back to article The Pirate Bay SUNK: It vanishes after Swedish data center raid

Torrent search engine and copyright-infringement poster child The Pirate Bay fell offline worldwide on Tuesday – reportedly after cops raided a data center in Stockholm, Sweden. The site remained unavailable for much of the day, only reemerging in the late hours with a new URL using the top-level domain for Costa Rica. It's …

  1. P. Lee
    Joke

    I take it MS is unhappy about the comparisons between TPB and Azure uptime.

  2. andreas koch

    Not a big problem for pirates:

    I take it that Google is still online?

  3. Thorne

    Whack-a-mole

    And just like a whack-a-mole game, the moles just pop up elsewhere.

    I live in hope that the idiots, one day, realize they are wasting their time trying to kill piracy using police and decide to killing it by making legal content cheap and easy to access.

    Yes I live in hope and might as well wish for world peace and a chicken in every pot......

    1. John Tserkezis

      Re: Whack-a-mole

      "And just like a whack-a-mole game, the moles just pop up elsewhere."

      Read another report where they were up again a few days later - albeit in a limited fashion.

      I predict that in another few days, they'll be up properly, and if you had blinked, you wouldn't have noticed they were gone at all.

      Just like every other time...

      Perhaps they can give some clues to Sony on how to keep their little system up and running. <cough>.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Whack-a-mole

      "Yes I live in hope and might as well wish for world peace and pot in every chicken......

      "

      TFTFY

  4. -tim
    Black Helicopters

    Pastebay??

    Isn't Pastebay the new preferred anon pastebin?

    I'm thinking this has more to do with the Sony leak than pirate operations.

    But was the Sony leak was a result of them ramping up their anti-piracy activity.

    We need a gate/horse icon.

  5. Khaptain Silver badge
    Pint

    Courageous dudes

    I honestly admire the tenacitity of the TPB guys, regardless of what they are doing, whether it be right of wrong, they stand their ground and fight for their beliefs.... ( I do not know if it is just about money but I really don't believe that that is the primary motive).

    Just a shame that some of todays MP's and decision makers don't have the same balls.

    1. Aoyagi Aichou

      Re: Courageous dudes

      MPs*

      First they (the MPs) would need to have some other belief than money, influence and short working hours.

  6. ratfox

    Disappointing

    I thought The Pirate Bay was supposed to have an incredibly resilient infrastructure? Yet a simple police raid took them down. Was it all hype then? Or maybe I'm spoiled by all the five nines services around.

    1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

      Re: Disappointing

      The database itself is resilient but there is always a single point of failure regarding the domain name.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Disappointing

        That single point of failure is believed to be a diskless load balancing server. As soon as the plug is pulled there is nothing left to assist the police.

      2. btrower

        Re: Disappointing

        Re: " there is always a single point of failure regarding the domain name."

        Yes, but that should not be the case. The very fact that the people who run DNS allow this to happen means they are not fit for purpose. A single entity should not be able to silence a site.

    2. DavCrav

      Re: Disappointing

      "Or maybe I'm spoiled by all the five nines services around."

      How many of those are subject to continual police raids?

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    The Swedes did it??

    Damn!! I have been blaming the Great Firewall of China for my lack of access.

    (Posting from behind the bamboo curtain)

  8. Charlie Clark Silver badge
    Thumb Down

    Torrent site and online copyright infringement poster child…

    The Pirate Bay doesn't infringe copyright so please stop peddling this myth. Only the uploading copyrighted material is breach of copyright, the rest is made up by those desiring a police state. They should do some more research because the police states of Russia and China notoriously turn a blind eye to copyright infringement, seeing it as a useful tactic in their war against freedom of expression.

    1. Peter Simpson 1
      FAIL

      Re: Torrent site and online copyright infringement poster child…

      The attractive thing about Pirate Bay, is that you can find anything you're looking for there.

