Yep, it seems the court ruled that their intent was to help illegally distribute copyrighted works and sentenced each of the four to 1 year in prison and a $905k fine.
Source: http://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-bay-trial-the-verdict-090417/
Quite interesting, I think.
Very curious to know how this have can happen... how everybody have can access the servers without valid serial... how these special test version who don't need serial have leak the outside world... For these who know a little the "scene", they will certainly acknowledge that pirate receive some version of game BEFORE any release, in some case of concurrent business...
Then, all the pirates created a storm of negative PR about how the servers sucked, all of them pretending they had bought the game.
Actually a lot of pirate have made good comment and push people to buy the game... only a few hardcore a$$hole have insult the other who ask people to buy the game... a list of comment from a DemiGod torrent ( who show the internal discussion between people who use PB ( piratebay ) ( have copy them since i don't think that Stardock will love a direct link to a Demigood torrent page ) :
guys, im urging you not to steal this. stardock is the one company that trusts gamers, and intentionally didn't put in copy protection because they thought that we were above stealing it. now all the pirated copies of the game are crashing their servers, and all this is showing is that the one company that actually trusts gamers and doesnt treat us like criminals is wrong. keep this up, and they wont even exist anymore. theres no "i hate drm" or "its not available in my area" argument with this. all you are doing is putting the one company that trusted you out of buisness.
Docktor_Whorm
Download this torrent, give it a try, and if you like it, go ahead and give Stardock that few dollars for the game. Stardock has been more than generous by not implementing tons of DRM or protection in their games, and they didn't even freak out about piracy when their servers almost went down from not being able to handle the amount of pirated copies of the game trying to connect. Supporting them by giving them a few bucks for a game you like will not only let them keep making games, but will show other companies that DRM and treating all of your customers like criminals is not the way to go.
Nethos
I wish there was another way to try the game but the darn company didn't make a full trial! sheesh. Oh well. If I like it, I'll buy it. Looks interesting for sure.
Bakasin
If you like it, buy it! Support DRM-free games.
Exalted.One
don't download, buy it! support drm-free software!
Nr1pusher
Companies like stardock are virtually non-existent. Support them, please. They gave you the great game Sins of a Solar Empire and now this. Great company.
Vestic3S
their is so much crap out there these days that you just have to play the game first before you think about paying 50 bucks. if i do use a torrent, its to see how the game is, then i go out and buy it. i hope demigod it great, just so i can go out and buy a copy to support stardock.
Epederson
Mu?
The only reason I am thinking about "pirating" is because I'm not sure if it will run on my laptop. If there was a demo to try I wouldn't even consider it.
Anon one
anon one, what's wrong with you? pirating is awesome, makes it possible to play great games for free without playing a dime!! as for paying bla bla bla, corporations this and that i don't see it as our or anyone's responsibility to pay someone just because they didn't protect their software very much.. assholes, if u dont wanna dl, stfu. extremezone rules!
whatswithyellowketchup ( note : first a$$hole )
Definitely download it and try it...it's great. I've got a purchased copy, but i thought that i'd just comment on the torrent since i saw it up. The guys at Stardock and Ironclad Games (they also created Sins of a Solar Empire, which is just fucking fantastic...i can't stop playing it!) do a great job. Some of their other games (which are mostly a few years old) weren't so good, but it's awesome to go on the forums and read comments left there from the guy who owns Stardock. Anyway, get the game, and perhaps Sins of a Solar Empire...i'd love more people to play online with
Blargarg
guys.. please buy this game. They deserve it!!! Download, try it and buy it. Stardock trusts us and we should support them. Cheers. Long live TPB
Gregfromap
Downloading to see what performance I can expect.Support Stardock everyone.
AFLONG_AFLONGKONG
I agree, I for one am not downloading this. Stardock deserves better.
R3TROGRAD3
I agree with Doctor Worm, Stardock is one of the few good guys when it comes to publishers. If you like the game buy it or at least don't play the multiplayer aspect to the game. Stardock has taken a firm stance against DRM. This should be respected.
DEV2
People! If you like this game plase buy it! Stardock and GPG really deserves it. At least don't ram their servers with this "test" version. Remember! We can show to the EA and others that Stardock made the right choice! I hope that they won't find their trust misplaced.
