The Pirate Bay founders found GUILTY of filesharing

I am not trying to pay for some things.  I am cheap and the price of videos and games have gone through the roof.

While this will completely date me, but I remember when I was a kid, I used to have a pretty big collection of taps that I would make.  I would listen to the radio and record my favorite shows on the air.  I would dub copies of the tapes to create the original mix tapes of songs that I liked and wanted to play in my old school Walkman.

When I got to college and I started DJing at the radio station and the bar job that I had, I would have to put together tapes for my show ( DJ Dark Knight riding the midnight hour on 88.1 the Beat) or my Bump and Grind 1am show. The tapes that I made were labors of love and were some of the best times I had in the studio.  Friends would ask, and I would tape them a copy of my show when I was spinning on the air. ( although I actually did no “spinning” on the air, since we had cartridges that had the music on CD’s that we would stick in the players.  I occasionally would come in early and tape part of my show, so that I could blend parts of the show….)

That would be copyright infringement today.

arrgggrrghhh matey! We will sail again!

Pirate Bay four jailed for breaking copyright in Swedish file-sharing trial

The founders of file-sharing website The Pirate Bay have been sentenced to a year in jail in Sweden for breaking copyright laws by helping millions of users download music, movies and computer games for free.

By Rupert Neate
Last Updated: 4:01PM BST 17 Apr 2009

Experts believe the ruling could be the first step towards ending illegal downloading, which has cost music and film companies billions of dollars in lost revenue.

Founders Peter Sunde and Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, along with two other employees Fredrik Neij and Carl Lundström, were sentenced to a year in jail after being found guilty in a Swedish court of making 33 copyright-protected files accessible for illegal downloading on the website Piratebay.org.

The four were also ordered to pay $3.6 m (£2.4m) in damages to copyright holders, including Warner Brothers, MGM, Columbia Pictures, 20th Century Fox Films, Sony and Universal, according to Swedish media reports.

In a Twitter posting before sentencing, Mr Sunde said: “Nothing will happen to TPB [the Pirate Bay], this is just theatre for the media.”

I hope that he is right.  For a long time, they have poked fun at the industry.  Could it be that the industry has finally struck back?  Hopefully, the answer is NO!  It is hard, if not impossible to stop a movement like this.  The very underground nature of it makes it impossible to stop.  The thing that is hilarious about the situation is that the ruling had been leaked online, before the judge had a chance to make the ruling public…

The Pirate Bay provides a forum for its estimated 22 million users to download content. The site has become the entertainment industry’s enemy No. 1 after successful court actions against file-swapping sites such as Grokster and Kazaa.

Defence lawyers had argued the men should be acquitted because The Pirate Bay does not host any copyright-protected material. Instead, it provides a forum for its users to download content through so-called torrent files. The technology allows users to transfer parts of a large file from several different users, increasing download speeds.

But the court found the defendants guilty of helping users commit copyright violations “by providing a website with … sophisticated search functions, simple download and storage capabilities, and through the tracker linked to the website”.

Judge Tomas Norstrom told reporters that the court took into account that the site was “commercially driven” when it made the ruling. The defendants have denied any commercial motives behind the site.

John Kennedy, the head of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, said the verdict was “good news for everyone, in Sweden and internationally, who is making a living or a business from creative activity and who needs to know their rights will be protected by law.”

What the lawyer is really saying is that the ruling protected CAPITALISM and if we can’t make a heap of money off it, why bother about innovation?  the answer is that people are naturally curious and they will work on things because they are interested.  Mozilla with Firefox is an example of that.  Or, you find another way to get paid off your creativity.  Bootlegging doesn’t stop people from getting paid.

Its hypocritical of people like Lil Wayne to give things to DJ’s and then turn around and attempt to sue them over the use of copyrighted material.  Memo to Lil Wayne.  The reason that you are popular is that you give material to mixtape DJ’s and they chop and screw the shit out of your stuff and play it for the people to get hyped about and then they buy the Carter 27 (or however many of them that they are.)

Either that, or you have fans that appreciate your lifestyle choices.

So, you are a Catcher I see...No wonder ESPN has you doing sports...

I thought it was Master P who made um say

[MP] Ungggggghh, na-nah na-nah
[MP] Make em say UNGGGGGGH (UNGGGGGGH)
Na-nah na-nah (na-nah na-nah)

I digress…

Supporters set up a website dedicated to the trial, and the defendants sent updates from the court hearings through social network Twitter.

Forrester Research analyst Mark Mulligan said: “The music industry has come out of this with a ruling that is more positive for them than many had been expected.” But he warned that the epidemic of file sharing will continue to grow via instant messaging, email and blogs, as well as file sharing websites.

He said the verdict could have implications for Google, as it provides links to illegal content.

Dawn Osborne, copyright lawyer at intellectual property firm Rouse, said: “Pirate Bay have been thumbing their nose at the establishment for too long and the view of many content owners will be that they have finally got what they deserved.

“Copyright protection is crucial to ensuring that creativity and innovation continue and much needed economic prosperity returns. The case shows that breach of these rights potentially has very serious consequences.”

Gottfrid Svartholm Varg (centre) and Peter Sundin (right), the founders of The Pirate Bay, a popular online piracy site, have been jailed for year and heavily fined for breaching copyright laws in Sweden. Photo: AP

Well, that is the reason I invested in 1TB drives. Get the gettins’ while the gettins’ are good…