The Pirate Bay’s Founders Sail On
Written by Ernesto on July 05, 2009For more than five years the largest BitTorrent tracker on the Internet has been been operated informally by a small group of friends. This will soon change as Global Gaming Factory takes over the ship to explore seas unknown. TorrentFreak caught up with Pirate Bay’s Peter Sunde to review the past week’s events and to look ahead to the future.
Founded in 2003, the initial goal of the Pirate Bay founders was to build the first Scandinavian BitTorrent community. However, with an increasing interest from users in other parts of the world, they decided to expand their horizon and made the site available in multiple languages a year after it was launched.
From then on The Pirate Bay quickly became the largest BitTorrent tracker on the entire Internet, responsible for the communication between millions of BitTorrent users at any given time of the day. Up until today they have continued to do so in a rather unorganized fashion, but that is all about to change.
This Monday the relatively unknown Global Gaming Factory (GGF) announced that it will acquire The Pirate Bay for $7.8 million. Provided that the shareholders agree and that GGF manages to raise the necessary funding to complete the sale, The Pirate Bay will be in new hands. Undoubtedly, this announcement resulted in a tidal wave of media coverage.
It’s been nearly a week since the sale to GGF was announced so TorrentFreak took the opportunity to catch up with departing Pirate Bay spokesman Peter Sunde to look back at the last few turbulent days and to find out what the future holds for him.
TF: Were you surprised by the negative responses to the sale?
Peter: Not really surprised, but overwhelmed anyhow. The pressure of this thing has been enormous, and not a lot of people think it’s fair for us to take a break from things. I can appreciate that a lot of people put their support and hopes in us and we’re really happy that we’ve made an impact that allows people to do that. At the same time, we’re only human and can’t keep up with everything. The Pirate Bay needs to change or it will die by itself.
TF: Hundreds of media outlets have covered the news, but it is not entirely clear what is actually being sold to GGF. Can you enlighten us?
Peter: GGF is buying the domain names for thepiratebay (under all the tlds they exist). They also get a copy of the code and the database. The database includes no logs (there’s never been any logs) and there’s no personal details stored anywhere.
TF: GGF’s future plans for the site are still very vague, but they announced that “illegal downloading” will he halted once they own the site. What’s your opinion on this?
Peter: Well, that depends on how you look at it. GGF aren’t stupid, they know that if they only allowed pre-scanned content the site is worthless. Illegal downloading? Well, torrents aren’t illegal, it could potentially lead to copyright being broken though. But don’t underestimate them. They have had a hard time in the media, which they’re not used to being in. It’s all new for them – all of a sudden BBC, CNN, all local media in Sweden and so on just hammer them with questions. It’s probably hard to answer in the beginning. But they’re not as stupid as they’ve been portrayed.
TF: How do you think The Pirate Bay will look like a year from now?
Peter: No idea really. A guess would be an updated logo, new skin for the site, some changes in features but still the same basic concept.
TF: Will you or any of the other Pirate Bay co-founders be involved in the Pirate Bay site once it’s sold?
Peter: As it looks right now, no.
TF: Will the old Pirate Bay team still be working on (new) BitTorrent related projects?
Peter: We’re working hard on other things right now, especially with The Video Bay and some of our personal projects.
TF: The money generated by the sale will go to an unnamed foundation. Can you tell us a little bit about the foundation that receives the money? Are they working on any interesting projects?
Peter: The foundation is interested in more political means than technical. Having money will make it work quite hard, but there’s nothing to present yet. A lot of projects are in the pipe-line though.
TF: What does the BitTorrent community need the most to continue being the mainstream P2P protocol?
Peter: More trackers, less centralized systems and more people standing up for the community.
—–
For the founders of the site the sale is certainly the end of an era and they deserve credit for all the work they’ve done thus far. We will watch closely to what happens with The Pirate Bay in the future but BitTorrent is here to stay with or without it.
Previously: OpenBitTorrent Tracker Muscles In On The Old Pirate Bay
Next: Streets of Blood Premieres Worldwide on BitTorrent
134 Responses
fully nice one
I’m not surprised. I still don’t see the end for Pirate Bay, much less BitTorrent and file-sharing in general.
Open BitTorrent shows some promise as does the Video bay :D
First?
bah, fifth.
People just need to chill, theres plenty of other places to get stuff other than TPB
this still tells us nothing….
we need some real news and facts
If they remove all torrents containing copyrighted material, TPB wont survive 2 hours after they implement that.
Its sad to see TPB most likely die, but luckily, as has been proven many times over, someone else (possible many) will take their place and become the new giant in the P2P world.
much respect to the pirate bay crew!
to all those ungratefull spoiled kids ranting and calling names and showin off, you should really take 5 minutes and think about how much effort tpb crew has put into it for so many years. if you still dont see the light, put up your own tracker and then you are allowed to complain..
pirates unite not fight!
if there are no logs how do they help swedish police track down people who upload cp?
He’s just revealed the same old nonsense that we’ve already known.
Pure nonsense. Hardly even news worthy. Thanks for taking away two minutes of my life that I can never get back. :(
The PB crew should make a bakup of there torrents and after the sale has gone threw they should leak them to another torrent site.
Quote: “The foundation is interested in more political means than technical.”
Could he be talking about the pirate party perhaps?
Why leave us after such a long relationship? Damn it, Peter, I loved you. Money isn’t everything! Wait, what?
@12: No *YOU* should. That’s the idea.
@dairRIAA
Why do you even bother reading a Sunde Interview if you already know everything?
Well im off to DL REM’s Its the end of the world as we know it lol
The pirate bay will die BUT it had to.
