The Pirate Bay vs Hollywood: final showdown?
p2pnet news | Freedom:- With Swedish MPS calling for file sharing to be legalised, Swedish prosecutors now claim to have enough evidence to see the people who run the celebrated index site The Pirate Bay in court by the end of this month.
If that happens, they’ll be facing copyright infringement charges.
“Although The Pirate Bay maintains an index of BitTorrent files, the files themselves are stored on the computers of other people around the world,” notes the Wall Street Journal, going on:
“Because the copyright files aren’t stored on Pirate Bay computers, the site says it isn’t breaking the law. Police, prosecutors and entertainment-industry lawyers say the distinction is bogus. The MPAA estimates The Pirate Bay’s Web site generates $60,000 a month in advertising revenue.”
But Pirate Bay spokesman Peter Sunde says he isn’t sure about exact revenue numbers, stating TPB has never made a profit, “in part because of the high cost of maintaining servers around the world”.
Hollywood, which claims it’s being “devastated” by file sharers, at the same time reporting record-breaking, eye-popping revenues, is behind the move.
But TPB plans to contest the corporate movie industry with the aid of government-funded lawyers for a trial.
“We’re not worried,” the story has Pirate Bay co-founder. Fredrik Neijsaying. “We think the law is on our side.”
The movie industry which in Europe, says the Wall Street Journal,” typically focuses on public-relations campaigns to sway public opinion rather than the lawsuits it uses in the US,” is hoping, “details will emerge to turn the tide against file sharers in Sweden”.
However, the story goes on, that’s a tall order, “given the site’s local popularity. For example, the heir to the Wasabröd fortune – a popular cracker-like snack in Sweden – has supported the group in the past, allowing a phone company he owned to provide the site with bandwidth and server space in its early days.
“The public delights in the group’s attitude toward anybody who sends it cease-and-desist letters”.
Last year TPB scarfed up Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s IFPI (International Federation of Phonographic Industry), registering ifpi.com.
But their ownership didn’t last long, WIPO stepping in on behalf of the Big 4.
Meanwhile, “Thanks to the email-leakage from MediaDefender-Defenders we now have proof of the things we’ve been suspecting for a long time; the big record and movie labels are paying professional hackers, saboteurs and ddosers to destroy our trackers,” posted TPB in August, 2007, continuing >>>
While browsing through the email we identified the companies that are also active in Sweden and we have tonight reported these incidents to the police. The charges are infrastructural sabotage, denial of service attacks, hacking and spamming, all of these on a commercial level.
The companies that are being reported are the following:
- Twentieth Century Fox, Sweden AB
- Emi Music Sweden AB
- Universal Music Group Sweden AB
- Universal Pictures Nordic AB
- Paramount Home Entertainment (Sweden) AB
- Atari Nordic AB
- Activision Nordic Filial Till Activision (Uk) Ltd
- Ubisoft Sweden AB
- Sony Bmg Music Entertainment (Sweden) AB
- Sony Pictures Home Entertainment Nordic AB
The PB’s operators say they’ve been followed, “by camera-toting private detectives in foreign-registered cars,” says the Wall Street Journal, adding:
“In September, they filed a police complaint claiming that MediaDefender, a U.S. counterpiracy company, had been hired by several Hollywood studios and music companies to hack into their site and shut it down.
“MediaDefender, which itself was hacked by a shadowy group last year, denies the accusation. ‘We’re a reputable public company,’ says Chief Executive Randy Saaf.”
And in the background, “There will always be some people whose goal is to preserve the current order,” says Swedish MP Karl Sigfrid, continuing:
When the market changes, they get frightened and call for harsher legislation. Their interest in stopping progress must be weighed against the public’s interest in taking advantage of the opportunities that technology gives them. If politicians had met the demands from the copyright industry throughout history we would have had a considerably poorer media landscape; without VCR:s, mp3 players and online tv.
Of course the media industry needs reasonable rules to play by, but the public’s view of what is reasonable differs from the one that the Swedish Academy’s secretary expresses. Therefore the ban on file sharing has lost its legitimacy, and the law’s prospects of being successful are nonexistent.
