back to article Pirate Bay co-founder hopes it will die

Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi is the most outspoken of the four men who founded BitTorrent tracker site The Pirate Bay in Sweden in 2003. In April last year Sunde, AKA BrokeP, saw a verdict go against him, Carl Lundström, Frederik Neij and Gottfrid Svartholm Warg. They were all found guilty by a Swedish court of being accessories to …

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  1. James Thomas
    Pirate

    Ha!

    The guy from Sony said: ‘I feel that you raped me and raped my kids and you raped everybody I know and you're speaking to my face like you enjoyed it.'

    The irony....it burns!

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    lol

    "The guy from Sony said: ‘I feel that you raped me and raped my kids and you raped everybody I know and you're speaking to my face like you enjoyed it.'"

    Now there is a guy with no sense of perspective. Future politico?

  3. Sean O'Connor 1
    Unhappy

    Scumbag

    > But it’s their work that we're talking about here, isn't it?

    >

    > No it’s not.

    >

    > The companies take everything. It's a screwed up movement, they suck them dry.

    > You don’t need to get records pressed, or use distribution to shops anymore. The

    > technology has been there for 10 years now, it’s made the old model redundant.

    I've been selling my computer games independently over the Internet for the last 15 years. There's no record company taking a cut and "sucking me dry" as he says. It's just me, trying to earn a living to feed my family. Does the Pirate Bay draw any distinction between me and his little crusade against record companies? No. It gives all my hard work away for free even if I send a polite email asking them please not to. I'd like to meet him one day and punch him in the face to be honest.

    1. Annakan

      As long as you assume than one "pirated copy" means one sale lost ...

      ... you'll feel like that.

      But it is wrong, has been prooved wrong and don't stand scrutinity.

      I don't know what games you do but there is a HUGE chance I was never exposed to them EVER. It is about the long tail.

      And if your game was on TPB there is a big chance you had some sales from that too.

      I for one, have bought game I played at friend or was handed as a copy.

      And I am not alone doing that around me.

      Even if I don't play much lately.

      The sure thing is that I'll never buy a 'protected' musicCD or one of the new "'not online / no play" game sold by ubi soft.

      Instead I recently bought Warband, $30, great gameplay and a tad of trust in the customer went a long way.

      1. Throatwobbler Mangrove

        yeah but

        don't you think it should be - you know - up to him/her to decide whether s/he should market her game through TPB?

        If it's such a great idea then the smart ones will be lining up to do it and will make a ton of money, and the people that hold out will die a death - market forces in action, right? But it's not right for you to say their IP should be ignored because it's in their own good - let them decide what's good for them and their product, and how they want to sell it.

        1. Sean O'Connor 1
          Unhappy

          Ta

          Thanks Throatwobbler Mangrove, I think you're absolutely right. I give away free "Lite" versions of my games which anyone is allowed to download and share. That's the way I choose to market my games. It's ridiculous to think that it's a better idea to give the full version of your game away for free and then hope people will donate some money to you out of the goodness of their hearts. Us developers/marketers aren't stupid - if that method made us more money, we'd do it.

          Why do you think so many independent developers have jumped on the iPhone bandwagon? Apple provide a platform where it's much harder to have your game pirated, so us devs are happy to drop the price right down to $1-$2. I don't plan to do any new games for Windows right now because it's just not worth my while. I'll stick to the AppStore.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Thumb Up

        yup

        I bought Demigod after downloading it illegally, the single player was great even though the bots were retarded. I could see the potential and wanted to play on the internet servers so I forked out for the full game. Also saved the company the downspeed bandwidth as I could just update my CD-KEY when I purchased it online.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Grenade

      Oh, boo hoo

      Sounds like you've chosen a career path which doesn't support your family very well.

      "if I send a polite email"

      Has your stuff ACTUALLY been on TPB? Have you ACTUALLY sent an email? Or are you just saying "what if", because you're bitching that your stuff doesn't sell very well?

      1. Sean O'Connor 1
        Unhappy

        Yes

        > Sounds like you've chosen a career path which doesn't

        > support your family very well.

        Yes, maybe I made a mistake in choosing a career in digital media. But I'd see that as the fault of freetards rather than mine.

        >Has your stuff ACTUALLY been on TPB? Have you ACTUALLY

        > sent an email? Or are you just saying "what if", because you're

        > bitching that your stuff doesn't sell very well?

        Yes, I have written to torrent sites and they've all been happy to remove the links (but said that the links would probably get re-added soon anyway). At least they made an effort. I went to The Pirate Bay and they have a page saying basically don't bother emailing us to take down your copyrighted material because we don't give a shit. See: http://thepiratebay.org/contact

        Oh, and my stuff does sell well BTW, but on the AppStore. My tax bill this year will be more than my salary was when I had a regular programming job the year before. I wonder if that's related to selling games on a platform that's much harder to pirate on?

