Thepiratebay.se is back online
thepiratebay.se
thepiratebay.se
Which would be kind of sad.
The Pirate Bay is what you should do.
If the people going after TPB succeeded at anything, it is making the cost and effort to get rid of the now multiple Pirate Bays massively harder.
On the other hand, things like Spotify show that overwhelmingly, people would rather pay for awesome convenience vs even the minimal effort of something like Popcorn Time. It's been the same story for decades now, from ftp dumps and warez channels to Usenet and torrents to rapidshare and magnet links, they'll never succeed in stamping out piracy.
no better metric for popularity than seeders/peers
http://www.techradar.com/news/internet/web/netflix-uses-torr...
Edit: Works with VPN via USA.
You can still access the site thru thepiratebay.vu
1: http://www.scribd.com/doc/232015119/CAPIF-CAMARA-ARG-DE-PROD...
are those the same site/mirror? do you see any difference?
Panem et Circenses!
I wonder how it is back? Aren't Sunde et. al. in jail for this?
(I'm trying to draw a distinction between actions that protect an individual and actions that encourage a fair society there, it's the protecting just yourself against corrupt police that isn't particularly possible)
I did not know that's the case. Do you have a source to confirm this?
However, in the case of torrents you are also uploading the content, which is illegal; and I believe there is precedent that you can be charged (although I do not have a case handy).
What I have yet to see is any sort of justification for why it is ok to push personal risk onto other people, many of which have no idea how bittorrent works.
If you're going to use bittorrent for works that are protected by copyright, sharing in a small amount of risk is how the protocol works. Technical changes that actually reduce risks are fine; moving risk around is merely hoping someone who is ignorant of the technical details can be the patsy.
Anyway, if you're still worried, I suggest you use the Tor Browser and stop worrying about these things all together.
https://www.torproject.org/ (no affiliation)
You'd think that, but stop and remember what the pirate bay actually does, again.
They don't have copyrighted files. They used to but no longer keep track of the people that do have copyrighted files. All they have is descriptions of files and ID numbers. Plus comments and a search engine.
So while I'm pretty sure you won't get arrested for visiting today, I'm less confident the current law won't become stretched enough to cover it.
True.
> They used to [...] keep track of the people that do have copyrighted files
Did they get rid of their tracker? I don't know actually, but that's not important. Running a torrent tracker is considered very legal in most places (similar to running a Tor exit node or something like that).
> Plus comments and a search engine.
That's the tricky bit.
> So while I'm pretty sure you won't get arrested for visiting today, I'm less confident the current law won't become stretched enough to cover it.
I'd rather you wouldn't just say stuff like that. You're basically spreading FUD. There is no sane reason to believe anybody will ever be arrested (in western countries, that is) for visiting a site like TPB. Which law would you like to stretch in order to make that happen? Using their indexer is similar to getting a menu from your drug dealer. You haven't even attempted to do anything illegal yet. What you'd need is a law that allows you to arrest people for something they haven't even attempted to do (some people call that pre-crime).
What happens in reality instead is governments blocking sites like TPB and that's the end of that.
Yes.
>> Plus comments and a search engine.
> That's the tricky bit.
Wait, you think the comments and search engine are the problem? What if they dumped a big list of the most recent 10000 magnet URLs and descriptions at you?
> You're basically spreading FUD.
Well I am pretty scared and uncertain. The Pirate Bay is already so far removed from the actual copyright infringement that I don't see how another layer of indirection guarantees safety for the people that visit the site. Perhaps you wouldn't get in trouble just for searching, but if you used the search results in the process of infringing copyright I would not be surprised to see some kind of conspiracy to commit copyright infringement charge added on for making the search. Is that completely unreasonable?
Can you explain to me how TPB's actions are illegal today? In the dealer analogy, they've never even seen a drug. They ask you what chemical you want and tell you an arbitrary code word that some dealers will recognize.
The problem can't really be that it's a search engine rather than an unorganized list...can it?
Absolutely not! Once you click a magnet link, you're on your own. I was just talking about visiting the site, searching, really not doing anything.
> Can you explain to me how TPB's actions are illegal today?
