Today (August 24) the imfamous torrent site The Pirate Bay has been shut down by order of a Swedish court after several large companies, which have constantly tried to take down the website, pressured to the court to do so. The staff of the Pirate Bay have said they are looking for a new host for their site, so we may not have seen the last of them. A company has also proposed buying the site, and adding legal copies of software and movies, and charging a monthly fee.
Pirate Bay was one of the most groundbreaking sites created. It helped start the whole piracy thing, and the controversy following it. Many people will miss it, whether it becomes a pay for site or gone for good. What are your thoughts on the matter?
Edit: Pirate Bay is back. They just won't give up, now will they?
It doesn't really matter what happens to Pirate Bay, there will always be more sites to take its place. And filesharing in general, you might not like it, but it isn't going anywhere, unless you'd like to live in a society like the one envisioned in 1984.
<edit> Whoops, guess I'm a little tired. But I guess it'll soon have a sequel.
OMG the book 1984 had a sequal?
me mates call these mods "cracks", harr!
The t-shirt on the frontpage is actually being made right now. It will be sent to the enemy frontline.
HAHAHHAHHAHAHHAHHAHAH
AHHAHHAHHAAHHAHHAHHAH
While I can see the fun of it I do not agree with the T-shirt move. All they show to be is childish and not willing to pay for content while saying "you can't catch us nanananana". It's not helping companies, nor them, nor us. If they wanted to be constructive they'd 'attack' the companies on a political front, like the pirate party. Not that it will help much against the mighty lobbies. But this is just provocative.
I agree with the shirt. Although, I BUY my stuff.
And, uh.... seems like Guerilla warfare to me.
What nobody mentions here is the very purpose of copyright, and the reasons it exists in the first place. To be in control over your own produced intellectual works is a very important civil liberty (mostly in regards to written work, admittedly). It has a very old tradition, going back to antiquity. The internet blurrs the line and it is easy to steal intellectal property, and since it doesn't belong to anybody but the author the claim that companies just sit on it to make money is absurd. They own it, they can do what they see fit with it. The right of authorship is important.
The problem with the internet is that the theft of intellectual property is downplayed and twisted around, turning the authors into evil overlords that withhold what rightfully belongs to the users/consumers for free with a hefty price. It can hardly be called criminal if the authors want to be in control over whom they give their works to.
I too though watch TV shows online, even though I mostly don't use torrents but rather rely on others who upload the shows to video hosting sites like ninjavideo or megavideo. I don't have a TV and I don't feel too bad about it because most broadcasting websites offer their episodes on their homepage after they aired anyway. This means that they freely share their property, so what I do isn't really anything different.
Movies.. I downloaded some via torrent, but I really prefer to watch movies in the theatre. The ones I got are either not released on DVD or won't be released in the right regional code or only get released in the dubbed version here (Germany) and I like watching the original version. Translations really don't work most of the time. Sometimes I downloaded a movie that I own on DVD already because my DVD drive has glitches or won't play them.
I never play computergames, I think its all pretty dull and boring (sorry), so I don't have a good oppinion about games. The same principels as for books apply there though, authors have the right to decide who gets their work for what price and how many they want to sell. To publicice everything takes away the incentive for authors/creators to do anything new in the first place, especially if they have no control over their intellectual work. Google books is a good example of a bad development.
LOL I can really see the likes of Brad Pit hurting from someone downloading Fight club.
Heres a point. I NEVER downoad anything. To download a movie at the rip off rates that Telstra charge, it is actually CHEAPER for me to go to the video store and RENT a dvd on tuesday night for $1 or $2 than the cost of the download usage LOL.
In my opinion, piracy is a crime, but does not much hurt the big shots. By this I mean big actors, producers, gaming companies, Musicians, WHOEVER. The ones who are big are already rolling in filthy cash and anything they touch turns to gold. I never saw a news report saying "Bigtime (insert artist) goes broke due to piracy." BTW I in no way am advocating this as a reason to steal. But is is a primary reason people sniker when you say the rich are hurting... no one gives a shit about the rich Im sorry to say.
I actually think piracy DOES hurt the smaller producers of intellectual property. Independants, smaller artists - the like. These people rely on distribution to earn their bread. Strange thing is, its usually the small and indie artists that sell their product quite cheaply to make a modest profit.
I work for a major supermarket chain that rips off the customer something fierce. We actually have a huge amount of theft. The cost of thieves is cheaper than the cost of making prices more affordable (yes they steal essentials like baby nappies they cannot afford too) or the cost of employing an army of security guards. So simply this major retailler puts up prices to cover the cost, thus punishing honest shoppers for the crime of others.
Theft affects more than just the person you are stealing from.