      If there were a legitimate version of TPB, I'd happily pay $20/month, or even $30/month to be a member. But Netflix has seasons 1, 3 and 6 of any given show available, only during months with an "R" in the name, or some such silliness, and when I want to watch a 1940s movie, they're nowhere to be found. And for that, I pay $10/mo.

      So yeah, I'm annoyed Pirate Bay is down. I don't mind paying for content, I just want it to be available when I feel like watching it. Pirate Bay does that. Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, and the big media companies haven't yet caught on.

      1. KroSha

        Re: Torrent site and online copyright infringement poster child…

        Damn right. Given that I was halfway through watching House, Justified and Farscape, where exactly am I supposed to go to watch the rest of the episodes?

  9. MJI Silver badge

    I have uploaded before to TPB

    To be honest it was a pain, wouldn't seed properly, so I stuck it on Youtube instead.

    But if it had been taken down by the copywrite organisations could I have complained?

    I wanted to torrent as I don't like Youtubes framerate changing.

    I filmed at 16x9 anamorphic 50Hz, I wanted it kept to 16x9 50Hz.

    In the end someone hosted it for me for a few days to get the AVI.

    As you have read above, I tried to use TPB to distribute a video I shot, to people I knew. So that was fully legal and my distribution method is now being blocked.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Mirror

    According to Torrent Freak, the Costa Rica domain is a mirror site.

  11. MustyMusgrave
    Facepalm

    It goes down, it goes up...

    It goes down, it goes up!

    You'd have thought by now they'd have got the message, you can take it down, it just pop's back up again.

    That pirate boat is the most resistent damn thing I have ever seen!

    All because they still think bit-torrent is some kind of advanced piracy protocol, sheesh, they've never done a VPN with IPSec from one host to another to share a file then! What would be hilarious would be it popping up behind the great firewall or perhaps popping up with a .ru at the end of the name... Capitalism & Facism vs Communism... "Cream of sum yung guy, take that imperialist dogs!"

    1. Martin Maloney
      Trollface

      "Cream of sum yung guy...:

      Isn't that the favorite item on the menu in Chinese restaurants in San Francisco?

      1. MustyMusgrave

        Re: "Cream of sum yung guy...:

        It's an item, thats true, its a creamy colored soup... An yeap its on the menu ;)~

        Always had a vision of the Chef, going, ahh Stupid round eye's I make a special won ton soup for you!

        They're all trying like crazy to prevent encryption of the layers by Default, ie:TCPCrypt the IPSec guys dont like it, because it flys in the face of http standards. So to be clear we buy our standards from RSA who give us all the Public half of the encryption keys, then they sell the other half to you know who!

        Those guys at MIT only fixed kerberos when it became public knowledge that it was still broken 10 years later and then they only upgrade to DES?!? I mean WTF! The data encryption standard, the one from IBM, the one thats had it's leg humped soo many times its beyond a shadow of a doubt broken and thats the upgrade of years of retarded hard work... rLogin is safe now, but your still using DES..

        Spot the thievery at work!

      2. TheOtherHobbes

        Re: "Cream of sum yung guy...:

        >"Cream of sum yung guy...:

        It's all startups eat.

  12. Eugene Crosser

    Beware of the new domain

    thepiratebay.cr is reported to be a proxy, devoid of real content, albeit showing the home page.

  13. This post has been deleted by its author

  14. Afernie

    Case studies in Business Continuity and DR Vol.1

    The Pirate Bay.

  15. sdalton

    I was under the impression it was hosted in Germany now? I seem to remember from the documentary that they moved shortly after the LAST time Swedish police kicked down the doors and scored themselves some free servers to sell on ebay.

    1. MustyMusgrave

      hosted somewhere

      Hosted somewhere, something tell's me that the internet is fast becoming not as free as it was year's ago, probably see it again but as an onion address, case's in point: nearly every *nix distro now supports meta-data.. Chrome - Firefox <sigh> open source is fast turning into closed source, oracles revoked it's licensing and gone back to being Propriatary... all the more reason to start bundling icecat everywhere, or even go one better and remove all those fancy desktops altogether, how about mc - midnight commander for your default file browser, how about tcpCrypt in that RFC kernel config and how about we just drop all the prebundled shitty software that want's to nothing but make money out of you!

