However, just a few hours after we posted the article, Lily explained that she’s not a pirate but simply didn’t know any better.

“I made those mixtapes 5 years ago, I didn’t have a knowledge of the workings of the music industry back then…,” she responded.

What she probably meant to say is that she had no clue about copyright before her income depended on it. Yet, she believes that every other person on this planet should know better, or get their Internet access cut off. Way to go girl.

In fact, the old Lily from 5 years ago is not too different from the hundreds and thousands of casual file-sharers today. Copyright is a complex issue and the boundaries between right/wrong and illegal/legal are not always that clear. Instead of waging a war against file-sharers on the blog she could have tried to pass her knowledge about copyright on to the public.

She chose to make it a soundboard for frustrated artists instead, which only resulted in negative reactions from the public up to a point where Lily couldn’t take it anymore. Indeed, TorrentFreak read one posting on the site which had in excess of 100 comments – only 4 of which supported the singer’s position.

“I’ve shut down the blog, the abuse was getting too much,” she explained on Twitter a few minutes after she announced the end of her legendary music career.

Just before she pulled the blog she wrote “I will not make another record,” adding “The days of me making money from recording music has been and gone as far as I’m concerned, so I don’t stand to profit from [anti-piracy] legislation.”

There are a lot of lessons to be learned from the debate Lily inflamed over the last week. While there seemed to be an endless stream of rich musicians willing to complain on behalf of bands we’ve never heard of with “we aren’t suffering, they are” statements, there were also huge numbers of music fans who were more than a little reluctant to be lectured by well-off superstars on the issue.

But most prominent were those vehemently opposed to UK plans to disconnect alleged infringers from the Internet. The abuse that Lily spoke of on her blog largely wasn’t directed at her, but at these plans and her support for them. Think again Mr Mandelson.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

The data for the most recent TV episodes listed below are collected by TorrentFreak from a representative sample of BitTorrent sites and is for informational and educational reference only. The data for the second list is based on the total number of downloads (not only recent episodes) of all shows in the past week is provided by ShowInsider.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

The data for the most recent TV episodes are collected by TorrentFreak. We use a representative sample of BitTorrent sites and is for informational and educational reference only. Thanks to ShowInsider we now also include a list based on the total number of downloads (not only recent episodes) of all shows in the past week.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

The fifth season of Lost just started with two new episodes. Both episodes were downloaded close to two million time in the first week. As always, the vast majority of the people who download the show are located outside the U.S, where it may take up to a year before season 5 will actually air on TV.

The rise of unauthorized downloading of TV-shows is a signal that customers want something that is not available through other channels. It’s more about availability than the fact that it’s free and should be viewed as an opportunity, not a threat. The more restrictions, the more piracy – it’s as simple as that.

The data for the most recent TV episodes are collected by TorrentFreak from a representative sample of BitTorrent sites and is for informational and educational reference only. Thanks to ShowInsider we now also include a list based on the total number of downloads (not only recent episodes) of all shows in the past week.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

Since I’ve been sued by both the MPAA (Hollywood) and the CRIA (Canadian recording industry), I’ve talked about what’s been happening with our cases. Our CRIA case has also recently received mainstream press attention by the Canadian Press and Globe & Mail. But the question is why? Why do they insist on suing their own customers? Why do they sue search engines like us, who make the Internet more useful for everyone?

The problem lies in something fundamentally broken with the copyright system. A choice quote from Cory Doctorow’s article on the “copyfight”:

So the natural inclination of anyone who is struck by a piece of creative work is to share it. And since “sharing” on the Internet is the same as “copying,” this puts you square in copyright’s crosshairs. Everyone copies. Dan Glickman, the ex-Congressman who now heads up the Motion Picture Association of America (as pure a copyright maximalist as you could hope to meet) admitted to copying Kirby Dick’s documentary This Film is Not Yet Rated (a scorching critique of the MPAA’s rating system) but excused it because the copy was “in [his] vault.” To pretend that you do not copy is to adopt the twisted hypocrisy of the Victorians who swore that they never, ever masturbated. Everyone knows that they themselves are lying, and a large number of us know that everyone else is lying too.

When the head of the MPAA has to admit to copying the film that criticizes the very industry he represents, an industry group of lobbyists and litigators against such copying, it highlights an important fact beyond the obvious hypocrisy. The Internet has completely changed the economics of sharing. When sharing equals copying on the Internet and the direct cost of that sharing is effectively $0 (it doesn’t cost you anything to share videos on Youtube or BitTorrent), it makes copyright infringement so easy that even Dan Glickman can do it. So easy that a mom like Stephanie Lenz can do it when she posted a video of her 13-month-old son dancing to Prince’s music. And I mean no disrespect to them.

