[digitalwanderer]

Pirate Bay is no more, may her crew be aquitted and may she rest in peace.

Today the swedish anti-piracy organisations raided The Pirate Bay and confiscated the computers running the tracker. This probably means the end of The Pirate Bay and we, the crew, apologize for all loss of income caused by our activity over the years.

EDITED BITS: Took out the link to PB since it would be breaking the rules here when they go live again and removed the busted image link now that the image is down.

[RussSchultz]

What? What about those bold emails they had with lawyers, and all that posturing!?

What? They're really just weasels that end up apologizing without a fight for the loss of income they've caused?

Hahahaha. Such rebels.

[london-boy]

"We're sorry for any loss of income"???


As if the companies will take their "sorry" and let them live!


Funny to see this after all the "You can't touch us" emails and whatever else.

[digitalwanderer]

<sigh>

Most are all talk until the heat comes down, then their tune changes fast.

<end sigh>

[[maven]]

I think (as in gut feeling) they'll be back tomorrow...

[t0y]

Maybe you've been hoaxed?

[thehulk]

I believe it's a joke in response to the new laws which takes effect July 1st.

[digitalwanderer]

Originally Posted by t0y

Maybe you've been hoaxed?

Yup I was, they got me good!

[silence]

plenty of other BT sites around.... and since some idiots will never learn, this wont be the end of anything. BT will just grow and develop into something much more harder to track and find....

there is already "trackerless" option in new BT builds, there is BT search made by Bram, so if they are gonna shut down the sites holding trackers i think we will see something much more powerfull then current BT emerging.....

as for Pirate Bay..... i got many nice torrents from there....

[oi]

They updated the page again, lol. And btw, did anyone check the web sheriff site? That REALLY can't be a serious company, hahah.

[digitalwanderer]

Originally Posted by oi

btw, did anyone check the web sheriff site? That REALLY can't be a serious company

That's mainly what we were talking about in the EB thread about this, if you check out their site they apparently ARE a real company!

I'm sorry, but a company that calls themselves "Web Sheriff"? Might as well paint a bullseye on yourself for every cracker & script kiddy out there to have a field day on ya with!

[digitalwanderer]

Dear Faxx-Sheriff,

As you may have noticed we staged a pr-coup today. We can gladly inform, your clients so called losses will probably increase, notably.

Get live ammo for your six-shooter Mr. Sheriff. Our 300-pound cannons are being reloaded and Captain Anakata has ordered "Klart Skepp!"

Aaarrgh!

thepiratebay.org

"Klart Skepp" means "general quarters" in Swedish I believe...

[Guden Oden]

Might be "battlestations" actually, but then I wasn't in the navy when I did military service, so... :P

Arrr, shiver me timbers ye scallywags!

[digitalwanderer]

Originally Posted by Guden Oden

Might be "battlestations" actually

Either way, it sounds like they ain't quite given up the fight yet. 8)

[london-boy]

Originally Posted by silence

as for Pirate Bay..... i got many nice torrents from there....

THI3F!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JOO GONA DYE11!!1!111 AYLL CAL THE 3FFBEEAY END TEH CEEAYHEY AND GET JOO NICK3D!!!!

[silence]

i luv u 2 :P

[Guden Oden]

Originally Posted by london-boy

TEH CEEAYHEY

[nutball]

Eleven out of every ten Swedes are thieving bastards, say experts on Swedish thievery (*)

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/06...p2p_clampdown/

(*) before MPAA press release get re-written by the guy who inflicted the CRAZY FROG RINGTONE on the world... yes I know that wasn't really relevant ... I'm calm now .. except .. in the distance .. I can hear .. ... ...

[mito]

The site is much better and cleaner now.
They are definitely less conspicuous.


Long live PB.

[oi]

http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/05/.../pirates16.php

[Zaphod]

Originally Posted by nutball

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/06/02/scandinavia_p2p_clampdown/

Heh. Not really 'getting tough on file sharing'. Here's a decent article on the swedish situation from everyones favourite intellectual international newspaper. Journalists that does research and allow both points and counterpoints. Scary. The norwegian guy got a full three weeks of community scervice for running a DC-hub off someone elses bandwith, so he was also convicted for illegal use of someone elses property. The copyright violation was only part of it, but in short he *was* found to have actively and knowingly (these beeing the key words) contributed to copyright infringement.

Edit: Much too slow with the IHT link.

[digitalwanderer]

Originally Posted by oi

http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/05/15/business/pirates16.php

Good read, thanks. I liked this bit for some reason, it explained a lot to me:

The young and determined group of people behind Piratbyran originally ran the Pirate Bay site, but Piratbyran has lately evolved into a kind of political arm of the Swedish file-sharing community, organizing demonstrations and spreading information about techniques to break digital copyright protection. It still keeps strong ties to Pirate Bay, however, with a link on its Web site.

"People here look at piracy as something natural," Andersson said, a statement that is clearly supported by a recent survey showing that only one out of every four Swedes under age 25 think that copyright is something that should be respected.

"In high schools around the country, it's a sport to have seen the new movies as early as possible, preferably weeks before they've had their premiere," he said.

When Antipiratbyran in March carried out a much-publicized raid on Banhof, one of Sweden's oldest and largest Internet service providers - a raid that the MPA hailed as "outstanding" and "a major blow" in a country that it sees as "a haven for online pirates" - most of the debate that followed evolved into criticism of the antipiracy forces instead of the Banhof employees suspected of illegal file-sharing.

"Most people in Sweden have a personal relationship to downloading. If they don't do it themselves, their kids do it," said Urban Lindstedt, an editor at the magazine Internetworld, who has followed the issue closely. "And since most everybody does it, it's not looked upon as something criminal."

The reasons for the Swedish situation are manifold. One is the high levels of computer and technology literacy. Since 1998, the government has subsidized the purchase of personal computers for private use.

Sweden has, with Denmark, the highest percentage of households with access to a home computer in the world, about 70 percent, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Another reason is a rather fuzzy legal and political situation. In Sweden, as in many European countries, it is illegal only to upload copyrighted material. This is set to change on July 1, when a new law makes downloading illegal as well. But the new law puts a stringent burden of proof on the prosecutor.

"The idea is not that the police should come running home to kids and check if they're downloading," the minister of justice, Thomas Bodstrom, said of the law. "They're supposed to concentrate on serious crime, where there are people making millions on ripping off artists."

All in all, many observers say they do not believe that the new law will change the situation much, citing a lack of law enforcement resources and political will.

"There are simply no police who are capable of dealing with these questions," Ponten said. "And when the minister of justice says that this law only applies to certain groups, we end up in a very strange legal situation."

Sweden sounds like a freaking cool country! 8)

[fabianoag]

I just moved to Sweden 6 months ago, its a bit cold but besides that, it rocks!

[Guden Oden]

I can't say I really condone of piratbyrån's actions, they seem more than a bit like a bunch of rebels without a cause to me. All they can ever hope to accomplish by their silly posturing is further strengthen the forces that are against fair use.

The same goes for the rediculous ridiculing of legal threats over at the pirate bay btw. Should those threats even have been sent out in the first place? Probably not. But lawyers have egos too, and american lawyers can and will get lobbying going here to make copyright law more draconian just like in the US.