IT was to central and a focus for attack, if bit torrent became anonymous and decentralised then it could not be attacked or taken down, when you have a single focus that’s what gets striked at.
Why do we even still need the pirate bay i mean?
Why cant anyone make a universal tracker system one that works though the very people using it?
Hmm ill give this more though.
-Jay
I was hoping that since it was a new article that it would reveal new details. Sadly, it didn’t and by the time I realized it I had already read the whole thing.
More trackers?!?! He’s shutting down the largest tracker in the universe and he’s telling us ‘more trackers?’
How many times will they sell out before becoming billionnaires ? Never again ! Marketing bastards !
spoiled kids wanting trackers done for them… you know that clients like Utorrent have rudimentary, basic, but functional trackers? they are your IP address! don’t feel like giving out your IP as your tracker? then get a free dsn name. “Keep it simple, stupid” . Btjunkie is still a great search alternative
spoiled kids wanting trackers done for them… you know that clients like Utorrent have rudimentary, basic, but functional trackers? they are your IP address! don’t feel like giving out your IP as your tracker? then get a free dsn name. “Keep it simple, stupid” . Btjunkie is still a great search alternative
Am i the only 1 getting blank page when trying to open TPB website ?
Q: Do you care about TPB nowadays?
A: None at all.
@23 – suprbay forums down at the moment. main TPB site fine tho.
“0 torrents have been removed, 0 torrents will ever be removed”
“TPB is legal in Sweden, we can’t be sued”
“This trial will have no consequences. The Pirate Bay is not in Sweden any more. We don’t know where ourselves, so it’s gonna be hard to prove where the site is.”
“We’re going to win the trial”
“Hit them harder when they least expect it”
aannnd, the series finale:
“We’re exhausted, we’re just humans, we’re selling it”…
It was great while it lasted, but the end was completely fucked up.
PS: “It’s probably hard to answer in the beginning. But they’re not as stupid as they’ve (GGF) been portrayed.” — LOL. That’s certain with the insider trading and pump and dump scam suspicions.
Peter, you should eat more red meat, you’re starting to sound like someone injected you with too much estrogen…
PS – I want to hear from the other guys.. they were in Steal This Film – please don’t fade into the night guys.. stand up and talk to us straight for once.. PLEASE.. or at least get JJ KING to interview you about it openly and honestly and release the movie soon JJ!!! And thanks for Opentracker still waiting on confirmation that it’s secure & not owned/controlled by the new company (now or in the future)
what? 25 comments and no ‘cool story bro :)’ ?
@27
Because we already knew this… and i think our resident Anonymous actually did go to bollywood.
TPB working for me in UK………. Its all about commerce kids. You pick, (PAYS-FOR) and download a particular video title. Then some-one else picks and (PAYS-FOR) same video title and you get payed for uploading it to them.
This is Buying your bandwidth at much less than you paid for it. Bah….They can stick it…Its Like Pyramid selling, the only guy that earns is the one at the top.
@19 They are not shutting down the tracker. They are renaming it. The new name is OpenBitTorrent.
I actually like the idea of 10 million users spreading across (10 mill divided by 10-50k user trackers) all over the world into new private trackers. If there will be enough new ones, that is.
With that amount of dispersion it would actually be increasingly harder to do anything about filesharing. Now instead of 1 big tracker you can try to crash/DDOS/remove torrents/servers on, there’s 200-1000 times more..good luck pushing all that through courts.
Not an Expert…Just know how you Inbred F*cks operate….
This is basically the beginning of the end for file sharing. It was fun while it lasted. RIAA is going to control the entire P2P community eventually. That’s the goal. If you can’t beat it, control it from the inside. Well, maybe we can all go outside again and play ball or go skating like the old days. Maybe this is a good thing overall. Get out of the house. Meet people. Say goodbye to digital media.
Well, Peter Sunde sounds as if he is bored with everything.
@Gss (post 37)
You are talking bullshit.
you mean 38?.ummm?????
I poo poo the going outside thingy…We will all catch skin csncer…Noooo…Leave me alone to download Sims…Leave me to live in my own little world….Me Dont Want cancerous lumps all over me..!
@twatt,
You are an idiot.
Long Live The Pirate Bay!
When you is diagnosed with skin cancer you will wish you had downloaded the SIMS and stayed indoors..You Twatt…
Ultra Violet rays cant penatrate ya roof…(if ya got tiles that is). Dont Panic…Just download the Sims and forget bout skinny cancer. It cant Get Ya…….
@TPB goes to bollywood
Oh Shut up you FAG……
Hmmm… this is interesting that you (twatt) felt alluded with these words:
“Well, Peter Sunde sounds as if he is bored with everything.”
The truth hurts, right?
Again with the fag comment twatt, I think someone is secretly gay, you know what they say about people who protest too much…..
My response wasnt to Peter Sunde..?….You fooking Twatt…go read it again…lmfao….Why do i bother?..
Im going to bed now….I hope we can all look forward to ‘TPB goes to Bollywood’s contribution tomorrow?
‘Cool Story Bro’…Yessss….I cant wait….
It will be sad to see one of the worlds largest databases of media and knowledge fall
:(
Don’t feed the troll.
the battle has just begun…
too many anti-p2p trolls in the blogs
http://www.h33t.com says real filesharers SUPPORT TPB in their hour of need. we are grateful what you gave us
Lots of dead weights in the ships. And they call themselves pirates.
People really like to complain a lot, and yet, when the time comes for support, innovation, or simply a litle bit of autonomy, it´s whine after whine.
Being spoon-fed by TPB doesn´t make people different from being spoon-fed by FOX or other crappy thing. Only makes one more technical proficient.
Yarrrr for life.
Sharing is Caring
His future is jail.