This is an age of rampant sharing and remixing, and if you can make the connection between sharing and culture as Doctorow has, you will see this war between rightsholders and consumers will never end and the rightsholders will never win. The band Girl Talk, Lessig , James Boyle, Terry McBride of Nettwerk and isoHunt all echo a common point: Remixing and sharing is good for culture, suing consumers and technologists that enables sharing is destructive for everyone.

The Internet is a more efficient information machine than the printing press or VCR ever was, and also a whole different animal. It’s time for the content industries to learn to put it to better use as well, by discarding past notions of how business is done based on an economy of scarcity. In Star Trek, currency becomes irrelevant with virtually unlimited “copying” of physical objects with the Replicator. The Internet is the Replicator of information. When a 13-month-old dances to Prince’s music, copyright infringement is nowhere near his consciousness. It’s an endorsement that he likes it, pure and simple.

I’ve said a number of times that I’m not against copyright, but copyright needs significant reform in the Internet age. If all this rampant copying on BitTorrent and the Internet has not made a dent in Hollywood’s record earnings, why can’t we all just get along without rabid lawsuits? Why can’t they see that sharing and remixing is a human urge for culture, and when we share and remix art, it’s not a liability but an endorsement for the artist or author or producer?

When the majority of society has no ethical conviction of wrongdoing when they violate copyright law, it’s not society that’s wrong, it’s the law. Because no one can really own ideas. Newton once said, “If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of Giants.” It’s how the arts and sciences work. We share, we inspire and we remix. For more on Copyfight and where the word came from, go here.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

Thanks to ShowInsider we now also include a list based on the total number of downloads of that particular show in the past week, not only the most recent episodes, as is the case with our data.

The data for the most recent episodes is collected by TorrentFreak from a representative sample of BitTorrent sites and is for informational and educational reference only.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

It must have felt like an attack from behind when the RIAA heard that they lost its only major court victory, with a mistrial being declared in Capitol V Thomas. Making things worse, the Department of Justice, viewed by some to be the bully’s trusted lieutenant, turned on the content industries by soundly criticizing a bill aiming to increase copyright and patent enforcement powers.

The Thomas case is now a proverbial millstone around the neck of the RIAA. At first it looks impressive, and gives a frightening impression to anyone that thinks to challenge them, but now it’s starting to drag them down. Not only was the decision in the case thrown out, the statement by the judge in support of the mistrial reads like a critique of the legal arguments put forward by the RIAA over the last 5 years.

Yet, the millstone around the neck is not just in the refuting of legal arguments. It also extends to the excessive damages that were awarded in the first trial. The $9250 per infringement has been argued to be so far past constitutional restrictions on excessive punishments, that it has brought it into public attention. Because of this, it may end up reducing the maximum amount of damages and fines that can be awarded, which may also undermine the settlement encouragement (or ‘pay instead of fight’) strategy. The end of the judge’s order says it all:

While the Court does not discount Plaintiffs’ claim that, cumulatively, illegal downloading has far-reaching effects on their businesses, the damages awarded in this case are wholly disproportionate to the damages suffered by Plaintiffs. Thomas allegedly infringed on the copyrights of 24 songs – the equivalent of approximately three CDs, costing less than $54, and yet the total damages awarded is $222,000 – more than five hundred times the cost of buying 24 separate CDs and more than four thousand times the cost of three CDs. While the Copyright Act was intended to permit statutory damages that are larger than the simple cost of the infringed works in order to make infringing a far less attractive alternative than legitimately purchasing the songs, surely damages that are more than one hundred times the cost of the works would serve as a sufficient deterrent.

While 24 songs is more like two CDs (than the three the court states), that damages should go from 4000x losses (assuming 3CDs) to 100x, means that the $222,000 would be more like $5,550. That’s quite a difference. The same could be applied to amounts demanded in pre-trial settlements, where the RIAA has often asked too much. The court’s math is far more reasonable, despite being calculated using retail CD prices, which have all manner of mark-ups and distribution costs that are not relevant to digital music included. A digital download doesn’t have to pay for the CD blank and doesn’t have to pay for transportation to the store. There are no printing costs or middlemen profit. The court gives an estimated cost of $2.25 per track, the actual cost for a download is more than seven times less than that.

Of course, other arguments, ranging from definition semantics, to trying to use criminal law as precedent, were denied as well. Some of these arguments were novel, others seemed like desperation.

