CD's, DVD's, Games have NEVER been cheaper IMO, I can remember paying £10+ for a CD back in the 90's, they peaked at around £14 I think, its possible to get new releases for less than £7 in places, likewise, DVD's, they were around £15, you can now get them for less than £10.
As for games, if you wait a few weeks, you can get MASSIVE discounts, you can get games that were £40 a few weeks previous for less than £20.
I think the only reason they've been found guilty is because they decided to use the name "Pirate Bay". It doesn't speak of lawful motives, does it? If they'd been called "Innocent Child Happy Funworld" it might have been different. Although it does sound like the sort of thing Pedobear likes...
Like if you went to sit your driving test and you'd changed your name to Drunken McCrashy, you're asking for trouble.
I've bought a lot of music in my time, stuff that I could easily get from the shops and off amazon. But a lot of what I listen to now isn't stocked in places like HMV, or even Amazon for that matter. Instead of using torrents (I've never liked them tbh) I use music blogs, much easier in my opinion
Not really true, Radiohead are often quoted as a band that discovered and rode the Napster way of marketing and in 2007 they started that new fashion of releasing CDs online which was imitated by many artists. However Radiohead have decided to let their contract with the lable expire so to have more freedom in making their choices.
In the recording industry it seems little people have learned anything, on that I am with you, and also about the greed.
Back to topic, I think this a first confirmation Sweden has stopped being the piracy heaven it once was, although I expect the TPB guys to try and appeal the ruling, the wind has changed.
They'll appeal, and possibly win. Besides, wasn't their some talk that the raid a few years ago was encouraged by the US. Interesting how the media coverage always gets someone from the BPI, but never someone from one of the copyright reform organizations. They won't be able to find that amount of money - in addition, the prison sentence is a complete waste of the Swedish taxpayer's money.
I cincerly hope that they go free when they appeal. They dont have anything illegal on their servers. They dont have shit thats illegal. Biggest scandal ever, well maybe not. But I would like to see wich points they violate. To me they dont violate shit?
They are facilitating the transfer of copyrighted material and hosting torrent files which are derived from the copyrighted material. Without the copyrighted material there would be no torrent files. They are accessories to the transfer of copyrighted material.
I see what you're saying, but it's clearly written in most (if not all) contracts with ISPs that transferring copyrighted material is illegal. ISPs are often contacted by anti-piracy organisations and asked to identify which user was using a particular IP at a particular time (effectively saying who was pirating this file) and they generally co-operate. ISPs also provide a lot of services to people (not just allowing them to transfer pirated materials). What services did TPB offer? To allow users to transfer pirated materials and discuss those transfers.
I'm sure it makes a difference in law whether your service is purely for performing illegal activities, and you openly encourage this, than a legitimate service that can be abused for illegal use and helping catch the abusers.
As a rule of thumb, I only buy music made by artists who aren't already rich. For instance, if there's a, say, Stevie Wonder song I want in my life (it happens, 'I Wish'), there's no way I'm going to buy that. I'm sure he's already rich enough. However, if there's a good song made by an artist that's beginning, and that doesn't seem on the way to make billions of dollars a year, he's got my money!
It's true, however, that most artists I have in my library are already rich, and certainly didn't get any money from me to get in there. You know, there's something called Youtube, and there's plenty of music on there. Apparently they don't expect people to use programs like Audacity to record whatever they ear on their computers.
Programs like Limewire & co. make specifically clear in their T.O.A. / E.U.L.A. that using their software to download music or any other pirated files is not their problem, and that's it's illegal to do so. The thing is though, they hide behind the maybe 5% of legitimate files that pass through their software, and I doubt there's anything the RIAA (or others) can do about it. They're not responsible for how their people their program, and I don't think that the fact that their program can be used illegally is changing anything.
It's really the same with guns. For the sake of argument, let's pretend that mr.x buys a gun. He tend proceeds to rob a bank with the said firearm. Who's responsible? The corporation which made the gun? The store which sold the gun? Or the guy that actually used the gun to rob the bank? The corporation which makes gun knows that their products can be used illegally, and I've never personally bought a gun, but I'm sure there's a ton of paperwork that comes with it that states that the gun maker is in no way responsible for whatever is done with that gun. It's true, however, that firearms are regulated, and that you need a permit to own one, but I doubt we'll ever need a permit to use the internet, or at least use P2P programs.
Do you really believe a second that their program would even exist if it wasn't for the distribution of copyrighted, trademarked, patented, or other protected data? The whole concept of P2P/Torrent software relies on the illegality of the whole thing.
Yeah the Swedish whent from mongos to inbreed mongolid apeshit. Now they have the rights to actually check the traffic and companies can demand to know who's IP is who. Internet is not owned by anyone, specially not sweden, but guess something really whent bad in their head afterall.
How? A CD nowadays cost as much as a half decent dinner, individual downloading cost about one Us dollar per song, nothing expensive.
I grabbed a "Shawn of the dead" DVD last week in HMV and it's 70HKD, that's about 10 US dollars or 5 pounds. Most of the DVDs i can find are no more than 150HKD.