Ashpool
For god sakes people try the game if you like it buy it stardock deserve that. i tried gal civ 2 then went n bought it so do da same support the good guys.....soz about the rant
Praxize
Saw Demigod here, but since its Stardock I decided that I would buy it instead. I respect Stardock. I was going to download this and then buy it if I like it. But I knew I prob would forget about buying, so I just went straight for a buy. The games awesome. Please support one of the last good publishers around.
Shadowlz
and more... normally, comment are about how install the torrent, how the game is and some "thank you"... but in these case, the main subject if the distributor ( Stardock ) show in a positive way... seem that the process have make PB user more hard but that in the case of Stardock with Demigod, a lot of user of PB ( more that 90% ) are for people buying it... I think that if it was not a Stardock game, the ratio will not have be 10 for one but maybe 1000 for one !!! So comment simply show that Stardock is on the right way... that if more distributor work like Stardock, in the long term, piracy will lower... Maybe with time, people will buy Stardock product without the need to pirate it first... Stardock is working on building a trusted relation between them and their customer... it is a long term work... and in the last 20 years, other business have make everything who was possible for destroy the trust between business and customer...
Hmmm, if i remember my old loggin/password from PB, i will leave a positive comment related to Stardock... for these who find that piracy is bad, stop complain here... post at PB... not some insult because it lead to nothing... simply say what you think in a polite way... mentality need to change at both side... business need to learn why people use pirate game and try to correct the problem, usual user and pirate need to support business like Stardock who give us back our freedom... don't be a anti pirate but become a promotion guy for business like Stardock who respect their user... the justice way is not the good way, result is that the pirate side have become more extremist and have grow... sure that the actual impartiality of the judge will lead again to more support for the pirate...
One could argue that the infringers are in fact not patrons by virtue of the act. Consequently my position still holds. If you treat your customers with respect and provide solid service then they will support you. One could extend the argument to the point that they will even give you a lot of slack at times if they know best efforts are being made on issues. Additionally one could also conclude that some infringers will convert into patrons.
Also don't confuse me with someone who cant make a distinction between pro customer companies and anti customer companies.
@Thoumsin - There are hundreds of such posts which I have seen the past few days regarding DG. It always happens on SD torrents. Moreover several sites I know of take down SD torrents on principle. The most common issue from what I have read over the years the top three reasons for people snatching SD products are:
*Not seen as a valid reason by many when a demo is available.
7 good reasons not to pirate from good companies:
1) You want to see non MMO or subscription based PC games in the future2) You want to see a community grounded in love for video games as opposed to profit and personal greed3) You hate DRM and don't want to be treated like a criminal for buying a game4) You support lower prices5) You want to prevent over-commericialization and in-game advertising6) You want many free updates and patches7) It might even make you feel good about yourself
Without mass "pirate support" Adobe would never become industry standard in all (multi)media software... (and they are well aware of this fact!)
Pirating should be treated as free advertising specially if you created great product!!!
If you created pile of shit and trying to sell it to poor people out there you should be pirated to death anyway...
And this Swedish case...
Its LOL!
Only people who committed crime and break the law here are pigs from big corps.
Really? So what would have replaced PDF's and photoshop if the pirates weren't there to "help"?
Really? Every time I give you the answer you don't want to hear, you ignore it and pretend I'm just a pirate. Perhaps if you don't want me to call you an idiot, you should actually think about what I'm telling you, as you suggest I should do.
Except it's not, proveably so. I have demonstrated why, you simply refuse to acknowledge reality and persist in your ignorance. Copyright laws do nothing to prevent piracy when the factors that lead to piracy remain unchanged. Changing the legal status of socially acceptable practices has never accomplished anything. In most of the cases I've looked into, it's made the problems far worse. The war on drugs lead to increased gang violence both here in the US and abroad. Prohibition did the same thing with alcohol, the US government created the mafias and the drug lords by giving them power to act in an unlawful manner regarding an already illegal business.
That post doesn't even begin to insult you, it's flatteringly complimentary by comparison. You obviously missed reply #175 at the end of page 7. Apparently so did all of the moderators, I figured I'd at least get a warning for that one.
