Piratebay Raided/Down

The Grim Squeaker · Post by **The Grim Squeaker** » 2006-05-31 02:55pm

From their mainsite :

In the morning of 2006-05-31 the Swedish National Criminal Police showed a search warrant to Rix|Port80 personnell. The warrant was valid for all datacentres of Rix|Port80 and was directed at The Pirate Bay. The allegation was breach of copy-right law, alternatively assisting breach of copy-right law.

The police officers were allowed access to the racks where the TPB servers and other servers are hosted. All servers in the racks were clearly marked as to which sites run on each. The police took down all servers in the racks, including the non-commercial site Piratbyrån, the mission of which is to defend the rights of TPB via public debate.

According to police officers simultaneously questioning the president of Rix|Port80, the purpose of the search warrant is to take down TPB in order to secure evidence of the allegations mentioned above.

The necessity for securing technical evidence for the existance of a web-service which is fully official, the legality of which has been under public debate for years and whose principals are public persons giving regular press interviews, could not be explained. Asked for other reasoning behind the choice to take down a site, without knowing wether it is illegal or not, the officers explained that this is normal.

The TPB can receive compensation from the Swedish state in case that the upcoming legal processes show that TPB is indeed legal.

Dammit, I thought that what they did was legal under Swedish law?

Also, here's an independant news source confirming it :
http://www.slyck.com/news.php?story=1203.
(I didn't link to PB since now it's an illegal site, and I feared violating Da Rules)

MKSheppard · Post by **MKSheppard** » 2006-05-31 03:03pm

Well, I guess the media companies paid off the swedish authorities enough; here's a hint, don't piss off people with lots more money than you.

(I'm referring to Pirate Bay posting letters to cease and desist and mocking them)

Bounty · Post by **Bounty** » 2006-05-31 03:08pm

The indexing of torrent files isn't illegal in Sweden IIRC, so unless the judge in the case wants to set an uncomfortable precedent, I don't see how they can make a convincing case.

Then again, I'm hardly a copyright expert

And 50 people to raid a server farm ? What were they expecting, armed NerdGuards ?

White Haven · Post by **White Haven** » 2006-05-31 03:33pm

Amusingly enough, the only thing I've ever gotten from PirateBay ARE those letters. Fucking HILARIOUS.

Jalinth · Post by **Jalinth** » 2006-05-31 03:38pm

MKSheppard wrote:Well, I guess the media companies paid off the swedish authorities enough; here's a hint, don't piss off people with lots more money than you.

We'll have to wait and see whether the ultimate result is desirable (at least in the media companies view). Look at Canada where the media companies ended up with a very unpleasant precedent about personal copying when they pushed an issue. Sometimes the law bites the lawyer

mb1235 · Post by **mb1235** » 2006-06-01 04:40am

Bounty wrote:The indexing of torrent files isn't illegal in Sweden IIRC,
And 50 people to raid a server farm ? What were they expecting, armed NerdGuards ?

Nope, it dosent say but they raided about 10 places.

Julhelm · Post by **Julhelm** » 2006-06-01 05:48am

It's funny how we get to hear "the police don't have enough resources" to deal with robbery/rape/murder but they can easily spare 50 men to apprehend 3 guys for "accomplice to crime against the copyright law".

Dooey Jo · Post by **Dooey Jo** » 2006-06-01 10:02am

Julhelm wrote:It's funny how we get to hear "the police don't have enough resources" to deal with robbery/rape/murder but they can easily spare 50 men to apprehend 3 guys for "accomplice to crime against the copyright law".

Maybe what we need is an anti-rape/murder lobby group akin to the "anti-piracy bureau" to make them do something about it...

Bounty · Post by **Bounty** » 2006-06-02 12:09pm

In totally unrelated news, the Swedish police get DDoS'ed :

Cyber vandals have attacked the website of the Swedish police, forcing it to shut down.

Police said the site was taken offline after it was overloaded by net data.

The attack came a day after the police raided several locations linked to a website accused of directing users to pirated films, music and software.