For piracy.
For perjury
For insider trading.
For tax evasion.
For whatever this pure criminal comes up with next.
Great Interview but it still does not answer anything we already didn’t know
1. you are obviously in contact with the crew as you are pretty much with all popular things going on in the TF world
You are probably the only one who can get information out , out of anyone here TF can do it but you still fail to ask questions people would like to see answers too.
Questions i can’t beleive you never asked are
1. would you say this new model GGF have is going to be another DRM shop where users pay to download content is that content restricted, where or who is the content licenced from, will it restrict users will it be a fair price,
2. The news of a new tracker has been picked up openbittorent is this your new project?
3. since GGF has aquired the new p2p tech peeralism which is soley designed for streaming video, is the video bay going to be using the same technology, is the video bay really going to be run by GGF under your branding?
4. All the talk about money going into some foundation where can see see all the information about this so called foundation and why would it need 7million dollars to feed it? what does it do since it’s not technical or to do with technology,
i could go on but you get the idea the point being all the questions your loyal fans was hoping to get some answers too was once again shoved into a dark corner and fed shit like mushrooms.
You could of asked the questions even if the answers was no comment or what not we’d still of had an idea of the real truth depending on how he denied the truth or what not.
why is it so hard to get answers from someone or this new so called deal because at the end of the day at some point it’s going to happen and were all going to have to be told whats going on, so what is all the secrecy about ??
I’ve been thinking about decentralized BT for almost as long as BT has existed, the following is a simplified version of a basic idea for a decentralized BT indexing/tracker network infrastructure.
GATEWAY = Website that is reported to by NETNODES, for standard client connections this would provide a handful of NETNODE IP addresses, these can be used for legit purposes and should not violate laws in most countries.
NETNODE = Keeps a track of INDEXNODES so that when you search for a file, it will request further data from the relevant INDEXNODES. (INDEXNODES report back to NETNODES) – Even at this stage, usage is legitimate.
INDEXNODE = Keeps a track of files, relevant HASHNODES and relevant TRACKNODES. These only handles specific files (eg. File beginning with “A” and when network is bigger, file names that begin “Aa”)
HASHNODE = Has the hash data that would typically be in a torrent file.
TRACKNODE = Keeps a track of users that are seeding/leeching… works the same as a normal torrent tracker, except that it serves a far more limited range of files. Sends torrent IDs and seed/leech counts to the INDEXNODEs.
Client Login:
1) Retrieve list of NETNODES from GATEWAY site.
2) Request list of INDEXNODES from NETNODE(S).
Search:
1) Request results by performing a search through the relevant INDEXNODE(s). (Data returned: file name, file size, seeds, peers)
Download Initialisation:
1) Request HASHNODES and TRACKNODES for the selected file from the relevant INDEXNODE(s).
2) Request hashdata from HASHNODE(s).
3) Create .torrent file using the retrieved hashdata, with TRACKNODES set as the trackers for the torrent.
4) Push the generated .torrent file (with hash data and dynamic tracker addresses) to a local BT client.
…then your normal BT client does the rest.
There are obviously node-trustworthiness issues and vulnerabilities to be considered… but I’m sure there are ways we can counter that.
Any ideas or thoughts to contribute to this are appreciated.
|||=+|-|o|)
http://www.p2pnet.net/story/24418/comment-page-1#comment-978061
you got some man-juice on your face there ernesto, right there, ya, u got it.
Here’s my take on this: I don’t care that they want to take some time off or move on to other things. That’s their right and I have no problem with them doing that.
What I, and most people I would imagine, DO have a problem with is the way this went down and the seeming hypocrisy from one moment to the next. A few months ago the founders of TPB were standing tall for our cause and saying things like the R.A.P.E. err I mean R.I.A.A. et al wouldn’t get a dime and that “If I (Peter Sunde) had 30 million SEK, I would rather burn them, and not even give them the ashes.”
Then the other day we hear they’re selling TPB and that the new owner is going to make it legit, which is akin to saying they’re shutting it down. No warning, no nothing just WHAM! And then they try to act all surprised that people are pissed.
Mr. Sunde, I’m not pissed that you wanted to take a break or that you wanted to move in other directions, I can understand that and you’ve certainly earned it. No, I’m pissed that you were literally a hero to millions, including me, and you sell out the symbol of our struggle, WITHOUT WARNING. So don’t act like you’re the victim here, there were better ways to handle this than the way you did.
The one thing that disappoints me the most in all of this is that the lesson it gives is to not trust anyone. You betrayed our trust Mr Sunde, whether you choose to acknowledge that fact or not. Like it or not you guys were heroes to all of us and that came with responsibility.
“Peter: More trackers, less centralized systems and more people standing up for the community.”
Use the money to start an internation law firm that will represent people for free and id assure you,youd see alot more people starting trackers
100th!
xD
disgusting disingenuous retarded comments by the MAFIAA spamming this blog
http://www.h33t.com where it will not end in electing politicians it will end with the blood of the oppressors
People will always be flawed, they will make mistakes but a symbol, that cannot be tarnish and that is what TPB is, a symbol, even if the people behind it sold out or not is irrelevant, the idea lives on and not the creators nor any group of people.
Remember the idea not the people.
“Privacy and freedom” that is what people want.
People can be broke, people can be bought, people can give up, ideas cannot and they die only when people forget them.
Bad people took away our freedoms piece by piece and are angry now that we want it back LoL
If you wanna live in a world where you have to pay an eye and a arm to live in, be treated like a criminal for sharing and caring for others forget, if instead you want back your rights to share, to have private life and not be harassed by the law you should remember and pass the message along.
the openbittorrent trackers are what is goiong to replace the trackers at tpb. There is no torrent removal it says at the site. Ask the sites themselves to remove the link so better
Just like the massive liberation movement in the 60s, this will die. The only difference is nobody ever believed in it enough to get involved.
