Pirate Bay Trial Result: Guilty
NeonSpyder
"Das est NTLDR?" Join Date: 2003-07-03 Member: 17913Members
"Das est NTLDR?" Join Date: 2003-07-03 Member: 17913Members
in Off-Topic
<div class="IPBDescription">:Sadface:</div>Coverage at Wired and Slashdot
<a href="http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/04/pirateverdict.html" target="_blank">http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/04/pirateverdict.html</a>
<a href="http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/17/110235&from=rss" target="_blank">http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/...35&from=rss</a>
<a href="http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/04/pirateverdict.html" target="_blank">http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/04/pirateverdict.html</a>
<a href="http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/17/110235&from=rss" target="_blank">http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/...35&from=rss</a>
Comments
This ruling doesn't really mean much, pretty silly how it went.
And, because the followup might take a couple of years, nothing will change yet.
They aren't The Scene, they're a whole different kettle of fish who have monetised hacking culture and made it work for them.
They deserve everything they get coming to them, but the sad truth is the measures probably won't go far enough or create enough of an impact.
The prosecution got slammed on every point that they tried to bring up. Was the judge in the bathroom the whole time? or he just finds it "un-ethical" to rule in the Pirate Bay's favor is it would result in an outcry from the movie and music industry.....
I lost all faith in the judicial system.
They aren't The Scene, they're a whole different kettle of fish who have monetised hacking culture and made it work for them.
They deserve everything they get coming to them, but the sad truth is the measures probably won't go far enough or create enough of an impact.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Did they though? I don't love these guys, and yes they were a commercial enterprise. The problem is they just got thrown in jail and a 3 mil $ fine for "accessory to file sharing" despite never hosting a single bit of the actual infringing file. I can't cheer for that or be happy about it on any level.
They aren't The Scene, they're a whole different kettle of fish who have monetised hacking culture and made it work for them.
They deserve everything they get coming to them, but the sad truth is the measures probably won't go far enough or create enough of an impact.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Monetised hacking culture? Profiteering? I'm not about to say TPB is innocent or that pirating is great, but you obviously didn't hear anything about the trial if you thought that. The prosecution came out with records that showed that they were making a modest amount of money from the advertising on the site, and the defense had tons of records showing they spent nearly all of it on server/bandwidth costs.
The loophole in a sense needs to be there to protect the innocent, but I think it will be changed so that 'if there is sufficient evidence to show that ignorance is not the case, you are liable for prosecution'.
--
<b>Re: The Verdict</b>
The verdict was incredibly stupid, and seems to have been a rushed case. They've been done for 'making available copyrighted material'. There are lots of sites that do this, especially search engines because of how they're designed to work (e.g. as TPB points out, Google is one of them). If the verdict had been 'knowingly making available copyrighted material', then it would be less ridiculous and more enforcable.
It seems to me like a knee-jerk verdict that has been rushed through to make something happen. I'm not sure how things work in Sweden: perhaps this was done to stall for time while they put together a stronger argument against TPB for the next level, but it doesn't seem like a fair way to do things, and it could well backfire on them. I think this could have gone a lot better and if this becomes 'international law', then it will basically errode a lot of our freedoms and privileges by allowing innocent people to be prosecuted and by imposing massive restrictions on how search engines can operate. I don't think it would become international law because it's so ridiculous and a lot of tech-savvy countries who depend on the technology sector would interfere, and that probably includes Sweden.
<b>From the Q&A session TPB had:</b>
- They had a go at Google for 'not volunteering to help them out in the court case', saying: "One day it's going to come and bite them in the ass." The idea is that torrents can be found via Google, so Google could be prosecuted in the same way.
- They compare aiding pirates to deprive artists and companies of millions of dollars to having underage sex or drinking below the legal age. Quite a ridiculous argument, because neither of those is organised crime (or rather, 'participating in organised crime') unless you're talking about the youth sex trade, which was not the focus of their argument. The claim here is that the state 'ignores behaviour' by legitimising underage sex by offering birth control pills to pregnant teenagers. Again, ridiculous, because if they didn't offer birth control pills you'd have an entire generation of young parents who aren't working which would destroy the economy. Free pills aren't there to incentivise underage sex, they're there as a safeguard in case it does happen. Does ThePirateBay also agree with the Catholic church on the non-endorsement of condom use and free state condom aid in 3rd-world countries?
- In response to the question "Where can the media go to ask questions following the verdict?", TPB founder Peter Sunde says that he prefers to do online Q&A sessions because they're "much more democratic". However, it's also true that he has the option of selecting whichever questions he wishes to answer, and there is also some preparation time for each question. In a live interview there is nothing to hide behind, all questions are unknown and all responses are slightly more pressurised which usually results in more truthful or more overtly evasive answers, i.e. whatever the response it's easier to tell if the question makes someone uncomfortable and if they are really telling the whole truth or just evading the question: the 'no comment' effect.
