The Pirate Bay: one day to go
p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- Twenty-four hours to go before we find out if a Swedish judge will act on behalf of Hollywood against The Pirate Bay crew.
Unsurprisingly, TPB has decided to hold its press conference following the decision online.
“Since a lot of people and press are really interested in the outcome of this part of the spectrial, we’ve decided to hold a small press conference on friday at 13.00 swedish time (GMT+1 / CET),” says TPB’s Peter Sunde on the group’s blog. “It will be held on Bambuser, no-one is invited physically to participate, only digitally.
“The URL for the Bambuser-stream will be posted on the front page of the site on friday some minutes before 13. If you’re from the press or just interested in hearing our thoughts about the outcome, you are welcome to join the stream and chat.”
Will TPB be ordered to pay the studios $14 million, or will they be free to continue as a search engine for .torrents?
Sunde is reported to have said he’s rather burn the $14 million than hand it over to Hollywood.
Whatever the decision is, with all due respect to Peter & Co, it won’t make a lot of difference either way.
“People stopped sharing to investigate alternatives to plain insecure p2p,” says this Reader’s Write – http://www.google.com/trends?q=vpn&date=2009&geo=swe&ctab=0&sort=0&sa=N
“Or even this graph,” says another – http://www.google.com/trends?q=vpn%2C+ipred&ctab=0&geo=se&geor=all&date=2009&sort=0
“Another prooflink that Swedes are looking for privacy-preserving p2p solutions,” says a third – http://sigfridinenglish.wordpress.com/2009/03/10/oneswarm-replaces-the-pirate-bay-in-sweden/
And as Peter states:
“It will not be the final decision, only the first before the losing party will appeal,”
“It will have no real effect on anything besides setting the tone for the debate, so we hope we win of course.
(Cheers, Andrew)
Stay tued.
CN – Tyra Banks You`re Ignoring Your Woman While Tweeting Your Momma!, April 8, 2009
April 8, 2009
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April 16th, 2009 at 7:44 am
I think it’s fairly obvious that Hollywood is gonna win – regardless of the lame evidence given at the trial. The trial was rigged, like everything else they do. The “trial” wasn’t even supposed to happen, was it?
April 16th, 2009 at 8:42 pm
EM558:
*sigh*: yet again — and I hate having to keep doing this — short-range thinking is taking us down the wrong road:
Because there’s an appeals process, the initial decision is never definitive. Irrespective of the decision announced, we won’t know who “wins” until the appeals process is finished. This cuts both ways, in that even if the court DOES find in favor of TPB (for example) the media cartels will appeal it.
What’s unfortunate — and where p2p advocates (even TPB themselves) are playing into the RIAA/IFPI’s hands, is that the initial decision WILL be publicized copiously, but the REAL outcome (after the appeals-process is finished) will most likely be relegated to the online equivalent of the “back page.”
When people mistakenly think that tomorrow’s decision means the case is “settled”, they’ll probably take stupid actions as a result:
If the court finds in favor of the RIAA/IFPI, then we’re sure to see a profusion of defeatist, Chicken-little type “reporting”: “Aaaah, p2p is DOOMED!!!!” If the court finds in favor of TPB, you’ll see a vast uptick in whining about how it’s a “bad day for content-creators” or some such thing.
In fact, tomorrows decision — whoever ostensibly ‘wins’ — means nothing, and serves to distract us from more important factors in the p2p debate:
1. The sheer volume of people using p2p and other methods to share “content” is staggering, and increases exponentially pretty much every month. A “law” which can’t meaningfully be enforced is NO LAW at all (example: the “war on drugs”, etc.)
2. Even assuming the worst-case scenario comes to pass, and the media companies magically get all of their favorite laws on the books, it’s STILL doomed to failure. Or do any of you actually believe, for example, that people don’t immediately set about finding holes and workarounds for this type of thing? The “Great Firewall of China” hasn’t exactly done that solid of a job “controlling” Chinese Netizens.
So, yeah, I DO urge people to “stay tuned” — but NOT for tomorrows “decision”.
Instead, people should “stay tuned” for the outcome on final appeal, AND, more importantly, how people react to it.
April 16th, 2009 at 9:39 pm
@Henry:
Very important point, indeed!
April 16th, 2009 at 11:37 pm
“If the court finds in favor of TPB, youâll see a vast uptick in whining about how itâs a ‘bad day for content-creators’ or some such thing.”
Even though, as you point out, tomorrow’s decision isn’t that important, I do hope I see the court rule in TPB’s favor just so I can see them crying about it on all of the news programs. >:D
On the other hand, if TPB loses, the gloating will be too much to take. Even though, as you say, it doesn’t really mean anything.
April 17th, 2009 at 3:24 am
@Henry
So you think an initial win on a sham trial that should never have taken places isn’t significant? Seriously? You are being naive.
April 17th, 2009 at 6:22 am
Just read that TPP lost. What a fucking surprise. This is what happens when the American government is totally infested with RIAA corruption.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090417/0129274535.shtml
April 17th, 2009 at 6:53 am
this sets a very bad president