Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tech stuff from how
Speaker 1: stuff dot com. Ahi Their meta is welcome to tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm Jonathan Strickland and I'm Lauren voc Obam. Now we're
Speaker 1: going to do part two of our episodes about the
Speaker 1: Pirate Day now in case you needed quick refresher previously
Speaker 1: on tech stuff. So the part of the torrent tracking
Speaker 1: site gets in Sweden, gets some big attention, gets really big,
Speaker 1: not just in Scandinavia but outside Scandinavia. And then that's
Speaker 1: when music industry and movie industry take notice and say
Speaker 1: let's stop that thing, you know, and say let's stop
Speaker 1: that thing you to the tune of thirteen million dollars
Speaker 1: in damages right now, getting over into two thousand nine,
Speaker 1: that's when things really start getting serious. It goes beyond
Speaker 1: this are double a lawsuit and becomes a massive crackdown.
Speaker 1: Swedish prosecutors take to court the three co founders of
Speaker 1: the Pirate Bay. Actually let me let me let me
Speaker 1: scroll on up so I can say their names properly,
Speaker 1: so that the three co founders are Patersonda uh Friedrich
Speaker 1: Nay and got Freed svat Holm Vari. So they take
Speaker 1: those three to court and they also add a fourth
Speaker 1: person as fellow who actually had provided funding for the
Speaker 1: Pirate Bay, which often would solicit donations from users to
Speaker 1: continue the site. Uh So that would be able to
Speaker 1: continue operating because they were running a whole bunch of servers,
Speaker 1: which is expensive, right, But the financial guy who was
Speaker 1: named in the lawsuit was Carl Lunstrom. Lunstrom also would
Speaker 1: end up getting a lot of it. There'd be a
Speaker 1: lot of attention directed towards the Pirate Bay because of
Speaker 1: Lunstrom's political leanings. Lundstrom had a history of supporting some
Speaker 1: very far right um political part nationals Swedish nationalist parties
Speaker 1: like keep Sweden Swedish type stuff, so very very firm
Speaker 1: and harsh views for any non Swedish person moving into
Speaker 1: the nation and um so anyway, that then also added
Speaker 1: fuel to the fire for the the criticism towards the
Speaker 1: Pirate Bay. Although the other founders of the Pirate Base said,
Speaker 1: you know, uh, we were just looking at money, We're not.
Speaker 1: Our philosophy has always been about file sharing, not about
Speaker 1: you know, this this other type of policy. Um anyway,
Speaker 1: they were all lumped in with this this lawsuit. So
Speaker 1: in April two thousand nine, they were all found guilty
Speaker 1: of assisting copyright infringement, and each was sentenced to a
Speaker 1: year in jail, and each received finds totaling around three
Speaker 1: point six million dollars depending upon whom you ask, because
Speaker 1: it was of course not in dollars, was in coronin
Speaker 1: I believe, and then you have to convert it and
Speaker 1: adjust for inflation, so it gets tricky. But by the
Speaker 1: end of two thousand nine, the bit torrent tracker at
Speaker 1: the Pirate Bay went offline, and it made the Pirate
Speaker 1: Bay just a Torrent indexing site. So this meant that
Speaker 1: it was kind of like a just a giant database
Speaker 1: of torrents. It wasn't um the tracker part, the bit
Speaker 1: Torrent tracker part was no longer active, right, and they
Speaker 1: decided to take it down because there was legal president
Speaker 1: not only in this court case, that hosting a tracker
Speaker 1: server for a torrent can can make you legally culpable
Speaker 1: for helping people share illegal, illegally copied material um and
Speaker 1: and shutting it down was made possible by um by
Speaker 1: by by new tech that was actually really cool in
Speaker 1: a you know, kind of using for illegal purposes sort
Speaker 1: of way. UM It's called pure linking software and what
Speaker 1: it does instead of using the tracker to querry. You know,
Speaker 1: a tracker is a central server that the software that
Speaker 1: you run on your computer queries to find out where
Speaker 1: the little bits of every file that you want are located.
Speaker 1: Right this peer linking software queries through the swarm, through UM,
Speaker 1: through all of the computers that are that are hosting
Speaker 1: that that are personally using gotcha. So it's taking that
Speaker 1: that central server apart kind of all the equation when
Speaker 1: it comes to actually locating these files, these bits of
Speaker 1: files that you need for to make your full file
Speaker 1: whatever it is. UM. Yeah, it kind of ends up
Speaker 1: distributing the blame a little. Uh. And in June of
Speaker 1: two thousand nine, story broke that a company called Global
Speaker 1: Gaming Factory X was going to buy the Pirate Bay
Speaker 1: for seven point eight billion dollars, with the goal of
Speaker 1: actually turning it into a legitimate legal site where people
Speaker 1: could trade files or purchase files. Um. The CEO at
Speaker 1: Global Gaming Factory X at that time was Hans Pandaea,
Speaker 1: But several weeks would go by and nothing seemed to develop.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like the plan to buy Sea Land
Speaker 1: from if you listen to our previous podcast, you'll hear
Speaker 1: about these the wonderful story of the Pirate Bay trying
Speaker 1: to buy trying to trying to buy a naval forming
Speaker 1: former British naval platform and current sovereign state and turned
Speaker 1: it into their own little pirate Bay country. Well, that
Speaker 1: fell through, and this deal also seemed to kind of
Speaker 1: just go nowhere. It just you know, it was announced
Speaker 1: that it was a possibility, and then nothing seemed to happen.