- He also adds that the stream is published by them and made available to all, so nobody profits from the media and it is 100% accessible. That's true, but there's nothing stopping them publishing an unedited Q&A live, in person Q&A with a journalist. It's TPB's choice to author and control their own content, including which topics they cover and therefore what slant they give to the session.
- They brought up an interesting comment about whether ThePirateBay is considered a commercial entity or not. Their claim is that when it suited the prosecutors to treat them as a commercial entitity they were treated as such, but when it came to the certain protections and rights granted by the EU to commercial entities they were deemed not to be a commercial entity. It's pity their laywer isn't with them to give any more clarification on this, because from the interview I can see they only really have vague ideas about how the law is effecting them and so on.
- One question, "When will the masses understand that information has to be free?", is obviously flawed. There's a big difference between information and artistic creation. Information I would deem as 'knowledge whose access is essential' and artistic creation as 'expression whose access is optional and non-essential'. Something like 'the laws of the land' should be made available to all who are expected to abide by it. Something like 'Natural Selection 2' should be made available to all who seek it and are prepared to exchange the costs of development labour for the entertainment value and continued support. Now, there will always be the option of making your artistic creations free, but for those who need to survive in this world and wish to dedicate themselves to their art, it's not unreasonable for them to charge for it.
- "When will the ISPs step in on your side as file-sharing is probably the main reason for spreading broadband internet access?" is another flawed question, because it doesn't disassociate file-sharing of legitimate content and file-sharing of illegal content. Legitimate content, I would still argue, far outweighs file-sharing and streaming of illegal content in terms of actual people. Businesses, the media, user-generated content... all of these together as legal, high-bandwitdh internet practises are far more popular forms of file-sharing than illegal transfer of large files.
I would have thought these guys would have more nous to them, but even though they seem good-humoured, they seem pretty rookie to me. They did a press conference without properly reading the 130 page document detailing their verdict, instead choosing to skim it in 10 minutes. What really do we learn from that? All it shows me is that they are very complacent, don't seem to be concerned with how the law is operating in any detail and whether it is justified or unfair.
I think this only indicates that the prosecution was unable to uncover the paper trail to the full extent of their profits.
<!--quoteo(post=0:date=:name=http://www.tweakguides.com/Piracy_10.html)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (http://www.tweakguides.com/Piracy_10.html)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->However while virtually no-one likes the protection companies, the other party which is making a massive profit on the basis of pirate activity is sadly getting only admiration and respect from most gamers. I'm speaking of course about the variety of piracy-related websites which have proliferated in the past few years, especially the sites which provide links to torrents, several of which have daily traffic propelling them way up into the top several thousand or hundred sites in the world. The Pirate Bay (TPB) is a particularly interesting example, because Swedish authorities raided their operation in 2006 and now have over 4,000 pages of documentation based on their ongoing investigation of the business. What's been discovered is that what is ostensibly meant to be a site about "freedom of information" is actually a full-blown business that's been estimated to earn up to <a href="http://rixstep.com/1/20060708,00.shtml" target="_blank">$9 million</a> each year from advertising alone, excluding donations. <b>The owners of the site have since claimed that these accusations <a href="http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080201-pirate-bay-big-revenue-claims-fabricated-by-prosecutors.html" target="_blank">are false</a>; that all the money goes towards server-related costs, and in fact TPB operates at a loss.</b>
There are many reasons to doubt this claim, not the least of which is the fact that the owners have admitted to complex tax arrangements bordering on what appears to be either money laundering or at the very least a serious attempt to hide their income. More importantly however, <b>The Pirate Bay doesn't host any pirated material, it has an extremely basic text layout with minimal content and virtually no images (aside from ads served by other parties), which means bandwidth costs and server requirements are actually considerably less than any other major sites</b>. An enterprise class server can be purchased outright for a hundred thousand dollars for example, and obviously you don't need to buy new servers every year. Certainly, they seem to have enough money on hand to offer regular visitors the opportunity to win prizes such as trips to Dubai with $5,000 spending money despite supposedly operating at a loss.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->That's right, they claimed their site "may operate at a loss", in spite of their most expensive ads bringing in up to <a href="http://rixstep.com/1/20060708,00.shtml" target="_blank">€20,000 a day</a>.
In the past ThePirateBay have also made bids to buy tax-haven and self-regulated independant island 'principalities' from which to base their organisation such as Sealand off the coast of England. That bid failed, but they stated "If we do not get enough money required to buy the micronation of Sealand, we will try to buy another small island somewhere and claim it as our own country". In 2007 they mentioned Ile de Caille off the cost of South America as another possible purchase.