      Isnt happening in the open source world, in the open source world, they're far to busy sucking Google's e-penis and going oh search engine optimisation how we all love you - whilst you destroy the foundation of the principals that open source was founded on.. ooh yeah do it to us one more time!

      These guys are destroying themselves there distro and there own neutrality it's the best riot to watch in years! Profits always outweigh common sense!

      Security distribution - dont make us all laugh, you couldnt do a secure distribution without infecting it with malicious propriatry third party applications (like MSF) if you tried!

      1. MustyMusgrave

        Re: hosted somewhere

        Shmoocon - Las Vagas - Defcon - Bugtrack...

        A load of guys all getting drunk without dealing with the problem's at hand, problems like theft, embezzlement, neopotism, corruption of the source, etc, etc...

        Metadata - oh lookie metacity & gnome!

        How about the truth for once, that all there distributions are badly broken save two, and those havent seen much of an upgrade in years... whilst they're all bug-hunting and then profiting from bugs!

  16. Justice
    Mushroom

    Cut off the Pirate Bays head...

    ...and two mirror appear.

    HAIL HYDRA!!!

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    And thus ends one of the most successful and convenient media distribution hubs in modern times.

    I suppose it's back to the usual inability for most people to watch anything unless they have the "correct and approved" hardware, the right magic hocus pocus, or the willingness to sell their soul (and a large portion of their take-home pay) to a cable company.

    The human race makes me weep sometimes.

    1. MustyMusgrave
      Devil

      Dont Cry

      Dont weep about it, laugh at it! Look at the state of it, this is the banking conglomerates in tandem with the 5-eye's all hooked into the 9-eye's;

      http://9-eyes.com/

      In America they dial 9-1-1 (9/11) in the UK they dial... 9-9-9... lol

      So now they're stamping down on your freedoms to assembly, but never fear, we've still got 9 or as they call it - SIPRNET - Classification TOP SECRET - but there's nothing top secret about there irish sandwhich and double dutch fudge-wagon any more! REJOICE we're finally FREE...

      Is this there top secret shizzle right here? ⑨ - www.plan9.bell-labs.com/plan9/index.html

      I would say so... with it's own network protocol to boot!

      Next up we've got INFERNO - https://code.google.com/p/inferno-rpi/ with it's secret protcol called Styx. aka: NIPRNET

      Then there's Centrix Software with Microsoft Windows for the piece de'resistance!

      Ho-hum, who's up first for a file share from a top-secret file server? LOL

      Five-Eye's - Nine-Eye's & Many more!!

      http://electrospaces.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/five-eyes-9-eyes-and-many-more.html

  18. theOtherJT Silver badge

    Didn't we already solve this problem?

    Surely the way to handle such things is to have the index database broken into chunks and delivered a few meg at a time to every client on the network so that each client hosts a part of it. Isn't that what eMule / Kad / etc. used to do? You start a client, it fires off a few "hello, anyone else out there?" requests, hits a few other running clients, gets their parts of the index, plus a list of _their_ known clients, hits up _those_ clients, gets a few more chunks of index etc. etc. etc.

    1. MustyMusgrave

      Re: Didn't we already solve this problem?

      Yes, they did, with a windows client, they did better with Deluge which there own 9 hackers use in tandem with TOR.. So the pot calling the kettle black!

      It's hardly a secret when everybody know's about it.. Although nice take down notice BTW!

      1. MustyMusgrave

        Re: Didn't we already solve this problem?

        What will be really good will be seeing what they replace it with, perhaps the GoFY file system!

        http://gofy.cat-v.org/

        There's a WAR going on right now and it's a WAR for your mind!

        They label file sharing as thievery, when sharing is caring! What would Jesus Do?

