Prince and Village People dive into Pirate Bay

"dive into"

i get it.

lol.

"go for a dip in"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/apr/17/the-pirate-bay-trial-guilty-verdict

they finally got got. dumb.

Since Pirate Bay doesn't host anything, does this verdict mean that 90 percent of the Internet is now illegal in Sweden?

Did he really say "Really, it's a bit LOL"?

As long as he pronounced it "loll" and not "Ell-Oh-Ell" I'm cool.

i think he twittered it

It'll be interesting to see how this plays out. Will they be going after Google eventually? Now that Googling "[artist name] rapidshare/mediafire/whatever" is one of the easiest ways to find illegal downloads?

most critics argue that Google should be sued next, for linking to copyright material. they really should win the appeal but will take years.

maybe piratebay dudes could've done more to divert people to other sites. if it's possible to have 10-20 portals all equally well known and used it would be harder to single one out the way they have been.

haven't used them for anything for a few years anyway.

I don't torrent nowadays cos my ISP is a twunt.

If people really gave a shit what happened in Sweden we'd have a decent public service infrastructure by now.

But re: blueski's thing about diverting people, I suspect that Piratebay's, um, confrontational attitude hasn't helped them in this case so far.

swedish prison is probably awesome anyway

It's full of beautiful ladies but the football and food are shite.

If the food's that shite how do you explain the shape of Tomas Brolin?

dudes swedish food is not shite

even tho they have a chocolate bar called PLOPP

Those Ikea meatballs are nasty tho.

Read a bit of slashdot's comments, of which there are already a thousand. The argument that people are stealing from artists is really solid as a myth. If the RIAA has dropped the ball on everything leading the industry into the 21st century, they've been overwhelmingly successful in perpetrating this myth.

As a longstanding independent performing & recording musician I have lots of experience with recording music and not getting any money from it. The fantasy of the rock star earning tons of money from records (hell any money at all, they get cheated by the Man just as much) is as big a fantasy of any kid growing up to be Michael Jordon or Barry Bonds. We're talking fractions of fractions of a percent of people.

Anyone here a musician that makes money from their recordings? Want to share some experiences?

Only money I ever made from music (aside from selling maybe a total of 200 or so CDs personally at shows) was royalties from Momus for the Super Madrigal Bros. album, which came to about a month's rent over 4 years. Some of my friends have been on national TV and their labels barely give them that much.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/hi/music/newsid_8007000/8007950.stm

Paul McCartney has labelled last week's Pirate Bay verdict as "fair".

Four men were found guilty by a Swedish court of breaking copyright rules and ordered to repay damages to entertainment companies on 17 April.

The file-sharing website made millions of music and film files available to users for free.

Speaking to Newsbeat McCartney said: "If you get on a bus you've got to pay. And I think it's fair, you should pay your ticket."

Artistic reward

Sir Paul McCartney, speaking before headlining US festival Coachella, said: "Anyone who does something good, particularly if you get really lucky and do a great artistic thing and have a mega hit, I think you should get rewarded for that.

"I'm in favour of that sort of thing."

He added: "The problem is you get a lot of young bands coming up and some of them aren't going to last forever so if they have a massive hit that's going to pay their mortgage forever.

"They're going to feed the children on that and if they don't get that money, if they don't see that money, I think it's a bit of a pity.

"I've been very lucky because my main era with the Beatles was at a time when everyone did get paid.

"Particularly for young bands and they've got a young family, I don't want to see them destitute after a couple of years when they were mega. So I think it's fair."

Jules De Martino from The Ting Tings - also playing the American festival - agreed that new bands are the bracket most affected by illegal file sharing.

He said, "When you're a new band it really sucks, it is really hard.

"You should value art, even if it's a penny. Art has to have a bit of value, whatever that cost is."

The Tings Tings' lead-singer Katie White also commented: "I think there should be a five play rule or something. If you play a record more than five times you should buy it because you're getting pleasure from it."

However, some bands are more sympathetic towards internet users sharing files free of charge.

White Lies' lead singer Harry McVeigh said: "The band still makes money and they can still carry on making music so its not actually the worst thing in the world."

Following last week's trial site founders Frederik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Carl Lundstrom and Peter Sunde were all sentenced to 12 months in jail for breaching copyright and order to pay £3 million in damages.

Speaking after the verdict about the compensation, one of the men, Peter Sunde said, "We can't pay and we wouldn't pay."

The Pirate Bay website currently continues to operate.

Entertainment companies argued that the guilty verdict sent out a warning message to other file sharing websites.

The four Pirate Bay founders have already said they will appeal against their sentences.