So obviously theres two sides to the coin, piracy is a crime, and by definition is stealing. It hurts the rich little, it hurts other consumers, and it hurts the little programmer guys pulling 70 hour weeks whos wage will be restricted to cover the loss of profit by the company they work for.
On the other side, prior experience of not up to standard products that ARE paid for, anger at seemingly overpriced products, and the ease of which to pirate, will lead people to do just such.
In reality I think taking the legal high ground and punitive action is going to deter pirates not one bit. On the other hand increasing availability, affordability and ongoing rewards for honest customers will bring paying clients to your indusrty.
At the end of the day the PUBLIC have the ultimate say. If you cannot afford something GO WITHOUT. Dont try to justify a theft because it is still a theft. If you like a game for free, play Linux games and Demo versions. If you like a game that has taken a lot of manpower (those overworked programmers sweating 70+ hours of blood a week) - then buy it. If you think its not worth the price wait for it to get cheaper. And if you feel burned by an artist or producer selling you something that youre not happy with, then never touch another of their products again.
sorry about the rant.
Sorry but you are misinformed. The purpose for copyright is simply to provide incentive (limited legal monopoly) to be more creative for the ultimate benefit of society. Additionally copyright does not go back to antiquity. It came about around the same time as the printing press and public literacy but that is a discussion for another day...
Good....let's hope that one day you will be filthy rich....then we can ALL line up and rip you off....
....afterall....no-one gives a shit about the rich....why should you?
I cursed that i had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet
Please explain why it is important that copyright is still in effect 70 years after the authors death? Or why Mickey Mouse will never go to public domain? Hell, Disney himself built his work on the work of others, so why can't others do the same for his work? Copyright as it is now is twisted for the purposes of large industries, not for the benefit of those who actually create something, so it is pretty far from its intended purpose.
http://techdirt.com/ These guys often point out the problems with the current copyright laws (among other things) and why they really need to be changed.
And before anyone starts yelling, I'm not saying that copyright laws should go, I'm saying that the balance is lost between creators, consumers and publishers, and that is why they need changing.
to that.
I agree that one could ask the legitimate question if there is any original thought and idea left or if everything is just some form of copy of something else that has been around before.. You can have a very interesting debate over fanfiction in that regard because it is one of the most obvious facettes of reusing established ideas and characters of others with your own creativity.
There is a certain deadline in regard to the deaths of authors, I am not sure how long that period is though, but 70 years seems to be a bit long. On a sidenote, The same is true for music, and here it is a pain because you have to pay fees if you play music of recent composers which can be trouble if you are a small orchestra/band and your expenses are greater than your profit anyway. It is a deterrent for laygroups to use recent works because they can't afford the fee. In Germany, many Youtube videos don't play anymore with audio because the agreement between Youtube and the GEMA ran out this march. No pay, no audio in Germany. If youtube wants to host copyright protected audiofiles in Germany they have to pay.
The idea that ones intellectual works should belong to the author is old.
Then there's art/painting...simply alternate media for creative thought/expression.
The coinage of the word 'copyright' may be recent....but what it protects has been around just a little longer than that.
The really annoying thing is I've been professionally protecting my own longer than most these armchair philosophers have been cutting cheese.
Architecture is rife with the 'borrowing' of ideas by the mentally inert.
Woot, it's the "armchair" word again This is the part where Jafo tells us we are all armchair philosophers and we should ignore anyone but him. God I love his arrogance
I'm glad I incite an emotion....it's all good....
I'm getting tired of giving you karma for all the appropriate responses you make.
Please have mercy on this old man! How many times can I click! Have some consideration!
Hmmm... to the best of my knowledge going all the way back to the foundation of Western civilization the idea may have been there but not actually codified in laws per se. I believe the main reason was that it was simply too expensive to copy things by hand. Moreover I believe most physical books going into the middle ages were "owned" and created by church groups. It was not until Gutenberg's invention came into being such issues as profit and control became important; especially for political factions. Consequently the birth of the modern concept of copyright came into being via the Statute of Anne. If my understanding is not correct please enlighten me.
Anyway, in my opinion the Bonehead (Bono) Act and subsequent Acts - DMCA and the FECA have gutted any and all value for education and more importantly, society in general and really, really need to be repealed. Moreover if I had it my way all the expansion Acts after the original 1790 one would be erased from public consciousness.
I was sticking to books here because I had been thinking about google's project to digitalize the worlds literature and thus making it available to everybody. Other artforms like painting/drawing/sculpting are a bit more tricky in violating copyright.. after all, painting a stilllife with a flowerbouqet has been done a million times and even though it is the same motif I wouldn't call that violating copyright.
Architecture always copies from somewhere else, immitation is a normal process for everything. You see something you like and use it while you are building your own house, I find it difficult to call that copyright violation except if you as the builder/architect claim to be the sole creator of said style. But if good old ideas are recycled and combined with new approaches - that is fine with me. Fromm Rococo to classicism - same principle. They didn't like the ornamental and playful style of the beginning 18th century anymore and remembered antique styles with simple lines, arcades etc.
