"The PirateBay Problem" ..and way beyond

"THE PIRATEBAY PROBLEM" .. and way beyond






Foreword:
This is my personal view about the facts on the takedown of a swedish Bittorrent website ThePirateBay.org. I got all the information from the attorney's blog, a radio interview with an administrator and news websites on the web(all links are provided at the bottom). If you find any of this facts slightly off or exagerated please don't blame me for it. I didn't have time to go anal about it and make sure everything is 100% correct. I wanted to express my thoughts on how this case relates to human living, rights and freedom, not to speak about the closing of PirateBay. I just put the facts together and added my insight on the matter from my personal views. The subject relates to things other than just the filesharing and is an insight into human lives in general. I'm not an expert on the matter but I'm sure you'll find this article very interesting. For those of you who don't know much about filesharing,torrent trackers and P2P, i'm sorry I didn't explain this topics- the basic understanding of these terms is needed to get my point at the end.




Background (what happened):
On May 31st 2006 the swedish police arrested the owners of the famous bittorrent tracker PirateBay.org, confiscated the server machines and closed down the page.
I didn't think much of it last week because busts like this happen on a regular basis lately. And the site was back up and running in 3 days. But as I checked on the facts behind it, i found that this particular case was something more than just a regular bust. It's a very interesting story about government pressure and it shows us how a foreign government(in this case the U.S.government) can dictate and force another government (swedish) into decissions. Not only to do what the first government wants, but to do so even if that means you have to break the laws of your own country's constitution. This article will show you how this was done in the PirateBay case by the U.S.government. It will explain why it happened, open up a clear view to what the whole community of filesharing is all about and even take you a step further..



Here are some facts about The PirateBay:
- The PirateBay servers were located in the building of a Swedish bank. They were actually like a part of the bank because the whole building was protected by the law.
- It was running on 15 high-end server machines
- The PirateBay gets up to 20.000 hits(connections) per second.
- The admins had to rewrite the Linux kernel code because no system could handle that number of connections
- Their tracker directed the traffic of several gigabits per second (this is a very large number because the shared files don't go through the tracker but directly from one user to another – the tracker only deals information about the status of the download)
- The core (main)router of the biggest swedish ISP couldn't handle all the traffic (it is the most powerful router currently available on the market)
- When PirateBay got taken down the whole internet traffic in Sweden decreased by 30% (50% by later measures)
- PirateBay is non-profitable and its not registered as a company or organization.
- It only uses as many ads on the page as needed to cover the server costs.
- The attorney handles their cases “pro-bono“

Mod Edit: Member Request - Fixing Tags

[edit on 9-6-2006 by Urizen]

[edit on 9-6-2006 by Urizen]

[edit on 10-6-2006 by WyrdeOne]

Details about the actions of May 31st 2006:

- Swedish national television reported after its own investigation: Members of the swedish government were called to the White House especially for the purpose of discussing “The PirateBay problem“.
- The U.S. Organizations RIAA and MPAA pressured the White House to issue this orders.
- After the arrival back to Sweden the government issued orders to the police to arrest the PirateBay administrators and take down all their servers. (This as we know was against the Swedish law)
- The police visited the admins, arrested them and confiscated all their technical equipment (this included speakers, keyboards, cables,...and even their personal cellphones)
- The police then raided the swedish bank building and took down – not only the 15 PirateBay servers – but also a number of some 200 servers that didn't even connect to PirateBay.
- Some of the servers were owned by a Swedish ISP and a lot of companies lost their internet hosting and connections. Some citizens were unable to use the SMS services on their mobile phones.
- In the name of “The PirateBay case“ they even visited countries bordering Sweden and demanded the takedown of a few more servers, that weren't connected to the PirateBay case.
- All the arrested administrators were forced to give their DNA samples. Their lawyer was also forced to give his.



