Difference between revisions of "The Pirate Bay"

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==History and Overview==
 
==History and Overview==
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The Pirate Bay was founded in 2003 by a Swedish organization known as The Piracy Bureau (Piratbyrån) but has been an independent organization since 2004. The Pirate Bay's goal is to be a reliable tracker for torrent files (an explanation of torrenting technology can be found [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitTorrent_(protocol) here]) and to serve as an open repository for all such torrent files. The administrators of The Pirate Bay are as hands-off as possible and will only remove torrents if the name is inconsistent with the content of the torrent. <ref>http://thepiratebay.se/about</ref>
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The Pirate Bay was founded in 2003 by a Swedish organization known as The Piracy Bureau (Piratbyrån) but has been an independent organization since 2004. Since Sweden at the time didn't have any sort of filesharing network of it's own, the Piratbyrån decided to utilize the relatively new Bittorrent protocol in the design of their site <ref>http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-celebrates-9th-anniversary-a-brief-history-120915/</ref>. Since then the Pirate Bay's goal is to be a reliable tracker for torrent files (an explanation of torrenting technology can be found [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitTorrent_(protocol) here]) and to serve as an open repository for all such torrent files. The founders of The Pirate Bay wanted the site to be the start of a filesharing community in Sweden and Scandinavia, and originally focussed on having local content available on their site. The first of the Pirate Bay's collection of servers was a laptop of one of the founders, which quickly became overwhelmed as The Pirate Bay garnered interest from not only Sweden but around the world.
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The administrators of The Pirate Bay are as hands-off as possible and will only remove torrents if the name is inconsistent with the content of the torrent. They've been accused of copyright violations by several national and international organizations and been raided by law enforcement authorities on several occasions as well. However, to this day they are still available as one of the world's most popular torrent sites.<ref>http://thepiratebay.se/about</ref><ref>http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-celebrates-9th-anniversary-a-brief-history-120915/</ref>
  
 
==The Pirate Bay Trial==
 
==The Pirate Bay Trial==

Revision as of 22:16, 23 November 2012

The Pirate Bay's Logo

The Pirate Bay, the self-proclaimed "Galaxy's most resilient BitTorrent site", is one of the largest and most visited filesharing websites in the world. The Pirate Bay's Alexa rankings place it in the top 100 most-visited sites in the world and in the top 20 in the site's home country of Sweden.[1] This popularity has lead to various legal and ethical concerns and censorship by some countries and internet service providers. Despite this, the site is still active today. The founders of the site are also major supporters of other anti-copyright groups both in Sweden and internationally.

History and Overview

The Pirate Bay was founded in 2003 by a Swedish organization known as The Piracy Bureau (Piratbyrån) but has been an independent organization since 2004. Since Sweden at the time didn't have any sort of filesharing network of it's own, the Piratbyrån decided to utilize the relatively new Bittorrent protocol in the design of their site [2]. Since then the Pirate Bay's goal is to be a reliable tracker for torrent files (an explanation of torrenting technology can be found here) and to serve as an open repository for all such torrent files. The founders of The Pirate Bay wanted the site to be the start of a filesharing community in Sweden and Scandinavia, and originally focussed on having local content available on their site. The first of the Pirate Bay's collection of servers was a laptop of one of the founders, which quickly became overwhelmed as The Pirate Bay garnered interest from not only Sweden but around the world.

The administrators of The Pirate Bay are as hands-off as possible and will only remove torrents if the name is inconsistent with the content of the torrent. They've been accused of copyright violations by several national and international organizations and been raided by law enforcement authorities on several occasions as well. However, to this day they are still available as one of the world's most popular torrent sites.[3][4]

The Pirate Bay Trial

In January of 2008 a lawsuit was brought against Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm, Peter Sunde, and Carl Lundstrom (all major forces behind The Pirate Bay) by Swedish prosecutors for charges of copyright infringement. Half of the 34 charges were almost immediately dropped but the other half resulted in Neij, Svartholm, Sudne, and Lundstrom receiving a fine of 30 million Swedish krona (which was later increased) and being sentenced to a year in jail (which was later decreased) [5]. The four defendants attempted to appeal to the Swedish Supreme Court in 2012 but was denied [6].

