back to article Pirate Bay slapped with copyright charges

The Pirate Bay said it will live on no matter what the outcome of a case brought by a Swedish prosecutor who charged four men involved with the running of the torrent tracker site today. A blog post on the outfit's website declares: "In case we lose the pending trial (yeah right) there will still not be any changes to the site …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Yarrrr! Sealand ahoy!

    One URL for these guys.

    www.sealandnews.com

  2. Chad H.

    IPFI

    Last time I checked, Pirate Bay was loosing money, not making it... Just goes to show how these guys will make anything up.

  3. Mark
    Pirate

    I would be surprised

    ...if they cannot get this application dismissed.

    In the last action against TPB, higher courts have already ruled on the matter, so bringing new allegations isn't likely to hold water. Just because there is 4600 pages in the complaint doesn't mean it will fly.

    Politically things aren't looking good either. In Sweden it seems that people are becoming increasingly aware of the draconian overuse of copyright and there, and I get the impression the government is not making itself popular over this.

    I even notice they've changed their logo:

    http://static.thepiratebay.org/doodles/jubil2007.jpg

  4. SmokeyMcPotHead
    Alert

    Yeah right...

    "The International Federation of the Phonographic Industries (IFPI) has slammed The Pirate Bay, saying that it was not motivated by "idealism" and a love of music but was only interested in making bundles of cash." - no different from the IFPI, MPAA, RIAA, BPI etc. etc. then.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    hurry uyp and die already

    IFPI CEO John Kennedy said: "The Pirate Bay has managed to make Sweden, normally the most law-abiding of EU countries"

    Ooh you stereotyping racist. Can anyone at the IFPI say anything sensible? Can anyone trust anything they say any more? Do they keep having to make themselves look silly? Look out for the answers on Pirate Bay.

    These ridiculous sharks (I'm talking about the copyright industry, FACT, etc.) should stop swanning around making fools of themselves, get a few

    prgrammers together, and knock out a legal bittorrent distribution program that allows say, downloading of TV show for £1, and albums for £4 - something like that. As they should have done back in 2004. As they should have done with music singles in 2001 after seeing how Napster worked.

    They're bloody dinosaurs and I'm praying Darwin proves them right.

    ALL the torrent sites I use value having clean, uncluttered sites, pride themselves on getting high-quality releases out as soon as possible, have quick and helpful customer support, are able to work cleanly for thousands of people, and are also able to get users to pay about $40 a year to use their site. They are community-based and as such their customer service is top-notch, It's the equivalent of visiting your local village post office rather than standing in queues in London's main sorting office. And they do it for a love of TV/movies/music/whatever, rather than a desire for something for free or to 'stick it to the industries'.

    I have no qualms being a pirate until they these arses are put out to pasture. The thing that get's my goat is I'm willing to pay.

  6. paul fox
    Linux

    TPB estimated revenue

    $200K per day revenue, not bad

  7. Stewart Knight

    @ SmokeyPcPotHead

    Or me for that matter!

  8. Daniel Bennett
    Thumb Up

    Their Logo

    Is just great :)

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    Sealand?

    Didn't they try that already?

    Plus as a Lord of Sealand I think I speak for the nation when I say I'd be disapointed if Prince Michael decided to associate our great principality with the Pirate Bay.

    I'm not sure I agree with all the causes Pirate Bay promote.

    Heli in honour of the one used to retake our beloved Sealand last time pirates attacked.

  10. Joe

    What's Next Automobile Manufacturers

    So then by the logic of the case you could sue all the car makers for accessory to speeding. What if someone drowns in a pool, you can sue the water company for the water that was in the pool. It's all ready been tried here in the states but you could sue the gun makers if someone is killed with a gun. And speaking of cars, you could sue all the car makers of the cars driven by crash victims that died in cars going to fast because the cars speed wasn't properly limited to the speeds set by law.

  11. matty
    Pirate

    Can of worms

    How can they (the prosecutor) possibly get away with this?

    All TPB do is provide links to the files, even Google does this, so if TPB lose does this mean Google will get slapped for billions in accessories to commit piracy and infringe copyright???

  12. Lupus
    Coat

    Avast!

    I be sailin' the high seas of proper grammar, yarr, an' I be haulin' anchor a tad fer ta be sayin' 'tis LOSE, not LOOSE!

    Aye, mine be the salty one.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Doesn't make sense

    If TPB are motivated by money then they would be charging punters joining fee like the referred-to Russian sites. Is it possible that the revenue they get is to simply cover costs? After all, would you run a p2p search site, maintain its infrastructure and pay your ISP and host for free?

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Who's copyright are

    they infringing who copyrighted those links maybe they should go after Google too. They aren't paying for the bandwidth it's not their content why are they being charged.

  15. Ben Mathews

    Quality quote!