"I think there should be a five play rule or something. If you play a record more than five times you should buy it because you're getting pleasure from it."

...and slowly the punchline gallops toward the camera...

Skimming that piece, I misread this:

He said, "When you're a new band it really sucks, it is really hard.

"You should value art, even if it's a penny. Art has to have a bit of value, whatever that cost is."

As:

"You should value a new band, even if it sucks."

I figured, yeah, it makes sense that the Ting Tings guy should say that.

who is your ISP, noodle?

http://www.karoo.co.uk/

Prince and Village People dive into pirate bay almost sounds like a plausible headline from the early 80s.

Once again Paul McCartney opens his mouth and turns into a prick.

Let's say all this piracy kills the music industry, leaving only musicians that don't care about making money-those unfortunate ones who would be/are doing it anyways-and ask yourself would this really be something detrimental to the art form.

I say the art form would progress more in a year than it has in the last 50.

Or... only self-indulgent rich people would be able to make music.

another paris hilton album :D

srsly though, why is it that no one expects painters to paint for free or writers to write for free, but everyone wants musicians to make music for free

I mean, is self-delusional rationalization for stealing other people's work really THAT powerful

no one paints for free?

please reread what I wrote

man i've not made money on any of the bands i've been in but -- while i def download to a degree -- the thing is that it hurts even bands that do it on a small local level.

like basically put it this way, it's always going to cost money to record -- even home recording costs money for good mic pres, good mics, and stuff if you're actually going to have it not sound like shit -- mastering costs money, practice space rent costs money, etc etc

frankly itunes checks don't amount to shit, it's even worse than conventional CD sales, since apple takes a cut before your label/distributor....so that's like "hey kids enjoy your $4.56 check every six months"...

but at base level now it's so fucking hard to even sell CDs at show...we've seriously had kids kinda front on us and act like we were being dicks when we wanted $10 for a goddamn CD and they said they "loved our band"....Basically, this last CD release show I did, we had TONS of local radio play, article in the City Pages, hype etc etc...we pretty much had the club packed, and did 44 CDs...which is actually great by today's standards...

back in 99 my old band didn't get shit for press, basically ran under the radar of radio totally, were in no way as well covered and had a smaller crowd...I remember we sold like 70 that night...that's how much it's gone down..

i mean i'm not saying i ever wanted to make money but even just breaking remotely even seems so damn hard now it's like now that the last band is done even starting a band seems sort of overwhelming and maybe not worth it anymore....

"srsly though, why is it that no one expects painters to paint for free or writers to write for free, but everyone wants musicians to make music for free"

Because most of us listen to music for free all the time (via radio or on TV or streaming on the web or whatever) and have been since as long as we've been alive?

it's just like that fucking kid i know goddamn well whose parents is putting him through the university standing there acting like he expected our disc to be free at the show was just like fuck u.

I always try to buy product at shows whenever people bother to sell stuff anymore.

Because most of us listen to music for free all the time (via radio or on TV or streaming on the web or whatever) and have been since as long as we've been alive?

You paid for your radio. You paid for your TV. You paid for your computer. A lot of money gets shelled out for this "free music" and none of it goes to the people who are actually making the music. Does that really seem right?

(rhetorical argument, not accusatory, btw)

I paid for my computer and my iPod too though.

Technically when you buy CDs or mp3s most of that money doesn't go to the people making music either. Which is one of the reasons I like buying stuff at shows actually.

b/c who wants to deal with a physical cd, right?

try offering a link-to-download to sent to their email address that night for, I dunno, 5 bucks. seems worth a try...

hich is one of the reasons I like buying stuff at shows actually.

― Alex in SF, Monday, April 20, 2009 4:35 PM

This. I definitely try to buy from the band first, then the label, then Amoeba.

um, royalties? you may be listening to the radio "for free" but your money still indirectly goes to the composer eventually...

There's a huge wilful denial by people who steal music that brings out all kinds of bullshit justification, but there's also a real denial by concerned parties within the industry that new technologies have altered the value of their product. I doubt that the free-for-all is stoppable. I don't know if that will be good or bad for the quality of new music, but everybody involved is going to have to come to terms with major change. The music industry wouldn't be the first big industry in the world to be transformed by technology and every time this has happened in other industries there've probably been more losers than winners, short term.

"um, royalties? you may be listening to the radio "for free" but your money still indirectly goes to the composer eventually..."

I don't think people think of themselves as paying for music when they turn on the radio. I certainly don't.

That's because people don't have to think about it that way. The radio pays for it with commercials, listeners can listen for free, bands get paid.

