I do believe it. Sometimes is worth remembering that the laws of the USA are different to the rest of the world, and under Swedish law, is very probable they will win.
In response to the preview global license and 1 download = 1 lost sale. I'd argue that the buzz created by the torrent release of Lost increased it's viewership/ratings and the owners in fact owe my clients a percentage of show's profits for their marketing efforts. I'd point out that my theory has just as much evidence as their theory on lost sales, Actually since Lost was profitable there is more evidence for preview torrent increasing profits than there is for it costing sales.
And you should not be able to claim lost sales for something you are not currently selling or plan to sell in immediate future.
The 1 download = 1 lost sale is totally flawed. It is probably closer to participation rates online for anything which is less that 1%. Probably closer to 1000 downloads = 1 lost sale or even 10000 downloads = 1 lost sale. Some people have re-downloaded content that they have previously bought on multiple formats.
Considering the insane amounts of traffic they get and the kinds of ads they serve, I'd be hard pressed to believe they weren't making a small fortune.
this is pure speculation, but since we're down that road anyway: The Pirate Bay has hosting in quite a few places, but many of them are in Europe where you pay a good premium for bandwidth. Yes, they have some good advertising contracts but I'd be very surprised if it didn't eat up just about what it makes.
The reason for this is that I think their user demographics are shifted towards people that do not really want to pay for content ;)
The era of IP, pay per download etc is going to fade away, music companies are better off make money by subscription from user to download all the music they want. Something like
oreilly safari http://my.safaribooksonline.com. This would atleast for now make users stream or download from official sources.
I find the legalism of the defense tedious. Automating the process of being an accessory to a crime should not be a defense for it. "I didn't help people break the law, the automated program that I created did" just doesn't fly with me.
This ought to be a conversation about intellectual property. If you believe in it, there is little justification for the legality of TPB. If you don't, then TPB is fine.
But they're not trying to justify themselves on ideological grounds, they're making a legal defense. A successful legal defense will not necessarily be the same as a mature and reasonable argument that you or I would find convincing.
That's true. Maybe I should have said that I don't find their case convincing.
When the logical weakness of the defense's argument is combined with their showy grandstanding - well it looks like the adults are suing the children in this case. People here seem to be enjoying their antics, but to me it makes them look non-serious.
Edit: The Pirate Bay's fans are pretty annoying and un-serious, too. There is no nuance to their thoughts. Take a look at this comment thread:
nobody asks you to like the people on that thread or to sit down and have coffee with them. Likewise, the pirate bay is not guilty because of such associations.
In most jurisdictions file sharing is legal, it depends on what you share that decides whether it is illegal or legal, and even the file sharing of copyrighted works is legal in some jurisdictions.
Pointing to illegal files is illegal in some places (for instance in the Netherlands), though the legal grounds of this decision are very shaky.
The copyright backed media industry is fighting a rearguard action here, they know they are losing, they just want to milk the cow a little longer.
With storage costs fast approaching zero and transport cost per bit fast approaching zero it is really only a matter of time before you can carry any content you'd ever want to consume in your whole lifetime in your inside pocket.
I guess I should be more clear. Their defense is probably the best strategy for defeating the charges in a court of law. But the tone of obvious righteousness that the defendants and the internet community has taken on seems unwarranted given the flimsy nature of their arguments.
Or maybe someone can explain to me why helping people break the law should be legal.
Arguing minutiae might be a good way to win in court. But outside of court, the term "legalistic" has a negative connotation. Legalistic arguments are seldom a good way to convince people that you are right. I don't understand why they seem to convinced so many people with such a legalistic defense.
Or maybe someone can explain to me why helping people break the law should be legal.
Does Google break the law because it makes it easy for me to search for mp3s to download? Or are they providing a useful service, and in doing do creating functionality that makes it possible to do illegal things?
ThePirateBay is an extension of that idea: if you make a service, even if that service breaks laws you are not to blame. And TPB is pretty much at the limit of that: they mock the people who've been stolen, they openly admit they help pirates - and yet, they themselves have done nothing wrong. They provide a service. They're allowed to call attention to the laws broken by their users and it's still not breaking the law.
Arguing minutiae might be a good way to win in court.
It's not minutiae. I find it a pretty repugnant attitude, this assumption that things ought to be black-and-white simple. They haven't broken the law. That's why they're winning. It's like this: if somebody asks me where they can download an album for free, because I know and they don't, if I tell them I'm not breaking the law. I'm merely being useful. That's what TPB's done. They don't steal movies. They don't host stolen content. They merely make it easy for people to find it, and that's shady, but not illegal.