        1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

          Gremlin Politico Assault and Flatter Batteries ....... Attacking AIdD Units with Sub Prime.

          Conservative Conventional Thinking for Petrifying Stagnant Growth.

          "I went to The Pirate Bay and they have a page saying basically don't bother emailing us to take down your copyrighted material because we don't give a shit. See: http://thepiratebay.org/contact" .... Sean O'Connor 1 Posted Monday 3rd May 2010 05:38 GMT.

          There is also a being-fixed glitch in servers hosting copyleft material to the Blog and ITs Transparent Semantic Web of Inter Relative Advanced Networking Clouds of Information and Intelligence for Knowledgeable Source Supply of Extensive and Expensive Valued Assets, which is odd, irregular and unconventional .... http://forum.suprbay.org/showthread.php?tid=63377&page=1

          And if it wasn't so Real would IT be a Dream Immersive Projection with Astute Tempest Technology Meme Management for Highly MkUltraSensitive Commend 42 Control Quantum Systems for Live Operational Virtual Environments. ........ with a Vast Choice Range of Feel the Pain and Glory of your Very Own Deed Journeys, made freely Available to leading to All Stations Chosen from Heaven to Hell. Imagine if your choice Delivered you the Terminus. What would have to Offer which was not already All Ready and already All Ready Already there? Something Miraculous and Magic towards the Center with Overwhelming Middle Ground Support for All working either Towards or Away from Both Extremely Optimistic Viewpoints,would surely be a Win Winner.

        2. A J Stiles
          FAIL

          Why?

          >Yes, maybe I made a mistake in choosing a career in digital media. But I'd see that as the fault

          >of freetards rather than mine.

          Why? Did you not know they were out there before you started, or something?

      2. This post has been deleted by its author

    3. Charley 1
      Pint

      This would include a version of Risk?

      Conquest was hardly an original idea, being yet another Risk clone. I have the crippled version on my machine here.

      The main reason I don't have the full version is that I don't have a credit card or a paypal account. If I found a full copy on TPB I might be tempted to down load it, then again I might not. Either way, it's not a lost sale to you.

      Getting all het up and emotional over it isn't going to solve anything, any more than the Sony guy's attitude did. Why not put the crippled version up as a torrent and increase your exposure, which might make you extra sales?

      Either way, from what I have seen you do run a good service and I have enjoyed playing the game you wrote. Although you would like to take money off me that I could otherwise use to feed my family, if I ever met you in person I would buy you a beer.

      Cheers.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Flame

      Asbestos underpants

      The torrent with your games has 12 (twelve) seeds. I think if you gave them away and asked for donations you'd be making more money than that. But I'm sure expecting to be paid for ideas you mooched ten years ago and polished to a fine sheen ever since is perfectly reasonable.

      AC, because I don't want to get punched in the face.

  4. Chris Hatfield
    Pirate

    Fascinating

    I believe all the stuff about people moving on to new projects. Clever computer geeks get bored & move no to new challenges/projects. They are no longer involved with the company that does the 'bulletproof hosting' for Wikileaks (www.prq.se).

    I suppose take downs are extremely difficult.

    So what if ThePirateBay went down? There's always ISOhunt! When the Digital Economy Act comes into law, people will just INNOVATE. (You've wasted your time, Mandy!)

    The 'rape' comment from the Sony BMG man was absurd! To use his anaology, he ought to expect a lot more. (You can't reverse innovation/technology)

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Coffee/keyboard

    Saving this quote for later

    "I feel that you raped me and raped my kids and you raped everybody I know and you're speaking to my face like you enjoyed it.'"

    I'm still laughing as I type this.

  6. The Indomitable Gall

    Hmm....

    Facilitated free copying then turned up and said: let's do something that makes money.

    I walks like blackmail and it quacks like blackmail....

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Long prison sentences for TPB boys is a good solution

    Just lock the scum boys up for 25 years and get on with life.

    1. mlo0352
      Grenade

      Really?

      You are dumb. No matter if what they did was illegal or not, 25 years? I believe that any and all punishment should be directly equal to the crime. 25 years (the base sentence for murder) is not equal in this case. soo....stfu

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Punishment equal to crime...

        mmm, and a murderer stuffs up just a few dozen people's lives per murder at most. Pirate bay have been facilitating stealing the livelihood of hundreds of thousands... Lets say that by their actions they've (by reducing standard of living) , reduced the life expectancy of 10,000 people by 3 months: that's 2500 years of human life destroyed... Most murders scarcely manage (including efect on families etc) to take away more than a few hundred.