The other news from Wednesday didn’t help either, especially in the muddling of civil and criminal enforcement of copyright. The Department of Justice sent a letter to Senators Leahy and Specter over the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act (EIPRA) of 2008, which passed through the Senate judiciary committee last week. It stated that the Departments of Justice and Commerce had ’strong and significant concerns’ with portions of the act. In short, they said they didn’t want to be used as free lawyers for the entertainment industry, and also felt that the position of an ‘Anti-Piracy Czar’ would be, surprisingly, unconstitutional. When even the US Justice department, which has seemed indifferent to the US Constitution in recent years, uses it as an excuse to oppose new powers, it could be likened to rats leaving a sinking ship.

Of course, the past week hasn’t been only bad news for the RIAA and its members, it’s been bad press for them too. On Monday, they elected to proceed to a jury trial in Maverick V Harper, with a date set for November. The RIAA were unwilling to accept a $200/infringement settlement offered by the judge. In taking the offer, they would have had a win, but at a lower amount, and left the potential for innocent infringement defenses. However, with the Thomas mistrial ruling two days later, negating any precedent they hoped to point to, and undermining some of the possible defenses, it may seem they have gambled on a treble-or-nothing bet.

The case in question centers around 38 songs, although only 6 were downloaded by MediaSentry. What can make this case interesting is that MediaSentry may be in violation of the law, regarding Texas based investigators, and that the age of the defendant – Whitney Harper was 16 when the infringements allegedly occurred – make an innocent infringement defence possible. Attacking a young girl for actions in her teens may not play well with a jury.

All in all, a bad week for the RIAA, and it may only be the first of many. We may never know if the article written by New York based attorney Ray Backerman did anything to to bring about a closer examination of the RIAA’s cases. Nor can it be overlooked that Wednesdays are not the RIAA’s best days – exactly a week before the Thomas and DOJ setbacks, they set themselves up as targets of ridicule by suing Beckerman. They accused him of allegedly doing what they have been repeatedly accused of doing – irony indeed. Many people are doubtless wondering what excitement October 1st will bring.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

It’s Heroes that breaks all the records though. Our statistics show that, across all BitTorrent sites, the two episodes from Heroes’ season opening were downloaded well over a million times each – in just one day. The vast majority of the downloads come from outside the US (92%), where shows usually air weeks, months or even years later.

The show was downloaded the most in the UK (15%), where the official season opening is scheduled for October 1st. Canada, France and Australia complete the top 5. Although most TV-broadcasters won’t be happy to read these figures, one could argue that BitTorrent has actually helped TV-shows to build a stronger, broader, and more involved fanbase.

Jesse Alexander, the executive producer of ‘Heroes’ told TorrentFreak that he thinks this is indeed the case. “People watching shows such as Lost and Heroes on BitTorrent is the present world reality. TV networks have to recognize this, give their viewers more ways to interact with the shows, and find ways to generate revenue from every member of the global audience,” he said.

Let’s hope Alexander will be heard in Hollywood. Below is the TV-show download chart of the past week, Heroes is not included in the list, but it will surely appear in next week’s chart.

Top Downloads September 14 – September 21

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

Non-US fans of Prison Break and other TV-shows sometimes have to wait for weeks or even months before their favorite show airs on TV in their country. However, this is slowly changing. Earlier this week Fox announced that Jack Bauer’s “24″ will air simultaneously in the US and Germany. We expect that this example will be followed in other countries as well.

We’ll have to see whether this has an effect on our weekly download charts. The data presented here is collected by TorrentFreak from a representative sample of BitTorrent sites and is for informational and educational reference only.

At the end of the year we will publish a list of most downloaded TV-shows for the entire year, like we did last December.

Top Downloads September 7 – September 14

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

The RIAA threats are in large part due to the uncooperativeness of their Internet provider to assist in RIAA’s ‘nip it in the bud’ approach to thwarting music piracy at the school level. Not to be intimidated, however, Purdue has fired up their own P2P file-sharing “intranet” from behind the walls of their campus ISP. Dubbed ‘Dtella‘ (from DC + Gnutella).

A Purdue student wrote on the CollegeOTR.com blog: “Maybe Purdue can’t beat other schools’ music scenes, frat-house parties, hot girls, and what not, but at least we’ve got them beat in the piracy department. After all, we are the #2 school in music piracy as noted by the RIAA.”

The filesharing network accomplishes two things:

1. It alleviates ‘bandwidth capping’ commonly imposed on all traffic that leaves the University’s intranet. When a file sharing program is self-contained within the ISP itself, there are usually no limitations to how much data can be transferred, and users are free to share huge amounts of files at high speeds. Currently, Purdue uses Resnet as their ISP which limits the daily traffic to a modest 5GB.

2. Even more important, it keeps the P2P traffic off the Internet, which in turn is advantageous for keeping file transfers out of the prying eyes of the RIAA or other anti-piracy organizations.