Piracy sucks, plain and simple.
On the other hand, you have to defend Tivo.
How else would all the pubescent dweebs out there been able to check out Janet Jackson's tit?
By the standard of today's laws, "piracy" is illegal - end of story. In the past, it was different and maybe will be again in the future. All that said, I think the current commercial model is broken and reflects an industry that hasn't adjusted to the next technological frontier. iTunes is a good example of a music model that successfully adapted. People of course still pirate single music tracks, but I would argue that far fewer do with the advent of the 99 cent track. The movie industry has yet to catch up. Material does not need to be free of course, but it needs to be priced at a point where it is attractive. No matter what the model, however, there will always be piracy.
I'm not sure what the right commercial evolution is for video games, but a large percentage of videos games are Crap with a capital "C". You can't trust the online review mags because they are beholden to the game industry for advertising revenue. Forums are a mixed bag because it is always the negative voices that are the loudest. The best I can do is "try" the game out before purchasing the game. Is it illegal - yep, I make no bones about it but I am not dropping $59.95 on a game that I play once and then shelve (okay I have done this more times than I care to think about). For instance, if I had the opportunity to try a game out for a week for $5.00 then I would take that alternative rather than pirate a game. Demigod, for example, is worth the amount I paid for it, but for everyone of those, there are a host that are not. The business model requires me to put in several hundred dollars before I find a game that I like and that does not work for me.
Hear hear. I totally agree with this. In the end even if the game sucks - which it probably will - I'd only have spent $5 so I would not feel bad about it. Ofcourse there are sidenotes, I'll name two.
1. Most gaming studios and probably some people here will argue that the demo was invented for just this. I disagree. First of all they need to make a demo first, a lot of companies don't anymore, especially companies that own a hit prequal. They know they'll sell the sequel just because of the name. Also demos tend to be a highly polished part of the game. Maybe the demo rocks, but when you buy it you find out the rest of the game isn't quite so well made, or just more of exactly the same.
2. Time. Some games you can play from start to finish in under 10 hours. So with a $5 try-out period you could actually play the whole game. That wouldn't make sense. Also, the same thing goes on the other side of the scale. I played a SupCom mission which lasted 6 hours. If they'd make the try-out 5 hours to prevent the former than I wouldn't even see one whole mission. Also, I wouldn't like to feel rushed while playing the try-out, having to hurry to see if I like the game will ultimately make me not like it because of this. All in all there are some hooks and eyes to the deal but I certainly think it's a great idea.
Being arrogant and attacking the pirates won't have very much effect. There will be more. Demonizing it without looking at the things that cause it is twice as idiotic. There will always be a way to pirate.
I've downloaded several games to see if they're worth playing. If they are, I buy them. If they're not, I don't. No exceptions. I'll never buy a game with intrusive DRM either, where the pirate copies are even a higher quality. I download cracks for every single one of my games because I don't like having to deal with the discs. And for some games (like Oblivion) that need to have an uncracked exe for certain programs or mods to run (OBSE in this case) I make an .iso file on my hdd that I can load, so I still don't have to bother with the dvd. Am I a demon worshipper that should be scuttled with the rest?
Focus on why there is piracy, and work toward a goal around that. Also, accept that some people will never buy anything. They wouldn't buy the music/games/whatever even if they couldn't get it for free. Focus on why the people who would buy your game, don't.
Being militant in your defense or offense of piracy makes you sound like a moron, and you might as well be wearing a guy fawkes mask spouting memes in front of the senate. There's a lot of room in the middle that can stem the tide and help the industry and the consumers. The dick measuring contests of people trying to be smarter/more intelligent/more polarized than the rest just leads to more and more of the intelligent crowd becoming more of the fodder for the constant shitstorm.
tl;dr Stop trying to cut off the nose to spite the face.
it's a simple equation. As long as people/companies/studios continue to develop games, make movies and release music there will always be a certain percentage of the population that won't want to pay. sites like the pirate bay are here to stay unfortunately and as long as there is a demand for what those sites promote......... (you get the idea)
In a way it's like drugs...as long as there is a demand there will always be druh producers and drug dealers.
one suggestion i have is that some of the companies etc, stop charging ridiculous prices for their products. ie. $50 for a movie here in OZ or $40 for a CD and $100 for games. Maybe if these were priced at a more realistic level people would be more inclined to buy legal copies. Just a thought.
Myself i have better things to do other than download pirated software, Which most of the time comes with nasty little surprises. as well as the risk of having men in black trenchcoats knocking at your door with law suits once you have been traced by the FBI or equivalent.
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