I summarize this as I see it:

- Swedish government broke their constitution law because it accepted direct orders from another country (this orders were against the law of Sweden)
- The government ordered the police to act against the laws of their country.
- The case has nothing to base on because The PirateBay.org didn't break any laws in any country. The case is plain and simple non-existent.
- The police broke the citizens rights, arrested them and damaged their private property.
not just that of the site owners but of a large number of Swedish citizens.
- They denied the right of an attorney to one of the admins stating – quote(translated):“You can't get a lawyer because the crime we suspect you commited wasn't big enough.“
- The police violated the rights of the swedish bank, which had the whole building protected by law. (thus nullifying the whole law of keeping banks data private)
- They didn't confiscate just the equipment of the suspects but also the property of other companies.
- Furthermore it forced other countries to take down more servers under the pretent of “The PirateBay case – fight against piracy“ and succeeded in taking down several foreign servers (with no connection to PirateBay whatsoever)
- At this point there is no point stating that U.S.government also broke their own constitution, because this happens every day.
they issued direct orders to Sweden because of lobbying of the RIAA and MPAA organisations (which legally shouldn't hold more power than -for ex.The Filately Society)


- It looks like they took the fight against terrorism very serious.
- Apparently NO law in ANY country holds no value or weight anymore.
- So I figure that ANY legal procedure in any country has no value anymore, because you can nullify it on the base of this case, by the facts.
Why? I think you'll realize if you think about it. (maybe I will write a seperate article about this)

Facts about Filesharing:

- It is the biggest organisation in the world, but it is not profitable. It's not registered(and never was) as an organisation or a company in any country. Its not under any country's laws and was never subdued to any system. Thus it is not limited to any laws and no laws can be applied to it.
- Everybody in this community makes their own contributions not expecting any profit or personal gain. Everybody just wants to make all the things available to anybody – no matter what or who they are and demand nothing in return -only as much as a person is willing to contribute himself.
- It exists from the start of internet and it's been growing for more than 20 years. This is not something recent in any way.
- In fact it's on the same principle as sharing let's say a gardening tool with your friend. - its just on a different level and more spread.
(you could demand money from your friend in return and he would demand money from you for something else – but why?) - you think it would be stupid, but this is actually how our whole current system works, how we humans live today. Its the same example just on a different level.



What is the (U.S.)government really trying to stop? And why is this case such a high priority?
I think they don't want the people to have a taste of freedom in this form.They are trying to bring down this bright example that shows us what freedom means – and the things it can achieve.

This filesharing deal can overturn the whole way people look at their life in the current system but it needs some time for the people to realize it. Filesharing is not under any laws or restrictions etc..., yet it became the biggest, most powerfull organism and it lives in harmony and supports itself by doing so. The PirateBay case shows that nothing can stop this movement because you can't put a law on something that is not a part of any system. The government can only affect it if it first ignores all the laws – the laws by which it is trying to prove it is illegal in the first place. Even if it ignores all the laws and takes down one part of the filesharing community, there is always someone else to take that place.(as long as we are human beings there will be sharing).The more they struggle against filesharing even more absurd things will get uncovered.



Thank you.


-Urizen




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ps: you can quote or use this article in any way you want, but please include my signature with it. You can add your own words if you want, but state clearly what lines You added and where. If it's possible, copy the whole article as one piece if you are trying to quote it, or provide a link to the full article if it's not. Thank you.
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Links:

news on a swedish website (in english):
www.thelocal.se...

MPAA press release:
www.mpaa.org...

Attorney's blog and the story from his view:
viborginternational.blogspot.com...

Video: police raid of the PB servers (actions censored):
www.youtube.com...

A blog containing some interviews translated to english and some news:
tpbeng.blogspot.com...

PirateBay on Wiki (a lot of info about the police raid with pics):
en.wikipedia.org...

great post summerising the whole thing. After reading around I have to agree with your version of events.

Great post, Urizen.

The authorities repeatedly cite the law when taking action against torrent sites but this shows that even legal sites aren't safe. The Swedish government/police have broken their own laws to protect the interests of some large corporations. Why don't we just let the big companies make the laws and be done with it. At least we wouldn't have to listen to politicians anymore.

Here's hoping that as the dust settles and more and more of this story comes out that the Pirate Bay sue, along with the other businesses that were making use of those servers etc quite legally and completely legitimately.

I hope they seek full redress and sue those responsible for this heavily.

This is interesting and amusing if somewhat utterly predictable -

ThePirateBay.org bounces back in Netherlands 3:22PM

Traffic to the BitTorrent search website ThePirateBay.org surged following the seizure of more than 100 of the site's servers by Swedish police.

Figures from Net monitoring service Alexa.com show a huge peak in traffic to the site, which relocated to the Netherlands following the police action, which was prompted by the US movie industry.

www.pcpro.co.uk...

- Way to go US gov & MPAA!



[edit on 13-6-2006 by sminkeypinkey]