The pirate bay win a EU seat in Parliament

[Gama]

Im so extatic over the fact The priate Bay won a seat on the EU Parliament, after the man hunt and underhanded things the Video/Music industry and local police including politicians.

Yes, say its piracy, but the fact remains, they do not keep any files on their site. Yes, they display links to were you can find them, but in Sweden, that was NOT againt the law. But after pressure from the Video and music industry, and heaps of money to their political fund, they invloved local police to raid the premisis and take evrything away and acuused them of sharing Kiddy porn to out right storing of movies on their site. But after 2 years, they found nothing on the servers, and still havent returned the servers or announced an appology.
The latest was to again charge them on another bogus charge, and of course the lower court followed suite after massive pressure from the EU which was being pressured from the U.S to finish this.

Well, the shoe is on the other foot now, and the massive response from the people has given them a win and a seat on the EU parliament.
Maybe now they will consider dropping their huge ridiculas pricing on CD's, DVD's etc..

AARHHH me hardiesssss.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8089102.stm

Theo

[TrevorW]

The power of the people

[dpastern]

The world would be a better place without the RIAA & MPAA. Limit copyright to a flat 25 years and get rid of software patents. The current system encourages monopolisation.

As to the legal process in Sweden, it was a witch hunt in all the bad sense. Again, pressure from the US (i.e. corruption), bribes etc. The same thing happened with Microsoft's free text format that rivals ODF was passed as a ISO standard. Disgusting springs to my mind.

Dave

[GrahamL]

Regarding the music industry ... I don't agree with file shareing
I understand the arguement about priceing but looking at this sites
history they do grab considerable revenue from advertiseing.

[dpastern]

OK, here's one problem with the current system. Say, I own the LP. Now, as far as the recording industry is concerned, I don't own the music, I own a licence to play the music, on the medium (LP) in a private setup. Now, what happens if I go out and buy a CD copy of the same album? I already have paid for a licence to the music. Why should I have to pay full price again? Shouldn't I just have to pay for the medium costs? That is the logical and reasonable solution to consumers. Yes, you could argue that I have 2 copies, and thus could be playing both copies concurrently, and let's be realistic here, how many people are doing that?

The current system is a rip off. Music artists get less than 2% of the profits, the rest goes to the RIAA. The sooner the RIAA dies a horrible death, the better imho. They are an evil organisation.

Tell me, the US has passed legislation several years back that allows the RIAA to do whatever they want - commit DDOS (distributed denial of service) attacks on suspected pirates. This is a computer crime. This type crime can carry up to a 20 year jail time in a federal jail in the US. Why are they allowed special rights to break the laws? Sorry, but I'm a firm believer in one law for everyone.

Whilst I don't agree with piracy, there is strong proof that shows piracy actually increases sales. I know I've had a few people give me pirate copies of audio CDs and I've liked the artists and actually went out and bought the real McCoy. If I don't like the artist, I don't listen to it. It's very rare for me to like an artist but not go out and buy the real thing.

Let's consider another thing - DVD region coding. This was put in place by the DVD consortium at the request of the MPAA. It's vile. In a lot of instances, a DVD is available for Region 1, Region 2 and that's it. What about the rest of the world? I don't like being discriminated against because of where I live. Hell, some movie titles still haven't been released on DVD. What about Audio CDs that are discontinued? Try getting a new copy of Peter Wolf's most excellent debut album from 1984 titled "Lights Out". It don't exist. Discontinued from the catalogue. Even if I wanted to buy the real thing, I can't. 2nd hand costs for this CD are through the roof as it's a rarish item these days (I did luck out and get a copy at the bargain price of $12 off EBay though) - I've seen it go in the vicinity of US $100. If I can't afford this over inflated price because it's no longer available, then piracy does seem an alternative option. I can see why people do it.

The real thing is that CDs are overpriced. Always have been. Real pricing should be around $20, which 65% of that going to the artist imho.

Dave

[TrevorW]

If I ever received and reviewed a pirated movie if I like it I'll inevitably buy a copy

[AlexN]

Agreed Trevor.. Consider it a "try before you buy" sort of thing...

Power to The Pirate Bay... I know many people who love the site...