The Pirate Bay

The Pirate Bay

The Pirate Bay is one of the largest torrent and filesharing websites in the world. The website (thepiratebay.se) is one of the top 100 most visited sites in the world and in the top 20 in it's home country of Sweden. The Pirate Bay is also one of the most notorious file-sharing websites, with multiple attempts being made in many different countries to hinder or prohibit access to the site. Despite this, the site, which was founded in 2009, 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. 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 admins 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 torent

Popularity

The Pirate Bay is currently, according to Alexa rankings, the most popular torrent tracking site on the internet. The website has an almost cult following among among it's users, with everything from The Pirate Bay t-shirts and mugs to boxer briefs being available bearing the site's logo .

The Pirate Bay Trial

In January of 2008 a lawsuit was brought against Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm, Peter Sunde, and Carl Lundstrom 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) . The four defendants attempted to appeal to the Swedish Supreme court in 2012 but was denied .

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:

• 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
• 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.
• 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.

Ethical Considerations

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" . Other activist organizations include various registered and non-registered Pirate political parties, which are mostly active in Europe (link to image at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_party). The Pirate Party goals include a "fundamental reform" of copyright law, abolishing the patent system, and limiting commercial copyright to five years. 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."

Criticism against The Pirate Bay

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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 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."

References

(1) http://www.alexa.com/topsites (2) http://www.cafepress.com/+pirate-bay+gifts (3) http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-ca-webscout29apr29,0,5609754.story (4) http://www.piratpartiet.se/international/english (4.5) http://thepiratebay.se/doodles (5) http://www.thelocal.se/14168/20080905/ (6) http://www.idg.se/2.1085/1.143146 (7) http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-founders-prison-sentences-final-supreme-court-appeal-rejected-120201/