Forget the posting man,that is why i stopped.Let them think they won.Let them live in their own narrow life.They actually think they know the law,the law in every country,the situation in every country.
Leave it be,let them think that they are some supreme humans,and be done with it.It is pointless to argue with someone who lives in his own small,shallow world.Blaming you for being pirate and all that nonsensical stuff,most of them are full of shit.Some of them have valid points,but most unfortunate that EARTH does not equal U.S.A..there are other countries,other laws,somehow they totally miss out on that
Those all work for me and are very valid. You should add those the the GBR as a foundation element.
Karma given.
It's not that you're giving me answers I don't want to hear. It's that you're not actually answering the question. The answer is really very simple, it's either "Yes" or "No". Do you think piracy should be legal? It's a yes or no question. Saying "Irrelevant" is not really an answer. I wasn't asking you if you think Romania would be different, or if you think games would make more money. I was asking you: "Do you think piracy should be legal?"
Except it's not, proveably so. I have demonstrated why, you simply refuse to acknowledge reality and persist in your ignorance.
It's funny, because I could swear you were going off for pages about how you were getting "fucked in the ass" for having to click on the windows authentication key and getting "pissed on" for having to watch a Geicko commercial at the movies. These things exist because of copyright law, so if you are bothered by them, I think you'd agree that copyright law is part of your problem. The pirate bay guys were arrested because of copyright law. The RIAA, MPAA, and DRM all exist because of copyright law. The word "pirate" in this context only has meaning BECAUSE of copyright law. But you think the existence of copyright law doesn't have anything to do with it? That doesn't even make sense. The entire debate is ENTIRELY about copyright, who owns it, and how it should be enforced. You're really stretching things to avoid saying yes or no.
Anyway, at this point I can tell you're not going to actually try to present some sort of viewpoint or argument; you're just ranting. Probably time to call this a lost cause.
Honestly, if you think this one case will have ANY effect on any other pirating company or website, you are an idiot.
Also, have any of you never been to a LAN? More than 3/4's of peoples data on their drives is more than likely taken from another person or downloaded. It is just the world we live in today.
The problem is the question is flawed from its inception. You are still equating infringement with theft. There's a substantial, practical difference between the two. Theft causes material loss. Copyright infringement does not.
Once again I got lucky and another already made the argument for me as follows:
Property rights are as old as civilization (in fact, one could probably argue that the beginning of property is the beginning of civilization). Property is considered a natural right in many philosophies, including, notably, John Locke, a major influence on the founding of the United States. Copyright is a conditional privilege granted by the government (as opposed to property rights, which are not granted by any government, and cannot legitimately be taken away by any government either) specifically to promote creativity by providing an incentive. That means copyright protection exists for the public good, and is conditional upon that goal (not claiming the laws are written to reflect this, however). Property rights are to the benefit of the individual, and are unconditional. You can argue that copyright infringement is wrong or illegal, but you can't argue that it has anything to do with theft. There is a superficial resemblance, and nothing more.
Additionally the "incentive" need not be monetary gain. Incentive means many things to different people. However in our new "Money is God" society it seems that incentive equals only money. This is yet another seriously flawed assumption on the part of the many.
Lol. Not you too. The evasiveness is getting ridiculous in this thread. Next time someone says "Do you like my hat?" I'm going to reply with "Hats are irrelevant" or "Your question is flawed from inception." I'm sure that will really drive the conversation along.
Look, I'm not equating anything with anything. I know the difference between theft and copyright infringement. It doesn't change the question at all. Everyone in this thread knows what the word piracy means; we just all have different opinions on whether it's ok or not. I'm asking a straightforward, simple question. The question does not contain nor imply that theft and copyright infringement are the same thing. The question was "Do you think piracy should be illegal?" I could reformat it if you want: "Do you think acquiring copies of copyrighted media, which are being sold by the copyright holder, without paying the requested price to the copyright holder for said product, should be illegal?" But that's kind of overly complicated since we all know what I mean when I say "piracy". We all know what The Pirate Bay is; I think we all know what people mean when they say "pirate".
Again, I'm afraid that doesn't actually answer the question "Do you think piracy should be illegal?" at all. It implies that maybe you think "no"? I honestly can't tell. Why can't you just answer it in a straightforward way?