    "The International Federation of the Phonographic Industries (IFPI) has slammed The Pirate Bay, saying that it was not motivated by "idealism" and a love of music but was only interested in making bundles of cash."

    Pot, meet kettle.

  16. Dave
    Paris Hilton

    Where do I donate to their legal fees?

    Insulting two countries at once - what a wanka

    IFPI CEO John Kennedy said: "The Pirate Bay has managed to make Sweden, normally the most law-abiding of EU countries, look like a piracy haven with intellectual property laws on a par with Russia."

    Oh Paris, since I assume Mr. Kennedy spends a lot of time.... well being a wanka

  17. Spearbox
    Pirate

    /tear

    "The International Federation of the Phonographic Industries (IFPI) has slammed The Pirate Bay, saying that it was not motivated by "idealism" and a love of music but was only interested in making bundles of cash."

    I've not laughed that much in a LONG time. Jesus.

    /waves at RIAA, MPAA and IFPI

  18. John Stag
    Thumb Up

    I find my torrents via google...does that make them guilty?

    @Anonymous Coward: "I'm willing to pay".

    Me too. I'd willingly pay a license fee in return for access to all the BBC archives like people in the UK have...but I can't. I live in Spain and there's no legal way for me to access the BBC content.

    Sites like PirateBay put it up for free so what am I supposed to do?

    The problem is mostly with the content providers, not the pirates. If stuff was easy/cheap to get legally then I'd probably cough up a subscription rather than go through all the hassle of torrent sites (which are full of fakes, scams, trojans, etc.).

    PS: Content providers need to get very realistic about their fees. I'm not willing to pay £5 for an episode of something that I'll watch exactly once.

  19. Tawakalna
    Pirate

    Avast!

    them Swedes, they be a fearsome maritime nation in the past, har har me hearties, 'tis no wonder they be harbouring many a buccaneer in those Baltic interweb coves, shiver me timbers.

  20. Ed

    Regardless of...

    Regardless of the IFPI making themselves look like a bunch of idiots, can anyone tell me how facilitating theft is idealistic? Seriously... (can anyone elaborate?) I don't see the moral high ground under TPB. It sounds to me like a case of wankers vs wankers...

  21. User

    21 century already pls.

    No one is going to make me drive/walk whatever to the recordstore again to buy overhyped crap again. Doesnt matter if they kill TPB. These guys lost the initiative when they killed Napster.

    Everyone from that era should be fired if they havent already.

  22. RW
    Happy

    And that makes four...

    " . . . IFPI has slammed The Pirate Bay, saying that it was not motivated by "idealism" and a love of music but was only interested in making bundles of cash."

    Oh, dear, would someone please tell El Reg's editors NOT to publish this kind of troll bait again? I just had to change my diaper, having bepissed myself laughing.

  23. Stephen
    Pirate

    IFPI, RIAA, MPAA

    "The International Federation of the Phonographic Industries (IFPI) has slammed The Pirate Bay, saying that it was not motivated by "idealism" and a love of music but was only interested in making bundles of cash."

    Pot, meet Kettle!

  24. Dimitrov
    Flame

    Thinking before talking

    The International Federation of the Pornographic, I'm sorry, Phonographic Industries needs to STFU imo. Their entire statement is incredibly offensive on multiple accounts.

    First the Russia thing - so I guess noone in The Land of the Free downloads stuff from torrents, huh? It's only them pesky slavs, with their inherent addiction to stealing honest people's property? I'm not russian myself and I am usually not easily offended by national/ethnic stereotypes, but somehow insulting russians and others typing in that funny cyrillic alphabet by bland generalizations is considered to be OK. Hey, what's the big deal, they are white and christian, so no problem there.

    And then the assumption that everyone who uses p2p technology and TPB in particular is a pirate, yarr! I was under the impression that there were legal stuff on those trackers so shutting them down would deprive us of the possibility to get said free stuff.

    What a bunch of losers.

  25. b166er

    Priceless

    "The International Federation of the Phonographic Industries (IFPI) has slammed The Pirate Bay, saying that it was not motivated by "idealism" and a love of music but was only interested in making bundles of cash."

    Pot, Kettle, Black

    $200K per day, I think not. That made me laugh almost as much.

  26. Gary

    Russia it is then!

    Speaking of Russia,what happens when it all ends up there then? (The Free Music Industry, that is! )If the useless gits we have here can't get a suspect for murder extradited,what chance do a bunch of jukebox bashers have? Ponimiou Tovarich? ( I think thats right!

  27. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    Sigh

    "Sweden, normally the most law-abiding of EU countries, look like a piracy haven"

    Yet again, a non-Swede is making the presumption that non-Swedish laws apply in Sweden.

    I have news for the IFPI and its members. Much as they would like it to be otherwise, the laws of the USA only apply in the USA.

  28. Anonymous Coward
    Pirate

    To the CLUE DEPRIVED-- am quite willing to pay...

