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The Pirate Bay Facing "Old Fashioned" Pressure
Posted by
kdawson
on Tue Nov 20, 2007 06:31 PM
from the brown-shoed-squares-in-the-dead-of-night dept.
from the brown-shoed-squares-in-the-dead-of-night dept.
Jety writes "Ars Technica has an article reporting that The Pirate Bay is facing legal pressure from a new front. A wealthy musician with a track record for going head-to-head with record labels and little kids is now joining the queue to take a legal swing at TPB. What I find particularly interesting about this article is the description of the 'camera-toting investigators following [The Pirate Bay admins] around in cars marked with Danish plates.' One TPB admin asks, '"What do they think they can find out by following us around? Everything we do is digital.'"
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Your Rights Online: Prince, Village People to Sue The Pirate Bay 435 comments
castrox writes to tell us that The Pirate Bay's legal concerns are continuing to grow. Prince and the Village People are planning to sue the popular torrent site with the help of the Web Sheriff law firm. John Giacobbi of Web Sheriff has also asked Swedish band ABBA to join the cause. The suit is seeking "millions of dollars" in damages, although it's still uncertain to whom the charges will be directed. The likely targets are the four Pirate Bay founders who were indicted a few weeks ago on charges of breaking copyright law. Prince has taken investigative action against The Pirate Bay in the past.
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Maybe... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Maybe... (Score:5, Insightful)
Clearly not everything they do is digital. They have atoms as well: servers, laptops, flash drives. And clearly they are making a living somehow and someone is funding their activities somehow.
If I was investigating them I would have PIs on their tail. If nothing else it is certainly causing them enough concern to comment on it.
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Re:Maybe... (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Maybe... (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Maybe... (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Maybe... (Score:5, Insightful)
It will scare most people, some people will still go for it. Also it will probably only scare people in the same country. Someone under a different legal system is probably going to still feel fairly safe.
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Re:Maybe... (Score:5, Funny)
I may not be a lawyer, but it seems pretty obvious that since they're making illegal ELECTRONIC copies of stuff, only the electrons from those atoms are really in violation. The Pirate Bay folks should be able to insist that the cops leave behind all the protons and neutrons that are their rightful property.
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Re:Maybe... Illegal where? (Score:5, Interesting)
In particular, in some places such as the USA it is a crime to provide a service that abets illegal file sharing. In other places, though the filesharing might be illegal, providing metadata about shared files is legal. In those places, you have to go after the sharers because running the tracker is legal see footnote 9 [wikipedia.org]. Sharers are like roaches: there's a million born every day and they're coming out of the woodwork. There's little evidence that suing a few hundred sharers alters the behavior of the unsued millions. So for Prince, going after trackers is the only sensible option, even if trackers are located where trackers are legal (one wonders when or if the RIAA will ever come to this conclusion). So Prince is desparate. Suing fans, the only legal remedy, may be counter productive. He's left with trying to intimidate the tracker operators.
The bigger picture here is we're watching the collapse of a business model, and there's no replacement in sight. If musicians can't make money, they won't record. On the other hand, the record labels have earned the ire and disrepect of many fans, and the labels are practically impotent. We're watching dinosaurs die, and we have no idea what will replace them.
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Re:Maybe... Illegal where? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a crock. Many, if not most of the bands out there are not making any profits off the labels so nothing will change on that front. Also, not every band out there does it for the money. Many do it for *GASP* the music or *GASP* the recognition for the real money maker, concerts. In the days before big mega media corps, many bands released their music to their local radio stations for this recognition. When was the last time you heard one on your local radio? Maybe it's time to break up the stranglehold the labels have on the media market. Maybe it is time the labels cartel was broken up starting with the RIAA itself.
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Even you are wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
If musicians can't make money, they won't record.
Dire straits, Sultans of swing.
Listen to the song and hear what it is about.
There are countless musicians who got a day time job to support their hobby, at best they recoup a bit of their costs at times but mainly it is a hobby AKA a moneysink.
