that's amazing , who 'ved never use this site ?

I love TPB. They stand up for themselves like crazy and I know this is just the start of the saga.

That's so much bullshit. It really is political.

I'm all for Pirate Bay.

The prosecutors for this trial did such a horrible job! and yet, they still won. jerks.

Good. Send em to jail.

Because sharing information, and freeing up people's tender is more of a crime in the eyes of our lords. We as a people found a way to not waste our money on overpriced merchandise that the artist rarely sees any money from. They aren't getting sales tax on dvds and porn anymore. I feel bad for what pirating has done to independent artists. My Band has also fallen victim to online filesharing, when we just released a full length in October. However, Jim Morrison isn't gonna see a fuckin penny of his record sales.

My question is, are we less productive as a society since the emergence of torrents? No one has to work for what they buy anymore, and many of us have a stockpile of media that will takes years to read, listen to, etc.

All I can say is, support independent artists, and independent business, because they are suffering due to piracy. However, we fucked the government over good.

No one will support independent artists if pirating becomes the norm, hence it must be destroyed. Touting these guys as heros is moronic. They are killing the future of independent art.

Are you fucking kidding me with killing independant art? I would love to find my bands music somewhere other than iTunes because it meant someone liked it enough to steal it. And if your "art" is good enough, people will pay for it. They will pay what they can afford. We all know music CD's and DVD's have a production cost much lower than the price per item sales they charge. And if your stuff gets pirated it ends up in hands and in ears of people who would never have heard or seen of it otherwise, because people are fed up with paying $15 for a cd with one good track on it and 12 songs of bullshit.

If I pirate an album or movie that turns out to be fantastic, I buy it. I'm *glad* it made the cut and got added to my collection. But to take a chance after hearing one song? Or from a fistful of 15 second clips? Fuck that I enjoy my money too much to piss it away.

Plus most independant artists I know make all their money from connecting with fans.. playing shows, selling shirts, stickers, and all that. People will always find a way to put your music (or your one good song) in their walkman.. whether its downloading it, ripping it from myspace.. or, let me date myself, recording it off the radio with their tape player. Piracy has always been available to those who know how to use it.

as a musician and independent artist i see both sides of this argument. i have given away much music for free, been a fan of sampling and creative commons copyrights. i was also impressed by the radiohead (and others) "experiment" of pay what you want. i don't focus on making my living exclusively from my music anymore. but other people do and i respect that. though i admire the philosophy, i think that Jhay's theory that if people steal something and then enjoy it, that they will later buy it is an ideal that very few people subscribe to.

i had an argument with some real estate banker, or something, a few weeks ago over margaritas. his theory was that all media should be free and exchangeable. he argued that artists should never expect to live off of their art. if they expected to make money then they weren't true artists. i think we can all agree that that is a load of shit. right? to my face this guy told me that all music released was common property of the world. that each person should have unlimited access to whatever they wanted and that each individual should then set their own price as to what it was worth to them. he followed this up by saying that he had set his price for all music and it was zero.

yet, he was begging me to explain to him how to use bit torrent so that he could get the entire U2 catalog for free. whatever man.

i like the idea of TPB. i don't think that they have necessarily broken a law or deserve to go to jail. but they have made it easier for the general public to break the law and steal everyday. i wish the general public had a little more respect for intellectual property and independent artists. is TPB really to blame for creating a technology? or all of us for abusing it? (actually i have never used it. but i'll still take some blame.)