The Pirate Bay interview
p2p news / p2pnet: Following yesterday’s announcement that Hollywood had been able to sic the Swedish police onto ThePirateBay, forcing it to close down for now, Julian Finn at zeiTspuk in Germany managed to have a few words with “darknite” from Piratbyrån/The Pirate Bay, “hopefully lifting the fog a little bit”.
It’ll come as no surprise to anyone to learn AntiPiratByrån, with close links (to understate the situation) to the MPAA’s (Motion Picture Association of America) Dean Garfield, was behind it. Garfield is also said to have bribed a hacker with $15,000 to lift data from Torrentspy.com.
Here’s Julian’s interview with TPB. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
What exactly happened yesterday?
We still don’t know too much, it is all very chaotic. We still haven’t had the chance to see the warrant, so we don’t exactly know what they were looking for. We know from AntiPiratByrån (the Swedish anti-piracy organization) that the warrant was issued towards the whole provider PRQ. Also not only about 160 servers but also networking equipment was taken.
That means that also other websites were affected?
Yes. The Magazine Säkerhet&Sekretess has issued a first list and asks everybody who is affected to notify them, as they are planning a big article on it. Dagens Industri, a rather large magazine in Sweden says there were about 200 customers who have become “innocent victims”. The fact that so many innocent websites, also the political organisation “Piratbyrån” have been taken down is much more serious for us than the temporary downtime of The Pirate Bay
Some people were also arrested. What are they being charged with?
Three crew members were arrested and questioned, though they were released again yesterday. They are being charged with copyright infringement. This could change, though. We suspect that AntiPiratByrån mislead the police, accusing ThePirateBay actually offering Warez on the servers.
Is there any estimation from the lawyers?
No, not yet. We are negotiating with a very famous Swedish lawyer and trying to convince him to defend us in the upcoming case.
Does The Pirate Bay have a backup-plan?
We are currently working hard on a solution and I would be very disappointed in us if we couldn’t get TPB up and running again within a week. It is very possible that we move into other countries, possibly Holland, with Russia as a Backup. There are some problems with decentralization, but a solution which would keep TPB up even if one location is taken down would be good.
What were the political reactions so far?
So far only the Pirate’s Party as well as Piratbyrån has issued a statement. This year is election year in Sweden, so we expect a lot more discussion to come. The behaviour of the police and AntiPiratByrån will surely also be debated in public
Thank you very much for this interview.
(And thanks to you, Julian)
Also See:
Swedish police – Police raid ThePirateBay, May 31, 2006
zeiTspuk – Interview with The Pirate Bay, June 1, 2006
no surprise – Swedish anti-p2p site hacked: more, March 15, 2005
bribed a hacker – MPAA hacked Torrentspy, May 25, 2006
p2pnet newsfeeds for your site.
rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/p2p.rss
Mobile – http://p2pnet.net/index-wml.php
NOTE: p2pnet is being sued by Sharman Networks and Nikki Hemming, ceo of p2p application Kazaa. “The suit is a little odd, since P2PNet.net is a champion of peer-to-peer file-sharing, which is the same business that Kazaa is in,” says The Globe & Mail. If you’d like to help p2pnet, or find out more, please go here.
June 1st, 2006 at 3:39 pm
Do these fascists really think that they can stop file sharing for one minute? Their estimations on how much the industry is losing is bullsh*t!
Ever see a poor movie producer, film star, artist or record label?
Greedy capitalist pigs!
June 1st, 2006 at 7:13 pm
I cannot wait till it comes back up. Then the party stops for the RIAA and MPAA. And they don’t seem to be making ANY progress in Russia. The IFPI is a big waste of a group of people. How would they make any money without the MPAA or RIAA?
June 2nd, 2006 at 3:45 am
Don’t forget to frequent the other torrent sites, And share
That’s the best way to harm the evil bastards.
June 2nd, 2006 at 10:57 am
I pray to Jesus, Allah, Yahweh, Buddha, Mother Earth, The Almighty, and any God not yet recognised that this sad, bad joke of the Amerikan Dynasty be over already.
Dear USA, you are not the Saviour of yourself or the free world or of ANY country. If there’s $$ involved, you give a shit — if not, you are nowhere to be seen.
No one has lost anything over me, a citizen of the world, located in the EU being able to download a Chinese or Spanish or Indian or Moroccan movie, or a football match, or a comedy concert, or a radio show, or a VERY dopey, VERY stupid Hollywood TV show that I WOULD NEVER WATCH otherwise.
