Pirate Bay Currently Running on 21 'Raid Proof' Virtual Machines → Simply ludicrous.

Yeah, I agree that sites like TPB encourage others to break the law and really aren't places that deserve support.

But for goodness sake, why treat Peter Sunde so poorly? What is gained by putting him in a maximum security prison and treating him like an axe murderer or something heinous?

Let the punishment fit the crime. Sunde should be sitting in a minimum security Club Fed style prison designed for white collar criminals, because that's exactly what he is. Sheesh, I'll bet Bernie Madoff has it easier than this guy. Lunacy. Plain lunacy.

Please explain how he is even a white collar criminal.

Seems more like a political prisoner than anything else; the way they treat him has little to do with the severity of the crime committed, he didn't actually steal money, only POTENTIAL money. It didn't even exist.

On the pirate bay i can find literally oh my god millions of 100% legal torrents.

It would not supprise me much that if some one was to look at tpb over all it would have as much legal content (slightly possible more) than pirated. Torrent is now a major distribution method for content. Every thing from indi developers artists and major game companies now use torrents as does linux and pretty much every thing youll ever find on source forge has a alternate download method of torrent. Every single one of those torrents damn near is available on tpb. Given that source forge has millions of projects alone the number of legal torrents is just astronomical.

Yeh it has illegal stuff to as does the internet in general. Warez ftps still exist. As does a million other illegal downloads. TPB is just news worthy because of their size.

Personally i would be very pissed if tpb was shut down. I download so much legal stuff from there it isn't even funny. I don't want to have to spends hours searching on google for a torrent for ryzom core or the latest mmorpg beta im looking to test as a official beta tester.

His actions have caused thousands of people to lose their jobs.... no, wait, um .... but, but .... that also describes most of the S&P500 CEO's. But they aren't thrown in prison.

Head explodes.

He didn't even steal 'potential' money. He only provides links to torrent files. He's just a middle man.

Did he kill someone? Did he maim someone? Did he drive down a highway while drunk? Did he sell drugs? Did he pay a hitman to kill someone?

What action did he take to threaten the life safety of people? Hell, I'm willing to bet that he hasn't done a single violent thing in his entire life.

What did he do? He advocated for a web site that allows people to use a search engine to locate copyrighted material which is being illegally distributed. That's all.

White collar all the way... The only people "hurt" by his "crime" are already filthy rich recording industry executives who whine and squeal like the pigs they are because they're forced to buy a used Gulfstream 5 instead of a brand new one. That's hardly a reason to put him in a dangerous prison, especially when people like Bernie Madoff - folks who actually hurt others by destroying their life savings - are enjoying a relatively easier life elsewhere.

That is like saying the guy on the street who supplies a gun to a known felon with a conviction for armed robbery is only a middle man. Such a person would be considered a accessory. Same could be said here. But honestly i do not see that as a issue. TPB is not monitored much if at all by the owners. It is just as used for very legal self published music movies and game content as it is for the illegal content and all areas in between.

A example a tv episode recorded OTA OTC etc is a gray area. The episode has already made them their money and is essentially a repeat of the episode that just aired. For example tonight there are 2 shows that i would very much like to watch i how ever can not get fox where i live ota and the home owner does not have or want cable tv etc. I do plan on getting my own place soon enough. At which time i will watch or record these shows. Well one for sure the other possibly. Now where is it wrong for me to download a previously aired show? Esp when the new series premiere is one i do not infact know if i will like so at best me downloading said ep gains them a viewer in that time slot getting their advertisers another viewer.

Honestly the fcc needs to say ok look this show aired last night the advertisers already got their monies worth there for it is not illegal for a viewer to upload this to torrent etc all for others to enjoy who may not even get the channel.

Honestly i have been involved with the entertainment industry at least as far as games go. so i see how piracy can hurt the gross and net income quite easily. But on games etc ive worked on we all had much the same view. Their is no harm in some one downloading a previously aired show. It will not have much if any effect on the show and the advertisers. At most it will help to increase the shows popularity. Not every oe wants to wait a year or more for netflix to watch the single episode they missed. They may not even have a netflix etc account nor want one. But they do want to not miss their fave show.