I'm aware of that. I'm just making the point that it's easy to imagine music as being free cuz a lot of music is available to listen to for free.

'oops just pooped my pants again, iirc'
'that thing is on a high counter, could u just'
'pants???????'

dude what about the utility belts??? i was at hard times (LOL....i eat there a lot :-/ ) and swear every face tatted bike punk i see is like walking around with a knife, a multitool, and whatever else hanging off their homemade belts or something. like they're ready to DIY at the drop of a woolen hat made from scraps of old sweaters

― i like to fart and i am crazy (gbx), Wednesday, April 22, 2009 11:26 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

haha yeah that look is def on the come up! seen it around for sure.

also carhartt overalls i've see recently

i knew plenty of ppl that wore carhartt overalls in college (HIPPIES), and i'll confess that i'm a fan of their jeans, but yeah: black cutoff carhartt overalls w/old sweater and combat boots ˜\(°—°)/˜

well yeah hippies..or like dudes that were hunters that i went to school with but yeah the old sweater/carhartt seems like the shit right now.

also: rat tails??

i bet these ppl do not have qualms about pirating music

haha no doubt...they probably steal Assrash and Kylesea (sp?) Mp3s by the dozen

this thread is now Cedar Avenue Fashion Discussion Thread (Non-Somali Edition)

:D

classmate of mine lives in the riverside towers, btw

huh how is that?

i don't know! but he does. 23rd floor or something. is it public housing, or can anyone just get a flat there?

nah its general cheap housing. not the most charming or most awesome but whatever.

do you know the history of that deal? it was supposed to be like the city of the architectural future back in the day.

that's what i'd heard!

"A major complaint by residents of Riverside Plaza is the shortage of elevators: The 408-unit McKnight Building currently has five (it was built with three), and other structures are also "under-elevated." Ground transportation has improved since the 2004 addition of the Cedar-Riverside light rail station on the Hiawatha Line."

my buddy told me it once took him 45 minutes to get from his apt down to the laundry room and back

also btw this thread is still on track because mpls is home to both prince AND ppl that may have at least met a somali pirate once, so

hahahaha that is exactly the justification i was going to drop on whoever was the first to complain about the derail

and in other news, turns out the judge in the pirate bay trial had connections to the plaintiffs and the whole thing might be ruled illegit

LOL

But wait, the judge said there was no conflict, so what's the problem?

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF
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FFFFFF................................ UCK the copyrights. Copy & Paste if you hate these claims!

I know this is mega-xpost, but regarding the CDs:Vinyl conversation above, that was part of what started the whole "music is over-valued" meme. CDs cost less than vinyl to produce, ship and store, yet were costing more than vinyl to buy. Not only that, but it's still standard in major label contracts to reduce the wholesale price against which royalties are calculated for CDs because of a clause about CDs being an "emerging medium." It's in there because the major labels put it in, in the early '80s and now it's just "standard." Also, good luck getting any sort of legit royalty rate on the downloads or ringtones you sell, especially if you're stuck in some sort of non-itunes company store or any of that shit (which have thankfully mostly vanished).

Which while it doesn't justify totally ripping off artists by just downloading their music for free, it's harder to respect the RIAA's protestations that they're fighting for the musicians. If they were really that concerned, there are a couple easy-peasy ways to make being a musician on a major label much easier. But then it's hard to support all the coke-addled nephews who can totally set up a kickin' myspace page.

THE SITE IS DOWN! THE TRACKER TOO! HEEELLPPPP IS THIS THE BEGINNING OF THE END?

I can't believe none of you ever got like 10-15 classmates to chip in enough to get the $250 textbook and then made copies for everyone! key: get copy shop person to slice spine off of book (this is like $1.50) and then do double-sided copies through the top-loading feeder. Copies are like $20 each, everyone gets the textbook for $30.

This just gets better and stranger

Sweden's Pirate Party captures Euro seat
Sun Jun 7, 2009 10:09pm GMT
By Veronica Ek

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Sweden's Pirate Party, striking a chord with voters who want more free content on the Internet, won a seat in the European Parliament, early results showed on Sunday.

The Pirate Party captured 7.1 percent of votes in Sweden in the Europe-wide ballot, enough to give it a single seat. The party wants to deregulate copyright, abolish the patent system and reduce surveillance on the Internet.

"This is fantastic!" Christian Engstrom, the party's top candidate, told Reuters. "This shows that there are a lot of people who think that personal integrity is important and that it matters that we deal with the Internet and the new information society in the right way."