There’s nothing new about campuses using their “intranet” to share files, although it is relatively uncommon for one to take it a step further by setting up their own secure P2P network. This is simply a response to the RIAA threats and the countless ruined lives through pointless RIAA litigation.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

The fact that the site didn’t host any copyrighted material didn’t stop the Swiss Anti-Piracy Federation (SAFE) – backed up by major movie studios – from complaining to the police. On March 10th 2004, the site was shut down by Swiss police, who seized all of the servers and detained the site owner, Christian Riesen, aka Simon Moon.

According to an earlier interview, Riesen was initially tricked into going to Police.

“They sent me a letter requesting my presence ‘regarding finances in general’ from the ‘fraud division’ of the police here,” he said. “Since I am self employed I thought someone made some accusation. So nothing bad in mind with my documents all in order, I went there. It wasn’t about the finances, it was all about ShareReactor.”

The police detained Riesen for around 9 hours while they quizzed him about the site. He explains: “[The police] Asked about ShareReactor. Asked me where money came in and where it went to. The whole thing lost steam pretty fast as they saw how big a loss ShareReactor produced every month, and how little money in total was flowing at all. SAFE told them something about 15.000 Euros income a month, while they told newspapers that is was 76.000 Euros.”

After the police questioning Riesen recalls: “At the end of the day, the investigation judge said ‘and now we go and raid your house’ and so we drove there.” Riesen said the police took a lot of stuff from his house: “two ShareReactor servers, my private machine, my girlfriend’s private machine and my folder with all bank files, although i gave them a copy of all my bank activities of the last 4 years already. Also all my backups went with them. At the end ShareReactor was down and I had none of my data left, personal and otherwise.”

In June 2004 the ShareReactor forum reappeared (minus the eD2K links) and in September 2006 the site made a full return, albeit under new ownership. However, the return was short-lived and just a month later the site closed again.

Now, some 4 years later, the District Court of Frauenfeld, Switzerland has decided that as the ShareReactor site was the main source of income for 28 years old Riesen (through on-site advertising and donations), he is guilty of ‘commercially’ assisting others to commit copyright infringement by ’simplifying’ access to illegal content.

After 4 years of investigations the court decided that for running the world’s biggest eDonkey link site, Riesen – who now lives in Canada – should be fined 4,700 Swiss Francs – roughly $4,200.

Waste of money, anyone?

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

“Never work with children or animals” said WC Fields. TorrentFreak takes a chance:

TF. Hi Hannah! How old are you?

- I’m 10 in 12 days

TF. What sort of music are you listening to right now?

Sean Kingstone, Shayne Ward and High School Musical 2

TF. Where did you first get into music?

- On the music channels, on MTV.

TF. When did you get a PC?

- People had computers but I couldn’t go on them but my Dad bought me one last year. I have internet.

TF. What do you do on the internet?

- MSN, talking to friends and cousins, games and dressing-up games [dolls]

TF. When did you first start using the internet to get music?

- My cousin showed me YouTube and then LimeWire and I was like “whoa cool!”

TF. What was cool about it?

- Because you can put anything in and it will come up and you don’t actually pay for it. Well you have to pay for the internet and LimeWire comes with the internet but you have to pay for that so LimeWire isn’t really free.

TF. Ok…I see….Do you get music from anywhere else?

- My cousin gets it from BEBO. She copies it from other people’s pages and puts it on her own.

TF. Do you think it’s ok to copy the music?

- Yes it’s ok because she only does it to make her page better.

TF. So you’re sure that it’s ok to copy it? What do you think about copying?

- I suppose it’s not ok to copy but people copied it off her site so she just copies theirs. It’s like, you’re copying my t-shirt so i’m copying you on shoes.

TF. Ok, so a bit like copying school work?….Hmm….ok, let’s talk about copying on the computer again. When you started using LimeWire, did anyone ever mention that if you did certain things you might be breaking some laws?

- Why would they put it [music] on the internet and invent mp3 players if it was against the law?

TF. Confusing isn’t it?….You mentioned you like Sean Kingstone – what if I told you that Sean Kingstone’s boss might send you a letter asking for money because you shared his album on LimeWire? What would you say to him?

- W.E! [whatever!]

TF. Come on, play along with me. What would you say if he did?

- I’d say “tooooo strict!” and anyway he can’t make me do anything. He’s not the boss of me, he’s the boss of Sean Kingstone.

TF. What do you think might happen if you didn’t pay him?

- Nothing. I’m too young to be charged by the government so he can’t charge me.

TF. Would you carry on using LimeWire after he sent the letter?

- Yeah!

TF. Why?

- Because you can get good albums off there. Duh!! My CD’s don’t work in my mp3 player so LimeWire is the only way to do it. I bought High School Musical 2 on CD but it won’t go on my mp3 [player]

TF. How would you make LimeWire better?