FedRebel · Post by **FedRebel** » 2006-06-02 12:50pm

PB fans getting their revenge probably, though this won't really help PB's position in the long run.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2006-06-02 01:06pm

I said this in the other thread, but I'll say it again here: while I oppose the heavy-handed tactics of the copyright enforcement horde, I also dislike legalistic loophole bullshit, and the whole argument about "we only carry the torrent, not the data" strikes me as a gigantic steaming pile of legalistic loophole bullshit.

The simple fact is that you click on their link, and you get pirated data. Why does it matter where the actual bytes come from? If I arranged an illegal arms deal between party A and party B, handled the transaction, and arranged the handover of money and merchandise, why shouldn't I be busted for illegal arms dealing?

Vendetta · Post by **Vendetta** » 2006-06-02 01:52pm

Sweden's legal system has previously ruled that pointing to copyrighted content is not the same as providing it.

Whether you like it or not, that is the state of precedent under Swedish law.

The simple fact is that you click on their link, and you get pirated data.

No, you click on their link and get a set of instructions that, when interpreted in the bittorrent client on your own computer (not provided by PirateBay) results in you obtaining pirated data.

To rephrase your analogy, you provided someone with the address of a known arms dealer, they then went on their merry way and never had anything more to do with you.

Yogi · Post by **Yogi** » 2006-06-02 02:31pm

Does The Pirate Bay run its own trackers, or does it only host the bittorrent files?

Bounty · Post by **Bounty** » 2006-06-02 02:34pm

Yogi wrote:Does The Pirate Bay run its own trackers, or does it only host the bittorrent files?

It runs a tracker.

Faqa · Post by **Faqa** » 2006-06-02 05:40pm

Darth Wong wrote:I said this in the other thread, but I'll say it again here: while I oppose the heavy-handed tactics of the copyright enforcement horde, I also dislike legalistic loophole bullshit, and the whole argument about "we only carry the torrent, not the data" strikes me as a gigantic steaming pile of legalistic loophole bullshit.

The simple fact is that you click on their link, and you get pirated data. Why does it matter where the actual bytes come from? If I arranged an illegal arms deal between party A and party B, handled the transaction, and arranged the handover of money and merchandise, why shouldn't I be busted for illegal arms dealing?

It's a matter of principle. They provide a center for a P2P distribution method. They provide no material. They are not INHERENTLY illegal. You click on their link, and you get a file that tells you where you can get bits and bytes which may or may not form an illegal file. That's out of PB's hands.

Arresting them sets a bad example, since it basically says that BT MUST, inherently, be used for piracy. No thank you.

PB cannot be expected to check what each file lets you DL. I say again, you CANNOT hold them legally liable(not a loophole, but as a real point) without delegitimizing BT.

Lookit what Torrentspy does. You can't search for keywords that embody legitimite products(Adobe, Norton, etc). Can you really say they should be held responsible if you DO manage to DL Adobe Premiere anyway? They actively discourage you from doing so.

Kojiro · Post by **Kojiro** » 2006-06-03 12:35am

I greatly dislike the idea of people being held accountable for the actions of others. The problem is that even a cursory examination of the Pirate Bay links shows that the vast majority of the content is indeed someone else's property.

While I don't think that the PB should be responsible for what others do, I do think they have an obligation to not list torrents with a reasonable set of key words (as Faqa said with Torrentspy). There's nothing out there with the name X Men 3 that is public domain.

Someone is asking you for something illegal, and you're helping them get it. They're hiding behind nothing more than plausible deniability. We don't know it's illegal for sure, so it's ok. It presents an image of 'well, it's legitimate but perhaps a few bad apples are abusing an otherwise legitimate system. A cursory examination of the tracked torrents will show you that it's grossly copyrighted material with perhaps a few bits of shareware mixed in.

Sure the technicality of the law may be on their side, so legally they may well be in the right but I feel they should do more, like keywords at the least.