When I was young a neighbour of mine operated a pirate radio station. He bought all the gear, bought records, payed for the power and for what? A few small ads? Did he become rich of it or even break even? Hell no, but it was his dream, his hobby.
If all musicians are out of a job tomorrow, the music will go on. And personally, I think the music will be a lot better or at least more varied, because people will play what they want to play, not what sells best.
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Re:Even you are wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, most musicians worth any mention DO create music for the love of making music. That's obvious, but I think money and fame is still a large point of motivation for many musicians. I'm a musician myself, and release tracks as free downloads on my website. I definately DO aspire for a chance to make some money creating music, though - and don't tell me that's wrong or that I'm following a "dinosaur model". It's a highly motivating factor for me.
Spending months of free time working on hundreds of song ideas and picking the best I can come up with, in hopes of making a perfect album is a lot of work! A big part of the drive to perfect it is that I might be able to make a few bucks selling such an album, either by distributing music myself over the net, or signing with a small record label. If copyright law was completely changed to fit the views of some people here, then selling music on my website or signing with a small label would be futile, perhaps only resulting in a few 'good samaritan' donations. In that situation, I might as well just keep releasing anything I do for free on my site with no hope of monetary compensation.
But then I might not work so hard on perfecting and polishing an album. I wouldn't send my album to a professional mastering engineer (or spend countless hours mastering the album myself) because I wouldn't feel like I owe anyone the benefit of that extra layer of polish. I might not spend months or years working on songs and remaking them until they fit what I consider a high standard.
If all musicians are to lose their chances of making money via records because John Doe doesn't feel like spending any money on music (yet wants to listen to it all anyway..) that is a sad, selfish tradeoff, in my opinion.
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I am not saying you are wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
I am saying, don't expect me to give a damn. I am a baker by training. A good one, but YOU buying YOUR bread in the supermarket and insisting on zoning laws that don't allow me to have the bakery attached to the shop have put me out of business.
Times change, I had to give up my dream, why should you be any different?
Society does NOT own you the right to make a living in your chosen career. Only a lucky few manage that.
Unless you support goverment action to protect all kinds of other jobs that are dying out, I don't see my musicians should be given any more special threatment then they already get. Check how much money already goes to the arts. You need my taxes AND my spending money? Greedy much?
I wish you luck, if you make it, congrats. BUT do NOT expect me to subsidize a dying industry unless you are willing to do the same for mine. Show me the receipts from your local butcher, baker and grocer for the last decade and I will buy your album, but if you shopped at a supermarket just once, the deal is off. You don't care about my career, I don't care about yours.
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Re:Maybe... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Maybe... (Score:5, Funny)
A member of TPB was quoted as saying "If they want those atoms then they can have them, when they pry them from our cold dead fingers".
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Re:Maybe... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Maybe... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Maybe... (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand, I've been to smaller shows where it was about $12 to get in, and have bought the CD's because the artist was good and the CD's weren't a ripoff. If they had other merchandise I may have even bought that, assuming the price was just a little profit for them, and not a down payment!
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Re:Maybe... (Score:5, Insightful)
Take off those rose-tinted glasses and read this.
http://www.negativland.com/albini.html
Written by Steve Albini.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Albini
There are articles by others on how it works which are similar.
Basically the band gets an "advance" on future earnings, and almost everything is paid for off that advance (recording studio, recording + mastering fees, you name it...), so often the band ends up _owing_ the record company money
Quote: "The band is now 1/4 of the way through its contract, has made the music industry more than 3 million dollars richer, but is in the hole $14,000 on royalties. The band members have each earned about 1/3 as much as they would working at a 7-11, but they got to ride in a tour bus for a month. The next album will be about the same, except that the record company will insist they spend more time and money on it. Since the previous one never "recouped," the band will have no leverage, and will oblige. The next tour will be about the same, except the merchandising advance will have already been paid, and the band, strangely enough, won't have earned any royalties from their T-shirts yet. Maybe the T-shirt guys have figured out how to count money like record company guys. Some of your friends are probably already this fucked."
