AH HA we got the last laugh

[Ickie]

P***** B** is no longer .
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/12/10/the-collapse-of-the-pirate-bay-the-worlds-most-notorious-file-sharing-site/?tid=pm_pop

[olaf1924]

This took years to happen. bye-bye piratebay

[srgalahad]

So, now mine the servers for individual IP addresses and shut down or prosecute the individuals who don't understand or care about copyright laws.The big sites survive because the users think they are immune.

Betcha there would be more action if a bunch of people found their friends and relatives under investigation or facing prosecution.

[StormILM]

They were the originals and perhaps the most notorious but now there are many more out there both visible and under the radar. I've heard major copyright holders & developers say the problem will never completely go away. This is especially true considering there are still countries who are safe havens for such activity and in all honesty, the cost of pursuing individual cases can easily become prohibitive. The other problem is that most enforcement apparatuses have been way behind the curve on all of this for way too long and the inventiveness of cyber criminals(not just limited to piracy) is always several steps ahead of authorities. It's obvious the authorities are spending tremendous amounts of money & getting very few tangible results. That's not to mention that cyber criminals are not at all shy in retaliating directly against companies and even the Govt. One of my good friends had his business & personal net based systems repeatedly attacked after he fought back against people who were stealing from his online based business which forced him to spend a lot of money to make changes to get them off his back(& still no arrests made after 3 years). I think a better & more direct strategy could help curtail a lot of cyber crime but obviously a change of thinking & perhaps younger & more talented blood in the right places can certainly help deal with this better than it currently is.

For now, the big one may have gone down but these guys are now but a few grains of sand in a very big & dirty field.

[Dumonceau]

I don't want to be a party pooper here, but they're back up again...

In fact they were down for no more than a couple of hours. They raided one of their datacenters, but they have several datacenters ready and more standing by in case of...

Moreover, fighting this will take many more years because it is so widespread.

Cheers,

Dumonceau

[gray eagle]

I don't want to be a party pooper here, but they're back up again...

In fact they were down for no more than a couple of hours. They raided one of their datacenters, but they have several datacenters ready and more standing by in case of...

Moreover, fighting this will take many more years because it is so widespread.

Cheers,

Dumonceau



How can they be so evasive and slippery? I know the Chinese are pretty good at this stuff too.

[deKoven]

If the internet community refused to use the site they'd fold in a hurry. But peeps are just as greedy as ever, ain't gonna change, not no way, no how.
:redfire:

[StormILM]

The frontal figures behind PB are certainly not the only ones who keep it up and going from a technical standpoint and as noted before, there are always havens for servers which keep such sites up and going. Myself and others around and about the community have been keeping quiet track of certain activities for years. Some try to fight fire with fire with different techniques to discourage uploading & downloading of copyrighted materials with modest success and others attempt legal action. I have on many occasions reported detected piracy to not only affected parties but also to different Enforcement entities(including Interpol's office which deals with intellectual property theft). When a report is submitted, you usually get a receipt of acknowledgement & often you hear nothing more from your report. As mentioned in these posts, one would hope people would do the right thing and not use such sights but I have even as recently as a week ago seen users on common web based social networks openly boasting of where they freely downloaded copyrighted material and incredibly, some such posts were on a small payware developers page! The admins of most of those pages are very quick to ban such users but the fact is that such users are countless and especially so in poor/developing nations where there is little to no enforcement of copyright laws.

[txnetcop]

It comes down to integrity...some have it some don't! Some low-lifes don't care how much time and effort went in to creating a product. They are selfishly motivated to fill their own wants over what is right. If no one used them they would not exist.
Ted

[Dumonceau]

How can they be so evasive and slippery? I know the Chinese are pretty good at this stuff too.

Well, first of all because the people who started TPB have a very very good knowledge of all things IT. And because of their years of experience in dodging the law. And the technology they use (torrents) is fairly illusive.

Another point to consider is their widespread support among hacktivist groups like Anonymous et al.

And yes, there are the ethics to consider. But try telling a young kid that desperately wants a game to pay for it from his pocket money when he can get it for free... And there is a very large community on the internet that believes that the laws regarding copyright/intellectual property arent't up to date anymore. In fact, they refer to copyright as copywrong. Their words, not mine!

About law enforcement on (FS) piracy. It's not only poor in developping countries. I know for a fact that there isn't a judge in Europe, or even the world, that will crack down on FS piracy. Why? Because it is a niche market in an another niche market (games).

Now, about the damage that TPB has done to the flightsim world. IMHO they did minimal damage to us when you compare it to the damage done by to the now defunct WoS, FSWC, Silver*****, ... These last sites (and their followers) only did FS piracy and some even had a fairly large follower base. TPB is more for music, books, films and all sorts of games. Only a minute percentage of the data they offered where FS related.

Cheers,

Dumonceau

[Naismith]

It will never be killed off, piracy that is. There has to be the will to kill it off and there isn't. I know of one guy on FB who issues pirated files daily. I have reported him repeatedly to the FB overlords since April and he is still there spreading the stuff. They don't seem to care, in fact they have not even acknowledged my report of his piracy.

[Allen]

Big sites like PB are like a dandelion fuzzies. Blow on it and a hundard more will soon grow from it.

[stansdds]

Since the inception of commerce there has been piracy and, unfortunately, computer files are no different. As soon as one pirate is eliminated, another will appear.

[Mickey D]

I've been involved with payware FS scenery development for the last 14 years. First with Alphasim then Skysim and now under our own banner. (plug)
Very early I realised that we don't lose a single sale to these parasitic amoeboids because it would never enter their single brain cell to pay for their acquisitions. They really aren't worth adding to the equation. We devs are just grateful the thousands of honest simmers who are willing to part with hard earned cash in order to receive a product with follow up support.
Most of us will never make a living ( it's a hobby) but Bit Torrent users will always be around. Forget 'em they aren't worth the effort.