The Pirate Bay files charges against media companies
 

Well this is interesting.
Apparently The Pirate Bay is filing charges against the Swedish correspondents of some of Americas largest entertainment companies due to a leaked e-mail from MediaDefender by MediaDefender-Defenders, containing information pointing to their involvement in a lot of sabotage activities against P2P users among other illegal activities. Hopefully with some media pressure and support from the piracy and copyright movements and organizations over here this will lead somewhere.

There's not much info yet but you can read the whole thing here, and there's a section on it in the MediaDefender article on Wikipedia. There's also some MediaDefender torrents available on The Pirate Bay, but you'll need a torrenting application for those.

this is awesome and all for all of us pirates, but let's take a moment to think rationally here. We all KNOW ThePirateBay, or torrents and P2P for that matter, are NOT right. Stealing people's efforts when they should be paid for it is NEVER right.
That said i should note that although i do pirate stuff i do it while realising i am wrong, not the self-delusioning reasoning TPB and its 'fans' usually put up.

regardless, this should be interesting.

When organizations like the MPAA use guerrilla tactics to subvert the law, and then attempt to use its technicalities towards their own ends, why not use one of those technicalities against them?

In other words, it's legal in Sweden. It is not legal, however, to hire people to crash servers of a business that is, according to Swedish law, legal.

True, but i'm just talking about whats right.

Talking about what's right all the time is an exercise in futility. Many people accept things that are for a greater good because they understand the inherent benefit in them. The evidence that the money "being taken away from artists" is actually lining the labels' pockets doesn't exactly inspire public confidence.

Ask Trent Reznor if it's right to download his music after he put Pirate Bay links to some of his songs from of his latest album on his website.

Or ask Night Phoenix, as a musician who hasn't had a breakout album and is essentially still trying to work his way into the music industry from the ground up, whether it's okay to pirate his music. (before or after success.) Chances are he'll say yes.

Either way, though, what's "right" is never going to be consistent. Or at least, not for consistent reasons, and therefore to varying degrees. Someone might feel more right than someone else. I don't think in this case a thief is a thief is a thief. It's more complicated than that.

I concur and I'd like to follow up with one example being this: Is it right to torrent a movie which you would have never otherwise watched? Meaning you would have never given money to see/buy/rent the film because of its supposed suck-factor or you just plain hate the film? There's a whole range of viewpoints on that alone. Its 32-bit shades of grey.

Having that said, I applaud The Pirate Bay for sticking it to Big Media (And by sticking it, I mean giving to them a taste of their own medicine).

I'm actually interested in seeing who's gonna win this particular case, because you've basically got two entities clearly in the wrong trying to battle it out and prove which one is right. It's enough to make your head spin when you think about all the legalities and potential this has to be real big. This case could very well begin the movement for a civil version of current entrapment laws.

Now if only the White House would have media leaks like this, we'd have something to really talk about.

It's still wrong. Why is it less morally objectionable when you replace the words walk into a rental store and walk out with a movie in your pocket with torrent? It's not wrong because you're not physically doing any stealing? What? You're having something for free that would ordinarily have cost you money; it doesn't matter if you "would never have given money to see/buy/rent" it in the first place. I understand this viewpoint and used to use that exact justification for pirating things myself, but the fact remains that you're still stealing the product.

Just out of curiosity, can you show me these 32-bit shades of gray?

When you walk into a rental shop and walk out with an unpaid-for movie, the shop loses something. They no longer have that copy of that movie. They cannot rent it to anyone else; they cannot sell it, it's gone. That is direct harm. However, torrenting is merely making a copy, which regardless of the morality of that is still definitively less harmful than outright TAKING something.

This brings us 'round to the argument that it's STILL somehow the same as stealing, since you're um er theoretically taking money away from them that you might theoretically have spent later. In reality this is not the nature of things. The vast majority, I suspect, of torrented items are ones that would NOT be otherwise purchased outright (mostly because a great plurality of torrent users are not precisely wealthy). You don't "lose a sale" to someone with no interest in purchase and no money. It's an inane concept.

Saying that making a copy of something that you would never otherwise purchase, in a way that does nothing to directly harm the product or its creator... saying this is the same as just walking out of a store with an armful of goods is wildly disingenuous.

For either side to argue about who's right isn't gonna solve the problem. Because ofcourse, whenever there's a conflict of interest there's always a problem behind it.

Alot of people don't want to pay for films or music, because they don't need to. And the record companies don't want people to download their stuff for free since it actually costs them to produce it.