Speaker 1: So in February it became clear more at least a
Speaker 1: little more clear why it never that deal never really
Speaker 1: went anywhere because Global Gaming Factory collapsed, the company company
Speaker 1: went under. Pandaea had actually had his own personal property
Speaker 1: in the form of a motorcycle and a car, seized
Speaker 1: by the government um due to the fact that he
Speaker 1: was unable to make good on financial obligations of the company.
Speaker 1: So the deal to buy Pirate Bay fell through, not
Speaker 1: a big surprise there. In May, a German court injunction
Speaker 1: took down the Pirate Bay temporarily, so like temporarily being
Speaker 1: just a matter of like a day, it was. It
Speaker 1: was back and operational in no time at all, and
Speaker 1: at that time you also had internet service providers, arguing
Speaker 1: that they had no control over the content of traffic
Speaker 1: over their networks. So in other words, they said, we're
Speaker 1: providing the pipes, but we don't provide Yeah, which is
Speaker 1: the very people argument to on the pirate base exactly.
Speaker 1: You know, they're like, hey, we give people the opportunity
Speaker 1: to share files, but we're not telling them what to share,
Speaker 1: and we're not telling them don't share anything. The only
Speaker 1: thing we're telling them is make sure your label matches
Speaker 1: whatever the file is. That's the only thing that we
Speaker 1: care about. So, uh, you know, I sp s were
Speaker 1: kind of giving the same argument, saying they shouldn't be
Speaker 1: held responsible for the content. Yeah. So when the Pirate
Speaker 1: Bay came back after the German court injunction, it was
Speaker 1: hosted by the Swedish Pirate Party. Now this is different
Speaker 1: than Pirot Biron, which we talked about before. That was
Speaker 1: the Piracy Bureau. The Swedish Pirate Party was sort of
Speaker 1: kind of a a similar political organization in Sweden, but
Speaker 1: not the same people. Now, that was the first political
Speaker 1: party that was actually called the Pirate Party, and that
Speaker 1: that itself, the Swedish Pirate Party was founded back in
Speaker 1: two thousand six. Central platform of the Pirate Party was
Speaker 1: to give more power to individuals as opposed to governments
Speaker 1: and companies, to use the Internet, to communicate freely and
Speaker 1: share with one another. So so the Swedish Pirate Party
Speaker 1: was the first political party actually called the pirate Party.
Speaker 1: Now there are quite a few of them, but the
Speaker 1: Swedish Pirate Party is the original one. It was founded
Speaker 1: back in two thousand six, and the central platform for
Speaker 1: the party was to give more power to the individual
Speaker 1: as opposed to governments and corporations, to use the Internet,
Speaker 1: to communicate freely and to share with one another. So uh.
Speaker 1: It shares a lot of the same philosophy as the
Speaker 1: Libertarian Party might in the United States, Um, but was
Speaker 1: very specifically focused on Internet communication. Not you know that
Speaker 1: that was like the primary focus at least as far
Speaker 1: as the Pirate of it was concerned, certainly. Uh was
Speaker 1: also when PAN disbanded, Yeah, they said that they did
Speaker 1: everything they planned on doing, and they were done doing
Speaker 1: the thing they planned, which you know, basically said in Swedish,
Speaker 1: but yeah, uh, and probably much more eloquently than the
Speaker 1: way I put it. They said that they met their
Speaker 1: goals and the organization was always meant to be temporary.
Speaker 1: It was never meant to be, you know, to last indefinitely. Also,
Speaker 1: one of the original um co founders of the organization
Speaker 1: had passed away that year, eb Kopimi Botani. He had
Speaker 1: passed away. And uh, that that really I think what
Speaker 1: led to the group dissolving. You know. It's I've seen
Speaker 1: this happen with other organizations where someone even even if
Speaker 1: the person is not technically the leader of the organization,
Speaker 1: often they could be the glue that holds everything together,
Speaker 1: and when they depart or they pass away, then the
Speaker 1: organization really just can't hold itself as a cohesive unit anymore.
Speaker 1: And in November of the Swedish appeals court shortens the
Speaker 1: prison sentence of Peter Sunda from one year to eight months,
Speaker 1: Friedrich ni Nai got from one year to ten months uh,
Speaker 1: and financier Carl Lundstrom went from one year to four months.