- To speak to the person sending the music to make sure they send the right one, sometimes they send stuff that doesn’t even play.

TF. Do you know what a pirate is?

- They have parrots [effects 'arrrrr']

TF. Do you think its legal or illegal to copy a CD or DVD?

- Some men right, they sell you a DVD at the market but when you get home it doesn’t play, that’s illegal.

TF. Why is it illegal?

- Duh!! Because they tell you it works and when you get it home it’s rubbish and jumps in the middle and its a waste of money!

TF. Do you think you should be paying for stuff off LimeWire? You have to buy CD’s from the shop…

- You have to pay for CD’s because they’re actually on a disc not on the computer. My cousin, right, she uses LimeWire when she doesn’t have any money for CDs.

TF. Did you ever download anything by anybody and then go to see them?

- I got stuff by Lee Ryan and Simon Webbe and then I went to see Blue. Why don’t you ask me what my favorite hobby is?

TF. Ok, what’s your favorite hobby?

- Dancing to music, it’s fun!!

Thankyou, Hannah. That’s it! Have a nice birthday!

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

Plan A: Starve the Internet of Pirate Porn

ALL Major Content Producers / Studios / Big Brand names IN HERE NOW!!!!

Hit me up, I have extremely important information regarding content theft, distribution of both Interactive Online Media as well as DVD movie releases. I’m onto a major site that is one of the main sources in distributing new fresh stolen content on a daily basis on usenet but also most torrent sites grab their content from this source to add it to the torrent networks. I not only have info but also everything needed to legally deal with them and to get them permanently shutdown. I’m not joking, I’m not bullshitting I already have taken all the steps needed to get them shutdown…..but want to collect as much evidence from companies who their content is listed before getting them closed down. Doing so will ensure they’ll stay down…..I will assist every step that’s required to get this done properly I need you to confirm on the content that’s yours and your approval to include that info in the documentation to be used to whipe them out.

ServerGenius (SG) reveals the plan to stop porn piracy and starve torrent sites:

I’m after a forum which is very active releasing adult content by using usenet…..The site offers .nzb downloads for its users to download everything without having to look for it……..it’s a usenet for dummies kinda thing as well as a community for quite a few of the bigger release teams that do porn.

The forum is also used a LOT for the torrentsite owners as their main source for new releases……example: Shane’s World releases a new DVD today……it’s ripped, uploaded and added with all the info, screen shots and full dvd-rip tomorrow…..same day or day after…..same content is listed on sites like: puretna.com, empornium.us and many others.

Do I make this up? No I don’t, are you sure about that? Yes I am…… I have logs and any other info that will backup everything I claim….how did you get all this info? Believe it or not, they gave it themselves to me…….but more about that later…..

So the plan seems to revolve around taking down a single NZB site (a site which simplifies UseNet downloading) so that adult trackers immediately lose their source material, just like that. The problem with this plan is – well, everything really. 1) Taking down an NZB site doesn’t remove the content from Usenet. 2) There are lots of other NZB sites and sites which enable you to make your own NZBs. 3) Experienced Usenet users don’t need NZB sites. 4) Releasers have multiple sources, not just Usenet. 5) They’re discussing their take-down plans on the open internet. People read and report on such things.

Plan B: The Solutions to BitTorrent Sites

Ron Cadwell CEO of CCBill (processer of credit card transactions for porn sites) weighs in with some ideas of his own:

I was reading a post that Raw Alex (very smart guy) made in another tread that got me thinking on how you could stop the Torrent sites. You need to attack them like the Spam Groups did on spammers. They went after the backbone providers (Level 3, Sprint, ATT etc). If you could get 7 out of 10 of the major providers to blackhole them they are dead.

The question is how do you do that? Simple.

1. You get a group of adult webmasters to file DMCA notices by the truck load or allow you to file them on their behalf to the backbone providers. The laws are very specific on Damages and what an ISP must do if a proper DMCA notice is files. (Be Very Annoying Here)

2. You start sending them URL’s like what Raw Alex showed about Child Porn. This is a HOT topic and no backbone provider that is a PUBLIC COMPANY would want to be associated with Child Porn Traffic?

3. Each of the large adult hosting companies have a good relationship with 1 if not more major backbone providers. We can also put pressure on their Abuse Departments to blackhole them also due to the complaints?

I am not sure if it will work but if you put enough pressure on them and the fear of newspapers/major companies finding out about it they will want to distance themselves very quickly from these sites.