        1. Mark O
          WTF?

          @Punishment equal to crime

          Are you actually serious? I though troll when I read your first post but when you come back with this bizarre maths of yours it makes me wonder...

          It's the same sort of logic that questions why a fraudster who steals millions gets a few months while an armed robber takes a hundred bucks and gets ten years. It's the sort of logic that measures a persons life in dollar terms. I think you are either an insurance underwritter or a criminal.

        2. Steen Hive
          FAIL

          Punishment for who does the 'crime'

          If there is a 'crime'.

          Hang the knife-makers, shoot the messengers, but don't let anything get in the way of punting retarded, statistical shit.

        3. heyrick Silver badge
          FAIL

          FAIL for missing the point

          "Let's say that"... No, let's not. Let's have some actual figures instead of some shit devised on a whim ... I don't sleep regularly, statistically that could cut my life expectancy by up to TEN years. Your three months is hardly a factor in that. Then there's smoking, doing drugs, and anything else a person can do which can affect their life expectancy, which can be as mundane as eating an overcooked burger in a greasy spoon (burnt = carcinogen, possible vCJD, other food poisoning from improper storing/handling/hygiene).

          Note, especially, that in your freaky 2500 years equation, NOBODY ACTUALLY DIES. This is like saying if the investment bankers stop dicking with the pension funds (which causes hardship to many old people), then they can instead murder some random cute girl in a shopping mall once a month because, hey, they are looking out for the many. The logic just doesn't add up. The figures are hokum.

          Now please look at http://www.negativland.com/albini.html which may or may not be correct, but at least the figures look plausible. This is important, because my accusation of you being FAIL is for arguing whether or not TPB guys should or should not burn in hell. You see, what happens to them is neither here nor there. Cheapskate freetardery aside, the point of this was evidently to attempt to show how screwed up the media companies perspective is. I don't, personally, think it is a point they made, however you cannot deny there is something highly suspicious about said companies swinging changes in law to give them more power and access and control than is ever justified by their creations, especially earlier versions of the French legislation (I live in France...) that permitted notification by email and then letter with NO obligation to state what said infringing content actually is, the ability to disconnect your internet access for a specific period without judicial recourse (dismissed as unconstitutional), plus the explicit ability to auto-spy on you for specific lengths of time following the sending of said email and/or letter. Does this sort of behaviour seem justified for ripping off a copy of "Avatar" or whatever is hot, given that there already exists an acceptable legal remedy for doing such? But hey, taking freetards to court is such a bloody bother, it is far easier to work with plenty of FUD and with a little luck they might even pull off accusing their critics with a bit of freetardery (especially if they don't have to state who/what/when). It's all good.

          And you, dear Anon Coward, think this is all for the good of the artist. What a sheep. Or maybe a shill. Kindly check your maths regarding the link I posted above, and ask yourself how much damage TPB could really have done to the scores of "lesser" artists (i.e the ones without millions in the bank and private jets) when their own labels, those that claim to represent them, are busy screwing them over pretty well.

          It isn't about freetards, they have always existed (remember "home taping is killing music"?), it is about the Cheyne-Stokes respiration of the media industry's model. The writing is on the wall, and for some reason it appears to be easier to corrupt our judicial systems than to reexamine their way of doing business. Well, whatever... I guess you missed all that in wanting to suggest the (unproven/unquantified) loss of 2500 years of life as being worse than actually murdering somebody.

        4. Steven Foster
          FAIL

          Wow...

          That's one of the most stupid things I've ever read.

  8. JimC
    WTF?

    > The companies take everything. It's a screwed up movement, they suck them dry.

    You know, I think this is just "the big lie". If you look at the Sunday Times rich list there are a lot more artists than record company executives on it... Sure every artist things the company takes too big a slice, and maybe they are right, but then I think the taxman takes too big a slice out of my income.

    I should have made a note of it, but I saw a piece on the BBC web site about the psychological tricks used by people who brake the law to justify it to themslves, and the freetards hit every one that interview is full of that kind of self justifying deception... Me, I'm with the Sony guy, but then there was a time when some of my income came out of music...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      There is a good reason

      why you will not find Record company execs on the rich list... it's because all the big record companies (like Sony) are publicly listed companies, so the obscene profits go to the shareholders (which often includes other corporations).

      As for the rich artists. notice how it's only the artists who have been around long enough to extricate themselves from the typical record contracts and negotiate deals that give them a bigger slice of the pie. The artists who have been around for only a handful of years, even if they are wildly successful are only earning pennies.

      The Sony guys statement is extremely ironic given that the record company business model basically boils down to raping both the artists and the consumer.

      1. MyHeadIsSpinning
        Gates Horns

        Shareholders

        AC said:- "so the obscene profits go to the shareholders (which often includes other corporations)."

