Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984
The Pirate Bay Turns 15 Years Old
Founded in 2003 by a group of hackers and activists, The Pirate Bay aimed to bring file-sharing to the masses. In the fifteen years that followed, the site transformed from a small community to Hollywood's resilient arch-rival, serving millions of users. And that's not the only thing that changed. Todayish, The Pirate Bay turns 15 years old, which is quite an achievement considering the immense legal pressure it has faced over the years.
While the exact launch date is a bit of a mystery, even to the site's founders, August 10 was previously chosen as its anniversary. What we do know is that the site was brought online in 2003 by now-disbanded pro-culture organization Piratbyrån, which is Swedish for Bureau of Piracy. The group was formed by political activists and hackers in the same year, many of whom had already launched other web projects challenging political, moral, and power structures.
One of the group's unwritten goals was to offer a counterweight to the propaganda being spread by local anti-piracy outfit Antpiratbyrån. With BitTorrent as the up-and-coming file-sharing technology, they saw fit to start their own file-sharing site to promote sharing of information.
The Pirate Bay first came online in Mexico where Gottfrid Svartholm, aka Anakata, hosted the site on a server owned by the company he was working for at the time. After a few months, the site moved to Sweden where it was hosted on a Pentium III 1GHz laptop with 256MB RAM. This one machine, which belonged to Fredrik Neij, aka TiAMO, kept the site online and included a fully operational tracker.
Related: Anti-Piracy Firm: P2P Piracy Still Relevant
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P2P Piracy Is Alive and Growing, Research Suggests
While the rise of online streaming sites can't be denied, a new research report from anti-piracy outfit Irdeto shows that P2P remains very relevant. In fact, it's still the dominant piracy tool in many countries. Irdeto researched site traffic data provided by an unnamed web analytics partner. The sample covers web traffic to 962 piracy sites in 19 countries where P2P was most used. This makes it possible to see how P2P site visits compare to those of pirate streaming sites.
The data reveal that there are massive differences in the relative use of P2P versus streaming sites between countries. In Russia, for example, only 2% of the visits go to streaming sites, while the rest of the traffic goes to P2P portals. P2P also outperforms streaming in other countries such as Australia, the Netherlands, and India. This pattern is reversed in Germany, where 88% of all visits go to pirate streaming sites. Similarly, streaming is also the dominant web piracy tool in the United States, France, Spain and other countries.
Additional research in eight countries shows that piracy traffic has grown during the course of 2017. This growth also applies to P2P sites, in all but one country, Germany. Looking at the sample as a whole, Iredeto notes that 70% of all pirate traffic goes to P2P sites, which appears to run counter to the popular narrative that streaming is more dominant today.
A decade ago this week, Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm, and Carl Lundström were all found guilty of 'assisting in making copyright content available' via their site, The Pirate Bay. Each was sentenced to a year in jail and their fines totaled over $3 million. Now ten years on, the site has a life of its own without those four. It has been the target of a many takedown notices and has even been blocked multiple times.
Ten years ago this week, four men were found guilty and sentenced to prison for running The Pirate Bay. At the time, Peter Sunde said that the site would continue, no matter what. A decade on he has been proven absolutely right and that in itself is utterly remarkable.
Earlier on SN:
The Pirate Bay Turns 15 Years Old (2018)
How The Pirate Bay Helped Spotify Become a Success (2018)
The Man from Earth Sequel "Pirated" on The Pirate Bay - By Its Creators (2018)
How The US Pushed Sweden to Take Down The Pirate Bay (2017)
What's a Digital Copy Worth? Not Much, Says Peter Sunde's New Machine (2015)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 13 2018, @06:18PM
you scurvy sea dogs!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 13 2018, @06:20PM (10 children)
Isn't it basically just a honeypot right now?
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Monday August 13 2018, @06:23PM (8 children)
Share your torrent trackers on IRC like god intended.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 13 2018, @06:32PM (7 children)
Unless you use some overlay network, I guess.
Tor folks discourage file sharing and bittorrent in general, and the other such networks are too small to make it useful.
It's better just to buy your content in a way that everyone involved agrees to the transaction—if you think it's too expensive, then don't consume that content!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Monday August 13 2018, @06:48PM (5 children)
It is too expensive, and I don't mean just $. Copyright restrictions hold back society and progress.
I consider it a civic duty to rebel against unfair laws and restrictions. I wish people would boycott the whole industry, stop watching movies, listening to music, and reading books altogether, until the industry agrees to substantial reform or abolishment of copyright laws. I
(Score: 3, Informative) by tftp on Monday August 13 2018, @07:05PM (1 child)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 14 2018, @06:25AM
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 13 2018, @08:09PM (2 children)
You're just consumers.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 13 2018, @08:33PM
You're just an incel! You and your ilk can't get laid!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 13 2018, @11:52PM
Quite a few people liked my fanfics, thank you very much.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by PartTimeZombie on Monday August 13 2018, @09:48PM
You're assuming I can find someone to take my money, which is not always true.
In fact, almost everytime download a torrent it is because of the "not available in your region" thing.
The copyright cartel has no clue about their business.
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Monday August 13 2018, @06:53PM
No, it still is a useful place to find things like historical versions of a GNU/Linux distribution [thepiratebay.org] or out-of-print books [thepiratebay.org]. I don't think association with those will run you afoul with the MPAA/RIAA/BSA folks. Though the latter one might put you on some other watchlists, as might saying the words "bomb, Allah, jihad". (Saying "President" along with these used to be a red flag but with the current U.S. President they don't have the manpower to keep up.)
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 13 2018, @06:42PM (8 children)
So, is a non-logging VPN the best way to *ahem* make use of that certain web-site?
Are other sites better?