Why do you think some bands don't care if their stuff gets copied, they've figured that the people doing the most hurt to them aren't the "evil downloaders".
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Re:Maybe... (Score:5, Informative)
Prove it.
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Re:Maybe... (Score:5, Funny)
NOTHING will be found out about them. EVERYthing they:
-- eat
-- breath
-- shit
-- shower
-- shave
-- scratch
-- rub
-- tickle
-- burp
is a DIGIT.
Can u dig it?
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So I guess that means... (Score:5, Funny)
Arrgh, Pastry! (Score:5, Funny)
It's good to know that in Sweden cops have options beyond boxes of donuts. ;P
FTA: (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:FTA: (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:FTA: (Score:4, Informative)
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Re: PAN newsreader.... (Score:5, Informative)
However, I don't think that actually happened... See FAQ 1.5 at
http://web.archive.org/web/20010803004755/http://pan.rebelbase.com/faq.html [archive.org] (as of Aug 3, 2001)
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Re:FTA: (Score:5, Interesting)
By shutting down napster, file sharing took a harsh blow that is took a while to recover from? I wouldn't really agree there, maybe in the eyes of cnn and official news sources. Personally, I never felt that blow. I switched over to kazaa in matter of days, it was still usable then, later to sheraza, then dc...and so on and so on.
It's almost impossible to deal a harsh blow to file sharing. Even shutting down oink, didn't disrupt things. Though it made a lot of people sad, myself included. In my opinion the only way to deal a harsh blow to file sharing is on the internet provider level, not by shutting down services, because new ones pop up in matter of weeks, or even days.
Once you receive a mail from your isp, saying 'I know what you've been downloading last night', you'd be more careful/paranoid. That sort of monitoring would however anger the privacy advocates.
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Re:FTA: (Score:5, Insightful)
Put it this way: not only was that lawsuit a dismal failure in terms of discouraging copyright infringement, but also yet another clear example of the RIAA mindset simply not getting it. They failed to grasp either the technological potential of P2P (there's more than one way to skin a cat) or the human element (we've had a taste of this and we want more.) Had they asked, I would have told them that all they were doing was forcing a phase change on the technology. The appearance of Frankel's prototype Gnutella client so close on the heels of Napster's shutdown was no surprise to me. I grabbed a copy the night it was released, before AOL tried to shut it down (horse, barndoor, all that.) I could not believe how fast music began to appear on it. The thing had a serious memory leak, but I'll be damned if it didn't work! Anyway, if it hadn't been Justin Frankel, sooner or later somebody would have released the next generation of peer-to-peer, because Napster gave millions upon millions of people something they wanted. Here's the thing: some of those people were programmers.
That was something that even an RIAA lawyer should have been able to predict, and I think it should have been sufficient motivation to make them work with Napster so as to maintain a level of control over distribution. That would have required some vision, though, and a willingness to tell their bosses, "Hey, things are about to go from bad to worse and you had better do something NOW." Instead, they did the only thing they know how to do: throw lawyers at the problem. So they blew it.
So the GP can claim that the RIAA was successful in eliminating Napster as a source of illegal downloads
Not that it mattered.
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What's the Deal With Not Naming Names? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's Prince. Or that symbol thingy. Or TAFKAP (I think I know what one of those "A"s stands for).
The summary seems unnecessarily coy about exactly who's behind this.
Re:What's the Deal With Not Naming Names? (Score:4, Informative)
The
Artist
Formerly
Known
As
Prince
oh, nevermind. I'll jhust say WHOOOSH! and leave it at that
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ha (Score:5, Insightful)
Uhhh...yeah, Napster did.
Could someone please tell me how TPB is somehow offering some new business model for the people who make the music?
The record labels are told people will still keep illegally distributing music because the labels aren't providing it online. The record labels finally give in and provide it online, and they're told that people will still keep illegally distributing music because they don't like DRM and 99 cents a song is somehow too high.
The only business model a lot of people here seemed to support was AllofMP3, but honestly 10 cent non-DRMed songs really isn't a viable business model, as much as everyone wants it to be.