        Yep - upvoted for that bit.

  9. Shane8
    Jobs Horns

    Buying a PS3

    Removing functions that was described on it and not giving refunds (partition PS3 for linux OS)....the only response i have is:

    "I feel that you raped me and raped my kids and you raped everybody I know and you're speaking to my face like you enjoyed it.".

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Thumb Down

      Um

      That took away your livelihood did it? The money you use to feed and put your kids through school etc?

      No, didn't think so ...

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Using Time as a weapon

    "We’re arguing because we can only do this before the election in Sweden on 19 September. We said any time between 1-14 September is OK. But they’re saying it can’t happen until 20 September, which is obviously for political reasons."

    Without taking sides one way or the other, but trying to get some balance.... Forget Piracy for a moment...

    I see this tactic used in the United States all the time now. In conjunction with legislating law which protects corrupt officials crimes--especially when it comes to elections!

  11. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge
    Boffin

    Irregular and Unconventional Disruptive is the New PostModern Virtual Traditional

    "Instead Sunde is residing in Berlin beavering away at a new project..." ...... Anything more than just interesting? Something Cloudy and SMART would be Real Nice and have Lots of Layers of Instant Fabulous Friends which would be Capable of Doing Anything and Everything ..... such is the Nature of Internet Space Powers.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    It's not about them...

    The court case, and the complainers, are missing the point. TPB and other torrenting sites cannot be blamed on a few people. If these four guys hadn't set up TPB, somebody else would have. Piracy is part of internet culture. Trying to stop torrenting by sueing them is like trying to stop the tide with a sandbag.

    1. thesmj
      Thumb Up

      My thoughts exactly

      I couldn't have said it better myself. People are always going to download music/movies/TV shows just because its easy to do, and they can. Trying to scare people into stopping by suing less than 0.0001% of the perpetrators won't get you anywhere and you'll end up spending more on lawyers than you would have on lost revenue.

      The only solution would be to change the product itself in such a way that the end user would get a lot more out of the product by having a legitimate copy, such as an online service with new/changing content

      . Offering "special deals" with lower prices also helps curb people from piracy. Just look at Steam game sales.

  13. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Flame

    *Never* about the artists, always the *rights* holders

    When do you see an "artist" in court?

    When do you see record companies in court?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      > never about the artists, always about the rights holders

      Well fancy that. Do you suppose it might just be because dealing with that sort of crap is what the record companies get their cut for?

  14. b166er
    Black Helicopters

    Awwwww

    So Sony make pots and kettles now too?

    Hey Rge, where's the 'I'm splitting my sides' icon?

    I'll use the chopper as a roflcopter for now.

  15. James Woods

    let sony with it's glass windows be the first to cast a stone

    Rape? Let's talk about rape in this business.

    How about outsourcing jobs to undercut the US market and piggishly profit from it.

    How about implementing anti-piracy firms that use gestapo like tactics to threaten people.

    If you make a decent product, for a decent price, and your company isn't outsourcing or doing other immoral things then people will buy your stuff.

    People aren't going to buy your stuff if your outsourcing to cut costs, but at the same time have your name on a stadium or have television commercials.

    Im not pointing specifically at Sony here, but wake up and smell the roses.

    I've been handed this liberal argument for years that "how would you like your line of work stolen for free". Peoples work is stolen, it's called Taxation without representation, we pay about 30+% of it here each year.

    Maybe sony should just close up and sell womens shoes, can't pirate those, but you can make em with child labor sony!

  16. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

    Charged for Thinking and Making Money from Thought ... Nice Easy Work when Shared in Deed, indeed

    Intellectual Property is always just an Idea and probably also a Number of Thoughts strung together to create a Bigger Idea. No one can claim them as exclusively theirs, and if one can get some Smug Mug in a Zoot Suit in a Phishy Business which preys on and milks and/or supports and nurtures Intellectual Property Artists/Generators/Source Code Lode Wells to pay you for those fabulous ideas, Bravo, but don't for a moment think that those ideas shared must be paid for by everyone, whenever they are provided originally for Free from Nothing but Thought.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The only good pirate is dead

    The only good pirate is dead or in prison.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    "I can’t prove that I don’t have a bank account somewhere with lots of money."

    Neither can I.

    Suspicious, eh?

  19. Ole Juul

    Gate keeping

    What strange arguments come up here. Of course everyone needs money. How you get it is not always connected with where the value lies. In this case we are making a random connection with artistic value and a digital record - to me that is absurd.

    Since when is a recording "music"? I've played music for over half a century, (yes, I play well) and although I agree that getting money for anything is indeed a way to make a living, a recording is still only a recording. Let's pay musicians when they play and not for a recording of when they once did. That is a random gate to guard.