Bingo Problem Solved

Not even the mighty MPAA/RIAA with their gargantuan anti-piracy budgets seem to have thought of this plan, however Ron Cadwell felt that spamming DMCA notices is the way to go:

With a little programming I am sure A1R3K’s new group could put an online system that could make it very easy to send hundreds of complaints a day to each backbone provider and really put the pressure on them to black hole the sites.

Drunkspringbreakgirls sees no complications and is eager to get on with it:

We need to make a list of all the torrents, which backbone they are using and then we can all start contacting their abuse departments of the providers.

RawAlex steps in with his way to take down The PirateBay:

Swedish embassies based in the US are great places to drop off DMCA notices. Their government not wanting to take action on obvious copyright violation is a real issue, and raising this issue to this level may in fact make a difference.

…and continues:

…with due respect, 90% of the companies providing the actual connectivity are either based in the US or are owned by US companies. As such, to a greater or less extent, they can be touched by a DMCA because they have responsibilities as good corporate citizens in the US.

Example, is piratebay.org – “hosted” by p80.net, which is (shock) registered at Directnic. That would be a good place to send a DMCA.

P80.net is getting their connectivity (the route I get) from sprintlink. Spring comes up with an address in Kansas.

There are all sorts of fun places to deal with on this issue. If P80 / port80 / rix internet is not going to remove connectivity from pirate bay (and like pirate bay will try to hide behind lax swedish laws) then you get the US based companies that provide their connectivity to take the action that US law obliges them to take……

…Piratebay is hiding in Sweden because they know pretty much anywhere else they would get escorted to a cell with Bubba for recreation for the next few years. Again, shows a consciousness of guilt. If they thought they were right, they wouldn’t be hiding under the ice in Sweden.

….unless the guys from PirateBay happened to be a) Swedish and b) not hiding and c) not breaking any Swedish law.

Brokep, one of the founders of The Pirate Bay is not really impressed by these plans. He told TorrentFreak in a response: “We welcome the porn industry to contact us, we need more updates for the legal page, hasn’t been any fun legal threats for a while – and the porn industry have a good sense of humor, just look at the movie names they copy and remake.”

The porn industry certainly isn’t getting much sympathy from the guys on Digg either. Kikkomann felt that torrents provided great publicity for their stars while str3ama felt that the adult industry had some infringement issues of it’s own to deal with.

homesickalien couldn’t understand how the porn movie business could ever lose any money: “it’s not like they’re shelling out millions to some a-list actors or spending loads on CG effects” he said. “All you need is a $50 hooker, a dv camcorder and a dvdburner. the porn industry couldn’t lose money if it tried to.”

However, the industry maintains that it loses 4% of its total worldwide revenue to piracy. ButterBuddha feels they should proceed with caution:

“The fight for that 4% will ruin the industry…”

The full discussions on GFY can be found here and here.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

Gottfrid: We don’t do any polls of the morals of our users, so it’s hard to say.

Peter: It’s not very interesting either. It is all about spread what you want to spread, and then it’s up to each and everyone to have their own moral values.

Gottfrid: It would only come out wrong if we tried to shove any particular set of moral down the throats of our users.

Christian S asks: How much money do the Pirate Bay make per month from ads, and what happens to that money?

Peter: I don’t know exactly how much money we get. A separate company runs all the ad sales for us. It’s enough for hardware and bandwidth. We invest quite a bit in new hardware so there’s not much left.

Gottfrid: We must have a buffer to be able to handle when people steal our servers and stuff like that [laugh]. I would wish we got rich off of it, but we don’t.

Peter: What we would like to do is o hire someone full-time. But as things are now, this is still a hobby project. There are of course pros and cons to this.

Economicon asks: How much profit did the Pirate Bay make in 2006?

Peter: That is a good question. I have no idea. I think we made a lot of loss.

Gottfrid: Something like that.

CS asks: Why won’t you answer questions about your profits?

Peter: It feels like a cheap way to make us look like hipocrits. We would rather have people focusing on the issues of copyright.

Gottfrid: We are not involved in the financing part ourselves. We simply don’t have the time, the energy or the market know-how ourselves, instead we want to be able to focus on the technical stuff. In the childhood of the Pirate Bay, just before we got ourselves out of the stage where we were just a bunch of old second-hand computer gear in a closet, and needed more money than we could put in ourselves or get through donations, I was the one handling the ads. It was very stressful and didn’t work very well, with cynical ad buyers and low incomes as a result. It was really very relieving to be able to hand this part over to professionals.

CS asks: How much does your most expensive ad-package cost?

Peter: I have no idea. It’s very different depending on who and what it is. There are guys that works with this stuff full-time.

CS asks: Who are running your finances?

Peter: An external company called Random Media who are based on the British Virgin Islands. We do not run that company.

CS asks: Who is behind that company?

Peter: I don’t think we want to go there. We are not responsible for their business.