In the end, if neither side can work together, both will lose. The record companies will stop supporting artists and selling albums since no one buys them, and the "pirates"(or whatever you can call them) wont have anything more to download since there's no new material.

I no longer buy alot of music or movies since it's too expensive. In Sweden, a new realese on DVD can cost almost 30 dollars, and downloading a film is just so much faster and more convenient than renting it. When it comes to music, I guess no one's interested in entire albums anymore. People have a playlist on their mp3, that's it. If you buy an album you have to pay alot for songs you wont listen to anyway, not to mention that ugly plastic box which just sits there on its shelf collecting dust.

Buying songs and movies off the internet is becoming ever more popular. I guess Itunes sets the standard for that industry, even though it does have its flaws. One being that you can only play the music on your Ipod. But I do believe this is the future of the industry, so do many others. When you distribute something over the internet, the costs are minimum because there's no physical distribution. So that reflects on the price you as a customer have to pay as well. You don't get the disc, you don't get the fancy box but you do get the music.

If there was a site where I could get all the music and all the movies I wanted for 99 cents per song, or 5-7 dollars per movie in any format I want and in any quality, I would be a regular customer there. Because I do feel bad about not paying for what others put their money into producing, not simply because I feel sorry for the companies but because if it wasn't for me buying their music, there wouldn't be any music.

wal-mart sucks
 

See, I like to play both sides of the game. I'm not against pirating, but I'm not guilt-free when doing it. not totally.

I think that in one way it's wrong because I'm taking advantage of a companies hard work in producing a multi million dollar film. Instead of buying Da Vinci code, I'm downloading it for free, stealing about $20 from them.

On the flipside, I'm not stealing a hard copy (which only costs about 20 cents to produce anyway), and if I was stealing a hard copy, it wouldn't be the movie companies losing money directly, it would be Best Buy, wal-mart, or a video rental store (probably wal-mart because they are easy to steal from and treat there employees like shit) who's losing money. That makes me feel like it doesn't really matter if it's a hard copy or not, it's more the substance on the disc, which is exactly what people pay for, and what I download.

Then you have to think, they make tons of money in movie theaters, they have those people who still buy the hard copy (which is a lot), and then they have ALL those stores who get at least one case of the movie anyway. If Best buy or wal-mart can't sell them, that's a minus for them (of course influencing their future purchases of similar movies from the same company or whatnot). So even if some cool internet guy makes a rip using DVDshrink and posts it on pirate bay, they still make tons of cash!, especially if the movie is good.

So here I am, a poor 18 year old barely making enough to pay his $180 car insurance bill. Am I going to support Steven Spielberg and his mansions? Mel Gibson and his anti-semitic remarks? or my own pocket, where $20 is about 8% of my part time, biweekly paycheck. What I'm going to do is get a netflix account (which is exactly what I do), rent movies, rip em, return em, and burn em. So to add on to the movie companies movie making I offer them 15 bucks a month, keep my conscious clean, and get my movies. I also keep my internet running fast because I'm not always downloading 4 gigabyte files.

Pirating Microsoft software is another thing entirely.....


EDIT* As for the whole Pirate bay thing, I think that it's kind like this. "A kid is cheating on his math test all the time, getting the answers from Sally. The kid is mad slick about it, doesn't get caught because, idk, maybe the principal is his father or something, or the teacher is just really nice. Anyway, unexpectedly one day the teacher separates sally and this kid, thing is, this teacher promised the kids they could sit wherever they want at the beginning of the year, and let's them do almost whatever they want, with certain restrictions (kind of like the internet). The kid gets pissed and goes "WHY THE F^%K DID YOU MOVE HER!!!?", and the teacher replies with, "because you cheat off her". Then the kid goes to the principal and bitches, knowing damn well what he's doing is wrong, and against the rules, expecting a result."

He might get that result too, but I think it's wrong of this torrent site to sue them, I think they should take care of it themselves.

It's not a very accurate comparison but that's how I see it, like a little kid whining because the teacher is trying to prevent him from cheating, even if the teacher is breaking his own rules. I mean, the kid broke the rules first, and this whole case reeks of hypocrisy.

Panglain more or less answered for me: Stealing a copy from a store/rental store makes the store lose money, especially rental stores because now they have to order new copies of the movies, and explain to corporate why they allowed someone to walk off with 5 movies that should have been hard to steal (As most if not all movie rental places nowadays have security measures to prevent such obvious theft). I'm not saying that torrenting a movie in itself is completely squeaky clean either, but its a difference in morality when, as I said before, that if you were never going to PAY for the product, that getting a copy for free off the internet is harming anyone. Now there are times when I'm sure many people have gotten movies simply because they were lazy or whatever, and my example was of one of the exceptions.

