The Pirate Bay May Be Launched As a Pay Service

news.cnet.com

12 points·scapegraced··9 comments

We already tried this with napster. From what I hear it is not going well. Filesharing sites do not succeed on brand equity, they succeed on the fact that they offer things for free.

And by offering something the media companies don't:

* Movies and tv-series as simple non-DRM'd non-crippled files that can be played on any available video player as many times as you want.

* Old productions that aren't for sale currently or any longer.

* Productions that aren't released in your country

* Productions that you've already bought but unable to convert to easily copyable digital format.

Each of the things you've listed here are the sort of thing you'd expect to be negotiated away by said media companies before they agree to any licensing.

Yes, you would expect that. It would be completely reasonable to expect that. But this is not the reality of the situation.

Blugh, and the company that bought them was all like "We wanna keep the users happy and keep things the way they are"

I think its safe to say that The Pirate Bay has died.

I don't think that the Pirate Bay has died yet, but I think once the owners begin to charge for their services, users are going to look elsewhere. I know I will.

Sounds more like Pirate Pay

Yes I was thinking the same. The irony of "pirates" mixed with legal commerce is obviously not being thought through.

Maybe a mafia/protection racket might work?

ie: We will pass on all your details to the RIAA unless you pay up?

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