Censorship

Various countries worldwide have attempted to censor or block The Pirate Bay in some form or another (a full list can be found here) but there are some countries whose efforts are of note: [7]

  • The United States of America: both Facebook and Microsoft have been restricting sharing of The Pirate Bay links on their services, citing security concerns for users and the possibility of users breaking their Terms of Service by clicking on the links [8][9]
  • The United Kingdom: in February of 2012 the British High Court ruled that all major internet service providers in the UK must block The Pirate Bay's site because of possible implications for breaking copyright law. This ban was essentially ineffective due to various ways to technologically circumvent the block and The Pirate Bay actually was noted as saying that they should write a "thank-you note" because their traffic actually took a bump up. [10]
  • Sweden: Swedish ISP Black Internet, which had already complied with a court order to stop hosting for The Pirate Bay (the site had since found hosting elsewhere) went beyond the court-ordered injunction to block it's customers from viewing The Pirate Bay's website. Black Internet allegedly created this block to avoid potential punitive fines. [11]

Ethical Issues

Considerations for The Pirate Bay

The Pirate Bay is at the heart of the international anti-copyright movement, called "the most visible member of a burgeoning international anti-copyright" [12]. Other activist organizations include various registered and non-registered Pirate political parties, which are mostly active in Europe [13]. The Pirate Party goals include a "fundamental reform" of copyright law, abolishing the patent system, and limiting commercial copyright to five years[14]. The Pirate Bay furthers these goals by operating their website as a free way to copy and share for non-commercial use.

Although artists are historically opposed to anti-copyright groups some of them take the opposite approach and use The Pirate Bay as an opportunity for viral marketing. These artists work with The Pirate Bay (casually rebranded as The Promo Bay) to make their works available on The Pirate Bay's website for free. The Promo Bay has helped promote the band Throes+The Shine, the videogame McPixel, and the film Ha<<itat. One recording artist, Dan Bull, made his single available on The Pirate Bay and expressed the goal of "conquering the pop charts" to show "'them' that there's another way."[15]

Criticism against The Pirate Bay

The Pirate Bay's stance on copyright law has made it the posterchild for internet piracy. One of the main organizations combatting internet piracy is the Recording Industry Association of America, who claims that internet piracy like that which The Pirate Bay enables is responsible for billions of dollars of lost revenue and the decline of record sales. [16] Another organization, the Motion Picture Association of America, has said that The Pirate Bay "enables rampant copyright theft" on the internet and calls the operators of the site "criminals." [17]

Apart from copyright concerns The Pirate Bay has also faced criticism as to the type of torrents that it allows to be hosted on the site, including autopsy photos of murdered children from a Swedish criminal investigation. Despite pleas from the father of the children the site refused to take down the torrent in question. The Pirate Bay spokesman said of the issue "I don’t think it’s our job to judge of something is ethical or unethical or what other people want to put out on the internet."[18]

See Also


References

  1. ↑ http://www.alexa.com/topsites
  2. ↑ http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-celebrates-9th-anniversary-a-brief-history-120915/
  3. ↑ http://thepiratebay.se/about
  4. ↑ http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-celebrates-9th-anniversary-a-brief-history-120915/
  5. ↑ http://www.idg.se/2.1085/1.143146
  6. ↑ http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-founders-prison-sentences-final-supreme-court-appeal-rejected-120201/
  7. ↑ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_pirate_bay
  8. ↑ http://www.wired.com/business/2009/05/facebooks-e-mail-censorship-is-legally-dubious-experts-say/
  9. ↑ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/03/26/microsoft_censors_pirate_bay_im/
  10. ↑ http://crave.cnet.co.uk/software/pirate-bay-claims-record-number-of-visitors-following-isp-ban-50007855/
  11. ↑ http://www.thelocal.se/27488/20100628/
  12. ↑ http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-ca-webscout29apr29,0,5609754.story
  13. ↑ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_party
  14. ↑ http://www.piratpartiet.se/international/english
  15. ↑ http://thepiratebay.se/doodles
  16. ↑ http://www.riaa.com/physicalpiracy.php?content_selector=piracy_details_online
  17. ↑ http://www.webcitation.org/5ludmVPre
  18. ↑ http://www.thelocal.se/14168/20080905/
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