    In a digital economy, the people who pay for a recording are the ones getting raped. I'd be in favour of paying all artists just for their existence, but not for a digital copy of something they've once done.

    If royalties represented real value then what is stopping everyone else from also demanding them? I can't imagine paying royalties on everything that we use daily. I've paid the plumber, electrician, bricklayer, and all the other artists for their work and now I get to use the fruits of their labour. Charging for the use of a recording used to be a viable way to get some well deserved money into the hands of musicians but it is a random, and no longer viable, way to do it. Let's find some other way then.

    1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

      Bounteous Gate Keepers are an Alien IDEntity in Virtuous Office Space and QuITe Phreaky too:-)

      If the Human Mindset dDefaulted to All Born Unbelievably Wealthy and Gifted would Unbelievable Great Fortunes be Gifted to All with AIGlobal Operating Devices. And thus would IT be Free from NEUKlearer HyperRadioProActive IT with Immaculate Virgin Server ProVision of XSSXXXXPerienced XPEditionary Sources and Phorm Swarms........Disruptive Constructive EMPWaves.

      Is that within the Ken of a Savvy President into Virtual Reality Controls for Future Human Alien Space Flight and Virtual TelePortation with Quantum Communication, ITs Commend 42 Control Operating System and AIdDynamic Driver ...... for Astonishing Advanced and Astute Super Sublime Hypervisor Travels ....... Incredible Journeys in Deed, indeed.

      [Message to Self .... Slow down, you Move too Fast to Festing Feasts for Fated Feats for Fetes and Knightly Celebration, although such is the Original Speed of Human Creation, whereas Nature Populated the Planet with Flora and Fauna, Ages before even that Miracle, right at the Beginning and in the Beginning there is Everything to Play For and to Play Form with IntelAIgent Phorms and CyberIntelAIgent Beings.

      AIMissive to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. <ping> [Send]

    2. Peter Kay

      You might have a point if a program could be created in a day - but not even then

      If you fancy playing a copy of the latest RPG, are you prepared to pay the salaries of upwards of a hundred programmers for a year? If not, perhaps other methods apply.

      Likewise, every time I play a copy of Sibelius, I'm not fond of hiring an entire orchestra for an hour..

      A brickie is fully entitled to try selling his services on a royalty basis, but unsurprisingly the market doesn't support it. Who knows, maybe someone will one day create houses sold on a royalty basis, where all contractors have ongoing royalty payments.

      All things considered, I think people paying for a recording are doing quite well. I still prefer physical media, but given that it's possible to buy single tracks now, consumers are managing to avoid paying over the odds for albums mostly filled with crap.

      Personally I'd rather pay for recordings - it's very convenient, and often cheaper than dashing all around the country after music I like.

  20. Boris the Cockroach Silver badge

    1 thing

    strike me

    How come Sony et al make DVD burners and the discs to go with them?

    Surely that encourages more pirating than any internet site.

    <crook #1> I've just downloaded the latest film from pirate bay

    <crook #2> Great, lets use this sony disc burner and DVDs to make 10 000 copies and sell them at £5 a pop 3 months before Sony release the official DVD at £30 a pop

    3 months later

    <sony exec> Our new DVD release is'nt selling, It must be those evil pirate bay people... lets sue 'em

    <underling> Hey boss, got the disc research division on the phone, they figured out a way of making a burner that will record 3 terabytes onto a disc.

    <sony exec> Great, price them at £200 each and shove them on the market asap

  21. Ed 11

    Move on

    There was a time it was possible to make a living in much of the UK by being a miner, but the world changed, economics changed, and the industry now supports far less people. Maybe it is time for record label executives and artists to follow their lead and find something else to pay the bills if music is not working for them. The world has changed and if they can not adapt or deal with it they should find another way to feed themselves and their families and bloody stop whining all the time.

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Has the record industry done a Scientology?

    Is it me or have most of the "Pirates must die" posts been written by the same person?

    I for one would like to know what "game" Sean O'Connor 1 third from top wrote that got ripped on pirate bay.

    Unfortunately there are two types of developer

    1. Enthusiasts who create for purely for the pleasure of creation ( you can spot their code it does what it says on the tin and is freely updated )

    2. Money Grubbers who create nothing themselves but employ coders and sell the latters work at massive profit ( again easy to spot it typicaly doesn't work properly and the updates are mostly bug fixes I think because thesoftware requirements are not defined by the user but by marketting bods)

    Unfortunately what normally happens is that if the Enthusiasts attempt to sell their finished product they end up going bust or being bought out by the money Grubbers.

    I agree it is wrong to take something without permission however if the author posted his paypal account details and his work is worth something he would get paid. Buskers don't hold a knife to their audiences throat but I have noticed they still get paid even when they are rubbish.

