
The Pirate Bay Trial Day 10: Calls for Jail Time - adnymarc
http://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-bay-trial-day-10-calls-for-jail-time-090302/
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mixmax
Continually blogging about the courtcase, partying, inviting livebloggers and
sending live feeds from the court is an excellent PR strategy for
Thepiratebay.

If they're found guilty there'll be an uproar, and the Swedish authorities and
judges know they're being watched closely by an international community.

~~~
cabalamat
> _the Swedish authorities and judges know they're being watched closely by an
> international community_

Do the Swedish authorities particularly care if a group of people who they
consider to be criminals and pirates don't like them? I doubt it.

~~~
mixmax
They are politicians, and politicians are at the mercy of their voters which
happen to consist of a large chunk of filesharers.

When the Pirate Bay's servers were raided a few years ago it turned into a
political scandal, and (if I remember correctly) a minister was fired.

Also, The Pirate Party was very close to getting elected into parlaiment at
the last election in Sweden.

If I was a Swedish politician or authority I would definitely care.

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

~~~
bep
Indeed. I guess if they will be force between changing something or move, they
will move to another country. So nothing will change anwyay.

~~~
ErrantX
As far as I knew since the '03 (I think 03) raid their servers are located in
a different country anyway.

~~~
dag
2008, Egypt

(<http://thepiratebay.org/blog/102> , it only took a few seconds to find, and
bests AFAIK-ing)

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ErrantX
re read the blog post... spot the irony? ;)

Fairly certain that the servers are _not_ in the Sainai :)

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rms
I don't get it, could you explain please?

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ErrantX
Well fairly certain that Tiamo _does not_ live in Egypt.

Also they claim to have Fibre connections to XYZ countries? hmmm. (bearing in
mind that that kind of thing leaves a paper trail and there doesnt appear to
_be_ one) Smacks a little too much of irony to me :)

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thwarted
Heh, remember those cable breaks in the middle of the Mediterranean? Other
sites might suggest it was a CIA or Echelon style operation, but here, I think
we can all agree that it was the Pirate Bay ensuring their connectivity by
splicing their servers onto it.

~~~
ErrantX
Heh I'd forgotten about that.

I almost wish they had managed to buy seaworld too because it would have been
amusing to see the Music moguls trying to get at them there :D

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jrockway
It's Sealand, not seaworld.

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chris11
Could anyone estimate the costs of running The Pirate Bay? I've heard that the
site could be grossing millions a year from advertising, but I'm also assuming
that the costs are extremely high. I was interested in finding out financial
information for the site, but it looks like it won't be released.

~~~
lethain
I imagine it's less than you're suggesting, because they're not serving the
files themselves, so their bandwidth would be relatively low compared to a
photo or video sharing site.

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sam_in_nyc
Doesn't tracking millions of torrents require a massive amount of bandwidth?
I'm no expert on bittorrent protocol, but I'm sure millions of clients pinging
"I'm a seeder" or "I'm a leecher" adds up.

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amix
I think the Pirate Bay is a shady operation. They probably earn millions on
giving other peoples work for free. I don't understand the model of "free
copying" - if everyone is leeching and nobody is paying how will we get movies
like Star Wars, Lord of the Rings or a game like Halo (they cost millions of $
to produce)?

I hope an alternative comes where you actually pay for the stuff you leech
(especially for movies). And the argument with "trying stuff out", does not
really hold - you don't go and try an ice cream for free, you buy it and if
it's bad you don't buy ice creams from that store any longer.

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randallsquared
I'm not sure where you live, but here in the US, I can go to most ice cream
shops (Marble Slab Creamery, for example) and try various ice creams for free
before I buy. ;)

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amix
You get a taste of ice-cream - it's the equivalent of hearing a snippet of a
song or seeing a trailer for a movie. You don't get a full banana split.

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Xichekolas
I'd argue that is a flawed analogy.

When you taste the ice cream, you get the full essence of it. All the
subsequent bites will taste like that one. You know what you are getting.

When you hear a 30 second song clip or see a movie trailer, you get a
selectively packaged subset of the full product. I have heard many clips and
seen many trailers that are simply awesome, and then the actual song or movie
ends up being terrible.

So the analogy would be better if you got to hear the song once for free, and
then had to buy to own, which is kind of between the two extremes now (leech
it or buy it unheard). Radio (traditional or internet-based) does a decent job
of this now, but only for singles. There is still no way to try a whole album
before buying unless you catch it on the headphones in Best Buy.

The trouble with movies is that generally you don't watch them many times. I
can't really speak for everyone there, but I know I would be much more willing
to pay for movies if I could get a good 720p copy of it for say $10-15. The
reason I don't buy movies now is that I don't want a pile of DVDs in my tiny
apartment. I could buy them, rip them, then resell them, but as I understand
it, this is just as illegal as downloading them to begin with. So to
summarize, give us some format options besides just a DVD that costs $23.

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ErrantX
They are almost sure to get nailed for it now I think - and a good thing too.

Neither side winning is a good outcome for the rest of us but I prefer to see
the idiots dealt some of their own punishment for once ;D

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randallsquared
Actually, I'd argue that TPB winning would be a good outcome for the rest of
us, but even if they don't, it's only a matter of time. Patterns are not
things, and the only way to paper over the difference is to make it harder to
work with patterns... but that's not the way technology is going.