Now mass large scale piracy of software is a big deal. Not only does it harm the company but also can harm your comp. Windows is one of if not the most pirated operating systems out there. I have and still do download as many different copies of each i can find. Not to install them on machines that are daily use but to see how much crap is added by the pirates. I have found all sorts of rats key-loggers and even spam bot botnet software.

If you use a pirated os you might end up paying way more for it than you would have had you just paid the 199 for it.

Pirated software is much the same as picking up a hooker off the street you may find your self infected with all manner of viruses.

UHH! He broke the law is why. Whether you agree with the law or not.

Then lock up Gary Page, Google can find the same links. The only reason they go after TPB is the name throws it in their faces that you can get illegal software from a search there. You can find most of the same torrents on other torrent search sites.

Only because they came up with a totally new interpretation of that law. After the ruling, it was feared that massive numbers of websites could be found just as guilty.

Again i was stating that according to the law he was a accessory. As for google. It simply displays results. Also google does take proactive steps to stop various crimes via filtering. Been a few posts here about googles censoring of the internet via filtering.

Also if you read my full post you would have seen that i think that there is plenty of content in the gray area of things that the fcc should say ok enough is enough the advertisers etc have already made the money off this. And the various copyright holders should have no room to cry about it. Who cares if the latest new ep of bones is released on torrent a day or 2 after original air date. The advertisers etc all done made all the money they will get from it.

Also torrents in general are the single biggest method of mass distribution of fully legal content.

Open source software is widely distributed with torrent.

If i recall allot of sourceforge downloads are also avail via bittorrent now as a sort of mirror.

Google ryzom core a open source mmorpg engine client etc framework. It has a torrent download. Check out any free to play mmorpg or beta stage mmorpg. 8 times out of 10 or better it is distroed via torrent. If distroed on torrent TPB will have it as well.

The may as well rename them sell to The software bay. They are easilly the largest content distribution network on the planet. So many game etc companies now use them to distribute their software i think any gov agency etc going after them better be damn careful. There are some pretty big players using TPB to distribute their legal software via TPB and other torrent sites that it might be like waking the sleeping giant up that will eat them for lunch and pick his teeth with their bones.

What's a little more clear cut is that legislators were well paid to pass the laws that are used against him - laws that the public never demanded nor wanted.

By any reasonable measure, those legislators are the most heinous lawbreakers in the copyright chain.

Yeh I'm sure the public wants speed limits and no turn on red . if there WS no restrictions on uploading video etc content it would not be long before there was none to even upload.

As I stated I am a and have been a game developer for a long time. I do not as a general rule work for free. Yes I love making 3d models for games but I do it for the money. Even a freelancer like my self can make any where between 500 and a couple 1000 per model. That sounds like allot but it is not that much a single model can take 50 to more than 200 hours to finish. If I made nothing off those models I would not bother doing them. Same goes for say universal Disney Paramount etc all if they made no money they would not make TV show and movies. To say piracy does not hurt them shows that a person is beyond being simply foolish. Every time you download a movie that is not out on DVD for example that is theft like it or not.

Some of these companies that sell a supposed service to the movie houses are way worse than the down loaders they say they are protecting them from. But fact remains every time you me or john doe downloads a movie we are steeling period. Again I think downloading a already aired TV ep is a different thing all together. The FCC and law makers need to take a good long look at that. Same goes for movies that have been out for months on DVD. Just how much money are the movie houses loosing on a 6 month old DVD release to down loaders?

Have to agree, seems like big brown paper bags exchanged hands to make sure he was made an example of IMO.

You start out on the wrong premise. He is more like the guy on the street that told the criminal where they could buy the gun. Essentially it's no different than craigslist. It's connecting people who are searching for something with people who have what it is they are searching for.