Molyneux · Post by **Molyneux** » 2006-06-03 02:50am

Kojiro wrote:I greatly dislike the idea of people being held accountable for the actions of others. The problem is that even a cursory examination of the Pirate Bay links shows that the vast majority of the content is indeed someone else's property.

While I don't think that the PB should be responsible for what others do, I do think they have an obligation to not list torrents with a reasonable set of key words (as Faqa said with Torrentspy). There's nothing out there with the name X Men 3 that is public domain.

Someone is asking you for something illegal, and you're helping them get it. They're hiding behind nothing more than plausible deniability. We don't know it's illegal for sure, so it's ok. It presents an image of 'well, it's legitimate but perhaps a few bad apples are abusing an otherwise legitimate system. A cursory examination of the tracked torrents will show you that it's grossly copyrighted material with perhaps a few bits of shareware mixed in.

Sure the technicality of the law may be on their side, so legally they may well be in the right but I feel they should do more, like keywords at the least.

"X-Men 3: The Last Cash Cow".

If I were to write a parody script - parody being allowable under copyright law, so far as I know - it would be mine to declare public domain. I could then place this parody script on, say, The Pirate Bay, and have it be completely and totally legal.

If they were to then prevent anyone from searching for the term "X-Men 3", that would unfairly prevent any users from finding my hilarious parody. Tell me, Kojiro, do you have something against humor? Don't you like for people to be able to find legal funny stuff?

The Grim Squeaker · Post by **The Grim Squeaker** » 2006-06-03 03:18am

Odd, The Piratebay is working now as are the torrents (I checked only for 100% legal open source items such as the... Open source program that I looked at but didn't download

).
Their blog isn't saying anything nor are the legal threats, and the frontpage has a picture of a pirate ship blasting A Hollywood sign.

Faram · Post by **Faram** » 2006-06-03 03:38am

DEATH wrote:Odd, The Piratebay is working now as are the torrents (I checked only for 100% legal open source items such as the... Open source program that I looked at but didn't download ).
Their blog isn't saying anything nor are the legal threats, and the frontpage has a picture of a pirate ship blasting A Hollywood sign.

Not so odd.

They are back in buissnies

Singular Quartet · Post by **Singular Quartet** » 2006-06-03 11:51am

Bounty wrote:The indexing of torrent files isn't illegal in Sweden IIRC, so unless the judge in the case wants to set an uncomfortable precedent, I don't see how they can make a convincing case.

Then again, I'm hardly a copyright expert

And 50 people to raid a server farm ? What were they expecting, armed NerdGuards ?

Actually, they didn't raid The Pirate Bay, they raided the ISP, and took everything, including the stuff not related to The Pirate Bay. Which is somewhat illegal in my mind, but I'm no expert on Swedish Law (let alone American)

Bounty · Post by **Bounty** » 2006-06-03 12:11pm

I don't see an image on their front page and the title bar says "The Police Bay". Those Swedes and their wacky sense of humour

Yogi · Post by **Yogi** » 2006-06-03 12:33pm

Bounty wrote:
Yogi wrote:Does The Pirate Bay run its own trackers, or does it only host the bittorrent files?
It runs a tracker.

If it actually has a TRACKER, then isn't it doing just a bit more than pointing someone in the direction of illegal files? It is instrumental in the distribution of said files.

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2006-06-03 12:39pm

Yogi wrote:
Bounty wrote:
Yogi wrote:Does The Pirate Bay run its own trackers, or does it only host the bittorrent files?
It runs a tracker.
If it actually has a TRACKER, then isn't it doing just a bit more than pointing someone in the direction of illegal files? It is instrumental in the distribution of said files.

Exactly, however, I belive Swedish law says unless you are hosting the illegal files yourself, you're free. But thats a loophole.

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2006-06-03 01:30pm

And..fake?

The INq

SWEDISH Bittorrent outfit, ThePirateBay.org has admitted that its shutdown yesterday was faked.

Users who showed up at the site were confronted with a copyright violation notice and some thought that the site had fallen to the Swedish copyright organization responsible for maintaining intellectual property rights Antipiratbyran.