        Then they tell you they have no secure operating system, when erm, yeah you do.. You just shafted us with the insecure version and oracles javascript to turn a profit for years!

    2. Matt Bryant Silver badge
      Big Brother

      Re: theOtherJT Re: Didn't we already solve this problem?

      ".....You start a client, it fires off a few "hello, anyone else out there?" requests, hits a few other running clients, gets their parts of the index, plus a list of _their_ known clients, hits up _those_ clients, gets a few more chunks of index etc. etc. etc." Well, that did work. Then someone (allegedly) in the pay of the RIAA worked out that if they fired up lots of fake nodes, not only could they poison the database with duff copies of copyrighted files, but they could also corrupt the index and - as a bonus - send tracking messages to pin-point other nodes.

  19. null 1

    You guys are so blinded by ideology that you've abandoned common sense in favor of ideology. The Pirate Bay was more than a common service provider. The site was a piracy site that encouraged piracy and the operators were constantly mocking law enforcement. The world will be a better place without the pirate bay.

    Is taking down the pirate bay going to stop piracy? No, but it will help keep an honest man honest

    1. MustyMusgrave

      Hahaa!

      I love your idealism, it'll keep an honest man honest, what honesty do you speak of? Bankers throwing themselves out of Windows (Pun) when it all comes to light that they've been moonlighting? How about those honest Chaps in China, at FoxConn Electronics it was the sixth sucide in under 8 weeks? How about Insider Trading? World got a handle on it all yet? Oh lookie, there goes the CEO of intel refusing to answer what he's been doing with his Chips.. Honesty is in the eye of the Beholder, a few guy's legally sharing the latest version of there operating system via Torrent links.. Yes loads of open source maintainers do this... Are about to be impacted by a few bad elements who want to share a movie or an mp3.. Honestly you have no idea what your talking about.. Not to mention some artists, couldnt really give a crap, because they know there fans sponcer them either way.. I've been to countless rock concerts, bought the damned ticket, paid over the price for the beer to listen to my favorite artist and would still pay to see them LIVE because there's nothing that can replace the experiance of having your eyebrow's singed with a guy wearing a flame-thower screaming in german "Feur Frei!" aka: Nazi slogan from WWII "fire at will!" they'll always be people who say file sharing is wrong, but lets put it in perspective, if I send you my C.V and you look at it, then now I am entitled to sue you because I shared privledged information how? Knowledge is a free medium, until people accept it then they're going to go only one way.. Backwards! They dont know, they dont care, they claim it impacts there sales and then you get to read how much they gross at the box office for a DVD that you can buy for a buck! Some artists accept it and embrace it, as a way to get heard, others they heckle and go.. Nah, your stealing my hard work... What hard work, you turned up for a few days on set said a few witty lines and we should watch your movie again why?

      As Sony said "Adam Sandler's movies really suck!"

      Although I would beg to differ some of his stuff is watchable..

      An for everything else there is youtube... Just type in "FULL MOVIE" and hit search whilst you brace yourself for the piracy levels!

      1. gazthejourno (Written by Reg staff)

        Re: Hahaa!

        Some points:

        a) "Feuer frei" is not a Nazi slogan. It's the German command for "fire at will" and is still used to this day by the Bundeswehr.

        b) Rammstein are not Nazis. See the lyrics of "Links 2 3 4" (which, before you start babbling on, is the German equivalent of "left right left", as you might hear the Garrison Sergeant Major of London District bellowing during the Trooping of the Colour)

        c) If you really want to listen to Nazi-inspired metal, look up Hansyl und Gretl.

        d) Stop taking whatever it is that prompts you to write such complete and utter bilge. After ceasing, investigate the function of the enter key with regard to paragraphs.

        Have a nice day.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Bugger that brother's keeper shite--an honest man doesn't need telling to be honest.