Speaker 1: Essentially had already served it out by then, and Gottfried
Speaker 1: svart Holm Vari received a reduced sentence but missed the
Speaker 1: appeals trial due to an illness. But while there their
Speaker 1: their prison sentences were reduced. The w Yeah. Uh, and
Speaker 1: again it's this is complicated because you have to you know,
Speaker 1: convert corona into dollars and inflation and all that. But
Speaker 1: essentially it went from about three point six million to
Speaker 1: about six point five million dollars in damages and the UH,
Speaker 1: the appeals court essentially what they did was they listened
Speaker 1: to the organization's claims about how much money they lost
Speaker 1: due to piracy and just accepted it and well, then
Speaker 1: that's how much they owe you. Whereas a lot of
Speaker 1: again we said it before in our previous podcast, UH,
Speaker 1: most reports that I've seen, like the actual reports that
Speaker 1: really go into looking at how much money is lost
Speaker 1: due to piracy, say that there's no way to actually
Speaker 1: put a dollar amount on that because you can't you
Speaker 1: can't tell who would have purchased the material legitimately if
Speaker 1: there were no way of pirating it. So if you
Speaker 1: if you were to remove piracy, just magically snap your
Speaker 1: fingers and piracy is now impossible. There's no way to
Speaker 1: pirate stuff you can't eat. Can't guarantee that six point
Speaker 1: five million dollars of right, Yeah, that that that everyone
Speaker 1: would Now some of them undoubtedly would have purchased it,
Speaker 1: some of them would not. So that means that because
Speaker 1: of this uncertainty, you can't actually say, oh, that is
Speaker 1: worth x amount of dollars and I have the proof
Speaker 1: right here and that, you know, because you can't prove
Speaker 1: it um however, and the courts this is something that
Speaker 1: it all depends upon the judge and jury. I mean
Speaker 1: they you know, they're the ones who decide whether or
Speaker 1: not the argument holds water, and in this case, they said,
Speaker 1: you are going to pay up big time. Now. For
Speaker 1: the part of the co founders of the Pirate Bay,
Speaker 1: their general response to the findes was similar to something
Speaker 1: I did in the first episode. I'm not going to
Speaker 1: do again because Lauren and Noel will kill me. But
Speaker 1: essentially they said, ha ha, we won't pay. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're they were like, that's cute. Yeah, good luck getting
Speaker 1: your cash, suckers. Uh. Yeah. The their attitude has not
Speaker 1: changed at all from the point when they founded the
Speaker 1: site to current day where they still owe money. But
Speaker 1: they said, you know, none of them has paid any
Speaker 1: of it. Yeah, that's essentially the response of some of
Speaker 1: them have served out their court their court mandated terms.
Speaker 1: But yeah yeah, And we'll get into kind of you know,
Speaker 1: catching up with the founders at the end of this episode.
Speaker 1: So for right now, I know this is going really quickly. Guys,
Speaker 1: you're thinking, what show am I listening to? Because this
Speaker 1: is going really fast. But it's because you know, we're
Speaker 1: wrapping up on the Pirate Bay before we get into
Speaker 1: the second half and really talk about what's going on,
Speaker 1: you know, over the last couple of years. Let's take
Speaker 1: a quick moment to thank our sponsored Okay, and now
Speaker 1: we're back, so let's talk about, you know, more recent
Speaker 1: occurrences with the Pirate Bay. What's been going on? Um,
Speaker 1: Like what happened in two thousand twelve, they actually decided
Speaker 1: for some of their most popular content, and then later
Speaker 1: on they applied that to everything, to us stop offering
Speaker 1: torrent files? What's up with that? So? So okay, so
Speaker 1: so January was when they promised that they were going
Speaker 1: to remove all torrent files from their site in favor
Speaker 1: of of what's called magnet links. And um, now, if
Speaker 1: you remember from a previous episode on torrents um dot,
Speaker 1: torrent files run on your computer and calculate what bits
Speaker 1: of files you'll need to complete the media file that
Speaker 1: you want. Yeah, it's it's essentially meta data. It's information
Speaker 1: about the file that you actually want. So at torrent
Speaker 1: file does not like if you were wanted to torrent
Speaker 1: Britney Spears latest album because that that La La song
Speaker 1: or whatever she does is just awesome and you want it.
Speaker 1: By the way, I actually do like that song because
Speaker 1: it sounds like J pop beside the point. So let's
Speaker 1: say that you want that and you can't stand the
Speaker 1: thought of paying for it. The torrent file that you
Speaker 1: get for that doesn't actually have any of the la
Speaker 1: las There's none of that. It just sends a hash
Speaker 1: of requests to a server, right which then judge you.
Speaker 1: But then you give you the files that you have. Um. Now,
Speaker 1: now a magnet link contains all of that calculation data
Speaker 1: in the link itself, so the processing happens on server
Speaker 1: instead of on your computer. Um. You do still need
Speaker 1: to create a dot torrent for for for a new
Speaker 1: piece of media that you are uploading to um to
Speaker 1: the ent our webs but um but but basically it
Speaker 1: you know, saved a lot of resources, made the pirate
Speaker 1: bay site much smaller, like to the point that it
Speaker 1: can be carried on a thumb drive. Right, So by
Speaker 1: making it much smaller that that increased the likelihood that
Speaker 1: they would be able to return the Pirate Bay to
Speaker 1: full working order should something else happen to it, like
Speaker 1: a government shuts down more servers. So this was another
Speaker 1: attempt not only to just make the site run more smoothly,
Speaker 1: but to ensure that there would be other ways of
Speaker 1: preserving the site should something happen to it. And the
Speaker 1: message being sent out to content creators is this isn't
Speaker 1: going away. This is part of reality. Now, this is
Speaker 1: this is part of the landscape. You can try and
Speaker 1: take it down, but every time you try and take
Speaker 1: it down, it's just going to come up again. The
Speaker 1: most gonna do is have us offline for maybe a
Speaker 1: couple of days, you know, a week on the outside,
Speaker 1: but we will eventually find you can't stop us. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which gets pretty rough. Meanwhile, February, Sweden Supreme Court declined
Speaker 1: to hear an appeal from the founders. Yeah, which was
Speaker 1: a big deal, right. This was this was essentially saying
Speaker 1: that the court finding of the their guilt was going
Speaker 1: to stand and that's pretty much and then there's there's
Speaker 1: nowhere else to go at that point, so the founders
Speaker 1: are stuck with the the prison sentences and the fines,
Speaker 1: which they still said they would not pay. Right. At
Speaker 1: that point, um, the trials were officially over and um
Speaker 1: they were the Pirate Bay was was afraid that, um
Speaker 1: they were still currently at that time on United States
Speaker 1: dot org yeah domains right. Yeah, they they their domain
Speaker 1: name was the Pirate Bay dot org, right, which was
Speaker 1: that made them a little nervous. Well, they were afraid
Speaker 1: that since that trial was over, that the US was
Speaker 1: going to um seize that domain, right, so they decided
Speaker 1: to avoid future litigation, and so so they redirected to
Speaker 1: a dot e domain dot dot domain. They did that.