Re:ha (Score:5, Interesting)
At 99 cents / song it would cost roughly $5,000 to fill a 20GB iPod (assuming an average of 4MB / song).
The fact that 160GB iPods exist and are selling implies there is demand for them.
Just something to think about
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Re:ha (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:ha (Score:5, Insightful)
Radiohead made money with their recent dealie because they were established artists with a rabid fanbase, not a new band or a relatively unpopular one. For new artists, that isn't really a viable alternative either; not only because so few people would choose to pay for an unknown quantity, but also because cutting out the middleman (aka the record labels) cuts you off from the labels' traditional strong areas of promotion, distribution and general business nous, which, really, are the only reasons anyone signs with a label. What would be the point otherwise?
In all, my point (yes, I was getting to it in a roundabout way) is that business models based around free/absurdly cheap (read allofmp3) music are either unprofitable or wouldn't fly with shareholders of the major labels. It's a terrible business model unless your explicit aim is "get heard and damn the money". It is of no value except as a talking point for Slashdotters looking for the next justification-du-jour of why they will carry on being cheap rather than paying for what they consume. Like you said:
They can't win; there's always a new reason. Either it's too expensive ($0.99 a song, $9.99 an album seems reasonable enough to me, where I live that's 2 quid cheaper than even an old mid-price album) or it has DRM (see the "take anything nailed down" thing... you want to try before you buy? Most good online music stores have previews you know...) or it's not good enough quality either technically (there's this lossless format you may have heard of, called the compact disc) or aesthetically.
(I like the last complaint, that people pirate because the music's not good enough; that's definitely why the last Britney album has over 1200 seeds on Mininova and the last Porcupine Tree album's had over 18k downloads...
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logical conclusion (Score:5, Insightful)
Only you seem to be focusing on deriding the people who don't pay directly for their copies of music (according to our brief custom of the last 70 years).
Why is it so hard to see that its ok to let companies with no practical business model die off? I know it becomes a touchy subject when we bring art into the picture, but the spirit of copyright law is to promote the creation of art, not to give business models to musicians. It seems particularly hard for people of the last couple generations to fathom that music (or art in general) can be created without being paid for copies of their work. They can't see that the true value in art is the process by which it is created, that is what is rare. This value can still be monetized, and a business model can be developed around it (think service instead of product).
Even if you don't want to or can't believe this old school view of art, you will face the reality of digital technology. Copying is only going to get faster and more convenient. Distributed technology will only get more robust. Controlling the location of 1s and 0s will become increasingly futile. No laws will be able to reverse this, no amount of yelling thief at a generation of hungry minds will hold them back.
What do you think will happen when 1 million 3rd world kids get on the internet through OLPC? What happens when they reach 10 million in the next few years? Can you seriously expect them to even consider intellectual property with an open source key on their keyboard?
Right now there are more people with cell phone in China than there are people alive in the USA. What happens when there are more Chinese online than people in the US? What happens when the same goes for India? Do you think these huge amount of people wont be able to find a way to adapt open source software for their needs? When they are completely bypassing proprietary western solutions, what good will our DMCA do?
So I laugh at the moral indignation of the slighted intellectual property holders. Right now I am stealing. I'm robbing those who were lucky enough to get fat from an unworkable system. Luckily, the system is changing and I wont have to steal in the future. Still, every time they yell thief I feel more like Robin Hood, and I'm not the only one.
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Re:logical conclusion (Score:5, Insightful)
I hate to break it to you, but if you aren't providing the people with what they want, or even with that which they are willing to pay for, then your business model is no longer practical. The fact of the matter is, people are going to download, because it's cheap and convenient. Now, the record labels are forced into a shoddy situation. They have to 1) convince people that downloading is a bad thing, 2) make downloading either difficult or impossible, 3) lobby to make any method of obtaining music other than their proscribed methods illegal, and 4) prosecute those who break your laws.
