Pirate Bay co-founders lost

Whether it is stealing or not, there is absolutely nothing anyone can do to stop this.

Artists/Musicians/Filmmakers and Writers need to stop living in the past.
For those who have seen Ian Xel Lungolds lecture about the Mayan Calander on video.google will understand this completely.

The consciousness of the worlds population keeps evolve and advance and with it the technology advances too.

We have reached a level of consciousness where we through technology allows ourselves to do most of our needs on a big network we call Internet.
The internet is not a software you can shut off, it is nothing you can control fully.

People care less and less for the physical things like cd's, mini discs, dvd's etc.
People want it on the computer, on their mp3 player, on their "FruitPhone" and so on. And since the companies and the artists/writers etc don't follow the flow and still try to sell the physical stuff both in the stores and online people choose to download it.

This will become piracy BECAUSE most of the owners of the materials don't want to move with the flow. You all need to see that a new era is upon us where people just don't care for cd's anymore. You need to take a new approach.

Instead of trying to fight it....embrace it.
Find new ways of earning your money. As said before, Spotify seem to have understand it all.

Movie companies and others will ever never be able to earn money in the same way they did a few years ago. In my opinion, this is "ment" to happen. It's just a part of the advancement of consciousness we been going through since the beginning of the creation of universe. ( deep I know, again...Ian Xel Lungold, worth watching )


I can also agree with what some have said here.
If an Artist believes that everyone that downloaded his/her work would have bought it if internet was "shut down", he shall think again.

Many Artists, atleast here in Sweden, have had more fans that buys their merchandise and comes to their concerts and refers them to friends etc just because their materials are more available than others.

I believe, if you play your cards right, you gain more than loosing by the file sharing.

So, to sum it up.

Stop put energy into arguing whether it is illegal or not. This is unstoppable, and the more you fight it, the stronger it gets.

EMBRACE IT TO CONTROL IT!

Now, the above is not really going in the same direction as the topic, so I will also add this.

To prosecute TPB and give them a verdict as they have is like prosecuting the roadworker that made the road where the drunk driver kills a child.

Same thing with Google.
If you use the search engine you can find the exact same tracker link as TPB would provide.
The difference is that Google have a lot bigger "database" that just don't only include torrent trackers.


So no matter what you say, google do the same thing, they are not just dedicated to it.

But as I wrote before:

200 000 SEK ( Swedish Crowns ) which is 23 700 Dollars.
Is the damage fee you have to pay the parents whos kids you have murdered.

The damage fee TPB have to pay for having torrents on a server..

31.000.000 SEK which is 3,670,700 USD.

THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS!!!

To get a damage fee of 3,670,700 USD because you made the road while the drunk driver who killed the child only have to pay 23 700 USD seems to be a little over the top eh?

And lastly, I think the greediness people talk about comes from the fact that, even if the company looses a few dollars, they still earn more than enough to keep going. But they still insists of milking every drop of money out of our pockets with the outrageous prizes.

And this is, I think, when the consciousness reach the level where people started to understand how much the prizes really are compared to the making of it, the reason why people started to share the files from the beginning.

[edit on 18-4-2009 by Akezzon]

You make some great points Akezzon.

I'd just like to add - the media corporations' main argument that free file sharing destroys their industry is the best argument in favour of its continuance.

A world in which our information and entertainment is no longer produced, controlled and distributed by multinational corporations will be far less toxic.

i agree, downloading content can't be stopped. I don't have a solution. but copyright law is there to protect the creator. the creator has the sole right to make copies, distribute them and charge a fee for their use, or offer them for free. the consumer does not have the right to decide the fee or decide that it should be free.

yes it probably does create some new sales by allowing people to try before they buy. but im certain that a vast majority of downloaders have no intention of buying. by the way almost every cd store has listening stations where you can try any cd before you buy.

why should you pay for it if you don't have to? because it's not yours. it belongs to someone else.

radio and television station pay license fees for permission to play the music and pass the cost on to the listener through advertising.

i'm not advocating the criminalization of torrent users or of the pirate bay people. I am trying to counter the idea that the creator of a work does not have the sole right to control that work.

a product is a product to the owner too. and in many instances the product represents years of personal effort. just because its online does not make it public domain.