    IP is all theft nobody works alone, so why should only one person benefit from the communal effort

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      The evidence doesn't support that

      Just as in other markets, sometimes it is simply not economic to create the product the market desires.

      It's possible for both commercial and indie game creators to make money from their wares, but it differs based on the platform and the genre. In short : some games are pirated much more than others. Anyone making a FPS without deep pockets needs their head examining.

      Neither is it true that 'if the author posted their paypal account they would get paid'. Again, direct evidence does not support that. There are certain price points that work, although that's a complex situation too. The baseline is : people attach value to items, and pricing at a level associates that level of value with the item. Don't believe me? Go and check out some of the stats for game developers willing to release their sales figures.

      As to 'IP is all theft, nobody works alone' - each person creates their part of the jigsaw and either sells it or gives it away. That is the end of their revenue. If they want to keep getting paid, they insist on runtime licenses.. You can't, however, make a decision to sell for free/flat fee then complain when it's included in a multimillion selling title and you receive the same small fee.

      Without wishing to get into the argument about whether Sean's games are worth anything I would say :

      a) They're selling on the iPhone but not Windows. Clearly they have value. Both markets are large, so it may or may not be true the Windows market has certain flaws.

      b) Some of his games may be derivative, but you're describing games full stop there. A lot of FPSes/RPGs/shmups are playable but lack innovation. Where do you draw the line where self appointed arbiters of taste decide it is worth paying money for?

      If there are only an oft quoted four original plots in existance, why isn't everyone only buying four games/books etc and reading them repeatedly rather than buying or pirating extra media?

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Sorry Sean is this you?

    http://www.windowsgames.co.uk/slay.html

    Nice, Sean if someone did rip off your code they should be locked up but not for theft.

    I seem to recognise some of the game themes, I presume you credited the original idea developers, rather than say just changing something minor and selling it as an original concept

    1. Shakje

      I don't want to burst his bubble

      but it would cost me 28 quid to get a CD with his 13 games on. For 8 quid (the additional cost he charges for burning a CD and mailing it) I can get Medieval II Total War on free delivery (I mean come on, you're charging $20 for Conquest?). Which covers (significantly better) about 4 of the games. Adding on Madden 2010 is 18 quid which covers the American footbal angle. Or let's say you prefer the board game angle, you can get Fritz 12 for 18 quid (my preferred analysis engine), or say you prefer the arcadey thing, which looks kind of like asteroids, how about getting a pack of 200 arcade games for £6 (Games Arcade)?

      Your games aren't selling well on PC has nothing to do with piracy, it's just that they're horribly outdated, and whatever the reviews say, if someone sees those screenshots (they look like they've been designed for a BBC..), or even the word turn-based, they won't have any inclination to buy it, especially for the extortionate price you are charging, when there's far better looking, better playing, and more functionally rich games for cheaper. I suspect that the reason they do well on the mobile platforms is because, in my experience, mobile games from big publishers are an afterthought, and generally shit, overpriced, and graphically either poor, or resource-intensive, thus gameplay is more of an issue, and most big publishers don't seem to have a clue about getting gameplay right on mobile platforms. Your games are the exact sort of game that people will generally not feel the need to buy, but might see it as an interesting distraction on a torrent site. If even one of those people buys your game I would count illegal downloading as a success for you.

      My advice is to concentrate on mobile platforms or at least target game ideas that haven't been built upon significantly in the last twenty years. At the very least re-examine what you're charging for games..

  24. Richard 12 Silver badge
    FAIL

    A lot of spectacular point missing going on here

    TPB did not and does not host any infringing works - it's a search service, similar to a map.

    Compare the Internet with a city that has many regions and slums. You can go to this city and find many things - some wholesome, some distinctly unsavoury.

    Somebody might make a map of this city and its slums to help you find what you are looking for - and maybe avoid the less savoury parts thereof.

    If you don't like something you find in any city, asking the map makers to remove it is foolish - they do not have that power!

    TPB did the same thing. They created a map of the slums of the Internet. They didn't create those slums - they just made it slightly easier to find things within them.

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    @Sean

    Had a look at the game listed that you developed and published - Slay. Now, to quote your site;

    "This game is pure strategy! It's a work of genius. Brilliant AI. Engaging turn-based multiplayer strategy. Sid Meier, eat your heart out!" - GameSpy.com

    Being an avid Gamespy/IGN user/abuser and frequest review contributer I though I'd look up the reviews on your work where such a comment was made, and do you know what I found? An overview. No reviews written, either user contributed or otherwise. Not a single one. Check yourself http://uk.cheats.gamespy.com/web-games/slay/ - nothing, not a bean.

