
TPB AFK: Watch and Download The Pirate Bay Documentary - derpenxyne
http://torrentfreak.com/tbp-afk-watch-and-download-the-pirate-bay-documentary-now-130208/
======
grecy
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
Equating piracy laws with state run human rights abuse is a bit of a stretch.

~~~
grecy
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
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_

~~~
ashray
People going to jail for copyright infringement, which should really be a
civil offense at best is pretty heinous in my books.

It's not apartheid but I find it (the punishment) really odd that it's
acceptable in today's world.

------
austinl
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-...](http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-11-28-valve-piracy-a-non-
issue-for-steam)

------
dewey
If you enjoy this movie you should also watch <http://www.stealthisfilm.com/>

------
mtgx
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.

------
contingencies
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.

------
orangethirty
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.

------
jiggy2011
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.

~~~
skcin7
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).

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

------
dylangs1030
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.

~~~
belorn
Copyright is not property, its a privilege given by the state to the author.
Its a state enforced monopoly, given under a perceived limited timed.

Privileges aren't properties. You can not own it, only be given it by someone
in power to enforce it. No matter of semantics, you can't turn a privilege it
into a property. State enforced monopolies are not properties. Copyright is
not property, Patent is not property, trademark is not property. I can't make
it clearer than that.

If you believe that the land is owned by the state and that the individual is
given state privilege to use it, then it too is not a property owned by the
individual. If however you believe that the state do not own the land, then
the land is a property of the individual that work it, builds on it, lives on
it.

Its an illusion to think that just because one can barter with privileges, it
suddenly become a property and all the economics regarding property will
suddenly make it all right. Its false. You can't turn privileges given by the
state into something it isn't and what it isn't is a property owned by the
individual.

~~~
dylangs1030
Fair enough. How do we deal with any variety of intellectual property rights
then? Do you recommend changing patent laws as well?

~~~
belorn
I can see several nice changes to patent law, but intellectual property is
just a make-belief nickname for a group of laws, all with different aspects
and goals. The only common denominator in each law, is that they are tools of
the state and that they are indistinguishable from industry regulations.

Copyright is a state granted monopoly on _information_ , intended to encourage
more works but to the cost of an increase unit sale price. It was a barging
between the producers of creative works and society. Sadly, this law has not
been updated with that goal in hundred of years, but rather taken off in the
belief that any cost-benefit for society is simply not necessary.

Patent law is a state granted monopoly on _production_ , in the belief that it
would encourage disclosure of secret information regarding how to produce new
products. It was a barging between the producers and society. Sadly, this law
has also not been updated with that goal in hundred of years, but rather taken
off in the belief that any cost-benefit for society is simply not necessary.

Trademark is a consumer protection law, intended to protect a consumer rights
to get what he pays for. Trademark scope is sometimes abused with the intent
to prevent competition. This is wrong, and should be illegal but is rarely
punished. The state gives some privilege to the target producer that a
trademark contain, but the purpose of the law is clear.

------
paulhauggis
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.

~~~
lelandbatey
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_.

~~~
belorn
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
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>

How about your name, address, ssn, CC number, and bank account information.
Information wants to be free, right?

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

------
ameen
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
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
You do realize that there are other races as well right? How would you explain
the "dirty immigrants" quote?

~~~
Matti
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".

~~~
arrrg
How can you believe something like that? You don’t say stuff like that. It’s
the most obvious racism there is.

You are absurd. And, as clearly evidenced by your detailed explanation, there
is apparently no mistranslation.

Not that it matters much, but defending racism?! Wow.

~~~
itsuart
I don't see any "racism" here. Since it's "obvious", would you please pin-
point it?

~~~
arrrg
Really?!

~~~
itsuart
I was hoping for something better of HN thread, than emotional exclamations.
Oh, well. "You can't always get what you want".

