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Posted on 17/04/09 at 12:11:00 pm
The news that all four founders of file-sharing website The Pirate Bay have been handed prison sentences after being found guilty of copyright infringement is no surprise. What is unexpected is the whopping fine: they've also been ordered to pay £2.4 million in damages to record labels.
Hang on. Wasn't The Pirate Bay's defence always that their operations didn't generate any money? The reason they were so cocky – one of them even Twittered his disdain during the courtcase, saying he found it "boring" – was that they were, in legal terms, men of straw. Sue us all you like, they argued, we have no money to give.
This fine suggests otherwise. The amount would have been settled on after an audit of The Pirate Bay's accounts. There must have been significant funds. Which means The Pirate Bay's founders were lying about their motives.
Now, I'll admit that I bought into the utopian, socialist, anti-corporate image that The Pirate Bay promulgated. In a blog post a couple of months back I portrayed the founders as Robin Hood figures, standing up to big business and providing millions of people with access to free music – a service, you could argue, that has added significance in a recession.
But that good will was predicated on the assumption that The Pirate Bay was, as its founders maintained, strictly not-for-profit. Now it seems their 'poverty' may have been a convenient fiction.
This, ultimately, is the crux of the case, and it is why The Pirate Bay lost. After he made the ruling, Judge Tomas Norstrom told reporters that the court took into account that the site was "commercially driven", which is precisely what the founders have always denied.
If The Pirate Bay has been turning a profit for years, it's suddenly possible to see the case from the artists' and record companies' point of view. Why should the copyright holders miss out on revenue, while a gang of gung-ho opportunists in Sweden rake in millions?
It also sets an intriguing precedent. If a website can successfully be sued for simply aggregating, as opposed to actually hosting, copyrighted material, could a case not be built against MP3 blogs such as The Hype Machine and Elbo.ws - or indeed Google?
Permalink
joebloggs [Visitor] //April 17 2009 at 12:06
i wish they would shut all the sites down. i have a strong dislike for them
Moptop [Visitor] //April 17 2009 at 13:09
Interesting angle on an over-blogged, over-tweeted story. The predictable, unquestioning outcry from lefty-tech commentators is just tedious
AMAZING HAPPINESS [Visitor] //April 17 2009 at 13:41
This is so good ! Pirate bay and other file sharing sites have always made money ! Anyone that thought anything else is just naive these websites are started by business men not people doing charity and what kind of charity would that be anyway ? Giving away others people art without asking for permission ? seriously anyone that advocates stolen music needs to have a long hard think. It's stupid.
Anonymous [Visitor] //April 17 2009 at 13:57
"The amount would have been settled on after an audit of The Pirate Bay's accounts."
Are you simply assuming this is the case or do you have evidence to support this accusation?
Last I recall overblown fines were handed out to individuals in the US for copyright infringement.
Forgive me if I don't simply take it at face value that there was an audit and that said audit had an impact on the penalty imposed.
[Visitor] //April 17 2009 at 14:10
They made a profit? Good for them, very enterprising. Hmm there's some food for thought for the entertainment industry - free products for the public but still make money via advertisers.
InternetGuy [Visitor] //April 17 2009 at 14:29
Why don't these Anti-Piracy agencies understand that they are never going to win this "war" on piracy, they need to find some other way instead of just suing people. By suing people they are making new enemies not new customers.
Jake [Visitor] //April 17 2009 at 15:20
Interesting view but just because they sued them for 2.4mil doens't mean they have that much money. Remember 5 years ago when the RIAA started their rampage? They were suing people below the poverty line in America for millions too. It's just petty in my opinion.
[Visitor] //April 17 2009 at 15:34
If this sets precidence it's gonna be a sad day for the internets
Bernard [Visitor] //April 17 2009 at 15:39
free torrent websites are not exactly raking in the millions... at least not when you really want to pay everyone that is owned money. BUT it is more than sufficient to live from with 4 or a few more people... Economics? No, just leeches and let's get rid of them asap please.
Nick [Visitor] //April 17 2009 at 16:07
I think all that mateers is the fact that everyone loves free stuff. Them making a profit would only be an issue to anyone other than the artists if the public payed anything. Which they don't - if they managed to make millions off of adverts, then maybe the legal side of the music industry needs to reconsider how if funds itself. I personally wouldn't care if a song came with a pop-up or a ten second jingle at the beginning of it, but if it's still free I'd rather get it for free of official sources than not. Finally, this whole thing hasn't brought the actual site down, has it?
fuck the bpi [Visitor] //April 17 2009 at 17:44
the record companys have ripped people off for too long.long live piracy long live the pirate bay
Mark [Visitor] //April 17 2009 at 17:45
@Nick : Check out Spotify, you only get 1 advert every hour or something at the moment, but you can pay a tenner a month for an ad-free version. I for one would hate a ten-second jingle at the beginning of every song / album.