Maximum respect for TPB team… you dont deserve all the shit you have got off the idiots.
I would “sell out” for that money, and so would everyone here.
Torrents do not contain anything but text. So in that, they are unable to contain copyrighted material. So if GGF keeps their promise TPB is going to be exactly the same a year from now.
I know I know what a honest answer should have been:
“The fundation will have $8M in capital, which will enable us to live without doing anything but pretending to do some research, will all costs paid for the next 30 years. Then it will be time for retirement pension. Thanks to all the suckers who gave us more money by buying our tshirts btw, you are real idiots. Also we don’t log anything, but start to save money because you might have a suit on if you uploaded anything”
More than ever, tpb proves to be superhyperscam (and i’m not a riaa troll, just not naive in business matters)
@69 It wouldn’t hurt to be a little naive. Its better than being a grouchy old man.
Cool report Sister
Pirate Bay was hurting p2p too much to stay alive.I actually believe that this will do us good.The larger the community that is gathered in 1 place the more the publicity we get.I prefer to have 100 trackers with 10000 users each and just exchange the same torrents than have 1 tracker with 1000000 users.It draws far less attention and it works the same.
Agree with some of the above, stop dodging the core and come up with REAL ANSWERS already. :F
Well spoken peter sunde!
you are my idol! you are a revolutionist!!
keep on sharing!
[b]bro story cool :)[/b]
At all the people telling “Once TPB dies, a new giant will rise…” bla bla…
We need to not let a gian rise, decentralize, get many small ones, spread the world, give the MAFIAA a hard time sueing us all instead of one big…
TPB as a domain might die, but the TPB crew, TiAMO, brokep, anakata… you think those people will be chilling around with the money they earned? Nothing goes in theyr pockets, they’ll heep to fight the big ones, give them a deserved vacation…those guys are heroes…
Cheers!
Entertaining inquiry, chap
f*ck that p*ussy, DONT LIE TO US, you b*tch, nice corporation huhh ? lies everywhere, TPB S*CKS
Thank you Peter! I think that clarified it.
They [GGF] just get the domains thepiratbay.org, thepiratbay.se etc and a COPY of the software. Meaning that openbittorrent.com will continue to track the current TPB database on the same servers that TPB is right now. OK… this is not so bad after all.
H33T,
I checked out your website. Care to explain why everything there was basically uploaded by you? Why would you basically want to spam your own website and make it harder for people to find legitimate files? Yeah because you are fucking industry faggot. That’s why.
If you go to http://www.h33t.com you deserve the infringement notice that you will get.
Summary… take the money and run.
@52 Jul 06, 2009 at 04:14 by GrX
Those are stupid questions.
They aren’t sailing on, they’re walking the plank!
To everyone that is whining and complaining: learn to frickin read! Stupid Twelves.
@Gss (post 37)
Keep in mind, some of us aren’t lucky enough to be able to go outside (I’ve been bedridden for 15 years). My window is nice though.
That talk about insider trading is silly. Together the board members have 225M shares in the company. A few days before the announcement somebody bought 200.000 shares for a little more than the day before. It just does not make sense that they should have bought those shares.
I’d love to set up a torrent tracker in NORTH KOREA. Not kidding!
I was there on holiday recently and it was MUCH nicer than I had thought. It basically looks like Romaniam, ca 1990.
North Korea actually wants to be an IT outsourcing country and have some excellent C programmers (I met some).
They’ve even written their own linux from scratch because they don’t want to use Micro$oft or any OS with a South Korean config… Hm…
I forgot to ask their view on international copyright :-) but it’s probably the same as their view on nuclear proliferation…
The only problem they have is that they have no fast fibre optics, and regular people cannot go on the internet (they have their own intranet instead).
For it to work, they’d need a good cable to China or Russia.
But they definitely have the skills and the attitude. I’d love to see the MRIAA try to sue anyone there, or send them threating letters. Americans can’t even ENTER the country.
(BTW, do not believe all the nonsense you read about this country, it’s not that bad at all.
The ppl are all seem to be fundamentalist communists who love their leader, but are otherwise funny, cool and have an interesting view on things.
If I go again, I swear I will speak with them about a torrent tracker and a data haven assuming they will sort out the broadband situation.
They have free econimical zones there, like China. Surely those need broadband.
TPB web site always sucked. They need the seven mil so they can go back to school and ACTUALLY learn object oriented programming. TPB is shit beta trash and that is why the ipred is taking soooo long because TPB crew has always struggled to complete a single thing in their lives!! ALL TALKY!!! NO WALKY!!!!
@25
You, Mme., are a stupid twat.
Your opening remark is nothing short of retarded.
Please go die now before some fool knocks you up and you breed. :D
Why not create a BT-like client which uses UPnP to open a random port.
It then searches its own subnet for open ports running the same daemon and stores that information like a router.
This routing table is updated to others that are now nodes on this network by intra-protocol broadcast. (This is known as a flooding technique.)
This network would creep across the world and slowly morph and grow as bandwidth allows.
You couldn’t stop it, and it could involve encryption much like the WASTE protocol.
It could work. *shrug*
For leaf nodes who do not have UPnP or the ability to open ports to the Internet from their internal network, they would simply not relay information. They would still work as clients however.
Each node could also be used to relay parts of downloads between each other much like WASTE. I’m not sure of the performance of this method, however.
It’s just a thought…
Way i see it ,they have had enough,there running for cover.So much for “Steal this film” so much for ALL the talk!!!!