      "Do not all theists insist that there can be no morality, no justice, honesty or fidelity without the belief in a Divine Power? Based upon fear and hope, such morality has always been a vile product, imbued partiy with self-righteousness, partly with hypocrisy."

      - Emma Goldman

      1. FraK
        Paris Hilton

        TPB

        Completely off topic, but you get a thumbs up for quoting Emma.

    3. Anon5000
      Alert

      The world would be a better place without the likes of the MPAA and their lawyers that mock laws of every country before getting them changed using their donation accepting US government partners in crime.

      Stopping the revolving door between government and the media industry jobs would help keep them more honest.

      Some pirate just to keep money out of the hand of those nasty corporate lawyers and consider it their duty to protect their country.

      All the time the media industry refuses to follow the market and tries to change it instead, there will continue to be piracy. How many other industries attack their potential customers instead of giving them the product they want?

  20. null 1

    Couldn't get past sentence one. A glance indicated your post is way off topic and tl;dr. Sorry, try again

    1. MustyMusgrave

      Trying again..

      Try looking on youtube for Pirates and then come back to me.. Search Tag "Full Movie"

      Legal eh of course it is, it's google!

  21. null 1

    Keepin' em honest

    Closing the pirate bay will keep an honest man honest by increasing the risk and cost of piracy. It is said that "you can't compete with free". Thus, by increasing risk and cost (time, bandwidth, cpu time, risk of malware) patrons will be more likely to buy a product than to pirate it. This will improve the global economy, thus providing more jobs and people with good jobs will be even less likely to pirate. I

    Proper law enforcement can make piracy unsustainable. It's win-win

    1. MustyMusgrave
      Angel

      Re: Keepin' em honest

      LOL.. Law enforcement cant even handle the NSA or Google!

      We need backdoors in your crypto, erm, wait it secures the bank? This is a problem why?

      All I hear from Law enforcement is, yada, yada, yada, we dont get this technology but we'll play along with it, so long as you can give us a backdoor so we and the rest of the criminal's in office can do there Job!

    2. Florida1920

      Re: Keepin' em honest

      This will improve the global economy, thus providing more jobs and people with good jobs will be even less likely to pirate. I

      Proper law enforcement can make piracy unsustainable. It's win-win

      I would like a hit of whatever it is you're smoking. The extent of piracy these days should convince anyone in the pirated industries that their current business models suck. The smart ones will learn and adapt accordingly. That will improve the global economy blah-blah-blah.

      Proper business models can make piracy unsustainable. It's win-win.

      1. MustyMusgrave
        Angel

        Re: Keepin' em honest

        Re: Proper business models can make piracy unsustainable. It's win-win.

        I would also like a hit of what your smoking!

        It's not piracy to copy one Mp3 and share it with your friends, although they will argue until they turn blue that it is, but thats why Justin Tiberlake should be proud of his Label, who sued a 7 year old little girl for the sum of $20'000 for downloading one of his tracks.. F.A.C.T.

        The bigger problem that they've not caught onto yet is all the white collar crime, an by that I mean the guys who read RFIdiot.org and go buy themselves the Scanner for RFID and then are free to clone there MiFare RFID card as many times as they like.. Hey, look kids, free travel on the Bus!?

        But lets not stop there, lets head on over to Strip-Snoop and clone some credit cards, when we're done with that lets download the de-dected framework and listen to a naighbours phone calls and black-mail them later.. oh wait no, thats the intelligence services Job! :P <rasp>

        What's the real solution, ban the technology or give people a proper education, that whilst all those hackers might notify you about the huge holes in your systems and technology, not everyone including Mosad in isreal will rush to fix it.. Case in point: British passport RFID's cloned for Assassination attempt! So the Brits got the blame!!

      2. null 1

        Re: Keepin' em honest

        No adaptaion can compete with free. The industry is adapting, just not in the way you'd like them to adapt. They're adapting through strict DRM and lobbying. A business is fundamentally unable to adapt in the way you'd like them to - that is providing products at or even below cost. So they do what they can to maintain profitability.