But outside of court, the term "legalistic" has a negative connotation.
For me, "legalistic" has a pretty positive connotation. It implies that there's thought behind a process, and that logic is being used. It's a lot better than "impulsive judgement," which is what you're using. You don't defend your points. You just assume that they're bad and wrong and that we're all stupid to be defending it - that despite the many, many stories posted here that explain very specifically the rights that ThePirateBay has.
I don't understand why they seem to convinced so many people with such a legalistic defense.
Partly because a lot of us like free stuff, yes. But partly it's because a lot of people care about this stuff, and we think the RIAA is just as shady as ThePirateBay, and we want to see a new method come in that doesn't allow a bunch of legal-minded people with no appreciation for music and music distribution to cheat bands out of money, to deny a lot of musicians the right to profit, and to pursue draconic punishments for the people who speak out against them.
There's that legalistic nitpicking again. Google is a general purpose service. People actually use it for lawful purposes, maybe even most of the time. On the other hand, the whole point of the Pirate Bay is to violate copyright. I've never seen it used for a lawful purpose, though I am sure it is occasionally. That's a substantive difference. It would ring a lot more honest to me if the defenders of Pirate Bay said "I like to download things and I think current IP laws are wrong".
That's a valid position that can be argued. This position just seems childish to me, and not a brilliant defense as some say.
If I sold guns in packages with maps and schedules of the daily habits of people's enemies, who later ended up dead, I am pretty sure they would still lock me up for being an accessory to murder. As they ought. On another thread, Pirate Bay's defenders said that such a business should be legal, too, as the businessman isn't actually doing anything wrong.
That, to me, is a sign that they have sacrificed prudence in support of their agenda.
I like The Pirate Bay. I want to see them survive. That doesn't mean I have to accept bad arguments just because I am on their side.
There's that legalistic nitpicking again. Google is a general purpose service. People actually use it for lawful purposes, maybe even most of the time. On the other hand, the whole point of the Pirate Bay is to violate copyright. I've never seen it used for a lawful purpose, though I am sure it is occasionally. That's a substantive difference. It would ring a lot more honest to me if the defenders of Pirate Bay said "I like to download things and I think current IP laws are wrong".
Defenders do say that. I say that. The point I was making is that TPB isn't breaking the law. Even if they're helping other people break it, they themselves are innocent.
To use your gun analogy, if, rather than selling guns, you're the guy that gives directions to people looking for guns, then you're innocent. You're not touching the guns. You're just handing out directions.
That's a valid position that can be argued. This position just seems childish to me, and not a brilliant defense as some say.
A bunch of amateurs are beating powerful corporations in court. That's maybe not brilliant, but it's certainly impressive.
Does Google break the law because it makes it easy for me to search for mp3s to download?
Google isn't hosting the files that point to trackers and ultimately other peers to download from.
There are cases similar to this:
Galoob v Nintendo.
In this case Galoob was cleared of charges as it was found that users of Game Genie, while altering games, were not creating derivative works that violated Copyright.
Kelly v. Arriba Soft Corporation
Professional photographer vs image search service. It was decided since Arriba was just showing thumbnails and did not have the actual files on their servers they were in the clear.
I personally think the charges are a little out of hand. That said if you don't have rights to the files you are doing something wrong. The repercussions of the pirate bay winning or losing this case are definitely going to be interesting.
But torrent files don't aren't in themselves illegal, even if they point to illegal content. TPB doesn't host illegal material. It only hosts the files that point to them. So technically, they're not being illegal.
But they also are providing trackers. They are assisting in copyright violations and they often mock requests to remove such files that help others violate copyright.
That said, my thoughts are based on US copyright.
Please mod me down, but this case is a bit more complicated than "I like to torrent Music" and other self-serving interests.
>"we want to see a new method come in that doesn't allow a bunch of legal-minded people with no appreciation for music and music distribution to cheat bands out of money, to deny a lot of musicians the right to profit, and to pursue draconic punishments for the people who speak out against them."
The RIAA is shady and music labels give bands a hard deal, no doubt about that. But what makes you think that bands will be able to turn a profit when everything is free? Where there is no scarcity, there is no price.
Music is broken.
Maybe it is a positive social good that the RIAA blokes have to go find new jobs, but the bands get screwed either way.
The RIAA is shady and music labels give bands a hard deal, no doubt about that. But what makes you think that bands will be able to turn a profit when everything is free? Where there is no scarcity, there is no price.
There you go again. (I'm very sorry that you're getting picked on in this thread, but you're throwing up a straw man that's very conveniently simple to argue against.) Your assumption is that the current model of music - the broken one - is the only possible model of music. It's not. There are certainly solutions to be had. The problem is that the RIAA is not taking said solutions.
