The Pirate Bay Verdict: Guilty
Mikey 8 comments
If you hadn't already heard, last Friday the official verdict was handed down to the defendants in the now infamous Pirate Bay trial.
Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm and Carl Lundstrom have all been found guilty of 'assisting in making copyright content available', which will see the four each receive 1 year in jail and fines totalling a whopping $3.62 million. The jail sentences are rather lenient in my opinion, and I'm not sure if those fines will hurt much if the stories regarding the Pirate Bay financial situation are to be believed.
So what does this mean for the torrent community at large? According to this Torrent Freak article BitTorrent trackers have been 'closing shop' citing the Pirate Bay verdict as the reason. That's not too unexpected.
As for how this will affect Johnny Torrent is anyone's guess. But one thing is for sure, Sweden isn't the pirate safe haven it used to be.
Update: There are calls for a retrial after it was revelled that the residing Judge is a member of pro-copyright groups - along with Henrik Pontén, Monique Wadsted and Peter Danowsky.
Marvin the Martian
Tuesday 21st April 2009 | 08:23 PMThey are going to appeal and this will take years to come to any sort of final verdict. In the meantime, the torrent system will increase and newer technologies will be created to help make file sharing faster, more secure and most importantly anonymous.
In the end the copyright holders need to understand that they are fighting a loosing battle. Media companies need to get on board with modern technologies and offer a viable alternative to the pay-with-DRM model they have been perusing. i-Tunes is NOT the answer.
The fact is that they are treating each and every one of their customers as if they are a potential criminals rather than valued ones.
Look at the newspaper industry. For the last 10 years, they have tried a variety of models including subscription and scaled-down online versions. None of these have worked. Instead they kept their old, crabby hands on the printing machines in a desperate attempt to cling to a dying, expensive and out-of-date business model. Now, we are finally witnessing paper after paper shutting down in favour of a purely online model, finally realising that online revenue can sustain them.
The record and movie industries need to take a long look at what they are doing and realise that there is a better way to do business. Greed need not be the only motivator for a business or industry.
Jim
Tuesday 21st April 2009 | 08:38 PMI can't really comment on Pirate Bay, I've never used it. However, I do believe the people who create works are entitled to their share of the booty. (See what I did there?) :P
I'm not sure if it's because I do photography and would hate to see someone else making money off of it, but it still seems wrong to take someone else's work for yourself for free. I can't imagine anyone seeing it as alright to steal from Farmer Bob just because he's blind and see for a shit.
...in response to this comment by Rodney. Ditto. That's a perfect analogy.
Gail
Wednesday 22nd April 2009 | 12:01 AMI heard about Pirate Bay but was never able to get the site to load...I'm more of an iTunes gal.
Too bad nobody wants to pay for music anymore. Then again, as Bob Dylan once expressed to Rolling Stone, most "new" music "isn't worth anything anyway."
TVBIZ(BOB)
Wednesday 22nd April 2009 | 10:47 AMGee Whiz guys- at least change the name from Pirate Bay to something less inflammatory! Talk about trying to provoke the wrath of the law...........
The Computer Whisperer
Wednesday 22nd April 2009 | 03:27 PM...in response to this comment by TVBIZ(BOB). I think the point of calling it "The Pirate Bay" was to invoke conversation. They did start as a non-profit protest movement right?
Tell me, if the publishers of the shared content win, does this mean that concert and event ticket prices will drop? Given that this is how the companies compensated for the lost revenue due to digital media?
Will the publishers of the content provide easy ways for people to view/hear the content if they win?
The answer to both questions of course is "No".
You can't half embrace a technology, as soon as the publishing companies stop doing the hokey pokey and improve their distribution methods, then people will continue to use their own means.
Will the outcome mean that movie studios will make better movies?
Will the outcome mean that record labels will make albums with 12 good tracks on them as opposed to 2 chart tracks and a bunch of filler?
Again, the answer is "No"
I must say, I am very happy to purchase a DVD or a CD or buy a movie ticket if 1 in every 20 acts/bands/movies were not full of unenjoyable experiences.
Do I need to buy 20 CD albums in order to find 1 album that I enjoy repeatedly listening to start to finish?
There are calls for a retrial after it was revelled that the residing Judge is a member of pro-copyright groups - along with Henrik Pontén, Monique Wadsted and Peter Danowsky.
http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-lawyer-is-biased-calls-for-a-retrial-090423/
Rodney
Tuesday 21st April 2009 | 08:05 PMThat's a crap verdict. This is kind of like the equivalent of sending the owners of the Street Directory to jail because drug traffickers use it to find their destination.