That is the problem. You are assuming that "everyone" has the same meaning of the word. To me, piracy has to do with hijacking property at gun point. Using my meaning the answer to your question is: NO it is not OK.
Additionally your understanding of the name of TPB is also flawed from what I understand to boot.
Someone lock this thread, we're never, EVER, in all eternity reach an agreement.
Although personally i think piracy is a crime, you're entitled to your own ideas.
Idea for generic "evil" distributor, MAKE MORE DEMOS DAMMIT
Ten Copyright Myths:
http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html
Just thought I'd post this because its useful.
Faugh. You presume that everyone who shares your current opinion is equally resistant to a change of mind. The only way public policy improves is through public discourse, most especially through the endless, painful efforts of folks who *seriously disagree* to find some way to agree.
I was a philosophical anarchist when I began my formal critique of copyright laws. I'm a small-d democrat now, and I'm open to the idea that government might have a reasonable role in regulating the free flow of information in the modern digital environment. But I remain convinced that the current copyright regimes have drifted a very long way from the U.S. Constitution's goal of supporting the 'useful arts and sciences.' This unwholesome trend has been championed with rhetoric about the rights of individual creators, but in practice the regulatory schema is far more beneficial to corporations whose majority owners have little or or no direct role in doing the intellecual work that we all value.
How would you change that, then? Some types of copyrighted works lend themselves easily to individualistic copyright enforcement (painting by committee is a bad idea), but how should collaborative works be handled? To put numbers on it, a game might have 20-50 people working on it during the design cycle. Should each person have copyright claim to it, is permission from all contributors necessary to give permission to copy? How do you address differing degrees of contribution to the whole?
In the end of that article, it saids
"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.”
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."
The sad thing about this is that the industry can not just left it alone, they have to open a can of worms. I am not advocating piracy for saying such a thing, but the truth is that pirate bay has not gone away, and it has teken on a life of its own. So has isohunt and many similar sites. People will pirate if they want to pirate, and it is better to make quality digital products that people will want to purchase and hence cultivate customer loyalty, instead of crappy products where only people will only feel that it is not worth buying, but worth pirating, because it has no lasting value.
Makeshift, you are living proof that stupidity can't be cured by an education. Everything you need has been provided, but you can't even grasp simple concepts. Instead, you misquote and take people out of context while rationalizing your own flawed argument. You're nothing more than a liar decieving yourself in perpetuity to avoid being wrong.
You demand a yes or no answer to a question that isn't even logical. It's a paradox if one says no, the definition of piracy demands that it be an illegal act. Copyright infringment isn't even piracy to begin with, it's an actual for profit distribution system. The guy with a factory printing pirate cd's is engaging in piracy, the guy using bittorrent is doing no such thing. You are the typical misinformed idiot. Educated by equally wrong idiots on subjects you don't understand. You demand that I pass judgement on other cultures for a choice that causes no harm to anyone else and great benefit to themselves. When they think copyright is worth having, they will make the decision themselves.
Find someone else to embarass you, I'm done bothering with this.
-edit-
I think there's a little too much psychotic rage going on in this thread to enjoy it anymore... i'll leave you gentlemen to your ranting.
Almost yes.
BUT, if that question would be rephrased as; "Do you think piracy is illegal?"... then my straight answer IS Yes.
More like, Investors X & Y continue to get rich simply by sitting in a castle on a stack of cash.
Enslavering the workforce for personal luxuries beyond socially acceptable morality.
Capitalism is by definition, a way to *indirectly* prevent collective sharing of common resources to all & any responsible for its production. It may seem fair to the ambitious or lazy bunch but it isn't to the poor.
Piracy simply adds negative impacts to the situation.
Yay, no more misquoting asshole.
Most wealthy people in capitalist societies are first generation. The most extensive of the capitalist dynasties is inarguably the Rockefeller family. The greatest philanthropist in the history of the world is John D. Rockefeller. The current big wigs are Gates and Buffet, both of whom have less substantial, but still massive philanthropic efforts eating up large percentages of their wealth. What they aren't giving away is invested into other people. Owning stock in a company isn't doing nothing, that stock represents an infusion of cash at some point that got them the funding to get where they are. Sitting on stacks of cash in castles is a horribly inaccurate description of the ridiculously wealthy. Your version of morality is equally biased, I see nothing wrong with having hundreds of millions, even billions of dollars. If you can make it, do what you want with it. Enslavement better fits socialism, where you work for the same amount of money regardless of how hard your job is.