The company to root for is the company that figures out a model that works for bands despite pirating and an oversaturated market. Thinking there's no hope won't help anything.
The Pirate Bay isn't a model. It's a vast swath of illegal activity. But that's not going away, and frankly I think that the model in which most music is torrented is better for everybody. I never buy an album that I don't like anymore.
The solution is to figure out how to many money despite the unending piracy. The RIAA thinks the solution is to sue the pirates, which is stupid, because the pirates are only doing what feels natural. Models exist that can work alongside piracy. Take, for instance, the pay-what-you-want, model, the pay-to-ensure-release model, and the 70%-free model. Three systems that all have been earning bands money.
I think the demand for services like iTunes is driven partially by the perceived legal risk involved in using free alternatives. Suing the pirates might actually be a profitable idea for the RIAA.
iTunes is not popular because of fear. It's popular because it's easy. I buy albums on iTunes when I want to get music quickly. The ease of access is worth the price.
iTunes is not the ultimate solution; it may be the ultimate sales interface. There are still better methods of distribution.
By that logic. People who make cars should be charged with same crime as those who use cars to commit a crime, shoes too, near about everything in fact.
"You honor there would be a 10x reduction in robberies if it was not for the defendant's complete disregard for civil order and their criminal insistence on making available dangerous technological gadgets that enable and facilitate criminals escaping with their ill-gotten gains at speeds upwards of 100mph!" <optionally slam hand on desk and stare at jury over top of glasses for effect>
In another thread, I used the example of the getaway man for a bank robber.
You see, the getaway man doesn't actually rob the bank. He doesn't steal anything. He doesn't even know why his friend wanted a ride to the bank. He gives his friend rides all the time, and most of those rides are perfectly legal.
Maybe the "legalism of the defense" wouldn't be so effective if the prosecution had some vague idea what they were talking about.
Perhaps any group planning on bringing this kind of case to bear should require that every member of the prosecution team use torrent sites for a number of months before they start the case. Know thy enemy. At least that way, they'd have first hand knowledge of how torrents work and what the technical details actually are, so as not to come off looking like complete idiots when they get half their charges thrown out almost immediately.
But then I guess there's the risk that prosecutors might change sides? :P
It doesn't seem that clear, but it does look better for TPB than I would have expected. Half of the charges against them have already been thrown out, and they are making the argument that, as the administers of the site, they don't post torrents, users do. The prosecution has to point to these specific users (who may have screennames such as "King Kong", hence the title).
I see no intention or interest at all in maybe piping back some of that money directly to content creators. I'm aware of the logistical problems that would entail, but trying something like that would be truly commendable and even revolutionary (even if insignificant economically).
They seem to present themselves as if they were doing this purely out of love or their beliefs, while serving some of the most atrocious ads on the www.
I see them constantly mocking the media's business interests while they themselves have obviously a big money interest on the matter.
All you did was repeat that you'd like them more if they were making less money (or making empty gestures). I don't doubt that you think that, I'm just wondering why. Is any of your content on TPB? Have they stopped you from running adblock? Why would you want them to have less of an incentive to serve you?
You're misinterpreting his comments. He's saying it would be impossible for his site to find out which artists are being downloaded the most to compensate them. That's a reasonable thing to say considering how many musicians get torrented.
But you can't tell how many PIRATED musicians are being scrobbled, can you? There's no way to detect what listens are audio and what listens aren't.
I'm not one to defend the decrepit record industry but that's just avoiding the real issue. Is compensating artists considered passe now too?
That's regarding the idea of buying records - the money from most of which goes directly to the record industry. Different models work in different ways.
>But you can't tell how many PIRATED musicians are being scrobbled, can you? There's no way to detect what listens are audio and what listens aren't.
Well in the proposed flat-rate scenario there would be no need for distinction.
>That's regarding the idea of buying records - the money from most of which goes directly to the record industry. Different models work in different ways.
The post was talking about the flat-rate scenario not buying records, in any case it's obvious the record industry model is dead as it currently exists. That doesn't mean we shouldn't think about viable ways of compensating artists.
I don't know that the flat-rate scenario is, so perhaps you can explain for me: what's the idea? Do musicians all get paid the exact same? What exactly is the "flat" rate being discussed here?
It's basically a flat tax, meaning it doesn't matter how much you download or consume, the proceeds of which would be somehow distributed back to the artists.
The tricky part is obviously in how to fairly distribute the money, and this is where tracking what gets listened or downloaded comes into play.
