Palin Threats To News Organizations Seem Misguided

Could Someone Just Recreate The Pirate Bay?

from the bet-on-it-happening dept

Mon, Jul 6th 2009 3:21am — Mike Masnick

As plenty of people have been pointing out, if The Pirate Bay goes away/changes/shuts down/whatever, there are a ton of sites ready and eagerly waiting to take it's place. But JJ King makes an even bigger point: the whole of The Pirate Bay is not a lot of data, such that it would be rather easy to just copy the entire site and recreate it. In fact, it seems likely that others are probably making use of this fact already, and there may be multiple "copies" of The Pirate Bay quickly being set up. So, even if the site goes away, all it will really do is further splinter the sites that upset the entertainment industry -- but it will hardly stop them or even slow them down.

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Filed Under: copying, trackers
Companies: the pirate bay

31 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 6 Jul 2009 @ 3:44am

The only issue is that outside of a very few jurisdictions, the "entertainment industry" has already been successful at shutting down illegal torrent related activites. It would actually be in the "entertainment industry" favor if more of these sites came up, because they would more quickly be able to whack the mole and knock them down.
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hmm, 6 Jul 2009 @ 3:51am

successful? really? I'd like to know on what planet you live atm, because the *IAA etc continually scream how piracy is on the rise and that without their being able to basically destroy anyone they take a dislike to without having to go to such silly ends as having actual PROOF, then civilization as we know it is about to collapse and soon we'll all be eating babies and defecating in the streets.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Jul 2009 @ 3:59am

Re:
As opposed to defecating in our houses?
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Jul 2009 @ 4:07am

Re:
How many public torrent sites in the US?
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Tele2002, 6 Jul 2009 @ 4:10am

It's all about the content!
Well we all know that it happens, and as the article states, shut this one down and 10 more will rise, but really what are the studio (film and music) doing about protecting their content in the first place? How does Mr DVD Man who loiters around our bars, clubs and pubs get them in bulk with decent printed covers? Someone is leaking it out somewhere! Or what of the fact that cinema attendance is at an all time low... well after being asked if I had my own goodies in my bag when entering to see the new Terminator film, is it any wonder that people will pay half the cinema ticket price for a dodgy dvd or a download then buy confectionary at a sensible price without the 300% markup (sorry but £2.50 for 500ml of water in a Odeon is daylight robbery!) I wrote a little blog on the subject of protecting the pre-media assests just as a taster to make people think, our blog is targetted at the people creating the media for any output channel. Please take a read. http://tunicca.wordpress.com/2009/06/30/whos-protecting-your-brand-assets/
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Jul 2009 @ 4:17am

OOOOOH Piracy. Such a bad thing.

Hey, why doesn't anyone look at the list of Sony/ATV Artists that signed up with Sony/ATV because they trusted Michael Jackson as owner or part owner, and now can't control the music they created?

You want piracy? How about Artists that can't control their previous works, re-publish music, or even have Beetles Music on iTunes because someone has a personal vendetta against Apple or maybe even Steve Jobs?

Artist Piracy. That's the piracy I want to learn more about.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Jul 2009 @ 4:44am

The funny thing is
The Pirate Bay was only the most popular due to it's press. It wasn't a very good torrent site IMO. There are much better sites out there it's just the masses don't know about them.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Jul 2009 @ 4:51am

"You can't win, Darth RIAA. If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine."
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Jul 2009 @ 5:05am

Re: The funny thing is
You got that backwards, TBB got the press it did BECAUSE it was so popular, not the other way around.

As for "much better sites", those are generally private registered trackers that you can't get access to unless you know someone who has access already. Kind of hard for the masses to access.
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Peter, 6 Jul 2009 @ 6:16am

Pirate Bay certainly wasn't the best Torrent site, but they did host a lot of torrents. So recreating "the site" is pointless as long as someone hosts. I almost never visited the TPB. What I will miss is mininova. That is the one to copy.

I remember when supernova was THE torrent site. When it got shut down, I think it took a week until 10 more sites popped to the forefront.
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Jeff, 6 Jul 2009 @ 6:38am

About time!
The new site would definitely get a lot of traffic. :D
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Jul 2009 @ 6:41am

Re:
Oh my sides are splitting! Good one AC! Quickly whack a mole it! Gold! There are sites that are older and/or better than the pirate bay and more sites every day. Pirate bay just marketed themselves better. Every mole they whack 5 jump up to take their place. They can't even whack the moles that are already there. and hell there is always Google search for torrent files. Lets see someone attack that.

Thank you for brightening my Monday morning. :D
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Jul 2009 @ 6:46am

I think the 'sale' of TPB was a brilliant move. The creators know the site itself doesn't have any real value, it is the technology behind it. You can shutter to site but you can't suppress the idea. The RIAA and MPAA have been trying to shove the genie back into the bottle for 10 years - Epic Fail.
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minijedimaster (profile), 6 Jul 2009 @ 6:47am

Re:
I remember when supernova was THE torrent site. When it got shut down, I think it took a week until 10 more sites popped to the forefront.
OMG! A whole WEEK?! How did you survive?
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Jul 2009 @ 6:47am

Re: Re: The funny thing is
hard, but safer (if only marginally so)
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Haywood (profile), 6 Jul 2009 @ 7:09am

Re: The funny thing is
I disagree. The indexing on TPB should be an industry standard. The best site is the one you can easily find things on, it should also verify torrents, as TPB does with its trusted / VIP symbols. The Best site is also the one people use. Cloud computing depends on a large group to work well.