All of this indicates they generate a lot of money from the site and its operating costs seem very low.
Facts and figures, please.
And no, not from the RIAA.
It could also indicate that no such thing exists. In western law, THAT is the default assumption. Innocent until proven otherwise, remember?
For example... While I can't even remember the last time I downloaded music, I never bought CDs before I discovered the internet and if the RIAA suddenly managed to stop all torrents I still wouldn't buy any of the music. It seems like a lot of effort for no effect in my eyes.
Back in university where it was popular to nab games off the net, most people I knew would actually buy the game if it was good, even if they completed the pirate. In many ways, my class seemed to treat them as demos; if the game was good it got bought, else it wouldn't.
I'm not condoning piracy but I really don't think it's as influential as the money people make it out to be and so crazy crusades like this one seem like little more than an exercise in power.
The best games are the most pirated games. You're claiming that the games <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-pirated-games-of-2008-081204/" target="_blank">in this list</a> would not have been purchased if there was no free and easy way to get hold of them? You're saying arguably some of the most popular games of all time, such as Fallout 3 and Call of Duty 4, would not have been purchased if there had been no torrents for them? You're essentially saying gamers will stop playing the games with the very best art and gameplay if they can't be pirated.
I've never heard something so naive. What's sad is that a lot of people have convinced themselves of the same thing. There are certainly a few people who would not have bought the game because they couldn't afford it, or who might have tried a demo and decided they didn't like it, but the vast majority, especially when we're talking about the biggest games, would have gone out and bought the game if it wasn't easier and ludicrously risk-free to obtain a copy that performs just as well as the retail one for free.
Take Spore, the last game I pirated. I did so because it was the fastest way I could get to play it, since it wasn't out yet. I couldn't wait. I was practically giddy with anticipation.
That anticipation faded, though. Enough has been said about the matter, but Spore was a huge disappointment, and was quickly scrubbed from my harddisk again.
Without piracy, here's what would have happened: I would have bought the game (since there has never been a demo), and I would have regretted the purchase. It seems to me that the lack of demos reflects an unwillingness to showcase your product before the customer has forked over the money - you can always thumb your nose at his disappointment when you've got his cash in hand, right?
I think 2D Boy (makers of World of Goo) have the right idea: Fighting piracy is a huge wast of time and money for developers. So just make a product that people want to buy and trust that there are enough people willing to pay for it for you to make a profit. Ignore the pirates. 2D Boy estimates about a 90% piracy rate on World of Goo, which is about the same as estimated by developers that used DRM and otherwise attempted to fight piracy. They didn't waste any time or money trying to stop them though.
Speaking of which, World of Goo: Buy it.
Article here: <a href="http://pc.ign.com/articles/858/858653p1.html" target="_blank">http://pc.ign.com/articles/858/858653p1.html</a>
<a href="http://forums.demigodthegame.com/346815" target="_blank">http://forums.demigodthegame.com/346815</a>
Day one, 120,000 connection. 18,000 sales.
I applaud their direction of limited/no DRM (why they didn't bother with CDKeys or the like for online play, I don't know...), but it disappoints me that they got screwed like this (the large number of pirates apparently over stressed the servers).
I agree that Gem is kinda naive in her argument, but I understand why she is because I used to think like that also.
I fall into the line of "almost never buy music, and don't pirate that much either", and "warez == demos, I like it? I buy it. It's trash? it's gone". Because of this, I just sorta assume that every one else is like this also. But obviously they aren't. The vast majority at this point are the "I can do it so why shouldn't I?". Honestly, I am not anti piracy like Crispy is (though I fully understand why he is). I admit I kinda like the "stick it to the man" aspect of piracy, "you make bad games, why should we pay $60 for them?", "give us demos!", etc etc.
mm, self quote as I talk about piracy in IRC at the same time.... Delicious.
<thansal> Just because the *IAA are horrible creatures doesn't mean that piracy is a good thing.
Oh, and I neither bought nor pirated world of goo. I tried the demo, decided I dint' like it, and moved on.
<a href="http://forums.demigodthegame.com/346815" target="_blank">http://forums.demigodthegame.com/346815</a>
Day one, 120,000 connection. 18,000 sales.
I applaud their direction of limited/no DRM (why they didn't bother with CDKeys or the like for online play, I don't know...), but it disappoints me that they got screwed like this (the large number of pirates apparently over stressed the servers).[...]<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The problem with Demigod is that it is a DotA game, as far as I understand. That's SMACK-DAB in the middle of the demographic that is most likely to pirate games, i.e. the "hardcore" gamers. They didn't follow their own rules, and it bit them in the ass. I say that only shows how RIGHT the rules are, considering the success of their other games, like GalCiv 2 and Sins of a Solar Empire.