    I too am quite willing to pay for content. However, once when wanting to find a particular old TV show episode, while looking for a source I found a FREE and LEGAL download site (AOL) for it. Great I thought-- BUT, it turned out it required me to use THEIR download manager which I had to download first (and did), but could never get the convoluted thing it to WORK. After trying for several hours to use their messed up method of a FREE download, getting an aborted partial file several times and then finally the complete file but that wouldn't play-- even the FREE download included some DRM or other irrelevant ( to me) and broken crap. Out of pure frustration I finally googled across someone hawking a bootleg DVD of the entire TV series and DID end up paying for it, but the money undoubtedly did not go to the copyright holder. I figure my action was quite justified given the hours I spent trying to use their defective system to get it legally. GET A CLUE GUYS-- I don't need it to be FREE, I just need it to WORK. Do you think I would actually try a pay-for-download service after such an experience? No, now I will ONLY do content downloads that are not only FREE but otherwise unencumbered-- paid content better be delivered on CD or DVD via the postal service. I don't even need it to be immediate.

  29. janimal
    Unhappy

    try before you buy

    I know it's been said before, but it is well worth saying again in case one of these RIAsses ever accidentaly reads this.

    P2P is as the title - if I can't spend a bit of time listening to a few tracks I will not buy it. The only time I spend money on CDs coincides with the times I spend downloading tunes from e-bay & previously WinMX. Radio just isn't good enough because most of it is pushed by the RIAA dealers - this is who we have spent the money on - this is what you have to sell - this is what yo uhave to buy.

    I seek out bands on reccomendation - crucially wehn I have the time and inclination.

    80% of my CD collection has been bought because I downloaded unlicensed copies first (or was given a tape - remember those?) - the rest is just stuff I heard as a 3rd brother of 4 as a kid and bought for nostalgic nights nursing the whiskey and complaing about how they don't make music like they did when I were a lad and to remember my first scary trip to beaver land behind the school disco.

    The world has changed. 'Consumers' want the choice of what they consume and when they are going to consume it. I am 100% sure that the decline of sales is due to the shit that the record companies push to the market rather than rampant piracy.

    As an experiment let's try making cinemas charge when you leave the cinema instead of to enter. Say you had to pay full price for watching 66% or more of the film but upto to then you pay a percentage for how much you could bear. I am pretty sure you would see an instant drop in profits because the crap they serve up is only worth staying for the punishment because you have already paid.

    What use are album sales or box office takings except to express how well the public have been deceived by the marketing.

    Here's an alternative - the pirate chart. : "Dirty scumbag pirates have downloaded this album or film (at a crappy compression rate) more than any other currently available on the net - get the full quality version here.

    Make shit films / music get shit sales. Make a great movie / album - most people will want a high quality version to own.

    I can quite happily get my music for free by ripping my mates CD's - DVD's and paying a lot less for a functional browsing level internet connection if they want to go down the route of policing p2p. Even linux distros are avalable for a few quid from a magazine freebie. Although these days I am now happy to pay 40 euros or so for Mandriva with proprietary drivers and support.

    fuck the pirates - long live pirate bay

    I choose unsmiley because RIAA et al must be on something (but certainly not E, I don't feel the love)

  30. Banshee

    TPB ripping off Artists ??

    THAT has just GOT to be the funniest thing I have ever heard.

    IF and I repeat IF these "people"(insert pejorative term of choice) actually WERE representing the interests of the Artists then I would be willing to pay a reasonable fee for downloading their work.

    The MAIN problem here is that they are NOT doing so, but instead are representing the major record labels and film companies but are passing themselves off as representing the Artists and blaming sites like TPB for the Artist's lost revenues which is a downright fraudulent claim IMHO given that something like 80% of the proceeds of a sale go direct to the labels or film companies involved and NOT where we are led to believe.

    Proof of that was shown when a pop group recently published their latest album for download on the internet for whatever people like us were willing to pay for it. The average price paid was $6 and they made something in the region of $3,000,000 from those sales.... not counting the free publicity they gained for their upcoming live tour and advertising revenues etc etc which again went straight to them as it rightly should.

    All I can say is that I REALLY wish I had the skills to hack into their computers cos I would put a film on the RIAA's and a music track on the MPAA's and then setup a copy of uTorrent on each and make them download from each other...... imagine the fur and feathers.... we could even charge an entrance fee for folk wanting to watch.

    Shee

  31. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    keep on sailing

    and despite all that they will be imortal!

  32. Gleb
    Boffin

    Yeah, but yarr or no yarr

    For what it's worth the solution is on everyone's tongue - subscription services. And hopefully, we'll be able to get something like that sooner rather than later.