CS asks:
There have been earlier claims that you had ad incomes exceeding a million crowns a week only in Sweden during 2006. Is that figure correct, exaggerated or an understatement?

Peter: The person who spilled this figure was probably fired afterwards. It was Eastpoint, an ad company selling for the Pirate Bay.

Gottfrid: He had, of course, an interest to make Eastpoint look like a company that is great at selling ads. There is a certain self interest in taking figures out of thin air.

CS asks: So that is an incorrect figure?

Gottfrid: I would the figure was correct, but it’s not.

CS asks: Many seems to sympathize with you as anti-copyright fighters. Do you think that the public opinion would change if people realized that you actually made money on what you are doing?

Peter: If it was in fact true that there were huge money involved we would have hired people and made bigger things, and we haven’t. I don’t think people are complaining on Amnesty for making money either. I don’t want to compare us to them, but the resemblance is striking.

Gottfrid: It is really completely irrelevant to the debate how awful we are as individuals. Even if my basement at home were full of kidnapped children it wouldn’t make our arguments less valid.

Christian S asks: How will you finance your court expenses with lawyers and so on if there is a trial?

Gottfrid: The state will pay our lawyers. It will be a public defender, just like in any other case.

Peter: We’re not in the US.

Mr. Groovah asks: While I am deeply respectful to how you propagate against the absurd laws that runs our all too controlled society, I wonder why you want to make the scene available to everyone? I remember the golden years with BBSes when file sharing was done by a dedicated minority with a vast interest in the scene. The losses for the developers were minimal and everyone was happy.

Peter: I was also part of the BBS movement, but personally I see it as hypocritical. Why should some but allowed to copy and others not?

Gottfrid: I agree, I also have a background in the BBS movement. It is also worth pointing out that before file sharing were so widely spread, there were hardly any debate heard about copyright and piracy. Pirate Bay, as a site, has no political aims, but one of my personal goals is that all of this will create a debate on those questions.

Andreas Ek asks: Are you as much against copy protection as you pro piracy? I believe the media businesses have themselves to blame since they haven’t done enough to stop piracy, but shouldn’t they be allowed to stop copying at all?

Peter: Absolutely not. DRM is really scary and absolutely the wrong path. You have to be free to use what you have bought. For me it is very strange to buy something that is still owned by someone else.

Gottfrid: Legal service with good quality beats file sharing any day. One can never be sure that the quality is good and it might be complicated. The legal services that do exist, for example iTunes, have become very popular despite their flaws. Financing through ads is, of course, another alternative.

Christian S asks: You had planned to launch a new, highly anticipated, site for release material only, called “The Black Pearl”. Are those plans completely canceled?

Peter: I don’t know if they are canceled. It’s something we would like to to do, but haven’t had time for. It’s just the sort of jobs we don’t have time for.

Gottfrid: There are other things that are more important, our television department, for example.

Peter: There is some code, but nothing is set. There is no active work put down on it.

Anton asks: Is it only the Pirate Bay’s servers that is still in police custody, or are other companies still waiting to get their servers back?

Gottfrid: There is a lot of stuff still in police custody. They did a total of 180 seizes of equipment, and only 40 or 50 have been canceled. Everything isn’t servers, there are also other things there. A lot of papers and memory cards and so on.

CS asks: How did the customers of PRQ react on the raid?

Gottfrid: I haven’t received any complaints at all from our customers. A couple have moved, but it has never been anything personal, only business.

Anton asks: You will probably not be able to buy the “country” Sealand. What will you do with all the money you have received in donations? Will you keep them now?

Peter: No. We will buy an island with them if we can’t buy Sealand.

Gottfrid: There are almost always islands for sale on various places in the world. I guess we’ll have to announce our independence on one of those instead. But we’ll have to deal with that after the budget is done.

Peter: The idea is that when we’re done talking to Sealand, and then I would like to point out that we are still negotiating, is that we decide on what we want to buy. Then we will get money for that island specifically.

CS asks: Wasn’t the Sealand deal more of a fun thing rather than a serious project?

Peter: It was a fun project from the start, but there are serious thoughts behind it. It will be another signal to the authorities about the absurdities of what they are doing.

CS asks: So it’s not just a PR coup to get a lot of money?

Peter: No. Of course, there is PR behind it – we’ve received a lot of attention. But this is something we think is funy and very interesting. The money will go to buying an island.

Anton asks: What operative system is the Pirate Bay running? Linux or a pirate Windows version?

Gottfrid: Slackware Linux, and we’re running Solaris on one of the computers.

Anton asks: What party would you have voted on if the Pirate Party didn’t exist?