Matthew North [Visitor] //April 17 2009 at 18:28
Well I hope this will start a wave of removing all torrent sites distributing comercial product along with the many blogspot / rapidshare users that also steel music.
[Visitor] //April 17 2009 at 18:52
ThePirateBay are heroes, end of.
Nathan [Visitor] //April 17 2009 at 20:01
This judgment is still completely stupid, as Youtube is more illegal than Thepiratebay. Why shouldn't music be free? I would be honoured if millions of people were listening to my music, because if I were signed to a major label, I'd see less money than if it was distributed via torrents. Why should we have to pay for everything in this capitalist society?
David Hilton [Visitor] //April 18 2009 at 00:59
Yes, of course, a case could be made against Google IF . . and it's the key IF . . . they failed to respond to notice and takedown requests from rightsowners. But they do not take that position - Google cooperates to eliminate instances of copyright infringement that are noticed to them. If they didn't do so, they would lose their immunity from prosecution under the DMCA (and the EU Electronic Commerce Directive). Pirate Bay on the other hand does not respond to rightsowners' requests to take down infringing links. In other words they intentionally infringe copyright. Google only accidentally does so, and that's all the difference in the world.
YourMotherDoesWhatForAFiver? [Visitor] //April 18 2009 at 01:38
I'm surprised that that Luke Lewis can operate a pen, let alone a computer. Truth and law are two distict phenomena; there will be appeal and then counter-appeal and then the case will be rejected by the European Court. The Pirate Bay did nothing agains the law. What are motives, unless you are Kant? Copyright law is outdated, and unless the distributers of media react to this quickly, they will become extinct. Is this so wrong? Do we really need fat middle-aged baby boomers controlling what we listen to? That's not the rock and roll ethos I signed up to, and the NME should be ashamed of "promulgating" (yeah, that's not a correct usage of the word either) such filth. Sloppy journalism!
Jonathan [Visitor] //April 18 2009 at 09:35
Fail! The crazy amount oc 30 000 000 Swedish kronor is a random figure pulled out of the lay assesors asses. Everyone knew all along that the outcome of this spectacle is irrelevant. The penalty fine is based on a very unrealistic judgement on how much damage thepiratebay.org has done for the entertainmend industry it does not reflect on how much money the guys actually have.
Perry [Visitor] //April 18 2009 at 09:39
Someone said that the difference between google for example and the piratebay is that google will remove any torrent files upon request, something that the piratebay does not. The pirate bay has said over and over again to the copyrightholders: we did not place any links or torrent files on this site; the users do. Do not come to us if someone posted a link to illegal material, go directly to that user. There are possibilities to contacts them from the site. But not one single company, organisation or rightsholder has done this.
pmd [Visitor] //April 18 2009 at 09:47
I think the factor a lot of people are disregarding is that many of the pirate bays customers cannot fund, or cannot even find a lot of decent music, the rest download 50 cent.
Nowadays there are significantly more record stores than say 20 or 30 years ago therefore there are many more customers, so evidently great bands have managed to flourish within a much smaller market, why would it be any different these days? but sure, profiting off the website is fairly reprehensible and perhaps it had to be expected. perhaps the only solution is an extensive campaign to make vinyl cool again?
pmd [Visitor] //April 18 2009 at 09:49
perhaps the only solution is an extensive campaign to make vinyl cool again
Jman6495 [Visitor] //April 18 2009 at 10:52
the pirate bay are the saviours of the internet!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YOU CAN'T HATE THEM! GO BACK TO YOUR iTunes!!!!!
Bah [Visitor] //April 18 2009 at 11:24
This is a load of bullcrap. Live on The Pirate Bay!
Ralph Smed [Visitor] //April 18 2009 at 16:32
These torrent sites affect the signed bands and the unsigned ones. And all those that say music has to be free clearly dont make music - it costs money to make music and that cost has to be recouped from somewhere. Beyond that it should be up to the artist if he wants to give away music, not some random person thats just doing it to make money or being annoying. The Pirate Bay is a corporation in all but name.