    People all over the word engage in a form of social disobedience - we refuse to acknowledge the laws that weren't made by us and serve only to restrict our freedom and rights. The copyright issue is one of the bigger issues of the modern age. Patenting resources that aren't innumerable, such as DNA strings in soy seeds and the ways you can make a taco sign spin, will conceivably pose a lot of problems in the years to come. Whilst right now there still exists a vast domain of property the big corporations haven't had time to patent, in the future we might not be so lucky.

    In conclusion, our motivation to get free Housewives episodes is rooted in greed, but we are willing to pay for the content at a reasonable price. The content duplication costs next to nothing, and so we feel our demands are justified. Hopefully we'll win, and our victory will be precedent for a general debate on the copyright issues.

  33. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    MIssing the point

    I work for a small software publisher (Flight Simulation add-ons which is a very small market) and most of our products are produced by a few guys working at home after their normal daytime jobs. They spend thousands of hours producing their aircraft package and while not doing it for the money, hope to make a little money to contribute to getting flying time in their next aircarft to simulate. These projects are works of the passion in our hobby. Our products have regularly mentions on pirate bay where the "morons" that want to download free ask if anyone has managed to crack our protection yet? This issue affects all developers, so I hope those of you that support Pirate Bay have your company's work STOLEN and you are out of a job soon.

    Ideology my arse...

    RANT over.

  34. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Maybe...

    I work for a small software publisher (Flight Simulation add-ons which is a very small market) and most of our products are produced by a few guys working at home after their normal daytime jobs."

    Maybe some people want to check the quality out before they invest in your fly-by-night bedroom software, and a few screenshots isn't really going to let them know how it will perform for them.

    Maybe your delivery method is too restrictive or takes too long, and some people want a copy to play while they wait for the copy they just paid for to ship.

    Maybe your overall sales are actually higher because of the pirate bay, since a percentage of those who download will buy afterwards and sales*some > sales*none.

    Maybe your protection method is too aggressive, and people are being locked out of products they have purchased (for example Microsoft refused to unlock my £60 copy of FSX Deluxe after I upgraded my machine several times in order to cope with it).

    Maybe the market is bigger than you think, but your attitude to new distribution technology is holding you back.

    "This issue affects all developers, so I hope those of you that support Pirate Bay have your company's work STOLEN and you are out of a job soon."

    I don't think it even affects -most- developers. But whatever, you think it affects you so and you're a developer, so it must affect all developers.

  35. John
    Boffin

    Ummm Logic Incorrect..

    [I work for a small software publisher (Flight Simulation add-ons which is a very small market)]

    Do you really think that the people who downloaded it would have purchased it anyway ?? I think not... Only a tiny % of illegal downloads result in loss of revenue since most downloaders would NEVER have purchased the product anyway.

    Most software is rubbish or over priced. Adobe Photoshop for example, is very expensive but an excellent product. Its price out of reach for most though. If the price was drastically reduced to say £30 for Home Users, I'd buy a copy tomorrow !

  36. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    @ Missing the Point

    I think it is you sir who is missing the point

    "and while not doing it for the money, hope to make a little money to contribute to getting flying time in their next aircarft to simulate"

    Distribute it on your website for free and request donations with a suggested amount of say £3-£10 and you will receive more revenue globally than trying to charge someone £30 for a one off piece of software.

    Radiohead did it and while the headlines suggest many people took it for free, many people also contributed (but that's not newsworthy). 1.2million downloads. 38% paid an average of $2.26 each. (ref Comscore). Revenue equalling over a million dollars with no record company fees to pay and that was just the download. Many of those who downloaded and enjoyed are soaking up the CD format of the music becasue they tried it and want a copy on traditional media to keep and store. Enough to keep them going for a while?

    Invite collaboration by users, make it open source code and you will reduce your development time.

    Time to move away from the dark ages of sitting in a dark room developing a product on your own to charge as much as you think people will pay.

    Collaboration.

  37. Anonymous Coward
    Pirate

    A pox on PRQ

    It isn't just about films and music, I work in the technology magazine sector as a freelancer, and for several years found our magazine widely pirated and circulated as PDFs on the web. File sharing sites like Rapidshare are a haven for this. (Hard to believe, I know. :-/) We successfully shut down one of these 'tracker' websites having located it in Europe and setting detectives on the case, so they migrated the site to... Sweden, where it's hosted by PRQ.se (PirateBay & Co.)

    Big-bucks Hollywood film producers have plenty of fat to survive but small publishers, musicians and photographers are being destroyed by copyright theft. PRQ.se will host pretty much anything and they trade purely on the fact that web sites (tracker sites) that merely host links to illegal copies of copyrighted work are not illegal in Sweden. As such, PRQ promotes the active theft of legitimate intellectual property.

    So once we've given up and seen our readership evaporate in a puff of smoke, there will be one less specialist magazine for enthusiasts to read.

    May Gottfrid Svartholm & Co choke on a crayfish.