There is room for improvement, if only the rest of TPB was as well indexed as the TV section.
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n4th4n, 6 Jul 2009 @ 7:31am

Anyone remember the Napster lawsuit?
It's Napster all over again. The RIAA just doesn't understand that they can't win this war.
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WhammerJammer, 6 Jul 2009 @ 7:31am

Piracy?
There is no piracy! We run an online Radio Station TakilmaFM.com and are good little guys that pay ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC every three (3) months the royalty charges for playing their music.
The problem is they don't know what music we play because we don't send them a list JUST THE PAYMENT. They don't have a clue who is being played.
I also compose music and I copyrighted my CD (paid the US federal government for protection), started a legal publishing company and pressed the CD myself. I did indie and it felt good. I then contacted ASCAP to be my representative and they refused me!! They said I wasn't a publishing company and so I can't get my work's fees collected because they discriminate.
Of course we can take them to court and sue them. If we only had the time and resources?
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Jul 2009 @ 7:34am

Re: Re: The funny thing is
that statement just proves your ignorance. Pirate bay got press because it was popular... but not because it was better site. Sure there are "private" sites but there are public sites... perhaps look at the site that adopted pirate bay for a while when there was problems with hosting... It has a better search engine and superior commenting system.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Jul 2009 @ 7:36am

Re: Re:
probably used mIRC if he's hard core, google torrent search, or the lesser of the torrent distribution sites.
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Cyryl The Wolf, 6 Jul 2009 @ 8:04am

Re: The funny thing is
...except for the fact that it IS - WITHOUT DISPUTE - the largest torrent tracker?

Idiot.
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Cyryl The Wolf, 6 Jul 2009 @ 8:06am

Re:
Why? Because it wasn't fancy with all kinds of options/features?

Once again, I will point out that it is the IRREFUTABLY LARGEST TORRENT TRACKER.

Another idiot.
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Cyryl The Wolf, 6 Jul 2009 @ 8:10am

Re: Re:
Oh. BTW.

http://www.mininova.org/

IT'S STILL THERE. Why do you speak of it as though it were already gone?

Idiot.
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Ikonoclasm, 6 Jul 2009 @ 8:31am

Still No One's Figured It Out
I'm surprised that I still haven't found an in-depth analysis and explanation of the events surrounding TPB's sellout. No one's really looked into the fact that TPB's been owned by another company for at least a year now. No one's really looked at their decentralized design of essentially having a hosting company keep all the .torrent files while TPB basically becomes a web portal with a convenient API for other sites to use that hosts the index of .torrent files from whatever public trackers it can find.

What TPB did was technically brilliant. It's going to fragment and decentralize the P2P infrastructure so much that it will be impossible to pursue any one part because that one part plays such a generic role (web portal, hosting service, search engine w/o hosting, etc.).

Unfortunately, the announcement of the change was an unmitigated PR nightmare. Announcing the change in conjunction with a commercial, for-profit company that then went on and made a comment regarding adequately compensating content creators (keywords that all TPB supporters have learned to associate with RIAA/MPAA) was tantamount to ideological suicide.

We can't really blame the TPB guys for having awful PR skills, but I expected more from the media, particularly TorrentFreak or even here at Techdirt. I guess no one can be bothered to really investigate when the kneejerk reaction's so much easier.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Jul 2009 @ 8:53am

I don't see where there's any value in copying the Pirate Bay and rebuilding it under some other name, because the legal vultures and the greedbags will eventually stomp you into the ground. If the RIAA finds a willing host (like a clueless or corrupt foreign government that can be bought off) they'll be able to throw the system operators into jail.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Jul 2009 @ 9:43am

Re: Re: Re:
he was referring to suprnova the previous incarnation.
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Michael Long, 6 Jul 2009 @ 11:17am

It's not the site...
...it's the bandwidth. And servers. And software. Setting up a major site that's going to receive millions of visitors isn't exactly cheap. Nor is maintaining it.

And advertising? Just what are you going to advertise to a bunch of pirates who expect to get everything for free?
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Jul 2009 @ 11:50am

Re: Re: Re: The funny thing is
how about mininova or Demonoid? both of those have had better results for me anyway. If you really want to go way back there was suprnova. Every time I searched TPB I always ended up with a bunch of compliations instead of the original one.
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Haywood (profile), 6 Jul 2009 @ 12:09pm

Re: It's not the site...
"And advertising? Just what are you going to advertise to a bunch of pirates who expect to get everything for free?"

Hardware, for some reason those who expect content to be free have no problem building a $2000 computer to make it happen.
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Michael Long, 6 Jul 2009 @ 1:13pm

Re: Re: It's not the site...
"Hardware, for some reason those who expect content to be free have no problem building a $2000 computer to make it happen."

Naw. They're probably working part time at Best Buy so they can avail themselves of the employee five-fingered discount.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Jul 2009 @ 3:46pm

Re: Still No One's Figured It Out
It doesn't matter how far the try to spread it out, they got nail for contributing to copyright violation, and running a "search api" that points to nothing but violating material doesn't get them far enough away from the stink.

Stealing is stealing, no matter how much you wrap it in a technical stew.
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