Oh, and the 32-bit Shades of Grey thing was a metaphor.

You seriously think that if the megalithic music industry players were to just pack up and go home, nobody would put out CDs anymore? You are the REASON CDs cost $15-$20, bucko. Keep swallowing that shit.

Cellius' remarks remind me of the bullshit anti-piracy trailers I have to suffer through far too often on DVD's- "you wouldn't steal a car, don't steal a movie".

As someone said, it's completely disingenuous to compare such things. Pirating a movie in the 'torrent' sense isn't directly comparable to stealing tangible property which an individual/organisation has direct control over, including economic rights.

That's not to say that pirating won't cause economic loss. But then we get into a new ball game, prices and so forth. When I see Scrubs seasons in stores for like 50 bucks plus, I do the math and think, that's like 300 bucks for the show.
Even if I had the money, and a job, etc- I wouldn't spend that kind of money on such things, that's outrageous (same goes for DVD-movie prices here in Australia). So, I download it.
I generally try to rent movies (and probably burn them then, admittedly) instead of downloading, since having a proper rip will be better quality. And downloading 4+ GB ISO's sucks for your bandwidth restrictions. But it's not out of some pseudo-moral deal, that I feel guilty if I burn a movie. Why the hell would you. Same goes for my pirated copy of Nero (although once more, whole different ball game).

Plus, which DVD rental stores or movie corporations are going out of business if I rent and burn or download instead of renting or buying? Same goes for the CD example. We reward these inefficient corporations by buying shoddy products at ridiculous prices (DVD's are vastly overpriced), and drives those prices further, as Nicza flagged. Same goes for crap products like Vista and Ipod's.

I'm not saying it's everyone's moral duty to pirate, or anything like that- sure, you can have objections to piracy. I think there's times when it's inappropriate, such as when a good release has been done at reasonable prices, such as the Ultimate Edition James Bond DVD's- great buy at 15 bucks each. And you want to reward the company and ensure they keep doing good things. But that's an exception for me.

But anyway. I think it's funny to get moral at a piracy-fest, and was amused by SecretSquirrel's comments in the VGMdb thread saying something like "We wanted to distance ourselves from GFF's piracy-fest image that we can't shake off".
Out of interest, what's the point of GFF except to provide a good place for game music piracy, as well as the community and forums of course?

And I hope we can all agree that game music piracy isn't stealing food out of people's mouths.

- Spike

As I said, I don't buy CD's or DVD's anymore because they're too expensive.
You obviously don't get my point. What I'm saying is that if there is no demand, there's no supply. It's just a basic economical fact. If people don't buy new music, there is no new music, get it? Call me a slave of the big market beast or whatever but it's the truth.

I don't care a shit about the big record companies, they can all go shove their prices up somewhere. But not paying for music and film, is in the long term unrealistic.

For thousands of years, artists, songwriters and playwrights created songs for entertainment, and in the cases of the Church, Kings, etc., hiring performers and writers and artists under a works-for-hire contract was the exception and not the norm.

The concept of mass produced music that one pays for as a tangible object (Vinyl, CD, etc.,) is a recent invention. The artist creating music for the sake of art or for enjoyment is much older then a desire to gain monetary gain, so If people don't buy new music, then those SELLING new music will discontinue selling, and those who do not see profit as a primary motivation shall continue to make music.

Two wrongs don't make a right.

Get a (better) job then. I buy about 50 - 100 CDs a year - often times costing far, far more than the price range you're complaining about. I spent short of $1,000 in six weeks time earlier this year. Does that make me better than you? No. But I don't have to put on airs about how pirating is "right" or some other bullshit.

Personally, I'd like to see the MPAA and RIAA just shut down the entire media world for a year, just to see what happens.

A torrent site, which hosts hundreds to thousands of full versions of applications, games, movies, music, and practically everything under the sun, actually have the audacity to file claims against this to "protect their piracy"?

If you don't know how to ban (unknown) torrent clients, hash check, and take care of the tracker and it's members, what do you expect? No, these idiots are probably just going to end up dead like supernova did a few years ago. It's not like bringing attention to trackers is a good thing in any way shape or form.