  38. Danny
    Pirate

    @paul fox

    If tpb were really making $200k a day, don't you think they would have been able to go on with their plan to buy sealand?

    Whatever happened to logical thinking?

  39. Peter Methven
    Pirate

    So the RIAA think that by closing one site down it will solve their loss of income...

    So the RIAA think that by closing one site down it will solve their loss of income... hmm or maybe close one site down, 10 spring up in its place in a country which doesn't care too much about what American big business thinks.

    Perhaps if the RIAA worked with places like the Pirate Bay and employed decent technical staff rather than layers they wouldn't be in the state they are currently in and would have a sensibly priced industry wide online music distribution mechanism. Roll over and die RIAA and big record companies you missed your boat and are irrelevant now.

    Plus I agree its not illegal to "point" to copyrighted material which is all the pirate bay is technically doing.

  40. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Title

    I think that a lot of this problem is caused by the copyright system presently used.

    There is something vaguely ludicrous in someone spending, say a week, creating something, and then expecting to get paid for the same week's work, time and time again, for the rest of their life. And even more ludicrous to simply spend a few hours playing and recording someone else's creation; and yet also expect to be paid over and over for their few hours work.

    If I write a software application, I get paid the once for the time I spent creating it. Or, say, if I employ a builder to build a wall for me, then again he or she gets paid the once. Why should it be different for other people, performing other comparable tasks?

    The existing system seems to cause more problems than it is worth and is in desperate need of replacing. Not that it would be easy; it needs a good brainstorming session to come up with reasonable alternative suggestions.

    2 areas to sort. Creators and Investors.

    1) Those involved in the creation must be properly rewarded for the hours they put in, at a rate applicable to their talent. This is much the same as already occurs for any other product, for example a potter selling the pots they've created.

    2) Those paying the creators need to recover any investment costs, plus a reasonable level of profit as an incentive. But how long do they need in order to achieve that? And how much should that add to the cost of a single end product?

    Recovery of any initial investment would be split between the price of many many sold items, so the investment recovery proportion of a single end product price, should be insignificantly small.

    Covering just a few hours or even weeks work, even if one adds in a portion to cover marketing (which ought not be needed at any great level for any decent artiste anyway) and mixing etc., should surely not need more than a few months of exclusive selling rights.

    If investors find they are failing to cover costs by then, then maybe they are in the wrong business, having insufficient ability to distinguish that which will sell at a particular price, from that which will not?

    Sell something in vast numbers and you have a commodity that should have just a small profit on each item. Clearly competition hasn't achieved that with the existing copyright laws in place.

    With such a system, what incentive is there to pirate ? Cost to the individual would be hardly any different, and so folk would tend to deliberately chose to buy from legitimate sources. And investors receive a fair level of profit from the numbers sold.

    And after the short exclusive period why shouldn't it become public domain? We know a disk costs next to nothing, and in any case downloaders provide the disks for themselves. Prices are mainly related to distribution (which for a someone downloading files, they're already paying their ISP / telephone company for). Piracy would cease to exist at this point onwards.

  41. Nicholas Wright
    Paris Hilton

    Sounds familiar...

    "The International Federation of the Phonographic Industries (IFPI) has slammed The Pirate Bay, >>> saying that it was not motivated by "idealism" and a love of music but was only interested in making bundles of cash.<<< "

  42. tardigrade
    Linux

    Paul Fox estimated revenue

    $800'000K per day revenue, not bad

    Note: See what I did there.

    Sources please.

  43. Mark

    Re: Regardless of...

    It isn't theft. That's why we can see this theft as noble. Because it isn't theft.

    That isn't saying it's RIGHT.

    Being fined £500 for littering isn't theft, neither is it right, but it CAN happen in some places. We don't accuse the council responsible of theft though.

    So now we've got that out of the way, how about considering this. There is no free market on monopoly goods and copyright is a monopoly. The only way the market can work is if there's an alternative and then the market can decide what the real worth of a good is. An piracy is that alternative.

    At some point of monopoly pricing, copyrighted goods will be cheap enough that, although some would still pirate for free, most are buying legitimately. Enough so that reducing the price would lose more revenue from those already paying more than the increased revenue from those that were pirating.

    And that is the sweet spot in the price/demand curve.

  44. wyly
    Thumb Up

    Pirate = thief, look it up.

    Pirate Bay and all other P2P file stealing sites should be shut down and the principals of the sites as well as those who share files on the sites should be fined and put in jail.

  45. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Pirate = thief, look it up.

    Jail would be too good for them, take all their posessions and share them out. See how they like it.

  46. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Logic incorrect? WTF.

    @Logic incorrect

    Do you really think that the people who downloaded it would have purchased it anyway ?? I think not... Only a tiny % of illegal downloads result in loss of revenue since most downloaders would NEVER have purchased the product anyway."

