Pirate Bay Owner Speaks in a TV Interview

After being charged for conspiracy, the owners of Pirate Bay began to try to gain the support of torrent users. For some reason, I was not surprised when I heard that the "corporation" has millions of dollars in assets, all accumulated by advertising. They probably even have lawyers of their own.

If Pirate Bay goes down, we may see some boycotting, actually millions of boycots. So how do we bring down piracy when the entertainment industry and dissatisfaction keeps inflating?

I don't really care if Pirate Bay makes millions from it's advertisers. If the advertisers want to place ads let them. I 'll never click on them. AS long as the downloads remain free I'm happy. There are plenty of torrents sites not profiting and if PB goes undr there will be plenty sites to take it's place. I'm not going to judge the owner of PB. Actually, I envy him.

He's like that girl blogging and making millions when she's 16. I can see why you're jealous, but I'm pretty sure that all those torrent sites make money by posting porn ads and gaming ads so consider pirating a industry as well.

We all have probably seen material on the web that was in violation of some copyright law. For example, the news report you see when you click on the link in this thread may arguably violate the copyright laws of the U.S. That is not to say that people who frequently and habitually go to sights like Pirate bay and download copyrighted material for free are in the right.

Intellectual property rights have been created not just to reward artists for the fruits of their labors, but to create an incentive for artists to invest their money, time, and energy into producing quality art. If you buy pirated music, not only are you taking revenue out of artists' pockets, but you are discouraging the production of quality art. Quality art is expensive to produce. It is usually made by professional writers, musicians, film makers, actors, and computer programmers who have dedicated their professional lives to honing their skills. It also often requires capital like film making equipment, recording equipment, computers, etc. If producers of art cannot profit off their art, they will be unable to get the capital or the skilled professional artists they need to produce the art.

If piracy goes unabated, we may live in a world where few if any people are willing to invest in producing quality art. This means that all we will have to entertain ourselves are blurry home movies on youtube made by attention whoring teenagers. I for one would much rather live in a society where I could have access to movies, music, and televison shows that are produced by people that are masters of their craft.

I know many people say that the level of artistry in pop culture is low, and that they should be able to pirate movies because they are not worth paying for. While it is true that there is a large amount of bad pop music and movies out there, this does not mean people should pirate the movies and music. If movies and music are so horrible that they are not worth waiting for, they are not worth the space on your hard drive. If you are worried about the quality of art in popular culture, you should not pirate bad movies, but support good pop culture by lawfullly paying for it.

reply to post by hotpinkurinalmint


I DL it. If I like it, I buy it.

I refuse to pay $15-20 on a cd with two good songs.

Maybe if the RIAA stops screwing bands and their fans over . . . or maybe if the industry would release worthwhile music . . .

I refuse to pay $10 for a movie ticket (and $30 for Coke and popcorn). I do not understand how they can rape me for so much money . . . and then put 30 minutes of ads before the movie to make more money, and then complain because I refuse to go watch it. If I go to the movies.

I refuse to pay $70+ for a program that MIGHT work on my PC, and that MIGHT have what I need. For instance, I edit videos. I am not going to pay %100's of dollars to find the program that suits me. I DL each of them. I find the one that works for me, and then I buy it.

reply to post by xxpigxx

I agree with you ive wasted hundreds over the past few years for terrible software, i DL and make sure its suitable for me and my needs, nothing worse than buying something which then tries to take over your computer because you have limited control, and i believe this is where a lot of programers falter, they dont all consider what effect it will have on my pc's, and why should they? every pc is different, they cant suit all, unfortunately there is a policy in place in almost all stores of no returns once the item is opened, how can i tell if it is suitable if i cant open it? that part as far as i am concerned is the scam.

Yeah sure there are those who would open it and copy it then return it, that is not my problem, a lot of web sites offer trial periods but there is always a catch, which is normally restricted use or some options unavailable,

I also use piratebay for DL tv shows ive missed which is not harming anybody, i will buy what i like and delete what i dont.

The entertainment industry is its own enemy, signing artists and lending them vast amounts of money to tour ETC, but then the artist ends up working for buttons while they pay back the companies, and believe me i speak from personal experience being a drummer for a well known metal band in the 80's, we got ripped off big time until we changed labels after 3 years, only then when we got control of our material did we start to benefit but that was long ago and another lifetime ago.

Of course the likes of piratebay have to have advertising they offer a free service they have to pay for it somehow, im even a member of a well known torrent site which i donate too, then you have to consider the people who just cannot afford to go buy a cd or dvd, are they not to be entertained?