If you dear USA are sooooooo concerned about people “stealing” and justice, then what about companies like Enron (and others) and the thousands of poor hard working people who have no pension any more while the guys in charge give themselves 200 million $$ to leave the job and screw the little people. Why aren’t you worried about helping them – AND THEY LIVE IN YOUR FREAKING COUNTRY ALREADY!
What about the poor people in Iraq or other countries all across the world that have something that you want, but you don’t have, so you make up some story, say they threaten the freedom of the world, bla bla bla, and then go kill them and get your own poor trusting people killed because they want to believe in something (too bad they have few options but to believe the propaganda, and lies you force-feed down their throats) just so you can “steal” something that is not yours.
Of course I could rant on and on.
The bottom line is that this is the first time in the history of mankind that people can simultaneously HELP other people ALL OVER THE WORLD.
Directly.
No middle man.
It’s such a beautiful concept it brings tears to my eyes.
The USA, MPAA, whatever and whoever else these fools call themselves, all they do is scream about nonsense – they don’t care about any of the bullshit things they claim to care about – for the love of god please don’t believe them.
They’re just pissed off that P2P is something that THEY can’t control and that THEY haven’t figured out how to force everyone in the world to pay them $$ for.
Legally speaking, all libraries violate laws, all copy machines, scanners …. on and on.
When you stop and think about it, they lost control of the monster that they created.
We go and we BUY bigger better faster computers, hard drives, …
We BUY better TV’s, monitors, sound systems, …
We BUY more and more DVD’s, …
We pay for Internet connections now like we pay for water.
All of the progress in technology, science, knowledge, etc. has brought us to this moment in time.
We have exceeded what anyone thought would happen – thanks to the Internet and programmers and technology.
—
It’s like something right out of the bible.
* The meek have inherited the earth *
And now the multinationals want to put the meek in prison.
—
What if I told you that when I share resources with people what I’m really sharing is love ?
What if we stopped saying P2P and started calling it by its true name, PHP people helping people ?
What if I told you that TPB’s only crime is to help spread love throughout mankind all over the world ?
What did all the true prophets have in common again ?
I’m not even religious but I’d like to think that this could be a cause that unites all people everywhere despite different religions, languages, cultures, colours of skin…
I pray to Jesus, Allah, Yahweh, Buddha, Mother Earth, The Almighty, and any God not yet recognised that, in our life time, these lying, two-faced hypocrites will
- actually really and truly burn in hell for their sins against humanity
- someone will be there to film it with a cam
- we ALL get to share the glorious file
- for once, nobody minds that the image is blurry, the sound is horrible
- in a language you don’t know
- with subtitles you can’t understand
- and you can’t see very well since there’s some guy down front walking and waving – blocking the picture (“Hi Mum ! “)
- That is, until the DVD_Rip version comes out.
Peace Love and PHP
June 2nd, 2006 at 11:15 am
I suspect the Pirate Bay will be up an running again very soon – I also suspect ALL the torrents will be moved to other trackers. I also suspect that MOST of the copyright material “stolen” via BitTorrent trackers would not have been bought by the so called “offenders” anyway, I suggest very few so they do not represent a loss of sales to the over greedy industries anyway. Secondly: what is the legal standing of people downloading music from torrent sites for which they already hold either a an old fashioned vynil or broken CD copy? (I believe this entitles the owner to make as many copies for his/her own use in perpeuity) and do the punishments for this include life in prison or dinner with Robert Mugabe? Also what evidence do the authorities have that people haven’t just downloaded a file to try – then bought a pukka copy afterwards? Next: what is the position of people who pay to download music – then accidently wipe it or lose their MP3 players, crash their hard disc, etc. Does the music industry expect them to buy the material again and if so is this not blatant racatering on their behalf? Finally – what is the legal position on people recording off a DAB or DVB transmission for later viewing/listening via their PC’s, since recording a television programme onto VHS tape is not an infringement of copyright or nearly everybody in the entire world would have to be taken to court, including the gloating peeps from MPAA – how ironinc would that be!!!
Cheers
Clockmender
June 2nd, 2006 at 11:16 am
PS I am not an anonymous coward – merely had not realised you could create an account here
Cheers
Clockmender
June 2nd, 2006 at 11:32 pm
..
June 3rd, 2006 at 2:58 am
Afthe the post goes through, it shows you as “Reader’s Write”
June 3rd, 2006 at 10:23 am
Dear All – have you noticed that the Pirate Bay is back up today – so much for the gloating of the MPAA
Well Done ANakarta et al
Clockmender.
June 3rd, 2006 at 10:31 am
June 3rd, 2006 at 10:37 am
June 4th, 2006 at 1:23 am
hi!, how can i economically help them???