Speaker 1: They do that a lot. We're really going to be
Speaker 1: talking about some of the whack a mole type of approach. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and again, in an attempt to really find a home
Speaker 1: that will one house them and and to not bow
Speaker 1: to pressure from companies and organizations and governments, we started
Speaker 1: to do a lot of a lot of very admirably
Speaker 1: clever things, um and admirable you know, you know, kind
Speaker 1: of in that scoundrel way. It's really it's fascinating. They
Speaker 1: definitely have dedication, will say. That was also when the
Speaker 1: United Kingdom High Courts said that all I s p
Speaker 1: s in the United Kingdom were to block access to
Speaker 1: the pirate bay. Now that would um, that would matter
Speaker 1: if the and it didn't work the way it does,
Speaker 1: and that you couldn't find proxy servers that would allow
Speaker 1: you to get around UH international bands like that, because
Speaker 1: that's the thing is that, you know, using something like
Speaker 1: a proxy server, you could log into a proxy server
Speaker 1: which isn't blocked by the the I s p s
Speaker 1: and then as the proxy server end up accessing the
Speaker 1: stuff that you wanted to access in the first place.
Speaker 1: And because the traffic is making a hop there, it
Speaker 1: might mean that the whole process takes longer than it
Speaker 1: normally would. But yeah, anyone who is really determined to
Speaker 1: use these services usually is also willing to take the
Speaker 1: extra steps it would require to enough to know about
Speaker 1: them and capable of these Although we'll talk more about
Speaker 1: some interesting developments in just piracy in general UM that
Speaker 1: have happened since uh since this So this was also
Speaker 1: when UM they were starting to talk about changing not
Speaker 1: only the fact about the magnet links, but also kind
Speaker 1: of abandoning the server approach entirely. Right, So okay, So
Speaker 1: so in October a broken power distribution unit led to
Speaker 1: almost forty eight hours of downtime and that was more
Speaker 1: downtime that they had had since that raid in two
Speaker 1: thousand six, the police raid that that literally took their
Speaker 1: servers UM, which lasted for three days. Which lasted for
Speaker 1: three days, right UM. And this this happened to coincide
Speaker 1: with the police raid on a former hosting company in Sweden.
Speaker 1: So with this coincidental pair of events, you have the
Speaker 1: power going out, which leads to the site going down,
Speaker 1: and you have this raid. It led a lot of
Speaker 1: people to jump to the conclusion that the police had
Speaker 1: taken down the Pirate Bay again, which really, according to
Speaker 1: what we've read, is not the case. It's just one
Speaker 1: of those crazy coincidence. It was just a thing that
Speaker 1: happened to happen at the same time. But but after that,
Speaker 1: they decided that this entire physical media thing was kind
Speaker 1: of for the birds, and UM as of October se
Speaker 1: stided to move most of their services to the cloud.
Speaker 1: UM as of January they were running on seventeen virtual machines.
Speaker 1: And what what this means is that, you know, instead
Speaker 1: of having UM physical servers, they've got virtual servers. The
Speaker 1: only physical equipment that UM that the Pirate Bay still
Speaker 1: maintains is UM a load balancer, which is a RAM
Speaker 1: based server through which all of the communication with users goes,
Speaker 1: and then some transit routers and so so this this
Speaker 1: keeps both the cloud providers and the site's users private.
Speaker 1: The cloud providers that you know, the hosters don't know
Speaker 1: what they're hosting, and um and all of these things
Speaker 1: are in different countries. Plausible deniability. That's what it boils
Speaker 1: down to. Yeah, it's actually funny. There's a there's a
Speaker 1: great I have to read this because and I did
Speaker 1: it before, and I'm going to go even more dramatic
Speaker 1: in the actual tech stuff reading. Winston Brahma spoke for
Speaker 1: the Pirate Bay. This was Winston Brahma's kind of explanation.