I fear this will be the end of piratebay but as most of the users know they already have a backup site. Also the piratebay has cleaned its torrents and does often to remove porn from the site as it is uploaded, i just hate being ripped off by a smarmy millionaire who cares for nothing but their bank balance, while sitting on billions of artists hard earned money.

The music industry has changed so much artists hardly make money from recording anymore, the revenue is made by touring which IMO should be the way it is, let the public see you and participate, a good example is the band System of a Down and their cd--- steal this cd--- i know its a title but its also a statement on behalf of the consumer, and i have that from the horses mouth.

reply to post by xxpigxx


You do not have to pay full price to legally enjoy a movie or music. The entertainment industry practices price discrimination. You can download the one or two songs you like off of a CD legally by paying for them or you can buy the single. You do not have to pay $30 to see a movie in a theater. You can legally rent the movie or watch it on TV. As one of the other posters pointed out, some softwares have 30 day trial periods.

reply to post by azzllin


Correct me if I am wrong, but from what I understand only the very top artists (Like Elvis or the Beatles) ever made money off of record royalties. The system was always set up so musicians would make virtually all their money on touring.

From what I understand this creates a symbiotic relationship between record companies and musicians. (although some musicians would call the relationship parasitic) The record companies promotoe the bands and help them sell concert tickets. The bands tour, which helps the record companies sell records.

Even though you are not taking much from the artists directly if you pirate music, you are taking from them indirectly. Artists need the record companies to promote their tours. If the record companies cannot promote them, the artists will not be able to make touring money.

But even if you can successfully argue it is okay to pirate music because it does not really hurt musicians, you are still hurting the movie industry and software industry by pirating their goods. Screenwriters, actors, directors, and computer programmers cannot collect money in some other way like musicians can.

This whole idea that music and video downloads are bad has been very interesting to me anyway.

There are two types of media organizations that exist at the moment. Lets call one the 'New Media' and the other the 'Old Media'. An example of new media would be iTunes, DrudgeReport, Lulu, or Newegg and even torrent sites. These organizations mostly exist on the internet and are rapidly being adopted by new users constantly. They have embraced the utility of the internet and its accessability and relatively low overhead. The old media are companies like Virgin Record stores, The New York Times, movie studios, and TV stations. These companies have stuck to their root means of doing business, and have largely shied away from new ways of doing business.

Movie, television, and music industries largely see the internet as a threat to their traditional ways to create profits. Like a poster said, people hate buying a crappy CD for 20 bucks when there is a minority of good material on them. Why got to the traditional record store when you ca
n punch up iTunes and spend under 5 bucks for the good stuff? And if its not on iTunes, die hards know about Limewire and torrents to get their fix.

As far as movies are concerned, when is the last time anyone went to a cinema and tried watching some of this crap? Granted a few movies have been decent and watchable, but for the most part, everything coming out of Hollywood is complete garbage. If I take a date to the movies, that little outing is going to set me back $50 if I am lucky. If its a crap movie, I might be able to get some other interesting things going on, but then I would have wasted $50 to do something I could have done at home. Most movies now are regurgitated puke that isnt worth the effort to make. If it looks marginal, I will download a horrible cam of the film and give it a look. If I think its good, I probably will go see it.

The problem here is these big companies are in such a hurry to release new stuff that quality is left somewhere else. If the record companies would give (and I use this term very loosely) artists some more time to work on their stuff, I think better material would be released, which would prompt better sales. However the problem is greater than that. When is the last time anyone bought a CD? I honestly cant remember when I bought a CD. I purchase all my audio from iTunes or similar sources. The CD is obsolete. Record companies should make the albums downloadable. It would even save them money on packaging and distribution. Movie studios to a lesser extent should do the same, but the infastructure of the Internet probably would collapse on itself if a few million GB movie files were being moved around.

Newspapers and traditional print media have felt the squeeze for years. The Internet has been around widely for nearly 15 years. In that time, you will see that the subscription rate of the top two newspapers, The New York Times and the LA Times has dropped like a rock. While they have adjusted to keep selling papers, there is just less demand for traditional print media. Why pay 50c for a newspaper when you can find an unlimited amount of news that you want to read for nearly nothing? The demographic for newspaper subscribers is largely people over 50 years old.

Simply, the Old Media should really be figuring out how to restructure itself so that it can sell its wares. Instead we have organizations like the RIAA going after 12 year olds.