And yes, why they didn't even use something as simple as CD keys is beyond me. Maybe it was some blue-eyed "hope against hope" thing. Or maybe it was an experiment, "we're doing this our way for a DIFFERENT demographic, and if it doesn't work we're going back to space empire games and desktop tools." Either way it's a sad story.
I don't see piracy as a virtue, but as a symptom of a problem. And part of the problem has been that pirates offer better customer service. Quote the article I linked in my previous post:<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Wardell makes it known that he doesn't trivialize piracy, because he thinks it is a problem within the industry. To live with that fact, he just ignores the pirates and caters his games to paying customers. "The reason why we don't put copy protection on our games isn't because we're nice guys. We do it because the people who actually buy games don't like to mess with it. Our customers make the rules, not the pirates."<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
And many developers do it the other way around. Yes, theft is a reason: "Free" is a better price than ten, twenty or sixty bucks. But it's NOT the only reason, and it is frankly insulting to me as a (usually) completely honest customer that the games I buy treat me like a potential criminal.
<!--quoteo(post=1705225:date=Apr 18 2009, 09:17 PM:name=Epidemic)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Epidemic @ Apr 18 2009, 09:17 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1705225"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Fallout 3 the best game of all times? Christ, I'm offended.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'd be too. But he said popular, not good.
"See! This is hard evidence of piracy effectively killing a new game against retail sales"
If a regular downloader ever would decide to buy a game, it would be to access multiplayer. Singleplayer is always available so only supreme sp experiences would affect one enough to purchase anyway. See Bioshock or (maybe) Mass Effect.
I'm aware of the 'stick it to the man' people Than but I have trouble getting my head around that mindset. A more interesting question regarding them, however, is has anti-piracy ever stopped them pirating? I don't think it has personally... if they feel that strongly about it they're the crowd that knows where to go to get the cracks and whatnot to bypass securiom and all that silliness so the only people I'm inclined to think benefit from anti-piracy measures are the companies who make said anti-piracy software.
Does the % stopped from pirating who buy the game instead even equal or beat the costs of the anti-piracy software itself? I've never seen the numbers to say it has which I find rather odd... you'd think the anti-pirates would be trumpetting those figures if that were the case :p
I don't consider myself niave... I like to question things. Consider the above question of costs and then factor in the non-buyers from the 'niave' mindset too; am I really being oblivious? :p
<b>edit:</b> From what little I gather about the stardock thing LF, their server problems come as much from the combination of the broken street date and bad network design as number inflation by pirates :p
I think I read somewhere that the main issue was caused by a simple message the server sent all clients telling them there was a new patch. If there'd been 120,000 sales and no pirates the situation would have been the same.
I think it's about delaying the inevitable. A big game sells way better if it manages to stay uncracked even for a day or two after the release.
They don't need to prove it, or even figure it out. All the need to do is convince enough of the right people that pirates are destroying the world and they win. So far it is working out in their favor. However even there, it is one of those things you can't really prove one way or another. How do you judge what sales SHOULD have been for a piece of data before it is released? You can't just do an anonymous survey either. "Would you have bought this if you couldn't pirate it?" "would you have bought this if it was X instead of Y?", etc etc, simply because people lie horribly. Very few people are going to flat out admit "yup, I would have pirated this regardless", simply because of the type of pirating we have now is so damn casual. People don't think of it as illegal or wrong, and thus try to justify it out.
Overall, it is kind of a "Meh, we can't really figure it out" type thing to me, and I base my assumptions on my belief in my fellow man (they are all scum), where you have a higher expectation of them <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />
<!--quoteo(post=1705246:date=Apr 18 2009, 08:51 PM:name=Geminosity)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Geminosity @ Apr 18 2009, 08:51 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1705246"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--><b>edit:</b> From what little I gather about the stardock thing LF, their server problems come as much from the combination of the broken street date and bad network design as number inflation by pirates <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />
I think I read somewhere that the main issue was caused by a simple message the server sent all clients telling them there was a new patch. If there'd been 120,000 sales and no pirates the situation would have been the same.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yah, I got a correction from some one in IRC:
There is a CD key, it is used for online play.
But ALL of the copies were querying for updates and thus overloading the servers. However, the pirate problem is still a bigger one then the broken street date. They were set up for about 50K, and didn't expect to hit that number until a few weeks after launch (if they were right in this estimate or not, I have no clue). However with the massive piracy thing, it swamped the servers.