Speaker 1: If there is data, there is the Pirate Bay. Our
Speaker 1: data flows around in thousands of clouds and deeply encrypted forms,
Speaker 1: ready to be used when necessary. Earth Bound nodes that
Speaker 1: transform the data are as deeply encrypted and reboot into
Speaker 1: a deadlock if not used for eight hours. All attempts
Speaker 1: to attack the Pirate Bay from now on is an
Speaker 1: attack on everything and nothing. The site that you're at
Speaker 1: will still be here for as long as we wanted to,
Speaker 1: only in a higher form of being a reality to us,
Speaker 1: a ghost to those who wish to harm us. Basically, Uh,
Speaker 1: it's you know, Neo and the matrix. I think that
Speaker 1: is what that is. It's we'll take the take the
Speaker 1: blue pill. Yeah, so, um, I mean melodrama and the
Speaker 1: Pirate Bay are two things that have gone hand in
Speaker 1: hand more than once. Yes, but but now, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's true that that if the police
Speaker 1: decided to to raid them, they would find a router
Speaker 1: or or or of a load balancer. And if they
Speaker 1: did take those, all you can get is encrypted disk images,
Speaker 1: and if the virtual servers have been out of communication
Speaker 1: with the load balancer for more than eight hours, they
Speaker 1: shut down and require encryption passwords upon rebooting. Right, So yeah,
Speaker 1: if you take something, it's it's useless to you. And
Speaker 1: also it's only a matter and it's only a matter
Speaker 1: of time before someone has activated it again from some
Speaker 1: other location. Yes. So again, it's another one of those
Speaker 1: messages saying you know, um, we understand you're gonna take
Speaker 1: stuff down. We're telling you it won't matter. So if
Speaker 1: you want to keep spending the time and resources it
Speaker 1: takes to take stuff down, go right ahead. But it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter, but we don't care. Yeah, um, so move
Speaker 1: that moves us up to which, for those of you
Speaker 1: who are listening shortly after we recorded that is this year.
Speaker 1: If you're listening to this episode from some time in
Speaker 1: the future, send me a jet pack. So the Swedish
Speaker 1: Pirate Party stops being the host of the Pirate Bay.
Speaker 1: You know, they had taken over back after the the
Speaker 1: Pirate Bay had been taken down. They were the ones
Speaker 1: who were able to host it and bring it back up. Well,
Speaker 1: they took it. They decided to to kind of in
Speaker 1: that relationship after they received threats from the Rights Alliance,
Speaker 1: which is an anti piracy organization in Sweden. At that point,
Speaker 1: the hosting transferred to the Norwegian Pirate Party and the
Speaker 1: Spanish Pirate Party, both of which were organizations that the
Speaker 1: Pirate Bay kind of identified as being less likely to
Speaker 1: bow to uh two pressures from other organizations. Also, the
Speaker 1: governments in Norway and Spain were less. It wasn't that
Speaker 1: they don't care about piracy, that's just not what they
Speaker 1: focus on. So they felt that there was much of
Speaker 1: a legal precedent in those places, and well there's just
Speaker 1: gonna be less pressure because that wasn't it wasn't a
Speaker 1: priority in those in those countries. Um, they switched from
Speaker 1: Swedish servers to servers in Greenland because again they were
Speaker 1: just trying to vent this you know, downtime that would
Speaker 1: happen if the Swedish servers were seized. But within two
Speaker 1: days of moving to Greenland, the Pirate Bay lost both
Speaker 1: of its dot g L domain names, so so Greenland
Speaker 1: said nothing. Yeah, So then the site moved to Icelandic
Speaker 1: servers for a week, and then the new threats were
Speaker 1: showing up to bring down the site in Iceland, so
Speaker 1: that forced the site to relocate again, this time to
Speaker 1: the Caribbean. So now we have Pirates of the cariber Yoho, yoho,
Speaker 1: a pirate's life for me. It can be found on
Speaker 1: multiple top level domains, meaning that you know, you can
Speaker 1: use different top level domains. The top level domains are
Speaker 1: things like the dot SC dot g L. You know. Uh,
Speaker 1: it can be found on multiple ones, which means that
Speaker 1: if one goes down, you still have other ones you
Speaker 1: can try and get to. And um, there are a
Speaker 1: lot of sites that even just keep a running tab
Speaker 1: on which ones are currently working versus down, so you
Speaker 1: can even check those um, so it pretty much ensures
Speaker 1: that the site will continue even if one or more
Speaker 1: servers are seized. Is also when there was a documentary
Speaker 1: that was aired or or screened, I guess I should
Speaker 1: say I do find the title of the documentary to
Speaker 1: be absolutely irritating, but it's a pet peeve of mine also,
Speaker 1: so it's it's a T P B A f K
Speaker 1: colon the Pirate Bay away from keyboard, so it's the acronym,
Speaker 1: and then the acronym is broken out, which means that
Speaker 1: you didn't need the acronym there. You could have just
Speaker 1: had the Pirate Bay away from keyboard if they had
Speaker 1: put if they had put the translation um in parentheses,
Speaker 1: I would have no problem with it. But I think
Speaker 1: that really they needed a copy of I just I
Speaker 1: just feel like it. If don't use an acronym, if
Speaker 1: you're gonna have to spell it out anyway, don't do it.
Speaker 1: There's no point why do it. But I hate acronyms anyway. Anyway,
Speaker 1: this documentary was about Don't Get Me starring f y I.