Good article and interview. Thanks Peter and TorrentFreak!
Hey guys, how do I search torrents at this new openbittorrent tracker? Any indexers you know?
I don’t care much for the pirate bay anymoar, but I’m happy their still working on the Video Bay.
hey Cordelia, this aint the holiday programme !
‘tpb needs to change or blablabla’
no. not the point. everybody needs to change
real good change means less leechers/hit and run ppl/whatever you want to call em, and more seeders.
So think about how to achieve that.
simple.
Looks like Peter of TPB achieved ONE of his aims. He gave filesharing a much needed kick in it’s complacency of late. He’s probably getting a boner reading all this exchanging of ideas for new Torrents, protocols, sites, this Hydra that was TPB. The **AA’s are probably cringing… ;>
Go home. TPB is sold
I guess ggf is an hidden riaa company. The tpb crew sale us for some money. They don’t think at all the members which push the site the last years. Peter i can’t belive it how you could be such an asshole…
whats about new owners?
http://www.search-all-videos.com
will they freeze the TPB project or supports it?
http://www.h33t.com says real filesharers SUPPORT TPB in their hour of need.
I think you mean “support TPB in their hour of GREED.
And no, I will not. Someone should print Sellout Bay T-shirts.
http://www.h33t.com where it will not end in electing politicians it will end with the blood of the oppressors
LOLOLOL
BASEMENT WARRIOR ALERT! CODE 5! ALL NERDS ON DECK! THIS IS NOT A DRILL!
DDL FTW!
what you do not realize is that the pirate bay crew had people come out of their homes to rally and give enormous energy. these people are not getting anything for their efforts and tpb boys are millionaires if the sale goes through. They already were paid through donations and advertisers.
Now after all that energy you burned for tpb, peter is rich and the people remain poor
What could ‘The Video Bay’ bring that’s not already out?
Mixed stuff and user content: youtube
Non-censured and hardcore stuff: liveleak
HD creative and original videos: vimeo
really, I think you’re wasting your time and money.
Gotta love the way TPB built a brand on the backs of their own fans, promised they would never change a thing then sold them out in a heartbeat to pay a fine they declared they would never pay.
“We love you!” Sunde said.
“We used you like a condom to enrich ourselves” is a lot closer to the truth.
#108
on the backs and on the bandwith.
trust me, for 7.8 million TPB sold much more than they are telling you they sold. lets see the contract.
they do log ip addresses on tpb.
I sent them a email and they responded with my ip address.
watch out people.
Foundation = Courts, Lawyers, and Double A asshats.
As for the TBP, GGF will get a “Copy” of the database and site. Basically everything on a hard drive, here you go, cya later thanks for the cash.
The original however will probably be used for other projects ie OpenTracker etc.
@Retarded Mind
Ahahah. You want to throw around the word “condom” when you’re the MAFIAA’s own little jimmy hat?
That’s some fine irony.
And as always, you’re a liar. Neither Pete Sunde nor any of the other figures behind TPB will see a cent of that 7.8 million. Since 2006, TPB hasn’t belonged to them.
You need to try harder.
* nor any of the other public figures behind TPB
Fuck you pirate bay. You screwed us over – the creators. Your “friends” are nothing but lazy freeloaders. The Pirate Bay is nothing but a celebration of the lazy, greedy, cheap over the hard-working and ambitious. Fuck you and all of the shit you’ve inflicted on us.
The end of TPB is the end of an era.
I just can’t wait for a fully distrubuted anonymous P2P newtork that actually has users.
Sending tracker connections through TOR is fine, but it would be nice to have an alternative.
[b]testing[/b]
testing
@77
When you decentralize you make it easier for anti p2p to track.
TPB, pulling the rug from under the media industries feet since 2003.
Not necessarily, it will depend on how it’s decentralized, if it’s anonymous, encrypted it will be very hard to crack open one. Look for the invisible services in TOR how would you find the servers?
Or take some sort of P2P based web creation tool that creates serverless webportals how would you stop everyone from using it?
It will be slow in the beginning but with internet bandwidth growing and in 20 years a projection of 1 Gigabits transfers being possible through optical networks it will make no difference at all. Now if you decentralize and use an open plataform not secured it will be like shooting fish in a barrel.
@52 Jul 06, 2009 at 04:14 by GrX
“Great Interview but it still does not answer anything we already didn’t know
1. you are obviously in contact with the crew as you are pretty much with all popular things going on in the TF world
You are probably the only one who can get information out , out of anyone here TF can do it but you still fail to ask questions people would like to see answers too.”
i dont think you will get answers on TF either. read this…
http://www.cultureghost.org/viewtopic.php?p=5394#p539
Well, as someone who works in the film industry, it is good to see that all hope is not lost. I knew as soon as these four thieves that run TPB were convicted that their game would soon be over.
It just took a little swipe with the “long arm of the law” to shut them up and make them go running home to their mommies.
What, no more smart-mouth responses posted on their site? Nothing to say to a year in jail?? Nothing to say to a huge fine?? Yea, not so tough when the real world comes knocking.
Well, I for one, can be very gracious to all four of you and would like to welcome you to the “very well off” social stratus of the world. You’re going to enjoy being rich much more than you liked being pirates.
^
Exactly. The pirate bay’s arrogance and tongue in cheek pretenses didn’t seem like they stood up to the law very well. They probabaly really thought that they could keep it up forever. I really want to see a video of the trial. Im actually wondering if they responded to the real life legal situation unfolding before their eyes in the same way that they responded to all the legal letters that they were sent. I guess now they don’t have the luxury of hiding behind their anonymity anymore though.