Depends on the jurisdiction, I guess. I'm not sure TPB is actually illegal, but that question is quite complex. I really wouldn't know.
> The problem can't really be that it's a search engine rather than an unorganized list...can it?
Of course it is! That's how the ended up in court in the first place. On top of all their legal-ish infrastructure (the trackers, etc.) they provide a website that allows people to aggregate, filter, enrich, etc., content. I'm not sure that alone get's you in trouble (it might not!), but it certainly will once you add ads to finance the entire thing.
Well let me put it this way. If they had a site with exactly the same interface for viewing torrent info, but no comments, no votes, no filtering, no searching. You think that would win in court?
Further reading (by Peter Sunde himself): [1] http://blog.brokep.com/2014/12/09/the-pirate-bay-down-foreve... [2] http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-12/11/peter-sunde
I'm going to sound like a paranoid nut (and I can assure you I'm not), but the reality is, if you get a target on your back the "US police" will find a way to arrest you[1].
This is the scary thing about mass data collection; they can concoct any story they want from the breadcrumbs of personal data.
[1] a fun documentary about someone getting railroaded when the police needed a suspect: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/anthrax-files/
TL;DR: The article was basically a critique of people like the parent commenter. In the thread that followed, I came down on the side of those who agreed with the article.
So I would downvote parent for two reasons:
(1) Attempting to twist a thread about the Pirate Bay into a thread about the Super Bowl and "'Murica" is pretentious in the extreme even without Latin, and
(2) I disagree with the popular premise that downloading Game of Thrones and porn == "fighting authoritarian governments". I realize that this makes me a minority here, to the point of possibly being considered a troll for admitting it. Which is one reason why I don't bother posting more, which in turn is one reason why HN is so "hivemind-ish" on many subjects.
You do come off as a troll, not so much because you oppose TPB, but because of the blatant straw man you use to characterize it.
The main advantage that permissive torrent trackers carry is that they serve as vast cultural archives. No, consuming media is not necessary for survival, but should poverty condemn you to cultural illiteracy?
But I do think that there's an argument to be had that spreading pornography and entertainment against artificial governmental restrictions could be construed as "fighting authoritarian governments". I don't know that I'd consider this kind of struggle particularly brave even, but not every kind of authoritarianism is locking up dissidents and not every kind of struggle is militaristic.
However, I currently am in a monarchy that recently had the civilian government taken over by the military, and currently uses government control of the internet to block pornography on a nation wide basis, so spreading pornography to me is literally combating the arbitrary policies of de facto military government parading around as a monarchy.
2. I'm pretty sure the commenter was talking about running a site like TPB, rather than using it.
By the way: I really don't see any reason to be offended by the comment. Some people stand up and fight, others don't. No shame in that at all.
As someone who enjoys football, I am offended by the comment. It presents a cheap, fictional dichotomy -- this notion that on one side are people who watch football (and apparently nothing else -- if you watch the Super Bowl, clearly that is the entirety of your being), and on the other are the freedom fighters and good people of the world.
My Facebook feed is full of similar people who, when they aren't posting pictures of drinking, building model airplanes, or doing other ultimately selfish acts of little consequence for the world, post trite motivational images that decry those who "care more" about a game than whatever pet cause they've decided is important...at least when berating people who might like something they don't. It's boorish and aggressive, and actually terribly offensive.
And the notion that the Pirate Bay is some sort of good cause is uproariously hilarious. Even putting aside the whole complex, nuanced discussion on piracy (no, people don't don't use the Pirate Bay to download Linux distros), The Pirate Bay is one of the most aggressively shitty sites on the internet. It is full of malware ads, diversions, pop-unders. The operators sell your security to make themselves money (and, apparently, a lot of it). Hurrah for their great benevolence.
I guess the implication is that people who watch football don't care or are simply to stupid to realize what's going on. On the other hand, it is well known that politicians pass unpopular legislation during major sport events — hoping that nobody will notice. Saying things like "Panem et Circenses" can't be offensive by itself then, can it?
Aside from all that, you lost all your moral high-ground in the last paragraph anyway. It might be true that a lot of these people are offensive, but so are you.