While the tiny Swedish site battles the multi-billion-dollar corporate movie mastadons, are other elements of the entertainment cartels starting to wake up, realising they’re no longer in the physical 20th century?
EMI is abandoning the IFPI, which might also be the end of the RIAA.
Definitely stay tuned.
Also see:
Wall Street Journal – Showdown Looms Over Pirated-Media Directory, January 11, 2008
record-breaking, eye-popping revenues – Hollywood Christmas goldmine, December 27, 2007
WIPO stepping in – WIPO, ifpi.com and The Pirate Bay, December 1, 2007
Swedish MP Karl Sigfrid – Swedish MPs demand legalisation of file sharing, January 11, 2008
abandoning the IFPI – EMI dumps IFPI: RIAA, IFPI merger, January 11, 2008
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January 11th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
Go Pirate Bay GO!!!!!!!!
January 11th, 2008 at 7:01 pm
Stay Pirate Bay STAY!!!!!!!!
January 11th, 2008 at 11:36 pm
Pirate Bay are legends. History will remember this name, trust me. The ship cannot be sunk by these pigs.
January 12th, 2008 at 2:12 am
History in the making… and we are all in the front row seat. Nice. I thought all this “We can all make a difference” was a load of bull but now I see it’s true
January 12th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
BOYCOTT THE PARASITES!
BOYCOTT THE CRIMINALS ENEMIES OF THE CONSUMERS!
No movie, no CD, no download no nothing and watch them die!
Keep pressing charges against them to recover the money they stold from the consumers and before they go out of business.
January 12th, 2008 at 5:19 pm
FUCK HOLLYWOOD FUCK THE MPAA FUCK THE RIAA AND FACE REALITY YOU DUMB ASSES IN HOLLYWOOD: THE PIRATE BAY WILL NEVER BE STOPPED AND ANYONE WHO DISAGREES WITH THIS IS A FUCKING FOOL AND YOU HAVE YOUR HEAD SHOVED UP YOUR FUCKING ASS LOSER!!!
January 13th, 2008 at 1:55 am
GO The Pirate Bay Keep On Serving Torrents Keep it Up. FUCK YOU RIAA FUCK YOU MPAA AND CRIA GET A LIFE.
Pirate 4 Eva
January 13th, 2008 at 2:41 am
I would like to see TPB survive the coming storm and yet, I know if this storm does not do the job, eventually another will!
The world is not an “ideal” world and in fact, “idealism” does not seem to exist anymore and the “bottom-dollar” seems to be the operant word chanted, in multiple-languages, all-around. In a “perfect” world, information would be shared freely and no one entity would be able to monopolize thoughts, abstract concepts, etc. In a world where even a genetic-sequence can be copyright-“protected,” a lone pirate ship is simply a lone candle in a global tempest.
“They” say that they are trying to uphold the law yet, the “they” is comprised of a family of parasites, far removed from those who “create…” It is simply about pure greed and lust for control; nothing more! Until such a time, when TPB is no more, I will delight in reading their responses to the Sheriff wannabee’s, the Greedywood lackeys, the parasitic (recording) industry insiders, and the likes.
Eventually, the world will probably come to resemble something that would make even George Orwell’s 1984 seem like a day in the proverbial park – if these microbes with legs are not challenged in their quest to control anything and everything that one can dream up!
January 14th, 2008 at 8:50 am
i definitely did not kill my wife!
January 14th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
WORRRRDD!!!!!!!!!!1
January 16th, 2008 at 4:30 am
The world can be a better place and it will if we all continue to communicate. You see, what corporations like this want is to separate people, everything needs to be me me me. The moment people get together and communicate, there’s trouble. What they didn’t bet on is the internet bringing the people together, now there’s a threat, and they will fight to take this threat away.
Don’t sit there watching your t.v’s, communicate with people, your community. Don’t listen to commercial radio. Educate yourself and others. With this, the power is in the hands of the people again.