Peter: To the best of my knowledge, nobody on the Pirate Bay voted for the Pirate Party. I am a Finnish citizen and didn’t vote at all.

Gottfrid: I will keep it to myself. It was one of the smaller parties, but not the Pirate Party and not the Swedish Democrats.

XXander asks: What will you have in your country?

Peter: First and foremost we want a place to be [laugh]. Secondly we’ll see what we’ll have their. We will try to involve others than ourselves.

Gottfrid: There have been discussions on the forum about running various forms of activities there.

Tommy Sköld asks: How do you think software companies should make their money? By forcing ads on the users, like the Pirate Bay does?

Peter: I don’t believe it’s our job to provide solutions for their problems. We’re not economists or marketers.

Gottfrid: I worked as a software developer before the Pirate Bay started. Back then we made money on adaption, consulting and installation, instead of on the software itself.

Per Erik asks: There are many attempts to spread trojans and viruses via the Pirate Bay. What are your routines against this?

Peter: We have a number of moderators that will check on complaints. We will include a new system to vote off things that should be taken off because the description is incorrect. It is important to point out that we don’t delete controversial stuff, only stuff that is described incorrectly. If someone says, “This is a virus”, it stays on the site.

Gottfrid: We have some spam filters as well, to get rid of comment spam. But that’s more like hygiene than anything else.

Per Erik asks: What responsibility do the Pirate Bay believe to have in fighting viruses?

Gottfrid: Our users have to do their own thinking. We are doing what we can, but the Pirate Bay is only the medium.

Script Girl asks: Can’t you quit your anti-copyright bullshit and just admit you’re really only in it for the money?

Peter: We can’t, because it’s not true.

Gottfrid: it would be a very bad project to be in it to make money, concidering how great the risks are. The Pirate Bay was running on a zero budget for a long time.

Peter: We also have our background in the Bureau of Piracy originally. There were ideology there. If we didn’t believe in this, we wouldn’t have done it.

Jejeetegg asks: Do you plan to start with encrypted torrents?

Gottfrid: It’s the question of a new protocol and nothing that can be done with BitTorrent today. To do this, one have to re-write the protocol from scratch to not only protect the data but also the sender. Even if you encrypt the transmission, it has to be decrypted and nothing stops the anti-piracy bureau from doing that . Therefor, anonymizing technologies are needed.

Totte Alm asks: The Pirate bay is defending file sharing with the argument that artists makes their money on live performances, and actors on ticket sales, and that home users and poor students never would buy Photoshop anyway. But, what is forgotten is that file sharing in reality strikes against the small developer.

As you can see, piracy strikes against the small developers, not the big ones. The small die and the big gets bigger. Have you ever concidered that you help big business by evaporating their competition?

Gottfrid: Again, The Pirate Bay as a unit has no opinions in any question. My personal opinion is that you’ll have to find other ways to make money than selling licenses. I have this background myself, so I am aware of the problems. One have to find ways around them instead of calling for more police and harder controlling methods.

Peter: Perhaps that market model doesn’t work anymore? One have to look at other alternatives.

LinZorzor3r asks: You became famous for your answers to media company lawyers when they sent complaints on what is distributed on the Pirate Bay. But since the raid this spring there has not been one new letter on the site. What happened? Have you lost your attitude?

Gottfrid: There hasn’t been anything new that is funny enough to answer. I feel there has to be something new to make it worth the effort.

CS asks: So there’s no other reason? Are you scared?

Gottfrid: Hardly. Very few are stupid stupid enough to send such mails to the Pirate Bay. They know what will happen when we reply.

Gottfrid: One example of a little more unusual threat was when I had a snail mail from someone complaining that a torrent had a collection of fonts that their clients owned. He claimed the fonts were copyright protected. We sent a snail mail in reply, using all the fonts he had complained about.

Lisa asks: Why is the pirate world so masculine?

Peter: It’s really sad that this is how it is portraited, but it’s not so. Just like in media in general, women aren’t as visible as men. There are very many women using the Pirate Bay and there are very many women who are members of the Bureau of Piracy. It’s only sad that they aren’t promoted enough.

Gottfrid: And of course, the computer world in general is quite masculine. The modern piracy movement comes from the computer world, and so this problem has followed.

LinZorzor3r asks: If I have understood everything correctly you never take off anything that has been distributed on the Pirate Bay, instead you point to the responsibility of the users and the decisions of authorities. Is there any line beyond which you could not accept yourselves? How would it feel, for example, to indirectly add to the spread of child pornography, even if you had the chance to stop it?

Gottfrid: If someone was stupid enough to spread child porn through the Pirate Bay that would actually be a good thing. Then everyone could check who is spreading it.

Peter: We do not censor anything. Again, it is the responsibility of the user.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.