This was exacerbated by PirateBay putting the following on its site: "Today the swedish anti-piracy organizations raided The Pirate Bay and confiscated the computers running the tracker. This probably means the end of The Pirate Bay and we, the crew, apologize for all loss of income caused by our activity over the years."

It was so plausible. PirateBay.org has been famous for its amusing put downs of officialdom, so it was an obvious target. PirateBay.org it is also famous for its hoaxes and this one seems to have suckered a lot of the IT press.

In actual fact, the site was undergoing renovations and a new version was released which looks a bit like Google.

Slyck news

On June 1, 2005, many approached ThePirateBay.org and were confronted with a copyright violation notice. Considering the memories of EliteTorrents.org were still fresh, many rushed to the conclusion that ThePirateBay had succumbed to Antipiratbyran. Antipiratbyran is the Swedish copyright organization responsible for maintaining intellectual property rights.

However, those familiar with ThePirateBay's sense of humor lacked the concern shared by so many. This lack of concern was exacerbated by a flippantly worded apology splashed the homepage of this site.

"Today the swedish anti-piracy organizations raided The Pirate Bay and confiscated the computers running the tracker. This probably means the end of The Pirate Bay and we, the crew, apologize for all loss of income caused by our activity over the years."

As time progressed throughout the day, clear evidence began to appear that ThePirateBay was not raided nor was it going offline. Rather, news updates were posted to the homepage which stated ThePirateBay was simply going under renovations, and a new version was being readied.

Earlier today, ThePirateBay version 2.0 was launched and is now fully operational. The look and feel of the site is similar to Google, while the search results have been reorganized and well polished. In addition, the site has been fully recoded and upgraded.

"We did some hardware re-arrangements," said Peter of ThePirateBay.org. "But the big thing is rewriting all of the system from scratch. We have a new version of our own tracker, the webpages are completly new [and] everything is built to scale.

Building to scale is the goal of any P2P network, and ThePirateBay definately aims to achive this goal.

"With more hardware, we can grow huge."

However, recoding software or adding hardware can only take a site so far. ThePirateBay has added a significant amount of new language support with the hopes to obtain a truly global reach.

While all these changes are significant, BitTorrent fans have not heard the last of ThePirateBay.org.

"...This version isn't the final version; we have some more aces up our sleeve. We try to not only be the biggest, but also the best and most innovative tracker. With a [simplified] interface it's easier for the average joe to learn how to download and get into all of it. That's part of our goal."

ThePirateBay has distributed a press release which further explains the situation.

2005-06-02 10:00:00 GMT - The Pirate Bay

"Today a new version was launched by The Pirate Bay, the world's largest BitTorrent tracker and one of Sweden's largest web sites. With revolutionary code and layout, the new Pirate Bay is considerably faster and more user friendly than the earlier version. Furthermore, the site has been internationalized and now features support for ten languages in addition to English."

"- The user friendliness and new functionalities of The Pirate Bay 2.0 will introduce the BitTorrent protocol to the wide public. Contrary to the large media corporations, we regard the diffusion of new technologies to as many people as possible as an important duty, says Fredrik Neij of The Pirate Bay."

"Aside from the new code and layout, The Pirate Bay has undergone an extensive internationalization. The site features support for ten languages in addition to English and our translators are continually working on more. Users from any of the eleven language communities will automatically get the official language of their country as preset standard."

"- Today the development often moves faster in technology than in the cultural realm. But neither language barriers nor the copyright industry's war on technology should impede people from partaking in new technologies and cultures, says anakata of The Pirate Bay."

"Furthermore, a new system of categories will make searching easier and more effective. In the near future this will imply more options for subscribers to the tracker's RSS flows. And The Pirate Bay team of developers are constantly working on new functionalities to improve the lives of users all over the world."

Jadeite · Post by **Jadeite** » 2006-06-03 01:37pm

Haha, the Swedish police got DDOSed for nothing then.