Simon Klose has filmed a documentary about The Pirate Bay, and encouraged everyone to make it available around the net, so here goes:
John
Categories » ‘Arguments’
Game of profit
March 3rd, 2013 by pirateadminThis month the second season of the popular TV series Game of Thrones is launched on DVD and BluRay in Norway.
The series is one of the most illegally downloaded TV shows. In spite of that, the sales figures look very good. The first season sold 43000 box sets in Norway, a very good figure for a box set in a small country. The second season had a day-one sale of 22500 box sets.
The TV business said that illegal downloading ruined the commercial possibilities of TV shows. But as was the case with the popular Lost series, box sets and single DVDs and BluRays are selling very well, at least in Norway, where I live.
Maybe it even is BECAUSE of illegal downloading? People are tired of waiting, tired of advert breaks, and tired of watching only one episode per week. But I think they are also tired of the relatively low quality of the downloaded files, so when the box sets come out, they buy them.
Both Lost and Game of Thrones have proved that illegal downloads do not kill the business, but can add to it, since new customers (viewers) are reached, and stronger bonds are tied.
John
Censoring pirates doesn’t work
February 11th, 2013 by pirateadminI told you so……
From TorrentFreak
Censoring Pirate Sites Doesn’t Work, Researchers Find
A new study released by researchers from Boston’s Northeastern University shows that censoring “pirate” sites by blocking or seizing their domains is ineffective. The researchers looked at the availability of various pirated media on file-hosting sites and found that uploaders post more new content than copyright holders can take down. A better solution, according to the researchers, is to block the money streams that flow to these sites.
The file-sharing landscape has often been described as a hydra. Take one site down, and several new ones will take its place. Blocking or censoring sites and files may have a short-lived effect, but it does very little to decrease the availability of pirated content on the Internet.
Researchers from Boston’s Northeastern University carried out a study to see how effective various anti-piracy measures are. They monitored thousands of files across several popular file-hosting services and found, among other things, that DMCA notices are a drop in the ocean. The researchers show that file-hosting services such as Uploaded, Wupload, RapidShare and Netload disable access to many files after receiving DMCA takedown notices, but that this does little to decrease the availability of pirated content.
Similarly, the researchers find evidence that the Megaupload shutdown did little to hinder pirates. On the contrary, the file-hosting landscape became more diverse with uploaders spreading content over hundreds of services.
“There is a cat-and-mouse game between uploaders and copyright owners, where pirated content is being uploaded by the former and deleted by the latter, and where new One-Click Hosters and direct download sites are appearing while others are being shut down,” the researchers write. “Currently, this game seems to be in favour of the many pirates who provide far more content than what the copyright owners are taking down,” they conclude.
The study also looked at the number of sites where copyrighted content is available. The researchers scraped the popular file-hosting search engine FilesTube and found that there were nearly 10,000 distinct domain names and 5,000 IP-addresses where alleged pirate content was hosted.
For example, a search for “dvdrip” returned results on 1,019 different domains using 702 distinct IP-addresses.
From the above the researchers conclude that anti-piracy measures aimed at reducing the availability of pirated content are less effective than often suggested. A more fruitful approach, they argue, may be to take away their ability to process payments, through PayPal or credit card processors. This is already happening widely, especially with file-hosting services that offer affiliate programs. However, as the researchers rightfully note there are also many perfectly legitimate file-hosting services that operate within the boundaries of the law and can’t be simply cut off.
The researchers end with the now common mantra that when it comes to online piracy, innovation often trumps legislation.
“Given our findings that highlight the difficulties of reducing the supply of pirated content, it appears to be promising to follow a complementary strategy of reducing the demand for pirated content, e.g., by providing legitimate offers that are more attractive to consumers than pirating content.”
John
Director of Thale advises
September 18th, 2012 by pirateadminOn the Pirate Bay, the Norwegian movie Thale has been made available, probably from DVD screeners sent out to media, as the official DVD is not out yet. The director posted this in the torrent’s comment field:
Hey guys, and thanks for your interest in “Thale”! Being the director, it’s of course awesome to see that you’re eager getting your hands on my film.
For three years, we poured blood, sweat and tears into this project. And that’s not just an empty phrase; Shooting the film with our own pocket money, we had to. Personally, I wrote, directed, shot and edited “Thale”, as well as building the sets from scratch – in other words, putting everything (and I mean everything) on the line giving birth to “Thale”.
So, first of all, I hope you guys find our efforts and years well spent. And if so, I hope you’ll consider spending two minutes of your own time, and just a couple of coins, getting the film the right way. I’m not gonna repeat what you all already know about file-sharing, illegality and so on. You’ve heard that before, and you probably don’t care. What I hope to achieve however, reaching out to you in this way, is to gain a little bit of awareness of the fact that the films you sit down to watch after school or a day’s work; they’re not really made by a studio-machinery, they’re made by people like you. And like you, we can’t just download our bread.
I’m not aiming to make anyone feel provoked, guilty or sorry for us. Only a bit more aware.
If you’d like to know how to get the DVD or Bluray, and maybe a chat with the cast and crew from “Thale”, you’re very welcome to our Facebook-page (thalemovie). See you there instead?
Best wishes, Aleksander L. Nordaas
Kudos to the man for not throwing stones at the movie’s fans. Maybe many of them will buy the DVD after checking out the movie and finding it is good. Myself, I plan to buy this DVD because I am a fan of the genre, and prefer to support independent movies.
John
I tried, but the industry failed
August 13th, 2012 by pirateadminThe other day I heard a song on the radio, a 90s Swedish song that was full of atmosphere. It is rare that I hear songs on the radio that I like, but this song caught my attention. It does not matter which song it was, because the following story applies to any song you might hear on radio or TV.
I decided I would like to have this song, and thought I would not mess about with torrents and pirate downloads, just this once. I first tried one of the major international retailers of CDs and downloads. The song was there, at a good price, but the merchant only accepted UK credit cards for downloads. I’ve been spending hundreds of Euros there on DVDs and CDs, but they would not let me buy an MP3. Well, I then tried a Norwegian retailer, but as this is an older song with little distribution now, they did not have it at all. I then continued to a Swedish retailer, and they had it, but would not let me buy it with a Norwegian credit card.
I finally found the song at a retailer that would let me purchase it, but the price was too high; around 13 crowns, which is about 1.78 euros. For one song! That equals a price of 130 NOK for the complete album, which is way too much for a download album, when physical albums cost little more than that. I could just as well have bought the CD, but my principle is that downloads should be at least half the price of physical.
After some more searching, I found the song on a “personal upload site” – not a pirate network site, but a place where individuals can upload songs and stream them to friends. The sound quality is not perfect but for the price I paid – zero – it is quite OK to rip the song from there.
Seeing that the music industry and the retailers made it so inconvenient for me, and at the end of the day too expensive to buy the song legally, I had no choice but to help myself.
John