This is personal for me, i am a composer and I own a production music publishing and licensing company that i am trying to get going. if everyone believes that they have the right to download my music, and the music that I represent for free, then I don't have a business. I take a loss and the composers i represent take a loss. and if this happens on a larger scale, there will ultimately be no revenue for the music industry and therefore no new product.

music and film recordings are products like any other but their CONTENT is unique from other consumer goods because it does not exist in a physical form. it exists only with the passage of a certain amount of time. a CD or DVD is NOT the product. the content on them IS. and that content only exists when you hit play. and when the track or film is over, the product does not exist, unless you play it again. when you purchase a CD or DVD you are purchasing a license; the permission to hit play and experience the content. whether you experience it once or hundreds of times, you have fulfilled your end of the license agreement. you have used it. you can't get your money back if you don't like it, just like you cant get a refund from a concert or movie theater if you don't like it. because you are not buying a physical thing. you are buying the content. you can hold a CD or DVD in your hand, but you can't hold a song or film. they only exist in time and in your perception.

if you want to buy a dress and return it, fine, you can do that. but not if you use it first.
if you copy the design, you're committing a crime.
if you buy a cd and use it, you can't return it.
if it is unopened and therefore unused, you can return it.

Originally posted by Akezzon

Artists/Musicians/Filmmakers and Writers need to stop living in the past.

So these people should not be able to be compensated fairly for what they do? They should just find some other way to make a living?

So I guess the next step is that Firefighters and Policemen should not be paid for what they do because they ultimately serve the public, right?

reply to post by conwaylemmon

if you want to buy a dress and return it, fine, you can do that. but not if you use it first.

Clothes are tried on in dressing rooms by tens of people before it even leaves the store as a bought item.
Most brand new clothes on hangers are already "used" if you take that into consideration.
But it doesn't stop people from buying it if they really want it.
Which is my whole point really. IF people want something they will BUY it.
Music and movies are no different whether they've been heard or seen before on torrents. If people like it they will BUY IT.

I'd also like to add that I know of a site online where you are PAID to listen to new music and act as an A and R person by filling in questionaires after listening to each song. There are hundreds of people listening to these songs and they are rated. The higher rating artists are offered recording contracts.

The industry are already years behind with torrents where people are listening to new stuff for FREE how many decades do you think it will take them to get their heads around PAYING US to listen to new stuff.


[edit on 18-4-2009 by Flighty]

[edit on 18-4-2009 by Flighty]

reply to post by RCarter


Uhmm...read the whole post.

What I mean, is that they can't try to earn their paycheck in the same manner as before. They need to find a new way. Never said they shouldn't get paid.

Originally posted by conwaylemmon
read the law!
copyright.gov

Screw the law!

I love the Pirate Bay boys for fighting the fight from within the law, and taking it to the highest levels, but copyright law is as bad as patent law, just keeps us in the stone age and under the thumb of the tyrants who make the laws.

Knowlege is for everyone, insisting you own a byte of information, or even a creation is pure arrogant pomposity.

True creativity is ALWAYS divinely inspired, so belongs to no human individual - all the rest is simply bad copies anyway.

reply to post by Lazyninja


Not sure how many people here actually listened to the press release from TPB.

They are not 'over', not closing, nor recanting etc. They estimate that the court battle will go on for at least another 4-5 years and they will win it at the higher levels as they are not breaking the law.

Great, since the world is going to end in 2012, we all still have unlimited movies and music to take us up to the end times

Originally posted by RogerT

Originally posted by conwaylemmon
read the law!
copyright.gov

Screw the law!

