Just look at the attempts to destroy net neutrality for a good example of how the internet and this medium of protest and communication is under assault. To ‘control’ the internet and destroy its level-playing field by tipping the balance back to the ‘elites’ will produce a situation where dissension, whether political or consumer based (although after watching Century of the Self the line between the two is blurred or non-existent), is stifled and we’ll all be worse off for it, but eventually through this ‘restructuring’ we’ll never even know the difference or what we’ve been deprived of. We will once again be the irrational subjects of a power structure who thinks they know best.

rant done
TT

When something is “Stolen”, someone is deprived of it.
Example someone “Steals” my pencil, I no longer have it,
I have been deprived of it’s use. Televeision, Cable
programming is broadcast to many people, in many locations
all at once, WITHOUT the original program being lost to the
owner. VCR’s STILL make copies of such programming, an act
which has ALREADY been legal for a VERY long time. a TiVO is
very simply a VCR that uses a disk drive intead of a tape.
Different form, same function, no theft. Fair use rights allow
recording for personal use.
Now, lets look at something else ….
When broadcast Television was the only thing available, the
ONLY thing customers paid for was a Television set. Why ??
Broadcasters used commercials. Advertisers funded their
endeavors. This worked out REALLY well for broadcasters AND
customers. Then Cable TV came along. In theory, by PAYING for
the privildge, you got COMMERCIAL FREE shows. HMM, there are
a lot of commercials on cable TV now, aren’t there ?
Now, cable and sattellite not only get paid by consumers, but
get revenue through advertisers. Double funding.
AS far as the staff and employees go …
They are paid for their work. The broadcast gets aired 500 times
but those involved in it’s creation still get paid .. once.
Actors may get rebroadcast and royalty rights, but the joe blows
that do the grunt work don’t, no matter how many times a
show is broadcast. So, whether a show is copied via TiVo or
broadcast 1000 times, those people never get another dime
anyway. Yet, the Actors and the studios that hold the “rights”
to the show get a piece of ALL those broadcasts. You, know,
the folks that whine about going broke while driving their Lexus
around.
Tell me, who is stealing from whom ??

Imho, it would have been _far_-better had PirateBay held off for a little bit longer, to enable the downloading of its’ torrent files.

“404 Not found”

It gives the error message “no hits due to politics.” But it looks like just about all the torrents are still there and you can find them if you use another search engine and add: site:thepiratebay.org

So just a minor inconvenience and they should have it running again soon if they got the site up this quickly