Speaker 1: I will just lose it. I'm sorry. The documentary was
Speaker 1: about some of the founding members of the Pirate Bay.
Speaker 1: It came out in early and it really profiled the
Speaker 1: three founders essentially during that trial that they were in
Speaker 1: in Sweden, so the trial back in two thousand nine
Speaker 1: where they were ultimately pronounced guilty of assisting and copyright
Speaker 1: UH infringement. So um, it's from why I understand an
Speaker 1: interesting UH documentary. Although I have not I have full disclosure,
Speaker 1: I have not seen. Also, I don't know that. I mean,
Speaker 1: I assume there's probably a version out there that has
Speaker 1: subtitles because I don't speak Swedish, so I certainly wouldn't
Speaker 1: be able to follow it. Uh. If I were to
Speaker 1: watch it without subtitles, I would just be lost the
Speaker 1: entire time. But I do understand that there's a lot
Speaker 1: of like airing of dirty laundry or at least, you know,
Speaker 1: airing of people's foibles between the Founders, who who generally
Speaker 1: agree on a particular part of their philosophy, but outside
Speaker 1: of that, they're very different people. Yeah, it sounds it
Speaker 1: sounds very much like like outside of their right political interests,
Speaker 1: they don't necessarily get along. They're not necessarily friends. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all the time, or they are friends, but they're just like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, Godfried is always just drunk and racist. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's pretty much what they say about Godfrey, about
Speaker 1: how Godfried seems occasionally when he when he's had a
Speaker 1: few drinks in him, according to what I've read, seems
Speaker 1: to be more along Lundstrom's political views. You know. But
Speaker 1: the other guys say, no, that's just him being drunk.
Speaker 1: That's he's actually a good guy. It's just, you know,
Speaker 1: he gets drunk and then he decides he wants to
Speaker 1: grant granted or create an argument where there wasn't an
Speaker 1: argument before. They he just kind of gets a little
Speaker 1: you know, in your face and aggressive. But that's that's
Speaker 1: only because he's been drinking. Otherwise he's a good guy.
Speaker 1: That's essentially the kind of reference I get. UM also
Speaker 1: when they added links to bitcoin and light coin so
Speaker 1: that people could UH could contribute to the site using
Speaker 1: those rather than something like you know, PayPal, which is
Speaker 1: something that tracks back to you, or or something that
Speaker 1: could be shut down like There are plenty of stories
Speaker 1: about UH financial institutions cutting off any sort of support
Speaker 1: for the Pirate Bay and related services like the Pirate
Speaker 1: Bay because they get pressure from the government saying, hey,
Speaker 1: we don't want any money from the us going to
Speaker 1: fund this site because it's it's supporting intellectual property theft.
Speaker 1: So uh, you know, you would get PayPal or credit
Speaker 1: card companies saying that they would no longer support uh,
Speaker 1: financial transactions to sites like that. Bitcoin and lightcoad totally
Speaker 1: gets around that. So not only does it protect identities,
Speaker 1: but it also creates an open flow of income. Right.
Speaker 1: While researching this episode, I found a lot of um,
Speaker 1: you know, I was hanging out a bunch on sites
Speaker 1: that talk about stuff about torrent, ng and and and
Speaker 1: most of the consensus seem to be that you should
Speaker 1: not trust a torrent site that does not take um bitcoin. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The interesting thing for me is that bitcoin itself is
Speaker 1: such an unstable currency. Unstable in the mean in the
Speaker 1: sense that the value value fluctuates wildly. Yeah, much more
Speaker 1: than than currencies that are part of a stable economy. Right.
Speaker 1: So I'm not saying that bitcoin like bitcoin, may eventually
Speaker 1: settle down and become a perfectly viable, unstable form of currency,
Speaker 1: but right now you'll see the value fluctuates so wildly
Speaker 1: that you could if you were to look at your
Speaker 1: amount of bitcoins and compare it to dollars one day,
Speaker 1: you might be rich and the next day you might
Speaker 1: not be able to buy a big Mac. So well,
Speaker 1: it's I think that the point of it is is
Speaker 1: a political one and that UM that the idea behind bitcoin,
Speaker 1: which is kind of shaking your fist at the man
Speaker 1: very banks very much aligns with UM, with their with
Speaker 1: their philosophy and copyright. So where are they now? Yeah?
Speaker 1: So Lunstrom did in fact serve those four months that
Speaker 1: he was supposed to in Sweet under house arrest and
Speaker 1: has since returned to live in Switzerland. Okay. Gottfried's vatam
Speaker 1: Vari was indicted in April on hacking charges that were
Speaker 1: unrelated to the Pirate Bay. He's actually accused of hacking
Speaker 1: into the Nordia Bank to withdraw money, and several Swedish
Speaker 1: companies and the government's federal taxing agency databases as well. Um.
Speaker 1: He was also alleged to have stolen information including personal
Speaker 1: data and uh according to Wired in Ours Technica, he
Speaker 1: also has issues with drug abuse. This was after Gottfried
Speaker 1: and Frederick had Um had bugged out to Cambodia, to
Speaker 1: Laos to uh To to hang out in order to
Speaker 1: avoid being arrested under these charges that were that were
Speaker 1: levied against them, and Gottfried had been deported after breaking
Speaker 1: his visa agreement, getting himself arrested somehow I did not
Speaker 1: read how um, but but had been Yeah, have been
Speaker 1: departed back to Sweden and that and that is upon
Speaker 1: which he um. I don't think uh faced faced any
Speaker 1: any particular police man hunt or anything like that until
Speaker 1: he was brought up on these separate drug and hacking charges.