        An honor system only works in a society in which people behave honorably; as organizations such as The Pirate Bay demonstrate, this is not always the case.

        1. MustyMusgrave
          Angel

          Re: Keepin' em honest

          <sigh> again you arguement is false, TPB is honerable, I've seen them support more than one or two aritists and those artists went on to get signed, like-wise you can no longer download, freely available distributions made available via there network which where legally available to all.. So again it goes back to the arguement that a few spoil it for the many, an those few dont understand how the torrent's work, the Bay, simply hosts a link from someone sharing a file, it's not the Bay sharing that file, so the blame rests entirely with the uploader of the original content, whom is very rarely caught, charged or prosecuted because the original file sharer, wasnt born yesterday, like the cop's, he was no doubt bouncing out from behind a VPN & Tor proxy, which again bring's the blame kind of where it deserves to go back to the Anonymisation networks, but then we're going into the territory of we need to decloak the web and yada, yada, yada, deal with the real criminals, like Google and it's multi-million dollar stake holders first!

          If they where going to catch them, they would have done it long ago, instead of prosecuting Kim Dot Com (fat-wanker) and the original owners of TPB... Because all they've now succeeded in doing, is driving the real criminal's further under-ground.. it has a knock on effect and one they fail to grasp.

          All law enforcement succeeds in doing when it shuts down the Bay is make it obvious to the real criminals that there efforts need to be better!! <sigh>

          So why hasnt law enforcement ever had the novel idea of running its own piratebay???

          Not born with brains where you lot? It's called a sting operation!

          1. null 1

            Re: Keepin' em honest

            "again you arguement is false, TPB is honerable, I've seen them support more than one or two aritists and those artists went on to get signed, like-wise you can no longer download, freely available distributions made available via there network which where legally available to all"

            No doubt the poster children of the service, though hardly representative of the average user who is there to *surprise surprise* download copyrighted content on "The Pirate Bay."

            "it's not the Bay sharing that file, so the blame rests entirely with the uploader"

            Ever heard of aiding and abetting? They're not a common service provider- they police their content and they allow pirated material.

            " which again bring's the blame kind of where it deserves to go back to the Anonymisation networks"

            Tor is actually a common service: tor is not policed.

            "Because all they've now succeeded in doing, is driving the real criminal's further under-ground.."

            Exactly the point. "Driving them underground" increases the risk and cost associated with the activity. The hardcore aren't going to quit. That's the meaning of "keeping an honest man honest." A dishonest man is going to behave dishonorably anyway, but by making it harder it makes the piracy option less tempting to the average guy who just wants a good movie at a good price.

            1. MustyMusgrave
              Devil

              Re: Keepin' em honest

              YES EXACTLY MY POINT and now you will never catch them like the Pokemon, gotta catch em all, because if you break the TOR network, you'll have the privacy advocates up in ARMS... So we're back to my original assessment that the outcome is nothing if not short of self destructive, so I'll say it again, fancy a file share from a top secret file server??? LMAO!

              1. MustyMusgrave
                FAIL

                Re: Keepin' em honest

                OH now they get the nature of the problem, too many people, with access to too much privledged information, does an unbreakable network of hackers make!

    3. Tom 35

      Re: Keepin' em honest

      "you can't compete with free"

      Sorry, that's bullshit. Netflix competes with free just fine. If the price is reasonable, the service is convenient, people will pay. Sure it could be better if the studios would get rid of the "not available in your region" crap, but it works well enough.

      On the other hand crap like "digital copies" or "ultraviolet" would not go anywhere even if they were free.

      " This will improve the global economy,"

      No, at best it will just shift where the same money ends up, they might spend it locally instead of it going up someone's nose in Hollywood. It's not one download = one lost sale, and the money for that lost sale disappears from the face of the earth.

      -The value to the downloader might be zero, more like a time filler you watch on TV just because. They are never going to buy the Blu-Ray of Food Fight!