Now, one is a hard thing to do, as people who download are people who aren't very likely to listen to The Man. Two is also a pain in the arse, as you encounter the hydra like nature of the Internet, as well as the Streisand effect. For every site you take offline, more will rise to take its place. Three, well they've accomplished it in the US. Now try getting every other country to pass similar laws. Oh, and when four comes along, I sincerely wish you the best of luck when it comes to prosecuting even enough people for breaking your paid and bought for laws.
If they cannot manage to get people to stop downloading, then their business model will go the way of the dodo, the dinosaur, and the PC Party of Canada [wikipedia.org].
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Re:logical conclusion (Score:4, Insightful)
I disagree, this is only true if you concede that records are practical to sell. My argument is that records are becoming increasingly irrelevant. This is based on the reality of technology, namely the increasing convenience and speed of digital communication, as well as the mathematical fact that DRM is impossible. The reality (not the legality) of the situation is that distribution will soon be completely decentralized. How soon isn't for certain, but from a
That is just the state of technology, we could also look at the sociological aspect of all of this. You mention the selfishness of the pirate hordes. I agree that there are large groups of people who will without qualms take whatever is put in front of them, especially when faced with very slim chances of retribution. I also believe that people want art to be made and enjoy supporting it. Many people argue (and you pointed out) that if prices are low enough and convenience is high enough, people will forgo pirating. I agree with this, but think that we haven't reached that point yet. In fact, I believe we will have to abandon the idea of paying for COPIES of a work, since copying will be (and is already) so trivial. My personal prediction is that new systems for directly supporting the artist will rise (we have seen the beginning of this with Radiohead and Saul Williams, or just the fact that paypal exists).
Finally, I do expect all the people involved will just lay down their arms and surrender, or they will be robbed blind. The end result will be the same, all existing media will be available to everyone. If its hard to believe look at http://youtube.com/universalmusicgroup [youtube.com], thedailyshow.com for some inklings of the future. Here is a giant carefully conceding, trying to stall the inevitable with as much control as possible. I don't think its all bad for them though, I believe they will be putting themselves in position to make money off the new system, slowly adapting to the change. If it doesn't happen too suddenly they may be successful. This is why I and others feel like Robin Hood, we are distributing the pork to the poor, we are seeding torrents,not just keeping it to ourselves.
All of this is still rather speculative of course. I would just like to point out something that should put us all a bit more at ease, and that is that humans love creating. We love creating art and music. The phrase "starving artist" is a cliche, common knowledge. No matter what happens, short of extinction, will stop humans from creating. I just like to think we will be creating more than ever.
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Re:logical conclusion (Score:5, Insightful)
Think back about 90 years. Someone came up with the idea that sound could be transmitted and received wirelessly. Really useful for ships at sea, and letting Europe speak with America. This system could be used to transmit music from theatres and opera houses, but what would be the point - no-one would do that because they couldn't possibly make any money from it. Could they?
Every time there has been a revolutionary technology introduced the death of music has been predicted. Radio, television, open real tapes, cassette tapes. There was a lawsuit in the UK when Amstrad brought out a twin-deck cassette recorder with high-speed dubbing, because the record labels thought it's only possible use was piracy. CDs introduced a format that was more convenient than anything else in existance and not suitable for home recording, which the record companies loved. Then minidisc, CDRs came along and eventually MP3 players.
Television has made visual performance art available 24/7 practically for free, yet certainly in the UK theatres continue to exist and stage performers continue to make plenty of money.
In the UK there was no independent commercial radio when my Dad was a boy, it was all state controlled. Illegal and semi-legal pirate (ship) radio was what teenagers listened to in the 60s, and the government here made huge efforts to stamp it out. Eventually commercial licenses were granted and 'pirate' radio became mainstream, with BBC Radio 1 eventually adopting the same programming style.
Music will survive - in fact thrive - without the big record labels.
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Re:ha (Score:4, Insightful)
Radiohead is really the first band I know of that is trying something different in this space. Harvey Danger tried it before them, and I'm sure there's other big name artists out there that I just haven't heard of doing similar.