Oh sweet lord, you guys should stop talking out of your asses. This entire "pirating music is wrong" shit is retarded. Almost everyone is "stealing" music nowadays. Music companies should show a little more effort. All they're doing is threatening 13 years old kids who wouldn't buy music in the store anyway. They should come up with some new strategies, I don't know what they can do, but that's their problem.

Before the internet, people would steal music by listening to it on the wireless and making sure it gets saved to their brain. Then they'd share it by singing the wrong lyrics and such on the weekly horse and cart trip to the old mill. That's just like someone ripping the music CD in 128kbps and making a torrent. So in closing, I think The Pirate Bay is probably actually run by clowns. Not pirates. I am going to sue them for this lie.

"Hey, theres a report of rape in the newspaper! I guess that means its legal now!"

I may have gone too far by saying there wouldn't be any music if people wouldn't buy it. As you say, people have been creating music for as long as the human race has existed. It's basically in our genes. But todays music is to a large extent a commercial product. Most artists wouldn't be known today if it wasnt for the record industry, handing them contracts and advertising their music. People need to earn their living, musicians included. If everyone simply downloaded eveything they wanted it would be a catastrophy for them. No artist can devote their life to music without anything in return. It's a capitalist society we live in, so it's ineviatble. Until that changes, piracy is going to remain a problem. Many underground artists hand out their music over the internet for free, which is great. But most of the time, the reason they do that is because they are hoping people who listen to it will spread the word around that there's a great band out there who need a record contract.

This is my point of view and in your eyes I may be wrong but this is how I see it. I wrote a long school essay on this subject some time ago and my opinions are based on the research I did back then.

And LeHah, great for you that you feel the need to spend all that money on your music interest. I could do that too. But I buy alot of videogames and my music interest probably isn't as big as yours. It's all about priorities.

Oh, so since you can't afford it, stealing is okay!

Unless its to feed a starving family or a general matter of acutal survival, there is never a legit reason for stealing of any type.

Okay, so now I'm being criticized both by those who think piracy is equal to stealing as well as those who think it's perfectly ok?

Wow, now I know I at least accomplished something in my life.

If I had to pay for CDs and movies, I couldn't buy any food anyway. I would have to starve, man!!

Piracy is wrong by the pure definition of the word. If you have to sugarcoat what you do to feel better about yourself, and pretend you aren't doing anything wrong, that's pretty pathetic. Otherwise just admit you are breaking the law and move on. If you feel bad because of it, stop pirating. If you don't, well, keep doing it until you get caught.

Then the answer is simple - you deserve to die by starvation.

Which word?

I have never understood the objection to pirating music. No artist makes money selling albums, they make money touring and selling merchandise. Artists, by and large, get less than 1/100 of the cost of a CD per sale. That means your album would have to go platinum for you make about minimum wage. Selling out an arena at $100 a ticket, on the other hand, garners a bit more revenue.

Or he needs to increase his Income (Get a better job) to allow for the legal purchase of Media, because someone who would starve if they bought movies and DVDs has other priorities and should not be engaging in such frivolous consumerism. He (Niczo) is being especially hypocritical I noticed in this aspect.

Also,
What I think Skexis was trying to convey was that the Pirate Bay was
using the same tools as employed by the **AA in this lawsuit to enact a resolution, or as the phrase goes "Fighting Fire with Fire". I could be mistaken though.

You mean, up to this point in the general scope of Music History. The brilliant thing about the Internet and mass media these days is that Artists now readily have the tools to become self-sufficient in promotion, production, distribution and thereby gaining an audience! No Record Contracts, No Tours, No Bullshit!

I don't disagree - but what artist is going to tour if he's not selling CDs and what management agency is going to front the money for a concert if there are no CD sales to make it possible?

Its a big, big circle.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say it was probably "Piracy."

You are so precious.

I am interested in what dictionary you have where the definitions of words include moral judgments about right and wrong.

I didn't say a single thing about morality in this. Lots of things can be right and immoral, or wrong and moral. Right and wrong are simply legalistic terms. If it was legal in a country to practice cannibalism, would that make it moral?

But according to
piracy - Definitions from Dictionary.com
it's illegal.

It's not actually that hard of a concept if you really take the time to think about it.

Wait, what?

"Right" and "Wrong" are concepts confined entirely to law, now?

I didn't realize I was speaking to a child. :(

I am NOT getting into a definition war in a thread about media piracy on GamingForce.

I've said what I want to say, if you want to bitch about definitions, feel free, but I'm not going to take part in that. That wasn't the point of my original post in here.