Where as the alternatives have all led to worse. The people running the countries get everything while their populations degrade into poverty within a single generation.
There is a related problem though, people are investing in copyrighted material just like they invest in actual production. This reduces the amount of capital invested into things that actually produce something new. The money spent on owning the Beatles copyrights is essentially wasted, it may as well have been burned and flushed down the shitter as far as society goes. That's hardly something to blame on capitalism though, it's the infinite copyright our asshole legislators are giving them that turns a temporary monopoly into a holding.
Or non-philanthropic ones maybe?
Socialism is not about enslavement either (well, not directly), i guess. Communism most probably.
Democratic socialism is wide spread for a reason... it struck a balance between productivity & wealth of the MANY rather than a few lucky ones that inherit a vault filled with overwhelmingly high living means.
I think this is more about perception than facts in my case.
Would you marry Miss Paris Hilton for the money or cuz, she's got the smarts & the sex_appeal? That kind of reasoning. Imagine how she must seek anonimity in her daily life to find true love.
Society has a knack for parsing the fit from the weak starting in schools until adulthoods; put Dollar signs (whatever the amount, in working hours and contribution to the common good) in both these hands, i doubt it would be invested the same way.
Funny you should mention the Beatles, it's sooooo strange to learn how much cash a divorce can net some people nowadays. But who if anyone can afford real lawyers in worst cases.
Something's wacky.
Lawyers cost an arm and a leg because lawyers are writing the laws so that only lawyers can work them.
I can't believe I'm going to take this question seriously, but here goes. First, Paris Hilton is... interesting looking. I can't come up with anything nicer than that, not pretty, but not ugly. If she was a little less anorexic, I'd not have any faults with her looks, but I definitely wouldn't marry her for it in any case. Her money is irrelevant. I'm not interested in money or I'd be less lazy. My idea of a perfect home is a place with a roof and air conditioning with enough room for a bed, my computer, and a full kitchen. I don't even want a living room or a dining table. Her money would be somewhere between annoying and a non-factor. There aren't any other reasons to marry her based on known information, all I've seen is an a-moral airhead, although one with slightly more braincells than than president and his contender based on her fake political ad. To top it all off, I'm an anti-social jackass.
I doubt the premise that she's seeking anonimity and looking for true love as well. When you're actively selling yourself, sex tapes included, there isn't going to be anything resembling either of those in the near future. She appears to value money over happiness and gladly foregoes the latter in return for the former.
Also, democratic socialism is niether effective nor sustainable. Look at the demographics and the problem is obvious. Europe has a rapidly aging population and massive unemployment rates in the younger workers.
Sweden is socialism heaven. 5% unemployment, high productivity, the dream realized... Not. They claim it's around 5%, but one in twenty people are on sick leave on any given day, ten percent of the population is retired early(55-65), supposedly for health reasons. Students are students whether they're actually in school or not, they're classified as such regardless. On any given day, only three and a half million people are working in a country with a population of nine million. Even at such a small scale, we have individual cities with larger populations, they wont be able to keep it going. The typical lifespan of socialism is one generation, democratic socialism is well on the way to a similar showing.
Four of which, maintained PirateBay online -- if they're listed in the statistics, though.
We simply don't have the same political views, i think.
As much as i believe free market and global economy can sustain the actual populations, there's still plenty of Forbes' best who'd get my job in the necks for being aware of community sufferings and proving it by taking good care of elders and people in desperate situations. They manage, barely.
I'd yell upwards for help on their behalf if i could, but these ivory towers are far away and i've never been the type to hit spinning fans with a sword.
We deal in hopes, not in empty promises of capitalists protecting profits.
GM bought Saab to get rid of Pontiac... or what.
The car industry is near collapse while tourists from Mexico with health issues spread the news around.
If all goes well, pandemic warnings will pay a few pharmaceutical giants into even MORE whatta_coincidence anti-recession cashflow.
Call me an opportunist.
This newscast has been brought to you by the local parano. Stay tuned, we're in for some more -- taxes.
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