    My logic is correct. If they were prevented from downloading it free, they would have to buy it if they wanted to have the benefit of using it. As for wanting to try out our product before parting with their money, there are many reviews both online and in magazine print singing the products praise. We also offer a 30 day money back guarantee if they don't like the product.

    Do you expect to eat a meal in a restaurant before deciding if you are going to pay?

    THEFT not ideology however you look at it.

  47. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Meals

    Dunno about you, but I don't eat the same meal each day for a month or more.

    They do allow one to sample the wine before pouring though.

  48. Trevor

    Whats stopping you...

    from flooding the torrent sites with your own torrents? I'm talking to you, the guy with the flight sim stuff!

    Release a real shareware version, not one of these enter code now jobbies, but one with a time limit or fly one of 3 planes for 5 mins or something. Why not fill the airports with adverts for the full version, it's just a texture. Why not write your companies email address down the runway?

    Then people can try your flight sim, and they have the contact details, and the torrent sites are flooded with torrents for links to the shareware.

    Just had a better idea, why not release a base package completely free? The engine and a geographical area and a plane or 2, then just charge for more areas, scenery, aircraft etc...if they like it they'll buy the extras and if they don't they obviously don't like the product enough.

    Not too difficult I would have thought....

  49. Chad H.
    Happy

    @ copyright holders

    at the end of the day, its your own fault TPB exists.

    The product you made wasn't being supplied in the format that your Market wanted it in is- near instantaneous download, so the free Market did its thing, it filled the gap. Evwntually filling the gap hit critical mass, and now a fair value for these works is lower than before, yet the official route is still valued at the same level, so the free Market continues to do its thing.

    Maybe next time you'll embrace, not attempt to extinguish.

  50. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Aiding and abetting

    Even though the owners of Pirate Bay say they are not breaking the law, they blame the people using the site, the owners, by providing the links are guilty of aiding and abetting.

    http://www.lawcom.gov.uk/assisting_crime.htm

    I am sure that similar laws apply in Sweden. The Swedish Government must uphold the law and make an example of these people.

    Jail them!

  51. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @meals

    You are allowed to sample the wine to make sure it hasn't corked, not to decide if you like it or not! Not the same thing. You try telling the waiter to open another bottle as you don't like the flavour and want to try something else.

  52. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Why don't they just move to

    Antigua

    ""We would continue to use every avenue to seek the closure of this damaging service wherever it is located.""

    As an aside, neither FACT,FAST or the BSA have responded to my emails enquiring if it is legal to purchase titles from Antigua.

  53. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @chadH

    "The product you made wasn't being supplied in the format that your Market wanted it in is- near instantaneous download, so the free Market did its thing, it filled the gap."

    At least get your facts right. Our products are available to download instantly and also available in boxed versions. The key here is that people don't want to pay for it. If they don't want to pay for it, they shouldn't be able to have it. We invested the time and money to produce the product.

    And Trevor, why should we flood the torrent sites and give demo versions. Anyone is free to download the full package and then if they don't like it, they can get a refund.

    Our marketing model is right, Pirate Bay and you spongers who don't want to pay a fair price are the ones who are in the wrong. IT IS OUR COPYRIGHT.

    Use the product, you accept the licence.

    Throw the full weight of the law at these people, AND anyone else who thinks they can steal our property by downloading it without paying. Maybe I should have a right to break into your house and steal your things cause I want them and don't want to pay for them. Same principle.

  54. heystoopid
    Pirate

    But wait

    But wait there is more , apparently the boys at the bay have now got much of their legal fees in this up coming case to be charged to the state as well or so it would seem so this will literally blow the prosecution's legal budget out the door into massive cost over runs which will not please the penny pincher's in Justice one iota !

    Still it will be an interesting legal tussle of the computer literate defendants versus the computer illiterate prosecution team who have just opened an awful big can of worms that will have far reaching effects European wide !

  55. heystoopid
    Paris Hilton

    @AC

    @AC you wish to jail the boys at Pirate Bay , so by your perverted logic then Steve Balmer @M$ and Serge over at Google are equally guilty of the very same offences as well for providing the very same links as well.

    Taking your extreme view that would mean all copy right material and languages as well would have to be barred from the intertubes as well so when ever you invoke any search engine for any subject , person , idea or concept from A to Z (remember Dictionaries are copyrighted too and languages as well as they are used to create these copyrighted works !) all the engine would return is a 404 error page not found illegal parameter search using copyright material warning for every site you wish to seek business inclusive as every word , letter or number they use in their web 2.0 page is in some form of copyrighted work !

    As Paris would say there is logic and there is perverted logic and neither the twain shall meet as they travel in their own separate circles in the air !

  56. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    To heystoopid

    Your choice of name sums you up. Google take down any links when requested if shown to breach copyright or law. Pirate Bay boast about how they don't in their incredibly childish way. Online dictionaries are generally put up by the copyright holder, and if not, they deserve to be takem down. You live in Cloud cuckoo land thinking the internet should be free and without law.

