More news about The Pirate Bay to bore you all! (Seriously, it’s not like people are still talking about the old Suprnova or Torrentspy anymore, yet the TPB has stuck around.) Some time ago, a Dutch court ordered TPB to delete a number of torrents and block Dutch IP addresses from being able to visit the site. Using a sledgehammer on a thumbtack, yes. Then TPB protested, as it does all the time, saying that it had no idea about the court case to begin with, so it couldn’t make a proper defense, etc. The Dutch court agreed to give TPB a a little bit of time to work out its issues, and has now reached another, similar verdict: remove the torrents, and block Dutch IP addresses. Fun all around, really.
Of course, BREIN is behind all of this. (BREIN is sorta Holland’s equivalent of the RIAA, and has been after TPB for as long as I can remember.) In a perfect, BREIN-approved world, TPB would just go away and never return. That doesn’t look like that’s going to happen any time soon, no here we are.
The Dutch court gave TPB’s owners, whoever they are at this point, three months to comply with the ruling, lest they face a €5,000 (~$7,500) per day fine.
TPB is currently studying the ruling, which they may well appeal. I look forward to more courtroom shenanigans. Then again, I also look forward to the day when Hollywood, and its international equivalents, figure out a business model that clicks with the world in 2009, one that doesn’t involve trying to sue dumb Web sites into the ground. One day!
TPB is old news anyway, for illegal stuff it’s hardly the best source. But they always make a nice show about it. I wonder if those dutchies will be able to track down whoever *owns* TPB … that should be fun.
ooh really then what is the best source?
If I recall about 75% of torrent traffic runs through the Pirate bay trackers. Really, open internet and open media is what we need, not a banhammer. I’d pay to watch (and listen) to the media I want, whenever I want. But overseas we just need to wait +/- a year for a show to appear only on given times, and if you miss a single episode, the odds are big that we won’t see it come around for another year or 3. Banning the Pirate Bay is shutting us down from world wide content. Personally I’ll stick to torrents till something better (maybe even something legal:P) comes around.
To all
The Court of Amsterdam has received a letter from Reservella, supposedly the owner of the website ThePiratebay.org according to the founders.
In it Reservella makes clear that Reservella does not own the site. This contradicts statements made by Piratebay founder Peter Sunde. The result was that the judge in Amsterdam did not believe the founders of The Pirate Bay anymore and now they have lost this particular battle.
I am an IT lawyer and involved in cases such as BREIN vs FTD. I call on all file sharers to resist to those forces that are trying to impose restrictions on file sharing services.
However, I also want to urge everybody to play this game fairly, otherwise the damage to our community will be even worse.
Feel free to contact me if you have any questions.
Regards,
A. Engelfriet
The Netherlands
They made a shell company on some little island nation because if the domain name is awarded as damages it’s game over. It’s estimated they’re making $60,000-$80,000 a month off it. I’d be willing to bet all that advertising revenue ends up in the hands of the founders.
I don’t know why they didn’t get slapped with contempt of court for not revealing the owner of the domain to the judge. The defense lawyer told the judge that 85% of the PB torrents were public domain (lol) and the prosecutor didn’t even call them on that!