      -They might find something they like, and go out and buy it.

      -They might be watching a TV show that they can't watch. They will buy the Blu-Ray box set when it comes out (I know people who do that with Dr. Who for example).

      1. h3

        Re: Keepin' em honest

        I read somewhere to have almost everything you need streaming 27 services.

        I have Prime Video and Netflix (And Spotify Premium).

        (And Sky Movies from Virgin which I barely use because it is inconvenient).

        I want to pay for HBO Go but they don't want to sell it to me.

  22. Vociferous

    So now some new poor bastard...

    ....is going to be sentenced to a longer prison sentence and to pay 50000% higher damages than he'd get if he'd committed a violent rape or attempted murder, for the crime of not stopping other people from pirating Sony pictures.

    1. MustyMusgrave
      Angel

      Re: So now some new poor bastard...

      Were they pirating Sony? Now that I confess I didnt know... But you know, such is life, if they did the crime, they should do the time... Maybe they'll get off like that guy from apple Paul who got convicted for insider trading an do a year behind bars... Or maybe they'll end up like Aaron and get threatened with 35+ years for trying to liberate a load of information from a global conglomerate.

      Dissproprtionate justice system, people that are not nerd's or geek's that preside over a rotting and stale Justice system and dole out what they feel is fit... So they shared a movie, was it Bond?? If so where can we find the link, lets see if it's really worth paying $8.00 to go see it on the big screen, shame they didnt leak Star-Wars: "the force awakens!" (irony)

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So sad

    Got to prison. Do not collect $500. All is well.

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Some more scum bites the dust

    They keep shipping these ass clowns off to prison but they don't seem to be able to buy a clue. At least the streets will be free of some more scum for the next ten years or so.

  25. null 1

    >"Sorry, that's bullshit. Netflix competes with free just fine. If the price is reasonable, the service is convenient, people will pay. Sure it could be better if the studios would get rid of the "not available in your region" crap, but it works well enough."

    Do they? It's possible they don't compete with piracy at all but that their business is comes at the expense of traditional distribution models, for instance. Besides their profit margins are very slim. Regardless, Netflix will be doing even better with the shutdown of the Pirate Bay :)

    >"No, at best it will just shift where the same money ends up, they might spend it locally instead of it going up someone's nose in Hollywood. It's not one download = one lost sale, and the money for that lost sale disappears from the face of the earth."

    That's right. The money is being "shifted" to where it belongs: those responsible for the production and distribution of the product.

    >"The value to the downloader might be zero, more like a time filler you watch on TV just because. They are never going to buy the Blu-Ray of Food Fight!"

    The value is never zero. If they're taking the time to download it, assuming an average salary of $40k and assuming it takes five minutes to navigate the page, start the download, etc. that's $1.50 just in opportunity cost. If you don't like the product, don't download it. If you don't like Hollywood, don't buy their product. Vote with your dollar; don't steal. Don't be a moron.

    Anyway, I'm in IT and I for one am excited at the prospect of the job opportunities that will become available with increased sales. I'm also happy that a major vector of malware infection (parasitic drag on IT) will be closed. Yes, it's a good day for the global economy.

    >"-They might find something they like, and go out and buy it."

    There's no way this outweighs the lost sales

    >"-They might be watching a TV show that they can't watch. They will buy the Blu-Ray box set when it comes out (I know people who do that with Dr. Who for example)."

    Delayed gratification. Have ya heard of it? "Nothing ventured, nothing gained."

    1. Mark Exclamation

      "If you don't like the product, don't download it." - ridiculous statement! I don't wander into a store with my eyes closed, pick something up, and buy it! Same with Hollywood movies, if I don't like the movie I have just watched, does Hollywood offer me a refund? NEVER! In stores, I get to touch, view, and check out the product before I buy it, and if I don't like it the next day, they will give me a refund. Now, let's see Hollywood offer refunds. Then I won't download movies without paying for them. As it is, if I like a movie, I'll buy the DVD/Blu-Ray, if not I'll delete it, but I'm NOT going to pay for something I don't like!

