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File-sharing row erupts in Sweden
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| Orko |
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File-sharing row erupts in Sweden
Last Updated Mon, 05 Jun 2006 14:02:18 EDT
Sweden has become the latest battleground in the battle over file-sharing on the internet.
On Saturday, hundreds of protesters bearing skull-and-crossbone pirate flags gathered in Stockholm in support of website The Pirate Bay, which Swedish police shut down last Wednesday.
The site uses BitTorrent technology to allow users to share large files — such as movies, music or software — over the internet. Site organizers claim to have have millions of users worldwide.
Representatives of the world's music, movie and software companies claim that such sites facilitate illegal file-sharing that costs them hundreds of millions of dollars annually.
Other groups that were affected by the police raid — including a gaming website that accused police of indiscriminately taking down their servers as well — also joined Saturday's protest.
Government sites attacked
The protest came amid denial-of-service attacks on the website of the Swedish police, which was knocked offline Thursday, and on Sweden's government website late Saturday and early Sunday. A government spokesperson said the site was not entirely offline but was difficult to load for hours.
Sweden's domestic intelligence agency is investigating both incidents, which many believe were the work of those protesting the initial shutdown of The Pirate Bay.
Police raided 10 locations housing the website's servers last Wednesday, confiscating computer hardware and detaining three people.
Authorities said the three were being held "on suspicion of breaking copyright law or abetting the breaking of copyright law."
Though the site was shut down Wednesday, it was back up again on the weekend, with operators telling Agence France-Presse they had set up new servers in the Netherlands.
Operators defend site
Those behind The Pirate Bay site have argued that they are not breaking the law, and say the legality of file-sharing is still being debated in Sweden.
They argue that their site simply directs users toward files and then manages file transfers, but does not physically host copyrighted material.
Among the site's supporters are Swedish activists urging more open copyright laws who have even formed a political party known as The Pirate Party.
In 2005, the Swedish government passed laws prohibiting the sharing of copyrighted music and movie files online. |
I am sure a lot of you know that Pirate Bay went down last week(i shed a tear), but hackers are fighting back on their behalf!
I loved Pirate Bay's policy on posting legal thread on their website. I especially loved the return letter they sent to the MPAA telling them, that Pirate bay would file a complaint against the MPAA's legal council for threatening the Bay outside of the United States. Great stuff. |
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| Surreal JRS |
| quote: | They argue that their site simply directs users toward files and then manages file transfers, but does not physically host copyrighted material.
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Pretty much what the Napster argument was as well. ie can one be held liable for linking to illegal content... |
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| Jayx1 |
| Well to be honest i do hope they shut down torrents. Because a lot of people are losing money. And we will soon start to see with movies and games, a lack of programming and selection the same as we have started to see with music as a result of mass pirating. |
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| Orko |
| quote: | Originally posted by Jayx1
Well to be honest i do hope they shut down torrents. Because a lot of people are losing money. And we will soon start to see with movies and games, a lack of programming and selection the same as we have started to see with music as a result of mass pirating. |
Sorry music started to go down hill way before Napster got involved. Also, studies have found that the largest piraters are also the largest spenders. I can say for myself, that is 100% true. I pirate more than most people i know, but my DVD and CD collections(legit) are also larger than most people I know.
The biggest problem with the media industries is not pirating, its ani-pirating. DRM is the biggest problem facing consumers, and it will only lead to a decline in sales. If people can no longer just pop in a CD to any CD player without worrying about compatibility, there is a problem. When you have to have special video cards, and software to play your Blue-ray HD-DVD there is a HUGE problem.
They are making it much harder for consumers to get the media they want. I have spent $1000's on DVDs, but I will not support either of the next two formats for these reasons. |
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| Jayx1 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Orko
Sorry music started to go down hill way before Napster got involved. Also, studies have found that the largest piraters are also the largest spenders. I can say for myself, that is 100% true. I pirate more than most people i know, but my DVD and CD collections(legit) are also larger than most people I know.
The biggest problem with the media industries is not pirating, its ani-pirating. DRM is the biggest problem facing consumers, and it will only lead to a decline in sales. If people can no longer just pop in a CD to any CD player without worrying about compatibility, there is a problem. When you have to have special video cards, and software to play your Blue-ray HD-DVD there is a HUGE problem.
They are making it much harder for consumers to get the media they want. I have spent $1000's on DVDs, but I will not support either of the next two formats for these reasons. |
I know of dozens of small and mid sized record labels that have either shut down, or severely scaled back their productions because of pirating. I also know personally, 2 artists who had worldwide hits who hardly made what they should have thanks to pirating and downloading.
As the one artist explained to me, in the world of downloading the money is no longer in the sales themselves, its in the merchandising. So unless you are a maddonna or britney spears and can stage huge concert tours, you arent making money.
Same goes for dj producers btw. Which is why suddenly so many producers have suddenly become djs even though they cant mix to save their lives. |
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| AwakenedAddict |
| quote: | Originally posted by Jayx1
Well to be honest i do hope they shut down torrents. |
That's like saying we should shut down all the freeways since people break the law by speeding on them. Bit torrent facilitates sharing of all data, not neccessarily copyrighted data. Furthermore, shutting down "bit torrent" is all but impossible, as it is run as a highly decentralized network with MANY trackers.
RIP pirate bay :( |
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| basilisk |
| quote: | Originally posted by Jayx1
Well to be honest i do hope they shut down torrents. Because a lot of people are losing money. And we will soon start to see with movies and games, a lack of programming and selection the same as we have started to see with music as a result of mass pirating. |
People in the psytrance scene have been saying that for years, but more releases than ever before are coming out - even as downloading becomes more prevelant.
It used to be that a group would tour in support of an album... nowadays, it must be understood that the group makes an album to support a tour :)
Mutate & survive! |
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| Engine9 |
one shuts down, 10 start up
they got too big and they probably made tons of money off it, and then got BOOOKED
bit torrent site is easy to make no real loss to the warez |
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| Orko |
| quote: | Originally posted by Engine9
one shuts down, 10 start up
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For sure, but Pirate bay was more a symbol than anything else.
They laughed at the MPAA and RIAA for years before this happened. File sharing wasn't even illegal in Sweeden until just last summer. |
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| loconet |
| quote: | Originally posted by Jayx1
Well to be honest i do hope they shut down torrents. Because a lot of people are losing money. And we will soon start to see with movies and games, a lack of programming and selection the same as we have started to see with music as a result of mass pirating. |
Let's not throw out the baby with the bath water. There are perfectly legal and useful uses for torrents. I hope you meant that that particular site's torrents and not bittorrent is general should be shut down .. else I'm going to have to kick tu culo :D |
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| psychosomatica |
Anandtech had the funniest paragraph on piracy
| quote: | | While we could take a few thousand words here to editorialize the wastefulness of content "protection" in consumer markets, we'll keep our thoughts brief. Real pirates will always find a way to make their money by selling stolen content. Cost or technical barriers are not sufficient deterrents to people who make their living through illegal distribution of content. If it can be seen or heard in a decrypted format, it will always be possible to copy. Until it is mandatory that decryption hardware and software with a private key for everyone be implanted into our brains, media designed for mass distribution can never really have full protection from copying. Content protection is a flaming pit into which an industry terrified of change is demanding hardware designers, programmers and governments toss as much money as possible. |
It was in an article about Nvidia rolling out their dual card on a single pci-e slot..
http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2769&p=2 |
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| smuncky |
| quote: | Originally posted by Orko
For sure, but Pirate bay was more a symbol than anything else.
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just liek suprnova |
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