I love the Pirate Bay boys for fighting the fight from within the law, and taking it to the highest levels, but copyright law is as bad as patent law, just keeps us in the stone age and under the thumb of the tyrants who make the laws.

Knowlege is for everyone, insisting you own a byte of information, or even a creation is pure arrogant pomposity.

True creativity is ALWAYS divinely inspired, so belongs to no human individual - all the rest is simply bad copies anyway.

so, you only download the truly divine music? you never downloaded "who let the dogs out"? i see.

creativity may belong to everyone, as you so vaguely put it, but a creative work belongs to its creator (not THE creator) whether it was created by britany or beethoven.
a creative work is personal property. and stealing it is a crime. digitizing it doesn't make it public.
i'm gonna take your car tomorrow. it's not your property. i want it.

reply to post by Flighty


you missed my point.

but you're right. if you want the dress , you'll buy the dress. but you can't just take any dress you want and decide if you're going to keep them and then go back later and pay for them. and you cant go to the dress store with a semi truck and download them into your trailer and call it public domain.

I would love to see those money hogging fat cats try and sue every user of pirate bay and the like, you think you could do that?
I have tones of your movies and music for FREE, whatcho gonna do bout it?

reply to post by conwaylemmon


Yeah, I didn't miss your point but I was trying to illustrate that to the end user music and movies are a product like anything else.
It makes sense to me but I can see how it wouldn't to everyone.
So it's probably best to agree to disagree or it could become a circular debate.

I'll give 2 recent examples of where I've spent money after downloading torrents.
The Day the Earth Stood Still example one.
Most people were saying that is was a disappointment, that is was about global warming and felt it was preachy and they were jumping on the GW bandwaggon. This put me off going to see it at the cinema and buying it on DVD when it first came out.
I downloaded it on a torrent and loved it.
I now own the DVD.

Australia starring Nicole Kidman was a flop at the cinemas because it was getting bad reviews and people were actually walking out of the cinemas because it was portrayed by Baz Lurham as something that it wasn't.
People were put off by the soft cell political aboriginal component of the movie.
I downloaded the torrent, loved the movie. I bought the DVD.

So the makers of these movies now have near on $60 that they wouldn't have had if I hadn't downloaded these torrents.

I could go on but I've bought heaps of movies from previewing them on torrents. As I'm sure lots of people have.

I personally think the downside is outweighed by the upside.

With digital TV coming in, there is going to be a whole lot more sharing going on with pretty high quality definition.
It's a train that no one will be able to stop.

Originally posted by conwaylemmon
i agree, downloading content can't be stopped. I don't have a solution. but copyright law is there to protect the creator. the creator has the sole right to make copies, distribute them and charge a fee for their use, or offer them for free. the consumer does not have the right to decide the fee or decide that it should be free.

Well that's your idea, and it's either backed up or created by current legislation, however, TPB and millions of individuals have shown you repeatedly that your idea is simply that, an idea, and one that nolonger holds much water.

why should you pay for it if you don't have to? because it's not yours. it belongs to someone else.

Again, I say, how can an idea or a concept or something that does not exist actually belong to someone? It can't. Sorry.

I am trying to counter the idea that the creator of a work does not have the sole right to control that work.

are you saying that Beethoven has the right to prevent me from humming his 5th?

This is personal for me, i am a composer and I own a production music publishing and licensing company that i am trying to get going. if everyone believes that they have the right to download my music, and the music that I represent for free, then I don't have a business. I take a loss and the composers i represent take a loss. and if this happens on a larger scale, there will ultimately be no revenue for the music industry and therefore no new product.

If you are insisting on continuing to operate in a dying paradigm, and you can't shift your perceptions and move with the paradigm shift, your only possible destination is insolvency.

Originally posted by RCarter

So these people should not be able to be compensated fairly for what they do? They should just find some other way to make a living?