Which is an asinine, ignorant bit of comical sophistry. It's the sort of thing that people who are covering for some personal inadequacies project onto others (like the armchair critic who decries someone donating time at an animal shelter because...like...Africa or something. Anything to feel better about one's own inaction). It's especially humorous when we're talking about a site primarily used for sharing entertainment material.
On the other hand, it is well known that politicians pass unpopular legislation during major sport events — hoping that nobody will notice
Is this actually true? At all? Do you have any citation whatsoever to back this up? It sounds like manufactured nonsense.
Aside from all that, you lost all your moral high-ground in the last paragraph anyway.
Because I pointed out the reality about TPB? If you are offended by that, you need to land back on planet Earth, and engage in reality-based discussions.
http://www.deutschlandfunk.de/ablenkungsmanoever-was-der-bun...
Talking to you is a huge pain in the ass by the way, so I'm gonna stop doing that now. Take it easy.
I don't think the poster has anything agains watching football personally, he was just using the activity in a figure of speech as an example. Which passive entertainment activity would you suggest? There is always someone who will be "offended" by anything.
You're confusing the users of the pirate bay with the site itself.
I strongly cheer for the site on freedom of speech grounds, even while I think the kind of downloading you describe is bad.
I think the word "authoritarian" is appropriate to describe shutting down a site for "contributing" to a crime just by letting users leave descriptions and contact info.
Also I don't really see the distinction between watching football, and watching whatever movie one has pirated via sites such as TPB.
I'm pretty pissed off that I have to pay this tax despite storing only legitimate material, but not enough to do something directly. I cheer if someone else is fighting against the way the copyright industry works right now.
That's not what the blank media levy is for. It is a compensation for the right copyright law gives you to copy works you bought in one format to a different format. Think buying conversion of an audio CD into mp3 for listening in your car.
Not that the real justification makes sense, but please stop associating it with piracy: it is wrong and serves to perpetuate this levy.
and i wonder if companies continue to receive that free lunch even after they inflict DRM on their customers.
How is it a "right" if I have to pay extra for it?
Canistream.it is a good example of all of the services you need to watch movies, and that's just movies not music.
Piracy will still be a large problem because it's either to expensive to access or you need lots of services to access all of the content, of course there are people who never pay for anything and will continue to do so even if easier to access and cheaper but I think they will be a small majority.
Disclaimer: I am a proud pirate.
Generalizing, rightholders don't care. They regard intellectual property as pretty much analogous to physical property. They don't have to sell you something if they don't want to, and they don't have to sell something they're selling at a price point amenable to you. They regard the idea that somehow people are "owed" media content at a price reasonable to them to be an example of a sense of supreme, titanic, piratical entitlement. Can't afford it? Don't watch|listen|use it, then.
Well, it is. Just like any form of protest. When copyright is 14 years again, and when content will be available on a buy-once-for-ever, lend-to-friends, inheritable, anywhere-in-the-world basis, I'll start paying for movies and music again. In the meantime, I'll just buy stuff from the independent artists I like to support them.
In the U.S., all but the first thing is true today for the vast majority of media. Some is encumbered in objectionable ways. And you have the option of buying almost any media in a way that makes it not really yours. But nobody is making you do any of these things.
If you want to buy a movie or album, you can go buy it on a disk. Problem solved.
(I see that you also say "anywhere in the world" but I'm not sure what you mean by this. If you were happy with copyright law in your country, why would objectionable copyright laws abroad justify disregarding fair laws at home?)
Not always - for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Apartheid_Movement#A_cons...
i do try to pay back my youth of buccaneering shame by always trying to send a patch with any big report to open source projects
Watching a football game is about three hours out of your week, and that's only for 1/3 of the year when it actually is football season. Less than that if your team doesn't make it to the playoffs.
I've spent a considerable amount of time volunteering in my past while being able to enjoy football all the same. The same can be said about any number of hobbies. Comments like this do nothing but create a false dichotomy.
But try telling the plebs that the revolution won't be a twitter hashtag. They won't listen.
I guess the golden calf is back.