The only place your dictionary.com definition mentions piracy being illegal are the entries regarding unauthorized radio/television broadcasts and violence at sea. If you're going to nitpick then at least read the definitions you give people. =/

lol you're not going to get into a definition war after you bring it up. Okay.

I didn't bring it up. Pangalin did.

But if you really want me to:

2. the unauthorized reproduction or use of a copyrighted book, recording, television program, patented invention, trademarked product, etc.: The record industry is beset with piracy.

You don't read very well, you know that?

I too, can quote from websites! =D

Well, pangalin did want to know what dictionary I got my definition from. I didn't technically get it from there, since I thought the definition of piracy was pretty much common knowledge, but I thought it best to get it from somewhere halfway authoritative.

EDIT: Damn. Just got into a definition war =/.

If you'd like to explain to me how, within the scope of your definition only, "unauthorized" means "illegal" that would be great. You don't read very well, and you're not very smart on top of it, you know that?

And just for your info, since you seem to have memory lapses on top of your multitude other of issues, you brought up definitions.

You people are fucking stupid. But I suppose I'm even worse for feeding the trolls.

Who's bitching? Look, let's just pick a source and go from there.

Do you have a copy of the OED

By what definition of the word are we stupid?

Funny this one is :).

Is "Stupid" a moral or a legal term :(

Moralistic. Notice how I attached the adjective "fucking" before it. That implies the concept of adultery, which everyone knows, is a moral gray area. At least in America.

Well I don't know many lawyers, but the ones I do know aren't stupid so by process of elimination I conclude it is a moral term.

Furthermore, assuming that DarkLink's claim that we're stupid is correct, we are thus moral beings. Ergo, my superior morality demands you fuck off.

I would propose that stupidity is a purely legal construct as otherwise we would not have legal measures for dealing with retards

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner.

How, then, would you explain the historic examples of stupidity in action dating back long before, and which are seemingly unaffected by, the evolution of the legal system?

Look at the Crusades. A perfect example of legalistic stupidity which evolved into a continuing moralistic stupidity spurred on by stupid idealistic fools.

Moral stupidity always ends up enveloping, replacing, and/or superseding legal stupidity.

It seems the legal system starts it, and the moral system takes over.

I'm glad I'm not listening to myself talk anymore because if I was, I'd be going insane right now.

Those events were not stupid, since the legal concept of stupidity was not yet extant.

Rather, they were merely deeply unfortunate.

This is what my dictionary says about wrong:

Your move.

I just can't bring myself to argue with such a cheerful and delicious fruit.

The apple is wrong, bring on the pear.

http://blabberize.com/thmb/thmH11821...5ca50a1461.jpg

So its alright in other countries to cheat on your spouse? Just sayin'

Well, in America it's okay anymore. I meant in other, more sane countries, it's very much frowned upon.

No I'm pretty sure it's not ok in America to commit adultery. Despite what our media may portray us as, we're not savages.

Ah yes, but this falls under the morally stupid mess we were talking about earlier.

I'm going to assume you're trolling.

Hasn't that been entirely & exactly what most of the past page has been?

Don't confuse me with facts. D:

I NEVER TROLL.

I'm still waiting, dictionaryfag.

Why do you guys have to rehash arguments that were old before I even downloaded my first track off bobo's idrive? (2000, either chrono trigger or lufia 2) Go post something in MEC that might amaze someone enough to buy the album - or donate a buck - instead.

Just type "morality piracy" or "morality file sharing" into your favorite search engine and read the 9000 other debates on the topic, save everyone the trouble.

How is it that a bad news article about a bullshit idea was somehow made worse on a GFF thread?

We're on the internet? Oh shi---

Stop trolling, flamemaster.

Actually, I would argue that is okay to commit adultery in America, seeing as we're apparently defining all our choices within context of written law now.

There is no legal penalty for adultery, so fuck all the wives and husbands you can! Morals are only as relevant as the binding legal documents they're printed upon, so until adultery becomes unconstitutional - and our founding fathers reveled in the sport - it's open season!

All things are wearisome;
more than one can express;
the eye is not satisfied with seeing,
or the ear filled with hearing.
What has been is what will be,
and what has been done is what will be done;
there is nothing new under the sun.
Is there a thing of which it is said,
"See, this is new"?
It has already been,
in the ages before us.
The people of long ago are not remembered,
nor will there be any remembrance
of people yet to come
by those who come after them.

No, but in this case, they do bring public attention to the issue. If I admit to myself that I am stealing, I justify it by saying various things. One of which is "I'm just previewing to see if I like it."

If I buy the album later, am I still "wrong?"