They say that they’re working on other things… They don’t seem to ever learn from their mistakes, do they? The Video Bay looks to be like youtube except they are no doubt going to look the other way when people upload copyrighted material. It’s going to be just like they original TPB, except with a very short legal struggle, because this time it is very clear that they are hosting the copyrighted material.
The Pirate Bay and it’s operators seem like they are determined to continue their hopeless legal tug of war over the difference between “uncensored freedom” and what is copyrighted.
@122 Jul 07, 2009 at 18:11 by Terrance
“Well, as someone who works in the film industry, it is good to see that all hope is not lost. I knew as soon as these four thieves that run TPB were convicted that their game would soon be over.
It just took a little swipe with the “long arm of the law” to shut them up and make them go running home to their mommies.
What, no more smart-mouth responses posted on their site? Nothing to say to a year in jail?? Nothing to say to a huge fine?? Yea, not so tough when the real world comes knocking.
Well, I for one, can be very gracious to all four of you and would like to welcome you to the “very well off” social stratus of the world. You’re going to enjoy being rich much more than you liked being pirates.”
Hey “Terrance”… am wondering why your post is exact, word for word, to a post from NEOSTYLES in another thread recently – especially the “swipe with the long arm of the law” bit… Pussy.
What Is A Troll?
================
The term derives from “trolling”, a style of fishing which involves trailing bait through a likely spot hoping for a bite. The troll posts a message, often in response to an honest question, that is intended to upset, disrupt or simply insult the group.
Usually, it will fail, as the troll rarely bothers to match the tone or style of the group, and usually its ignorance shows.
Why do trolls do it?
====================
Most trolls are sad people, living their lonely lives vicariously through those they see as strong and successful.
Disrupting a stable forum gives the illusion of power, just as for a few, stalking a strong person allows them to think they are strong, too.
For trolls, any response is ‘recognition’; they are unable to distinguish between irritation and admiration; their ego grows directly in proportion to the response, regardless of the form or content of that response.
Trolls, rather surprisingly, dispute this, claiming that it’s a game or joke; this merely confirms the diagnosis; how sad do you have to be to find such mind-numbingly trivial timewasting to be funny?
Remember that trolls are cowards; they’ll usually post just enough to get an argument going, then sit back and count the responses (Yes, that’s what they do!).
Peter Sunde is a lying sack of sh*t. Stupid sellout, i hope he gets hit by a bus. TPB will still not be the same basic concept a year from now. People will be paying for downloads. That totally contradicts the tpb concept!!!!! Time to join private trackers. They can never silence us.
@122 & 123
Don’t get up on the pedestal just yet…
The media industries are merely reaping the rewards of years of greed. They, instead of cutting production costs and seeking out modernized methods of distributing the same content in non-physical mediums and at reasonable prices, have continued to hold firm to the rediculous notion that their way is the only way. The internet has already spoken, and just because you don’t like what it said, doesn’t mean that you’re going to change any minds.
Now that most of the world is upside down in the midst of an economic crisis, do you really think people are going to all of a sudden and miraculously start paying for overpriced content like it’s 1995 again? Ha and Ha. Please be realistic if nothing else.
TPB was more than “four thieves that run TPB”. It was an idea. An idea supported by millions upon millions of people without whom(and their bandwidth) the TPB would just be another useless, unvisited index and tracker. We, the users, have undoubtedly helped make TPB what it was. We seed the goodies. We bought the shirts in the name of supporting end-user freedom. We do it because it must be done. We vote with our wallets that we don’t support the entertainment conglomerates, but also aren’t really willing to miss out on the content either.
The idea will never die, so long as there are people out there who can barely afford their connections to the net but would still like to watch, listen to, and play the content which is being produced, with or without the various industries’ “legal” consent. You can’t get money out of people who don’t have it. Should they really be denied access to said content? Why is said content not distributed normally for a reasonable time, and then released to the public for free after the initial rush of people who *are* willing to pay for it have already done so? Greed is an ugly beast with an insatiable appetite, that is why. And so for every album, movie, game, book, or program that is created, another pirate is born.
To the uploaders, the crackers, the scene groups, the workprint leakers, and our beloved screenrippers: You guys are the unseen magic behind the curtains of TPB and every other TOR site, public and private alike. Without you, the users could not play out our role which is to enjoy the content regardless of what the greedy AA’s believe we should do. While the industry folks want paid, paid, and paid for their work, you continue to earn the respect they never will by doing your work and donating your time to the community for FREE. Though nameless and faceless you are heroes in our time.
Just as an aside, I am a programmer and digital artist, and I am not afraid of piracy. By the time any finished product of my work reaches shelves or digital distros, I have already been paid and have moved on to the next project. I actually enjoy knowing that more people get to enjoy my work than would if it was strictly available to only those who can afford the purchase. Not to mention, I strongly believe that most content that is pirated, is pirated by people who will *never, ever* pay for it anyway. Whether by one friend making a copy or multinational P2P sharing, those who are not willing or are unable to pay for the content, and they will always be the majority no matter what the content consists of, should never be considered customers or “lost revenue” but they are almost always still fans and supporters(even if only in spirit) nonetheless.
sell outs……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Just as an aside, I am a programmer and digital artist, and I am not afraid of piracy. By the time any finished product of my work reaches shelves or digital distros, I have already been paid and have moved on to the next project.
just as an aside…if everyone pirated your programming, there would be NO ONE to pay you initially, during, after, or otherwise because your employer paying you is predicated on the assumption that they will see a return on their investment. if they start seeing less of a return guess who isn’t going to get paid as much next time? guess who might not even be hired next time? guess who might have to consider another career whose products and services aren’t so easily stolen?
YOU!
Much respect to TPB.