Speaker 1: And just to clarify, there was just one word that
Speaker 1: was dropped there, Cambodia and then Laos. Oh we do
Speaker 1: know they are two different countries. We do. We know
Speaker 1: that because I heard the pause, but I didn't hear
Speaker 1: the end in but yes, that is exactly what happened.
Speaker 1: So um. Yeah, they're actually more hacking charges on got
Speaker 1: free that are waiting for him in Denmark. So um
Speaker 1: and he's and he actually is. He has jail sentence
Speaker 1: went from from less than one year to two additional years,
Speaker 1: although again this is a different crime. This was the
Speaker 1: hacking crime. And he's the first, person, according to the
Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal, first person in Sweden to be sent
Speaker 1: to jail on hacking charges. So you founder of the pirate,
Speaker 1: They first hacker to go to jail for hacking in Sweden.
Speaker 1: I guess that's a legacy. Yes, Uh Frederick. Meanwhile, is
Speaker 1: Um still hanging out? Yeah? He has a he has
Speaker 1: a family there. Yes, he has a wife and child.
Speaker 1: Um the statue of limitations on his prison sentences five years,
Speaker 1: and he said that he's willing to wait. Yeah, actually
Speaker 1: less politely than I just said that, right. He said
Speaker 1: it in such a way that we cannot even repeat
Speaker 1: it on our podcast. Or we could, but I don't
Speaker 1: know that either of us are willing to do that.
Speaker 1: But anyway, he essentially said that if he just waited
Speaker 1: out the statue of limitations on the the sentence, that
Speaker 1: you know, he could come back and there's nothing anyone
Speaker 1: could do because he had you know, the statue of
Speaker 1: limitations is over. There's no legal basis to go after
Speaker 1: him anymore. So he says, yeah, I can just wait
Speaker 1: that out. I don't have a problem with that, And uh,
Speaker 1: they can't because of Swedish law and because of the
Speaker 1: specific crime he was accused of. There's no basis for
Speaker 1: an inner national warrant of arrest, so they can't come
Speaker 1: after him in Laus either, So he just can wait. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then there's Peter Sunda who is currently developing a
Speaker 1: smartphone app called Himils. It's h e mL dot i s,
Speaker 1: which is from the Swedish word and by the way,
Speaker 1: I'm sure I completely butchered that because I didn't look
Speaker 1: up how this one was said, and I apologize, but
Speaker 1: it could have entire consonants that we didn't didn't even read. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but anyway, it's from the Swedish word for secrecy and uh.
Speaker 1: It's an app that is meant to allow encrypted communication
Speaker 1: between people to keep messages safe from other parties, namely
Speaker 1: organizations like the n s A, which, if you listen
Speaker 1: to our Prism episodes, you've heard all about the n
Speaker 1: s A and the n s a's habit of spying
Speaker 1: on communications, particularly between foreign governments and foreign agents. Now
Speaker 1: keep in mind paid or Sunday Sunda rather is from Sweden,
Speaker 1: so he falls under that category of you know, someone
Speaker 1: at least he falls under the category of foreign if
Speaker 1: not foreign agent, uh from the United States perspective, and
Speaker 1: so you know, obviously it makes sense to for him
Speaker 1: to create some sort of encrypted messaging service that would
Speaker 1: allow people to have secure communications between one another without
Speaker 1: fear of it being read by the n s A.
Speaker 1: Now that all that being said, to keep in mind,
Speaker 1: the n s A is the organization in the United
Speaker 1: States that specifically focuses on cryptography and decryption. So just
Speaker 1: encrypting it does not necessarily I mean that, it doesn't
Speaker 1: mean it will be unreadable forever. It may, however, practically
Speaker 1: mean that if you use an encryption that's long enough,
Speaker 1: that's that's complicated enough that the their statue of limitations
Speaker 1: runs out, or yeah, or that's just so hard that
Speaker 1: the return on investment is so low that they want
Speaker 1: are like, well, there's got to be a better way
Speaker 1: of getting this data, because by the time we end
Speaker 1: up figuring out what's being said, it's no longer going
Speaker 1: to be relevant to anything. Yeah. So uh. He ended
Speaker 1: up raising about a hundred fifty dollars from more than
Speaker 1: ten thousand backers within a day and a half of
Speaker 1: launching his his campaign to create this app. And and
Speaker 1: from what I can tell, I mean because he's still
Speaker 1: you know, he has not served any of his prison sentence.
Speaker 1: He has not um, he's not paid any of those
Speaker 1: fines that were levied against them, and basically he doesn't
Speaker 1: care as far as I can tell he's just running
Speaker 1: around the world, uh, you know, giving presentations talking about
Speaker 1: important stuff, raising funds and yeah, and that's yeah, it's
Speaker 1: like the Pirate Bay UH court case is just over.