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Re:ha (Score:5, Insightful)
About 10-15 years ago, wedding photographers charged for prints. They'd charge a nominal fee to shoot your wedding, but then make the bulk of their money selling you and your relatives the prints. All that changed when scanners and color photo printers became commonplace. Upon finding that a reprint would cost them $10-$30, people would just scan the original photo and print it for themselves. Sure there was some loss of quality since it was a copy, but the cost savings made it worthwhile. Faced with this threat, most photographers shifted their business model. Recognizing that it wasn't cost-effective nor good business to chase down every incident of copyright infringement, they now charge you a lot to shoot the wedding, while giving away the prints at-cost.
When you come down to it, there's really no difference from the music industry (other than an entrenched publication industry). Both musicians and photographers create a product which is essentially software. Back when software was difficult to duplicate, they both used to charge for the final product. Technology suddenly dropped the cost of duplication to near zero.
The key difference I see is that the music publication industry is vested in generating big name stars. The obvious reason is that it minimizes their cost - make a lot of money from a few big stars, rather than a little money from many small bands. Unfortunately for them, big stars are particularly susceptible to piracy - their market saturation approaches 100% so the only way they can make more money is by going after the copyright infringers. Small bands on the other hand could very well welcome piracy. If you only have 1% market saturation, if piracy increases your exposure to 10%, you're probably all for it. The additional business due to the widespread exposure (e.g. "I love your wedding photos! Who did you hire?") offsets the loss in revenue due to copyright infringement.
So very long-term, as the legal issues of copyright on the Internet are sorted out, that's the business model I see music shifting towards. Lots of small bands being paid to play live events (or being paid for the right to place recordings of their music at live events) and giving away copies of their music for free on the Internet as marketing. The era of the music superstar as we know it is coming to a close. Sure there might still be some stars whose music is so catchy it's known across the country (or even the world). But they'll make their money from the performance bookings they'll get from that widespread notoriety, not from selling CDs or MP3s. The vast majority of musicians will eek out a modest living plying their trade, just like most photographers do.
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Re:ha (Score:5, Insightful)
Technology routinely renders old business models obsolete and doesn't necessarily replace them. There may not be a viable business model for selling music anymore. Forcing the issue and banning technology to keep them in business amounts to a government subsidy.
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Stalking! (Score:5, Interesting)
What, doesn't Sweden have laws against stalking? Because that's what this sounds like to me.
Just because Prince is some big star doesn't give him any special rights. Well, outside of America anyways. If Hollywood had any influence there, the TPB admins would already be in jail.
So go for it - sue Prince for harrassment and stalking.
Old Fashioned Intimidation Tactics - MAFIAA Style (Score:4, Insightful)
Perhaps they are trying to dig up dirt about the admins for a good old fashioned blackmail mud-slinging political match ala J. Edgar Hover and the old school politicos or maybe they are just trying to intimidate the admins (i.e. black suburbans, helicopters, and guys in SWAT vests with 'RIAA' velcroed to the back). The best thing that the admins could do in response would be to keep reporting what is going on in their blogs and other public places on the Internet. This will help discourage these pseudo agents from arranging an 'accident' or some other more overt form of persuasion because everyone will know who was responsible.
Re:Mafiaa (Score:5, Funny)
We have your limited edition Star Wars Princess Leia figurine still in its original packaging. You do what we tell you when we tell you unless you want something....bad to happen to her. Just so you know what we're serious we have sent you the packaging from your original Jabba the Hut figurine.
MAFIAA
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From the Lucas Academy of Drama: (Score:5, Funny)
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!
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Re:From the Lucas Academy of Drama: (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:All the "piracy" is digital, sure. (Score:5, Informative)
If I were them, I'd be very careful about jaywalking
Just like the piracy laws in Sweden, there is no such crime as jaywalking. Sheesh - and they call the US "land of the free"!
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Re:All the "piracy" is digital, sure. (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:what's in a name (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Because "Prince" == Asshole (Score:4, Informative)
He was doing it before there WAS SMS.
-uso.
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