Brilliant busine$$men all or them. Fascists or not, they’ve made a fortune giving away other ppls work, screwing their supporters and finally selling out for millions of $$$$, when they get a bit of heat.
All the while they were cashing in with subscriptions, and software and merchendise, and porn adverts, not to mention that they’re probably selling all your personal TPB user data to the RIAA or other highest bidder. good job!$$$$
Did you hear their “foundation” is fortunately based in the $unny carribean!
They should all be on the front cover of busine$$week. respect.
Actually, it’s not. Second of all, way to dodge people’s actual post.
Millions of people also supported hitler.
OK, sure, TPB was an idea. One that was based on :
1. Greed
2. Arrogance
3. Freeloading
4. Laziness
5. Self satisfaction
6. Pretending you are special and you dont have to follow rules
RIP the parasite bay
LOL
Ive never seen such elaborate commemoration for theft.
@130
Surely, you don’t really expect to convince anybody that “everyone” is a pirate. Perhaps “everyone” uses Windows Vista and is wearing a blue Oxi-Clean shirt today too. 306 million Americans vs. 20 million TPB users worldwide. Hrmmm… Everyone, you say? Riveting tale, chap. It all hinges on a rediculously implausible if though.
Not that you really cared beyond making your point, but my firm has doubled it’s quarterly profits from 2007 to present day. Rest assured that my lack of fear regarding the pirate community is well justified. I never expected, nor would I ever count on, making money off of the BitTorrent community. I knew they were here and knew exactly what they were capable of. I am a t-shirt wearing member. =/
This fact would be responsible for why they aren’t the target market of any project I’ve put my time into either, not by a longshot. If they download 1 copy or 100,000 copies, it doesn’t matter to us because we understand that piracy of software is just like shrinkage in a retail business… it happens, and we planned on it. The BT community are a miserable target market for anyone who wants to make money and I still have no clue why the industries seem to think they can ever change that to their benefit by pissing them all off with such regularity.
Next rediculous assertion? Maybe piracy is starving my children, beating up my wife in the night, and generally ruining the world for decent people, am I correct?
[quote]Millions of people also supported hitler.[/quote]
Smooth analogy. Because sharing content over a P2P network is so remarkably similar to the attempted genocide of an entire race of human beings. That would make sense if only it weren’t so completely asinine. +1 for the pirates. Jesus.
[quote]1. Greed
2. Arrogance
3. Freeloading
4. Laziness
5. Self satisfaction
6. Pretending you are special and you dont have to follow rules[/quote]
At least three of those are things I’d say both sides are guilty of. A good bit of the sharing going on is genuinely out of spite because of a blatent display of 1 and 2 by the industries. “We’re big and rich and powerful and we can charge whatever we want and give us your money!” “No.”
[quote]Ive never seen such elaborate commemoration for theft.[/quote]
Where you see theft, I see duplication. Theft would require that the content be missing from somewhere… But I digress. Don’t get me wrong though either. The funniest thing about me even being here is that it’s been years since I’ve actually downloaded or uploaded anything. I don’t even have a torrent client installed and probablly never will again. Hopefully, I never need to again. I still lurk through the indexes now and then, laughing when I see something I worked on with 50+ seeds, because what else can I do. I want to make money and be able to live, but I don’t necessarily want to it at the expense of someone who’s much worse off than I am.
Once I became successful enough to afford the things I wanted, I had no qualms about buying them legitimately. I own more games on Steam now than I ever downloaded from torrents. But I do remember when times were tough and I was struggling to make ends meet. The Bay was there for me then, and RIP or whatever, I’ll never forget that. My whole point was that is isn’t the four guys that even matter. They’re just figureheads for the cause of an entire caste of people(certainly not everyone, but a healthy number) that truly cannot afford to pay for the rising costs of entertainment. It’s amazing how little people care about corporations and their profit margins when all they want to do is watch a damn movie to help them forget what a mess their life is.
Yarr! and P.S. Likening Hitler and the Nazis to just about anything makes you look like a douche supreme in pretty much all cases.
First of all, The Pirate Bay website was built many years ago and apart from minor maintenance, it has required no work for years. The users have done all the work, uploading and seeding stuff. You are giving way too much credit to the founders.
I don’t get this “TPB needs to change or it will die”. It has survived unchanged for years, so it’s clearly a lie and I am glad many people are seeing through the ‘official’ explanation of the sale.
The media industry has obviously taken over TPB after its founders ran into a dead end legally. I don’t blame them personally. They have finally understood they cannot keep up the defiant fasade and that’s the real reason why TPB came to an end.
“Any ideas or thoughts to contribute to this are appreciated.”
Sounds like an overly convoluted plan and if there is still a ‘gateway website’ that everyone needs to contact, how does this even constitute a decentralized service? Unless you meant there are a number of these, but your description reads like there is a central gateway website! Epic Fail.
“i hope he gets hit by a bus”
LOL. Let’s not be mean. Of course they pretended to be more than they were. And people bought it. But now we see the TPB founders are no dataheroes in shining bit armor!
“I really want to see a video of the trial.”
Well, I listened to the audio feed and read some transcripts and yes, the defendants were just as arrogant in court and it did not work for them.
“Though nameless and faceless you are heroes in our time.”
Thank you! I shall remember this whenever I upload. Knowing that it goes to benefit others, always makes it worth me ‘donating’ my personal time to edit video, the CPU time to render it and bandwidth to seed.
the guy talkin shit bout hitler must be from israel..oh wait, they are now WORST THAN HITLER…………….