I think the point is that file sharing actually enables the 'unknown' artist to be compensated fairly for what they do. Whereas the overpaid, undertalented, corporate creations that produce nothing more than mindless drivvel get their wages reduced from tens of millions to something resembling sanity.

So I guess the next step is that Firefighters and Policemen should not be paid for what they do because they ultimately serve the public, right?

What a bizarre analogy. Could you explain that one in a bit more detail?

Originally posted by conwaylemmon

i'm gonna take your car tomorrow. it's not your property. i want it.

Thanks, I was just waiting for that one.

The problem with your logic, is if you take my car, then I have no car. If I download your music, you still have your music. However, your impact as an artist on the world has now expanded.

If you could do the same magic with my car, please feel free, I would be delighted for you to get as much pleasure as I do from my motor.

Thats just messed up , really messed up . but since the legal fools may go after the users as well . its a scary thought indeed .

i admire their site and others like it ........

as a simple way of putting it, it is not theft by the generaly accepted term of theft.

for instance, i steal your car, you have no car, your out of pocket by x ammount of £

i make a copy of your car, you still have the original car, you have sustained no loss, but now i have the same car.

the key fact is downloading music,films, e books and such requires nothing more than a click of a mouse, its entirely different than theft in the real world, where there is a risk.

for example, walking into a shop and picking up 5 dvd's then walking out, the chances are high you'll be seen, be arrested and have to pay a fine, and the producer has lost production costs for 5 units.

i start to download 5 films, i then go out for a drive or whatever, return home and i have my 5 films, the producer hasnt lost any production costs, they had to sell a copy or exhibit the film some where for a copy to exist, the only people incurring any costs are the uploader and downloader, and the only cost is in our time.


basically, if someone makes a copy of something of yours, but you still have the same thing, should it be classed as theft? since nothing has been taken from you.

Copyright and patent law which allowed for the commercial exploitation of intellectual property were made possible by new technology - in the first instance, the printing press. Prior to machines of mass reproduction, guilds jealously protected knowledge and crafts, but performers, artists and musicians made their living by selling their work directly to the public or wealthy patrons.

Further advancements in technology have placed the machines of mass production and reproduction into the hands of the public making the intellectual property model obsolete and as inapplicable as it was before the technological age.

Newer technologies, such as 3D Printing and Self-Replicating Machines, will inexorably accelerate this trend.

One of the biggest lessons a child must learn to become a social individual is the importance of sharing and the internet is reminding grown-ups that a world which valued sharing over competition would be a better place.

Sweden: hundreds protest Pirate Bay conviction AP, 18/04/09

Hollywood's Victory Over The Pirate Bay Will Be Short Lived PC World

Pirate Party Swells After Spectrial Verdict The Escapist

reply to post by conwaylemmon


Your a composer and that highlights the real problem in all this. I don't think anyone would object to you trying to make an honest living. The problem comes when the public perceives the massive greed of artists like Prince and most of the record companies.

They charge extortionate prices for no other reason than pure profiteering because music is obviously uncompetitive - only they have the rights to sell a particular song.

The internet has added a positive dimension to all this - now users have a choice of where to get their music and how much, if anything they want to pay for it. The artists that still sell best are those who have built loyalty over the years. Fans feel they owe it to them to buy rather than download and thus pay.

The people who are losing massive sales are the highly commercial artists that have really been screwing teenage girls out of their allowances for decades...

But I see your predicament.

That said, maybe you should aim to make your money through licensing for films/TV shows, or playing live gigs - and use the internet to distribute your music for free to build your profile. You'd win in the long run.

I think the age of getting rich by being a recording artist and selling a million records are almost up...

I am a bit two-sided with this...

People are stealing entertainment that has been produced.

But on the other hand, we get the feeling that they are rich enough, and would not get the money anyways - pirating or not.

"Legally", I see these people guilty...but then I also get a sense that it is just the people stealing their money back from over priced crap.

Regardless, I still wish the best for the pirate bay founders.