  57. Anonymous Coward
    Pirate

    Why only TPB

    I don't often use torrents, but when I do, I usually use Google rather than going to places like The Pirate Bay (some of the more esoteric items can be hard to find). So if TPB are guilty of assisting copyright infringement, then so is Google et al. Of course they won't take on Google as Google can afford decent lawyers. Just like them picking on grandmothers and little kids... they only pick on those they think can't afford to fight back.

    As for the guy with the flight sim.... if consumers won't pay your price and accept your terms, then your business model is wrong. This is capitalism 101 and if you don't know that you should quit while your ahead. I agree with the other comments about releasing a Demo... many ppl (myself included) will only buy a game after playing a free demo version (one vehicle / one track ... that sort of thing.... the time limited ones just piss me off, so I refuse to buy the full product). I will not buy anything on the promise that if I don't like it I can return it, as in my experience that sort of promise ain't worth squat (too many arguments over fine print and the documentation of the promise can tend to vanish without warning once they feel too many ppl are taking advantage of it).

  58. heystoopid
    Alien

    Sorry AC

    Sorry AC , I always thought that cloud cuckoo land were the twin islands in the South Pacific covered in a permanent impenetrable fog where Pirates fear to go , and at any one time one in five in the country is an Oz tourist from down under and the locals that do remain in resident are some one's cousin or bro ! !

    These islands are forever lost in a time warp complaining about Le Bomb of old ancient times and a sinking rainbow with the local farmers trying to reinvent a revised form of blackbirding too !

    P.S. now how many intertube search engines are there again all cross linking to each other take one link down but the others still remain elsewhere and like an octopus cut off one arm it merely grows back ?

    So when I want to go to cloud cuckoo land I merely catch the next jet plane leaving in that direction !

  59. Mark SPLINTER
    Heart

    food in a restaurant

    "Do you expect to eat a meal in a restaurant before deciding if you are going to pay?"

    errr... yes. If the food is shit, and i am not in a shitty place, i leave it and I refuse to pay.

    Next question?

  60. Toby
    Black Helicopters

    Swedish laws

    @ Aiding and abetting poster.

    In fact (believe it or not) Sweden is a totally different country, what do you base your assumption on that they should similar laws??

    It works like this (as I understand it).

    The EU has a directive or guidelines or what ever that RECOMMEND an implementation of copyright law. it is up to member states how to implement this. In Sweden it is illegal to break copyright, it is NOT illegal to give a link to copyrighted content!

    Also recent EU directives mean that member states do not have to (again its up to them) force ISP's etc to divulge user list info, meaning that the users cannot be prosecuted for downloading the copyrighted material.

    TPB does not even provide the bit torrent client!

    Imagine the uproar if Saudi officials arrested an American in America for having a bottle of wine? why is the Swedish government even listening to US?

    whatever your views on file sharing all of the above is FACT. and so TPB is NOT currently illegal. end of.

  61. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Why only TPB????

    Because TPB make a big issue of NOT taking down links to copyright material when requested as they are on their childish crusade - or money making scam (depending on your viewpoint) by assisting a criminal act. Google take the links down when asked and backed up by confirmation that you are the copyright holder. Admitted, a losing battle in this generation of people who think it their right to just steal whatever they want!. Pirate Bay sums up the scum of Society.

    As to you not buying a game if you don't get a free demo, Tough. Don't buy it, but don't think it right to just download a pirate copy free. It is illegal, no matter how you want to justify your dishonesty, so I hope these little tossers at TPB get their rewards in prison. Hopefully they will experience the "Policemans truncheon up the backside" they go on about in their replies to any reasonable request to withdraw links to copyright material.

  62. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Toby, RE Swedish Laws

    As I understand the charge has been made, it would appear that a similar law does exist, otherwise the charge couldn't be made and go to court. So the law about being an accessory to aid a criminal act applies in Sweden. That will be tested in court. No-one has said that TPB provides the bit torrent client, The assertion made by the prosecution is that they are actively profiting and assisting the downloading of copyright material. And before you go onto the same old thread about Google, different responses to requests to take down illegal links are what counts between a company trying to stay within the law and criminals.

    And the Saudi's DO arrest foreign nationals for having wine. Remember the English Nurse some years ago! Get your facts right.

  63. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Still think it is legal?

    Swedish newpaper report. Access to Pirate Bay blocked by a Danish court.

    http://www.thelocal.se/9877/20080204/

  64. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Bad business then

    "Last time I checked, Pirate Bay was loosing money, not making it... Just goes to show how these guys will make anything up."

    Looks like they deserve to be put out of business then... Before they have creditors against them.

  65. OSBob
    Alert

    minor points for the late comers...