Torrent? Magnet? Fishing lure?
How do YOU do your Yaaar-ing?
---Captain Feathersword
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Monday August 13 2018, @07:01PM (6 children)
Just run in there with your adblockers and stuff, and use the magnet links.
Most copyright holders can't be arsed to even attempt to deal with torrent piracy. Maybe you'll get a note from your ISP for participating in a torrent swarm. If you are scared, use streaming sites for video and torrents only for obscure books, comics, etc. For music, use adblocked YouTube, Jango Raid [jango-raid.ml], internet radio, or individual album downloads only when you really care about analbum. Library Genesis also has direct downloads of books.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 13 2018, @10:06PM (2 children)
Anal bum? Had no idea you swang that way, takyon!
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday August 13 2018, @10:59PM
Tachyonic particles are so forward-thinking, they swing backwards.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 14 2018, @06:07PM
anal bum cover
(Score: 2) by legont on Tuesday August 14 2018, @12:44AM (2 children)
Thank you for the libgen! I did not know...
To add to your point, magnet link through any VPN is good enough for a typical use.
Anything latest for audiobooks? They are still not that easy to find...
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday August 14 2018, @12:54AM (1 child)
I don't really do audiobooks but these might help:
http://abbaudiobook.com/ [abbaudiobook.com]
https://www.reddit.com/r/Piracy/comments/7vpm04/any_sites_for_downloading_audio_books_free/ [reddit.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by legont on Tuesday August 14 2018, @01:04AM
I still commute so audiobooks are a must. Thank you.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 14 2018, @08:10AM
The best way is to live in a place where the copyright mafia has no power. The second best way is private trackers, through it's a massive chore to get into the ones you want.
(Score: 4, Touché) by Appalbarry on Monday August 13 2018, @06:50PM
Old enough to recall the early Internet days when downloading single songs was a big deal, much less even earlier when a 1 meg file was a challenge at 300 baud with X-modem or Z-modem. Torrents changed everything, and still do.
Funny thing is that people still seem to believe that downloading via a torrent will lead to lawsuits or criminal charges. As far as I can tell both are exceedingly rare.
So go pick the movie or album or your choice, crank up Transmission (or your local equivalent) and celebrate this birthday by liberating some content! [thepiratebay.org]
(Sigh. Some things remain eternal...."Database maintenance, please check back in 10 minutes.")
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 13 2018, @07:13PM (5 children)
But not because it's "pirated" but instead because it's mass media!
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday August 13 2018, @07:19PM (3 children)
^ Fun police!
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 13 2018, @09:26PM (1 child)
No need for the police if all media was consumed by a series of voluntary contracts.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 13 2018, @09:37PM
But a song was transmitted over air waves and my auto recorder caught it, converted to mo3 and auto shared a torrent link. There was no agreement stipulated at the beginning of the song so now everyone has voluntarily interacted and the song is freely available as long as people seed the torrent.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 13 2018, @11:56PM
Better than the dream police. They live inside of my head.
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Tuesday August 14 2018, @08:49AM
That's why you watch anime instead. It's not produced by the six evil media megacorps. (right? right!?)
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Tuesday August 14 2018, @12:37AM (5 children)
They said I was violating copyright, I couldn't figure out why. Thinking back, I'd downloaded some software via a torrent.
I ignored it, dumped the cable company in June, and so far nothing has come of it.
That said, I'm not saying I don't, um, get stuff I bought 50 years ago into a digital format on my system. If I paid $3.66 for an album back in '72, who's to say I pirated the same album in '18? Never mind the CD of the same album I bought in the mid 80's for $17.99 that sounded a helluva lot worse than my original album.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by legont on Tuesday August 14 2018, @12:52AM (4 children)
Many years ago I pirated a movie Solaris made by Russian genius Tarkovsky. ISP sent me a notice for downloading the Hollywood shit of the same name I would never touch. I actually called them and ended up talking with an outsourced to India "attorney" who had no idea who or what both were. Pathetic fucks all of them are.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday August 14 2018, @12:55AM (3 children)
Almost universally ignoring these notices is the best course of action, even the ones that sound threatening. However some ISPs might cut off users that get too many notices. Check your ISP's policies.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by legont on Tuesday August 14 2018, @04:22AM (2 children)
Well, I use VPN's for a long time. Not permanently, but I believe enough to confuse robots. For when I got paranoid, I have a little server running my private VPN in an unfriendly jurisdiction.
Speaking about VPN's, it appears that big boys started to fight them. Craiglist openly refuses connection. Chase, does the same, but silently. Amazon switches to crawl speed. Do people notice?
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday August 14 2018, @04:47AM (1 child)
Ask the many Tor users around here. They notice it and worse.
CloudFlare seems to be one of the worst offenders and is used by many sites. One symptom is an endless amount of goddamn captchas that you have to solve in order to use a service. Many sites will also throw up huge security red flags if you try to sign up for an account while using a VPN. Google, Discord, and many email services immediately come to mind. They will effectively lock your account due to "suspicious activity" and demand a phone number to continue. If you write to support explaining your position on privacy, you'll essentially get the finger, if you get a response at all. The rationale is probably to prevent bots, spammers, or even trolls from using the service.
It's hard to say about "crawl speed" since the VPN could dramatically lower your throughput anyway. Especially the free ones (which may be more likely to be detected since they are easier for anyone to use).
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by legont on Wednesday August 15 2018, @03:07AM
I pay for VPN and it is fast; well, compared to my village only option cable anyway. They definitely do throttle down in addition to what you described. It also is getting worse rather quickly.
Another observation - some countries have fast internal Internet but throttle it down on the border.
The whole Internet freedom concept is deteriorating pretty much everywhere.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.