Internet the torrent protocol is responsible for using?

xtracto 12y ago
3.35% according to [this webpage]( http://researchcenter.paloaltonetworks.com/app-usage-risk-report-visualization/#sthash.8wYww5gT.dpbs http://researchcenter.paloaltonetworks.com/app-usage-risk-re...( cited by [BitTorrent wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitTorrent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitTorrent) Impressive how it went from being the 35% of traffic in 2004.
- jstanek 12y ago
  That's also partly due to Netflix' extreme web market share: They account for ~31% of all global aggregate internet usage, and combined with Youtube, the major video streamers account for ~43% of all global aggregate internet usage. That's probably because their business models necessitate a lot of traffic, since content needs to be re-downloaded on each viewing/listening.
  - kalleboo 12y ago
    Well according to xtracto's link, Netflix is only 0.85% (and YouTube is 5.7%), so I don't think numbers can be compared across sources - the methods of measuring traffic seem to vary wildly.

UhUhUhUh 12y ago

Internet provided people with way to much freedom, a fact that could not be left un-addressed by powers around the globe. People's freedom needs to be constrained, controlled and supervised because if it isn't, it will eventually invade more concerning areas than music, porn etc. It will leave the realm of distractions to that of action. It will suck the profit out of everything, negate merchandise and generate so many ideas and praxis that the center of power will eventually shift away from its current centers. Free connections between people and free access to uncensored, unlimited knowledge resources therefore is a present and significant threat to the way human affairs are run at this time. It will be met with staunch opposition and will need a constant guerrilla around hardware, software and networks to plough its way through. That's the bottom line.

Nux 12y ago

It looks like IsoHunt has revived the TPB "content" at http://oldpiratebay.org/ http://oldpiratebay.org/

karsus 12y ago

I was a little surprised by this take down. I thought they'd put major effort into making sure there was nothing much constant to take down.

avodonosov 12y ago

You can do both

wazoox 12y ago

Tangentially related, read Cory Doctorow's "Pirate Cinema". An excellent read about our near future.

known 12y ago

https://proxybay.info/list.txt https://proxybay.info/list.txt