    Now I'm not outright saying Gamespy didn't give you a rave review, telling their readers that your product was better than Sid's Civ games. What I am saying is that there is no record of such a review on the site you purport. Obviously, someone of such stout moral fibre, someone who believes in death to pirates and other who use dishonest means to profit from other people, wouldn't lie about such things being said, but I'd appreciate if you could please support the claims made in your sales pitch.

  26. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Please save us from ...

    ... pompous junior detectives.

    get over yourselves

  27. Stephen Byrne
    WTF?

    Oh for God's sake shut up AC

    @AC,

    seriously, so bloody what if he made up a testimonial? Maybe it did exist in the past and was removed for some reason, but of course, in your mind, if you can't find it on the internets then it must be a lie. FFS, grow up.

    Ad-hominem attacks are the lowest of the low, what has his own private morality got to do with the subject under discussion? Typical freetard attitude.

    It's not about whether he is a nice person. It's not about whether or not his creations suck. It's about the fact that HE created them, HE owns the rights to them and HE has a moral right to decide how and by whom it gets distributed, and whether or not it gets given out for free or is paid for.

    Also, all this talk about the record labels raping artists - I have yet to hear of a record label exec holding a gun to a band's head and forcing them to sign a contract. (Forcing them to do multiple retakes, yes, Phil Spector did that as we all know). Claiming that the artists are being raped is like complaining that volunteers in the army get killed in combat.

    I will agree though that the Sony exec's comments were pure pot-kettle stuff though.

    1. Chris Harden

      Not a personal attack

      I think the ACs point wasn't that the game sucked, it was that the review was made up and the idea was stolen.

      So, equivilant to me doing a cover of a song and selling it for money without permission.

      I'm not saying I agree or not, although from the screen shots I swear I've seen similar games out there in the wild.

    2. Shakje

      He does actually appear like a nice person

      but he seems to have seen his product being shared and jumped to the assumption that he's not making money because they're being pirated. The games when you look at the price of them just aren't worth it (especially for the price you're paying for them you can get at least two or three games that are better in terms of graphics, sound, design and functionality, and if the testimonials are false, or don't exist anymore I'd say they're the only reason someone might pay a second look to the games. It's obviously very difficult to be an indie game dev, but you've got to make some effort to match the current state of play.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Depends on your market

        It's true that his games look dated, but strategy games are sold on AI - not visuals. Without playtesting it's difficult to see if they match up to more modern games or not.

        Chasing after the state of the art is a losers game unless you have large resources behind you. It's true that people expect /some/ graphics and a friendly UI is definitely not optional, but once the base standard has been achieved adding gameplay is more important. Otherwise, the indie dev will find themselves pitted not just against full price new games, but cut price older games.

        Having said all that, unfortunately conventional wisdom also says that strategy gamers don't tend to pirate - it's the big ticket items like the FPSes, similar action games and huge RPGs that are copied. Therefore, unless there's some specific exception around the wargaming community, it probably means the games aren't popular/good, regardless of pirating.

        If unoriginal games were banned, it'd eliminate well over 95% of FPS and RPGs and nigh on 100% of racing games.. Monkey Island would have stopped at number one and Day of the Tentacle would never have been made.

        1. Mayhem

          dated?

          His reviews were certainly honest and accurate at the time of publishing, but the changing world of the internet means half of them will have vanished ten years later.

          The problem he has now is that he's trying to do the classic trick and coast on his past successes.

          He started off with mostly clones of tabletop games, but did them well, and Slay was definitely addictive and entertaining, but I owned a copy for Palm Pilot in oh, 2003 I think. Looking at his website, he released a final version in 2004 and hasn't really done anything to it since.

          In fact he seems to have released only one new game in the last two years, which is a dated looking populous clone for Iphone. I find myself agreeing with the original AC, it isn't piracy that is hurting his income, it is his business model. He has a good touch with writing AI, but only average skills at art. What he needs to do is contract someone to update all his art models and then he can repackage all his older games as modern reissues for whatever platform he likes - the underlying AI will hook in players, but the screenshots and art models are what will sell it to them originally. He can also offer the older version with no changes at half or quarter the price

  28. justinwregier
    Pirate

    The Pirate Bay

    Im not sure where I fit into this string of comments but I just read the article and I must admit I have some thoughts. First and foremost I am a fan of the Pirate Bay. The site is not what it once was and that is a shame. Of course this statement may be twisted to implications of use and/or distribution of copyrighted material but then any and all comments here related to TPB probably could be used in such a way. I have never met the individuals behind the site but I would enjoy a coffee and conversation with them. The perspective that media in our current age is corrupt is well beyond what words can convey (maybe in another language besides english) yet the possible dialog would be awesome. As like so many people out there I personally support the artists I like. Typically I like to listen to music before I buy it which make record shopping these days some times difficult. Considering the gems out there I understand that talent has value but honestly if music cant be heard for free before I decide to buy... my money is not being spent easily. A concept like TPB intended is amazing! Imagine the bar it would raise if the albums are free and available for hard copy purchase! RADIOHEAD...