Previously an obscure group of single-issue activists, the party enjoyed a jump in popularity after the conviction in April of four men behind The Pirate Bay, one of the world's biggest free file-sharing website.

The case cast a spotlight on the issue of internet file-sharing, a technique used to download movies, music and other content. The defendants have called for a retrial.

Despite the similar names, the party and the website are not linked. The party was founded in 2006 and contested a Swedish general election that year, but received less than one percent of the vote.

Engstrom credited the party's appeal to young voters for its success. "We are very strong among those under 30. They are the ones who understand the new world the best. And they have now signalled they don't like how the big parties deal with these issues."

The Pirate Party will take up one of Sweden's 18 seats in the 785-seat parliament. "We will use all of our strength to defend personal integrity and our civil rights," Engstrom said.

Prince and Village People dive into pirate bay almost sounds like a plausible headline from the early 80s.

― Cunga, Monday, April 20, 2009 6:01 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark

this post has really stuck with me every time i read this thread

so i'll start by saying - i'm a professional musician making my (lower middle class) income entirely off music. secondly, this is the best thread i've read on this much-talked-about subject i've read on the internet so far (usually it's the same three bullshit paragraphs repeated ad naseum)

so my thoughts on the subject:

1. i sell make music for a living. i also download stuff constantly. i occasionally feel guilty about it, but i can, so i do. lord knows i gotta have new tunes, and i LOOOOOVE being able to get so much tunage simply by searching and downloading.

2. that said, i also spend about the same portion of my disposable income on music as i always did - either on stuff i cant find via soulseek, or just for the convenience of getting something all at once, in high bitrate form, without waiting.

3. i have a home studio. it cost as much as a car, and it sounds *this close* to a professional studio. i can make it sound significantly better by a)spending money on gear, or b)spending time perfecting my studio craft. the cost of this studio (~$15,000) has been covered by our cd sales, just. but i havent really made much of a profit beyond that. however, i also use it to make beats for the live shows (which often never get put on cd), and to make dj mix demos for getting jobs, which is what pays the rent in the end. also, i get to listen to pirated mp3's on a kick ass sound system when i get stoned after work. i actualy just spent about 10 grand on upgrading it after 8 years, and i hope to actually make a profit on the gear this time around.

4. i make about 20% of my income from selling cd's, 80% from live shows. 70% of the live show money comes from my hotel gig. i also do clubs, but more for the love than for the money, the hotel is what pays the rent. my cd's are hand crafted (yet mass produced) and sell on the strength of both [the people at the shows want to hear the music again in the privacy of their homes] and [it's a cool looking souvenir they can show their friends]

5. i was never able to make a living off my music till a viable recording studio started costing as much as a car, rather than as much as a house. and i think it's inevitable that garageband will result in some full on genius music sooner or later. yay computers!

6. i fully realize that making a living as a musician requires some serious hustle. it beats working in an office, and everybody knows this - competition is fierce. this is no different from 20/50/1000 years ago. i am not entitled to a living as a musician, if i want this i've got to stop whining and do what it takes to make it happen. this goes way beyond simply making some good jams - always has, always will.

7. i am in the process of releasing my own album on a national scale. i have hired someone to market it. this guy got us distribution (but in 5 years or so distribution will probably more or less unneccesary) but mostly he's gonna be mailing cds to radio stations, following up by phone, sceduling promo tours, sourcing and paying someone to make web pages/myspace pages, etc, and calling the right people to payola our way onto the local music tv shows. i don't particularly expect to make a lot of money off this endeavor - if people like us at all, we should make our money back, if we blow up we may double it, but we're only putting in a few thousand bucks anyway. the payoff, should we be so lucky, will be:

a)well attended, well paid live shows
b)corporate sponsorship
c)a foot in the door to lucrative soundtrack and jingle work
d)pussy

if this thread gets updated in the next year or so, and i notice, i'll tell you how it all went. but i suspect 7) is, in some shape or form, the way forward for anyone motivated enough to make a few bucks off music in the first place.

-a working musician

I suspect 7) might end up killing the golden goose in some ways, but as you say the risk against the dividend is worth it.

Good luck with that, seriously.

oh, and the most important one:

8) there needs to be an ascap-type entity that takes a $5/per internet connection fee/tax and distributes it fairly to musicians getting downloaded! the precident (ascap) is there, someone just needs to put it into effect.

the thing about 7) is: the sleazy record company guy is getting his paycheck from the musician. i cant tell you how liberating it was to be on that end of the equation!

ha, and yet it's funny how some things stay exactly the same.

Woah, you pulled a bit of a switcheroo with yer no. 8 there. Where does this 5% figure come from? Does Hollywood get their share too? How about the software industry, I reckon Microsoft alone would be due a good 10%.