Ralph Smed [Visitor] //April 18 2009 at 16:32
These torrent sites affect the signed bands and the unsigned ones. And all those that say music has to be free clearly dont make music - it costs money to make music and that cost has to be recouped from somewhere. Beyond that it should be up to the artist if he wants to give away music, not some random person thats just doing it to make money or being annoying. The Pirate Bay is a corporation in all but name.
jizzy tissue [Visitor] //April 18 2009 at 16:47
i still dont understand why people dont just type 'artist mediafire' in google. Easiest way to steal music.
I love stealing music and steal at least an album a day.
qwerty1234568 [Visitor] //April 18 2009 at 16:53
Long Live the bay!!!
lila [Visitor] //April 18 2009 at 18:01
The fine of 30 000 000 swedish crones will mainly impact one of the four founders, who is also entitled to 20% of the Wasa heritage. (Wasa is a hugely successful brand that sells baking related products throughout scandinavia). So saying that they were fined after an investigation of their founds, doesn't mean they've made money from the pirate site. Altough I don't know if they've also made money there...
pirate [Visitor] //April 18 2009 at 19:12
i think its about freedom to get music for free
Eric [Visitor] //April 19 2009 at 02:19
Of course this all falls into ridicule-- the trial, the verdict, this column-- when one considers that TPB has only, ever, run a tracker. Nothing more. The tracker contained links to other computers in .torrent files-- computers which stored all the data being traded; computers TPB never owned or operated.
If TPB can be held accountable for that, then no webpage which links to anything is potentially safe.
XTO [Visitor] //April 19 2009 at 04:17
Your Logic is flawed... You can sue for any amount of money you can reasonably claim you lost because of the defendants actions and be awarded a settlement of that amount, sometimes more and sometimes less.... The amount of the fine has nothing to do with the amount of money the defendant has... Your making a huge amount of suppositions in your argument.. Please explain HOW they could be making money?
Sauabh [Visitor] //April 19 2009 at 11:58
considering the number of hits NME gets against that of TPB, i think Mr.Luke Lewis has the rights for cry.
oh dear [Visitor] //April 19 2009 at 13:52
Luke may i suggest you stop pussy footing around like a pretend liberal thinking informed "journalist" and actually say what you mean and show your true neo-conservative ignorant colours? Your argument is full of supposition and weighed down with so much emotive shite, you may as well work for the likes of the Daily Mail, or better yet The Sun.
Grow a brain, do some research, and stop making up stories in order to fill up your boring existence. There is no proof or evidence anywhere that they are a commercial organisation making profits, other than you saying there might be. I think you might be a paedophile - shall i write about that too?
music today sucks [Visitor] //April 19 2009 at 19:32
how can anyone blame people for donwloading music. Half of the time the singles on albums are the best thing on the damn thing, its no wonder why people download albums before buying them. Maybe if musicians, movie makers, and the entire entertainment industry kept their standards, we, as a whole would have more respect for the art they make. I for one BUY THE GOOD SHIT THATS WORTH THE PRICE.
svear [Visitor] //April 19 2009 at 22:38
Firstly I respect that the Pirate Bay are promoting illegal copying.
But we are now in a digital age. The first thing I do with a new CD is rip it and confine the hoary old box and contents to a shadowy place in the attic. Music is digital now, whether you use Squeezebox, iPod or whatever. And as such it is easy to copy and exchange - I can take my entire music collection to a friend on a portable drive.
The challenge for the music industry is to find other ways of making revenue. And the price I paid recently for Neil Young tickets suggest that they have done so too. (and Neil never liked CDs anyway)
svear [Visitor] //April 19 2009 at 22:51
just to follow up my previous post. The way to get people to keep buying product, whether it be digital or CD, is to offer something extra that can't be digitised. So a free t-shirt, or a discount on tickets to a show. The world is changing people - it is difficult but get creative because free music is just going to happen.
brennan [Visitor] //April 22 2009 at 10:17
am i missing something here?
piratebay made MONEY? umm... i'm not great on economics but to make money, doesn't someone have to pay you? and errr... isn't thepiratebay free? unless of course they made 2.4 million off of site advertising. in which case i'm in the wrong business.
[Visitor] //April 22 2009 at 13:47
@oh dear. You made my day. I do enjoy it when people see right through Mr Lewis. He really does think he`s chocolate.
gabriel [Visitor] //April 23 2009 at 14:55
they will millions of ads
all these people saying "live on the piratebay" are full of bullshit
p2p kill music, thats why know the music sucks so much
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