    Anyway I am able to rant on and on but regardless of my opinions TPB has pissed off some wealthy bodies and that is just another example of the person vs the governing majority. Digital or any other medium there will always be the rise of another way, a way that is different and not accepted because profits control the choice.

    A manifesto is being written somewhere right now. A political agenda is destroying freedoms somewhere right now. A person is being born somewhere right now. A person is dying somewhere right now.

    Cheers to absolutes and long live (TPB) ideals that challenge the standard.

  29. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

    Or does Tomorrow just happen with no Input from Today and the Future isn't Planned for Delivery?

    "You might have a point if a program could be created in a day - but not even then " ... Peter Kay Posted Tuesday 4th May 2010 11:58 GMT

    Every program created is only valid and ever Live for One ZerodDay, Tomorrow, with Today being Spent Presenting IT in a Sublime Pimp if it be Irregular and Unconventional and Constructively Disruptive and Virtually Subversive.

    Share Plans for Tomorrow Today builds the Future, with Linking Bits which Daily Grow and Change Dramatically as New Ideas Emerge to Create Big Societies with Greater Ideas because of Information and Intelligence Received/Transmitted/XSSXXXXChanged.

    And because IT Can with Human Knowledge now Advanced enough to Fly ITs Controls and Lead a SMART Course into Fabulous Fields Full of Perfectly Crazy Transparently Shared Inner Secret Dreams/True Desires ...... which you might like to Imagine and Realise is Heavenly. ...... and 4Paradise2 Virtual Programming for Cloud Applications and Shelf Promotions/Sensible Underground Investment in MkUltraSensitive and Stealthy Issues.

  30. sisk

    Ineffective Litigation

    Here's the thing with TPB: Even if you somehow shut it down (like that's ever going to happen) something else is ready to take its place. And something will be ready when you take down its replacement. Basically so long as the record companies, movie studies, and software vendors stick to outdated business models, they loose. The smart ones are looking for ways to make money off filesharing rather than leaving it in the hands of pirates. The dumbest are the ones throwing money at lawyers to make piracy go away. Right or wrong sites like TPB are here to stay. Pressing charges on TPB founders is an exercise in futility.

    The really ironic thing about the whole mess is that a lot of companies efforts to stop piracy have turned the pirates into the good guys in a lot of eyes. DRM poses little hindrance to a pirate, but a legit user runs into all kinds of problems with the latest DRM ideas.

    And then there's that comment about Sony feeling raped. A company that charges $12 for a cd that costs them maybe $2 a piece to make (I'm being generous) and gives the artist anywhere from a dime to 50 cents of the profits....I'm sorry, who should be feeling raped here? Surely not the record executive.

  31. This post has been deleted by its author

  32. mark jacobs
    Coat

    Just think about it...

    All media amounts to a stream of 1's and 0's. If I circulate an MP3 file of Shakira's "She Wolf", I can get into trouble with the copyright owners. If I distribute a file of 1's and 0's and an executable that moves these bits around to form a stream identical to the MP3 file, could that be construed as copyright infringement? IMHO, I reckon it's time to let this go - all digital media cannot be copyrighted because it depends on bitwise interpretation. If I XOR all bits with my name, it wouldn't be copyrightable any more. If I then distribute this and tell people to XOR the file with my name, they would end up with a playable MP3 file, yet I haven't broken copyright. How do the big music companies going to deal with that? This DRM wrangling has gone on too long and it is getting ridiculous. A bit torrent is just that, a stream of ones and zeroes, so WTF are we paying for? Bit patterns?

  33. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Eh?

    ""If I XOR all bits with my name, it wouldn't be copyrightable any more."

    Says who? Are you simply talking out your ass or are you a copyright lawyer or otherwise familiar with copyright law?

    "If I then distribute this and tell people to XOR the file with my name, they would end up with a playable MP3 file, yet I haven't broken copyright. How do the big music companies going to deal with that?"

    Laws against distributing encrypted copyrighted media (I wouldn't be surprised if they exist already, but either way it's hardly an enigma that the legal system has no chance to cope with). Detection is more difficult, but by no means impossible. Most people downloading copyrighted media do so from unencrypted websites that list media descriptions in plaintext, and encrypted files require a key to decrypt (e.g. your name) which you need to be able to make use of the media. Unless your key distribution channel is completely safe, you are vulnerable. If your key distribution channel is completely safe, then you can just use it to send the media anyway and don't need to bother with the XORing.

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