"Woah, you pulled a bit of a switcheroo with yer no. 8 there. Where does this 5% figure come from? Does Hollywood get their share too? How about the software industry, I reckon Microsoft alone would be due a good 10%."

yeah, yeah, everyone asshole in the world is gonna get their cut, and the musician will get pennies on the dollar as usual. but it beats getting nothing. and that one guy who makes the song EVERYONE downloads is gonna make a million bucks off it. which, i meant to mention (#9? i'm long winded, sorry) is at least *part* of the mystique/appeal that got every teenager in the world to buy a guitar and join a band in the fist place.

It just ain't gonna happen, and I don't think it should. Firstly the technology just isn't there to figure out who's getting downloaded, so if there were such a tax it would doubtless be assigned in the opaque and probably unfair way that ascap royalties do. Secondly, ok illegal downloading is unfair, but isn't it just as unfair to tax the majority of internet users who don't download, in order to pay for the minority who do?

well that's how taxes work?

i suspect the vast majority of internet users do. and those that don't, could, with a clear conscious, for a mere fiver - i mean, isn't a guilt free resevoir of amazing music (and tv, and microsoft products) worth $5/month?

just sayin.

hell, forget the tax thing - if spotify or some other music subscription sceme can get me all the majors and most of the minors onto both my hard drive and my car stereo system (currently run off ipod) here in indonesia for $10/month i'll never illegally download again.

well that's how taxes work?

yeah, and most people are against them.

also taxes tend to be for institutions not individuals.

Most people are against taxes because they are idiots.

Natch. Still I'd rather have a viable and opt-in business model for downloading music[*] than a government mandated tax.

[*] PS I am not a libertarian free marketeer nutjob even though substituting any other phrase in here would make me sound like one

Antipiratbyrån lawyer Henrik Pontén, one of the Pirate Bay’s arch rivals, had quite a surprise recently when he received an unexpected piece of mail. The letter from the Swedish tax authority informed him that his request for a name change had been accepted and from now on, he would be officially known as ‘Pirate Pontén’.

http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-nemesis-has-name-changed-by-pranksters-090607/

"Natch. Still I'd rather have a viable and opt-in business model for downloading music[*] than a government mandated tax. "

yeah me too. unfortunately i suspect, given the choice between paying $10/month for something and getting it for free, most people will continue to opt for free. the $5-10/person numbers only really work out to be significant when you get that much from millions of people, if it's just x-thousand people its a drop in the bucket and doesn't really help THAT much with this dilemna...

lol xp

Students volunteer for legal, charged p2p:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/10/choruss_update/

anyone have a TPB account that i can borrow? i've forgotten my password and somehow i never received an e-mail from TPB after I clicked "forgot password"

“The music industry can’t even imagine what we’re planning to roll out in the coming months. For years they’ve complained bitterly about piracy, but if they ever had a reason to be scared it is now,” TorrentFreak was told. “It will be a special surprise for IFPI’s 78th birthday, and we’re thinking of organizing a huge festival in Rome where IFPI was founded.”

IFPI is of course the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, one of the most active anti-piracy outfits and a long-time adversary of The Pirate Bay. Formed under Italy’s fascist government of Benito Mussolini in 1933, IFPI will turn 78 in April of 2011.

TorrentFreak did ask for more details about “The Music Bay”, but the above is all we are able to reveal at this stage. What’s clear from the conversation we had, however, is that the major record labels are in for a big surprise. More details are expected to follow in the near future.

Pirate Bay co-founder: “I can sit here and jerk off for 5 years. And I will.”

That reads like either the worst or the best movie ever. Like, perhaps a crap documentary, but a great slice of Scandinavian miserablism!

Swedish Pirate Bay backer Carl Lundström dies in Slovenia plane crash

Swedish entrepreneur and early backer of file-sharing website The Pirate Bay, Carl Lundström, died in a plane crash in Slovenian mountains on Monday.

The right-wing party Alternative for Sweden, for which Lundström ran in the 2021 elections, confirmed his death in a Facebook post on Tuesday.

"He was taking off in his Mooney M-20 from Zagreb en route to Zurich ... but crashed in Slovenia," the party said, adding that he was alone in the plane.

(This thread is a remarkable series of time capsule headlines and takes)

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/hitman/images/7/7e/Helicopter_Pilot_Outfit_-_Dubai.JPG/revision/latest?cb=20210208195448

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/hitman/images/7/7e/Helicopter_Pilot_Outfit_-_Dubai.JPG