    "Still think it is legal? ... Swedish newpaper report. Access to Pirate Bay blocked by a Danish court."

    How many countries have banned YouTube for how many reasons? Therefore by that reasoning YouTube must be illegal in it's home territory, because it doesn't adhere to the censorship rules of every other country in the world.

    We know that downloading material is illegal in many of the countries where the pirate bay's users are, but that doesn't mean that pirate bay itself is illegal.

    So yes, I still think the Pirate Bay is legal (in Sweden), even though I choose not to use it to download copyrighted material in my territory (UK) where uploading and downloading copyrighted material is illegal (although I have used it entirely within the law on several occasions).

    "Bad business then ... Looks like they deserve to be put out of business then... Before they have creditors against them."

    It's a .org. Not a .com. The .com version is a fake, and should be closed down for cybersquatting.

    I've never even heard of the pirate bay pretending to be a business, and it's entirely supported by donations and adverts to cover the costs of hosting.

    But maybe you are right, last I heard that parasitic google.org was losing loads of the money donated to them by google.com on developing renewable energy, and that's clearly bad business and should also be shut down immediately!

    What a lovely world you live in, where nothing is worth doing unless it makes money.

  66. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    .org .com who gives a F***

    "It's a .org. Not a .com. The .com version is a fake, and should be closed down for cybersquatting."

    So someone Pirates the Pirate Bay and you don't like it... ROFL. Surely that goes against the "ethic" of pirate Bay supporters.

    The legal action is partly based on the prosecution stating that they ARE profiting backed up by the evidence they have. If there is no evidence, they wouldn't have gone to court. Just because they choose .org as a domain name doesn't mean they ARE a non-profit making organisation. They have no respect for the Law, so why would a domain name issue bother them.

    Google .org is backed totally by google.com so paying debts would not be a problem. Soemone stated that Pirate Bay was "loosing" (their spelling) money, so when their creditors want paying, they will have problems paying by that statement. BAD BUSINESS.

    And for your final statement, you know nothing about me, or things I do that I don't charge for, so how can you say the world I live in?

    Can't wait for the Guilty verdict on them. But then you will all say "Oh, how unfair". LOL

  67. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @minor points

    The Swedish parliament passed a law - effective as of 1 July 2005 - banning all file-sharing, technology and software such as P2P file-sharing programmes, including Kazaa and E-Donkey.

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/06/06/swedish_file_sharers/

    A web site hosted in Sweden that openly refuses to comply with that law and take down links to copyright material, is therefore operating as an accessory. Hence the charges -AS AN ACCESSORY -. Why can't you people understand that what Pirate Bay are doing is "being an accessory" which is against swedish law.

    What a lawless society we have become in the age of the internet. People cannot see right from wrong. Just because you don't think something is worth the price they ask, you break the law and download it free, and then seed it so others can download it free as well. Theft is theft, digital or not. Because you don't agree with a law, don't abide by it?

    Recipe for disaster. I feel sorry for my children growing up in that sort of society.

  68. OSBob
    Alert

    Dear Cowards...

    "So someone Pirates the Pirate Bay and you don't like it... ROFL. Surely that goes against the "ethic" of pirate Bay supporters."

    I think you are lumping all Pirate Bay supporters with pirates... just because someone believes that the end users are the ones responsible breaking the law, and not the service through which the users make contact, doesn't mean you are an anarchist. Let's take the .com/.org thing as an example... ICANN enables cybersquatters, which is a type of copyright infringement... now, who do we shut down because cybersquatting is happening, ICANN or the squatters?

    Strange that you say they have no respect for the law... when actually that's an outright lie, Mr. Coward. They are clearly playing the game. If you want to know what real lack of respect for the law is, look at Media Defender, the proxy of the "other side".

    "The Swedish parliament passed a law - effective as of 1 July 2005 - banning all file-sharing, technology and software such as P2P file-sharing programmes, including Kazaa and E-Donkey."

    Not to accuse El Reg of sensationalism, but the general consensus from other articles on that law is that it was the free exchange of copyrighted materials which was banned. Not quite the same thing... but you have a point, let's also shut down other services where copyrighted material is constantly being made available again and again to anyone who wants it... like the whole damn internet....

    And regarding removing the copyrighted material, I suppose there are procedures copyright holders can follow to get material taken down... oh wait, the DMCA isn't a Swedish law, so rights holders can damn well follow the legal procedure in Sweden to get links taken down. And taking down material which doesn't exist on the servers is going to be a bit tricky too...

    If they get found guilty then that sets a dangerous precedence, but if that is the legal verdict of course everyone has to accept that (once appeals are exhausted) but until that time I believe in the presumption of innocence.

    I feel sorry for your children too, since you clearly want them to grow up in a world where the presumption of guilt is the norm. Just like you presume anyone who doesn't outright condemn the Pirate Bay must be a law-breaker.

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