~~~
ErrantX
I dont buy that. Please explain why that would be good?

If the music companies win then perhaps the idiot pirates start to acutally
get scared. Then us sensible lot can sit down with the companies and get them
to do things right. Stuff is moving in the right direction (Apple going non-
DRM for instance) these guys are dinosaurs and holding things back. Send em
down.

I fail to see how anyone can condone TPB ever.... they damage the file sharing
community like nothing else before.

(ps am amused at the downmodding of my comment.... way to support piracy.. ;))

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allenbrunson
you're not being downmodded because everybody here supports piracy. it's
because you used the word "idiot," among other things.

you can make almost any point on hacker news and get away with it, if you're
respectful to all involved.

~~~
ErrantX
Why? They treat everyone else with the same degree of snootiness and
vitriol... calling them idiots is barely disrespectful :)

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allenbrunson
you've perhaps heard that two wrongs don't make a right?

pg started this site, and he has inculcated it with his values. imagine pg
writing an essay about the pirate bay. do you suppose he would call them
"idiots?"

like it or not, the culture around these parts tends towards respect. you
violate local customs at your own peril.

~~~
ErrantX
I dont buy that. It is expressing an opinion. I do respect the excellent way
they are using the media and the internet to show off their cause. I dont
respect what they do. I disagree calling them idiots is disrespectful:
because, well, they are.... (in my opinion):) There is a huge difference
between respect and dislike.

Perhaps I should be clear and say they _act_ like idiots. Then its an
opinion...

I would edit the original but I cant any more.. oh well.

Slowly losing a _lot_ of respect for some of the posters here... :(

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mixmax
Idiot is a pretty strong word, and using it requires some arguments and
substance besides "in my opinion they are idiots".

Intelligent discourse is based on good arguments and respect for the other
party.

~~~
ErrantX
I wish I had never used the word: I really dont see it as particularly
strong... perhaps it is cultural differences getting in the way. But a single
word is getting in the way of a good debate elsewhere in the thread - which is
a bit sad.

(for the record I think I did back up my statement: they are idiots because
they are helping and encouraging people the steal with no thought as to the
consequences and believe they are above the law to the point of being. And,
importantly, refuse to be reasoned with - and yes I have tried.)

I agree with the good arguments - but respect should not be automatic. I would
look for it to be earned in an argument (probably I did not do much to earn
any yesterday). My other point, of course, is that TPB (at whom my remark was
directed) are not here and so are not one of the debating parties... :)

EDIT: I am not particularly worried by the downmods. People can express their
opinions. However downmodding based on wording feels a bit short sighted...
downmodding based on percieved bias (which a friend of mine pointed out) I
_would_ agree with (because it did introduce a bias.. which was a mistake).

(Also it's a bit sad to see this bumped up to the first page... this surely is
stuff for the "back room")