Surely, you don’t really expect to convince anybody that “everyone” is a pirate. Perhaps “everyone” uses Windows Vista and is wearing a blue Oxi-Clean shirt today too. 306 million Americans vs. 20 million TPB users worldwide. Hrmmm… Everyone, you say? Riveting tale, chap. It all hinges on a rediculously implausible if though.
okay MR. LITERAL, i will revise the original statement to accommodate your annoying circumvention of the actual point: if an increasingly large portion of people continue to pirate the work of your employers eventually a tipping point will be reached and you will either be faced with having to accept less money for the same amount of work or having to find another career altogether.
obviously, it does not take “everyone” pirating to have an effect on the marketplace. if your margins are thin and your audience is niche, it might not take very much at all to put a serious dent into your business. a lot of independent labels have been finding that out recently. google “world of goo” and see what happened to them.
hopefully there wasn’t a stray figure of speech in there for you to take advantage of and interpret literally like some little autistic drone…
as for the pirate bay demographic not being your company’s target demographic WELL WOOPTIE-DO!GOOD FOR YOU! keep on selling your how-to-insert-a-tampon tutorials but really, what’s your point? the pirate bay demographic is a HUGE demographic for film and music industry and it’s one that is increasingly not willing to “share” in the cost of development.
that is a problem.
I want to make money and be able to live, but I don’t necessarily want to it at the expense of someone who’s much worse off than I am.
but pirates aren’t necessarily worse off then you! that’s the biggest lie in this entire talkback. a lot of pirates i’ve known are not poor at all! they have expensive computers, expensive speakers, expensive televisions, expensive IPODS, expensive internet subscriptions and go to expensive schools and routinely eat out at expensive restaurants. the money they save on buying entertainment they spend on everything else and then go online and whine about how poor they are…LOL
and that is why there is no such as thing as “non-profit piracy”. if you’re saving money on things you would have otherwise bought, that is most definitely “for profit”. and don’t give me the BS about “well, i wouldn’t have bought anything if i couldn’t pirate, i’d just do without”. anyone who says that, i’d ask them how many CDs and DVDs they USED to buy when they were younger and which movie rental places they USED to be a member of…
but let me just put aside reason for a moment and assume that your assumption of pirates being dirt poor is true…so what? there are cheap second run theaters, there is hulu, there are libraries. there is more entertainment available to HOMELESS PEOPLE right now then there has ever been before. the newest movies and albums are not a bodily need. no one is dying for lack of the newest “culture”. they are luxuries. just luxuries. and just because you (claim) you can’t afford luxuries does not mean you should just take them and then have the gall to call it “fair”.
P.S. Likening Hitler and the Nazis to just about anything makes you look like a douche supreme in pretty much all cases.
agree with you here but i don’t recall you ever making the same point when it’s one of your pirate brethren that’s making the comparison (on a pretty much daily basis)
if you have, please feel free to correct me with the appropriate sources. ;-)
There seems to be a lot of fuzzy thinking going on. It is only fair that people in media get paid for their work but the traditonal way that happens will change. How about this? Media products which are free to the customers tied to advertising( seperate adverts, product placement, whatever). The end users get the product free, the creators get paid in direct proportion to how popular they are and the advertisers get highly targeted advertising which should boost their sales. Copywright suited the days when media products were physical lumps to be mass produced and distributed physically. The piracy and copywright issue is simply a symptom of hanging on to an old way of doing business in a technological enviroment which it no longer fits.
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@134
Excellent point. Things have needed to change, I don’t think anyone will disagree there, but the point seems to have been completely missed by many, particularly those in stark opposition to the freedom of information. I believe it is the media corporations who must make changes to affect this outcome and it should not be handled in a legal manner but instead by methods such as the gaming industry have adopted. “Increase the value and incentives to be a legal, paying user”. There are so many other options available to them besides bringing lawsuits against end-users or providers such as the TPB website, yet they seem to only have that one card to play no matter what the situation.
There are also some important legal implications which support the need for open availability of free content such as the Fair Use Provisions Act of US Copyright law. The many other arguments for the need for availability of copyrighted content also include, but are not by any means, limited to:
1) Users who live in a country with no supporting copyright laws. For these users, outright piracy for private use and even in some cases, profit, is legal.
2) Users outside the intended areas of legal distribution. Though legally questionable and still subject to local copyright laws, it is undoubted that a majority of people support that this also should be considered legal. Making purchase impossible leaves a user who is being denied access to content based of geographic location and leaves piracy their only alternative.
3) Anyone who has taken an activist-like stance against the content providers and would use the materials as part of their campaign against them as part of a boycott or other such action.
For US citizens wishing to use the material for: “purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright.” The download and exclusive possession of copyrighted materials for any of these easily provable motives is 100% legal. It is not theft by any means, and any assertion that it is, provided it is under these provisions, should be considered a case of libel and direct defamation of the target’s character. Legally speaking, all one must do is publicly comment on the content for any act of piracy to be protected under Fair Use.
While not openly supporting piracy for the sole ideal of “collecting it all for personal use”, I do believe that even without torrents, the media must still otherwise be made available to the public domain for any of the above purposes. Torrents are the current user-provided outlet for this media, and so long as the individual user in possession of the copyrighted material can justifiably support the possession for any these purposes, it it legal, is not theft, and anyone asserting otherwise should be considered an uneducated fool who is not in full possession of the facts.
The RIAA nor MPAA have publicly responded to this. The process by which they are willing make available any requested content has been made so difficult and time-intensive as to render it almost completely useless as a source for most if not all of the above cases for the free distribution of said content. It should logically be assumed that they are willing to strip the right of users to use their copyrighted content for any of these purposes, as they have made no attempts to provide an outlet for such materials to be made readily available to any and all individuals or groups seeking said materials for such purposes. The act of denying the materials to users for these purposes is just as illegal as downloading the content illegally for piracy is.
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