      1. null 1

        There are such things as reviews and trailers you know. No store on this earth would let you walk out with a product and then pay for a it if you feel like it. And pirates have ruined any prospect of returning intellectual goods - even at brick and mortar stores.

        1. Mark Exclamation

          @null 1, Once again, your logic is quite faulty. Reviews - based on reviewers' opinions and tastes; not necessarily the same as mine. Trailers - they show all the good bits (probably around 60-90 seconds), but the rest of the movie is probably >90 minutes, plenty of time for it to be crap compared to the trailers (it's called advertising). Nobody mentioned anything about taking something out of a store without paying for it, and only pay for it if you like it; I was talking about refunds. The concept is completely different!

    2. Tom 35

      "The value is never zero. If they're taking the time to download it, assuming an average salary of $40k and assuming it takes five minutes to navigate the page, start the download, etc. that's $1.50 just in opportunity cost."

      More of your magic money. Your not skipping work to download a movie. Do you count how much it costs you to sleep? How about eating? Don't be stupid.

      No one is stealing anything. No it's nothing like the same thing.

      Outweighs what lost sales? You think every download is a lost sale? Now that Pirate bay is down people are rushing off to HMV to buy DVDs? If they had perfect copy protection media sales would skyrocket? If I decide to skip the movie and go to the pub are you any better/worse off? Magic money again. You have not lost anything, it's a maybe sale at best.

      I expect you are thinking I am the type that never buys anything. Well your wrong, checking DVD Profiler shows that I currently have 2819 items in my data base. All DVDs or Blu-Rays, I have a couple hundred CDs too. But it's defiantly a love/hate relationship.

      The "you wouldn't steal a car" bullshit mentality of the media companies just pisses me off. Put copy protection crap on a Blu-Ray so it will not play on my 2 year old player (thanks Fox) and think it's perfectly reasonable to tell me to go buy a new player. The BD rip is still available online 2 days before my copy arrives from Amazon.

      1. null 1

        Opportunity Cost, Sales

        It's not "magic money." Think about it: if the download had zero value, the downloader wouldn't download it; there is a time investment. I merely quantified that (although i made a small error in my calculation). It's called opportunity cost

        Nowhere did I say that one download represents one sale, but you keep trying to ram this concept down my throat. Let's say that each download represents a very conservative 1/10 of a sale. That is, for every 10 downloads, one sale is lost. If we add up the top ten most downloaded movies and divide by 10, we get 7.47 million sales lost to piracy - just for movies and just for the top 10.

        There's no doubt that with the #1 Piracy Site gone, sales will increase. It's just a matter of how much.

  26. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Taking something and paying nothing for it is simply wrong

    It's hardly a difficult concept.

    Just surprised how many people think that it's okay - poor misguided souls.

    1. Awil Onmearse

      Re: Taking something and paying nothing for it is simply wrong

      Not as surprising as the people who "accidentally" conflate the contravention of state-mandated protection of zero-value intangibles with theft, though.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Taking something and paying nothing for it is simply wrong

        Ah - small problem "zero value"...

        There is clearly value in the content as if it were valueless no one would bother to download them.

        People generally invest in the production of entertainment for two purposes: 1) to make money (some of which is ploughed back into producing more entertainment), 2) provide enjoyment for other people.

        If no-one pays for entertainment, what incentive / capability is there for entertainment to be produced?

        Who loses - we all do.

        Play fair - and pay. If you don't want to pay what's being asked for, vote with your wallet and don't buy it.

  27. liuzhou

    Costa Rico

    The Costa Rico site is simply an old mirror site, which no longer works as all it does beyond the front page is attempt to contact the defunct Swedish site.

  28. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Costa Rica is getting better

    Obviously not exactly the same as Sweden - I've seen some missing links; however, compared to a couple of days ago it's becoming usable.

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