Speaker 1: It's just done something that was something he was required
Speaker 1: to go to the court and sit through it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like he got a time out. So yeah, he's actually
Speaker 1: seeking clemency from the Swedish government for the fines um.
Speaker 1: And you know, he's really focusing on this encryption messaging service, which,
Speaker 1: by the way, it would actually send UH messages in bulk.
Speaker 1: It would encrypt the messages and then send it in
Speaker 1: bulk across borders to be decrypted at another server and
Speaker 1: then in bulk and then delivered. So in other words,
Speaker 1: the reason why you would put these in bulk is
Speaker 1: because when you have all the messages mixed together and encrypted,
Speaker 1: it makes it even more difficult to sort it out
Speaker 1: and figure out who sent what. So that could be
Speaker 1: the key to keeping the n s A from decrypting
Speaker 1: these messages is that it's not just that you're decrypting
Speaker 1: a single message like I wouldn't be sending It wouldn't
Speaker 1: be one line of message that I would send to Lauren,
Speaker 1: it would be my message grouped with everyone else's messages
Speaker 1: if they were to be intercepted. Um. So really, I
Speaker 1: mean the focus there, I guess would be on trying
Speaker 1: to find a way of intercepting messages after they reached
Speaker 1: the decryption so ERB and we're sent out, But that
Speaker 1: would be pretty difficult to So it's an interesting approach
Speaker 1: and we'll see how that turns out. There was another
Speaker 1: person that you had found, someone who had been involved
Speaker 1: in the Pirate Bay toward the last few months, Tobias
Speaker 1: Tobias Anderson, right. Um, he launched the Promo Bay, which
Speaker 1: used the front page of the Pirate Bay to allow
Speaker 1: independent artists to promote their work. And um uh, I
Speaker 1: think it's a fascinating project because you know, again, it's
Speaker 1: it's encouraging independent artists to um to allow the free
Speaker 1: sharing of their work under the assumption that people will
Speaker 1: pay them for it once they have heard it for free, gotcha. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And and we've seen cases of that. We've seen people
Speaker 1: who have offered up music for free and then they've
Speaker 1: had like, if you like this, here's where you can
Speaker 1: pay for it, or pay me what you think it's worth. Uh.
Speaker 1: Jonathan Colton has done that quite a bit. I mean,
Speaker 1: Amanda Palmer and uh the Dresden Dolls. Uh. So it
Speaker 1: tends to be these groups that already have a pretty
Speaker 1: firm grasp on Internet culture and already have a pretty
Speaker 1: pretty big you know, for about for lack of a
Speaker 1: better word, cult following online and um, you know, and
Speaker 1: unofficial studies you know. Uh, Amanda Palmer's husband, Neil Gaiman
Speaker 1: released a free version of The American Gods and and
Speaker 1: his publisher found that legal sales went up. So so
Speaker 1: there does seem to be at least some support for that,
Speaker 1: although you know clearly you're going to really to really
Speaker 1: establish it would require a pretty tough study because you know,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of variables, right There's there's just
Speaker 1: increased awareness of the existence of something, and someone might
Speaker 1: not know that there is a free way of getting
Speaker 1: it versus buying it. Like, there's a lot of different
Speaker 1: factors that you have to account for. But in general,
Speaker 1: it does seem like if you take this approach, people
Speaker 1: tend to wart you. Right. Also, I would like to
Speaker 1: note that Neil Gaiman is is not only Amanda Palmer's husband,
Speaker 1: he has his own qualities and look it described before
Speaker 1: he married Amanda Palm. I meant to, I meant to
Speaker 1: merely associate the fact that they are culturally um entangled.
Speaker 1: Also the Sandman funny books, right, yeah, those, I've read
Speaker 1: about that in the funny papers. Um uh. Well. Getting
Speaker 1: back to Tobias Anderson, I like you read out his
Speaker 1: full statement, but I just like the bit about the
Speaker 1: Pirate Bay in its current form must end. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: he he had this really, He announced his resignation from
Speaker 1: it in July, basically saying that the Pirate Band I'll
Speaker 1: just read the quote, the Pirate Ban its current form
Speaker 1: must end. It is not built and meant for what
Speaker 1: is coming the future. Copy fights will need something better, faster, safer,
Speaker 1: something that does not depend on a few persons will
Speaker 1: to sacrifice themselves. The world needs something that is impossible
Speaker 1: to take down, no matter what raids, laws and scare
Speaker 1: tactics they will throw at you. See. I like that
Speaker 1: statement only because when it starts off, it sounds like
Speaker 1: he has become disenchanted with what the Pirate Bay is doing.
Speaker 1: And then he says, no, they're not doing enough, and like,
Speaker 1: oh man, I was I was ready to ride this
Speaker 1: ride and now I don't feel right. UM. So here's
Speaker 1: here's another little bit of information I thought was interesting.
Speaker 1: So UH, a company called IPSOS m M I did
Speaker 1: a survey in Norway. This just covers UH piracy in
Speaker 1: in Norway and and and consumer behavior in Norway. But
Speaker 1: that study found that piracy of music had dropped eighty
Speaker 1: two point five percent over four years and TV piracy
Speaker 1: dropped by more than half in that same amount of time.
Speaker 1: And they the survey drew the conclusion that at least
Speaker 1: part of the reason for this was because there were
Speaker 1: a lot more outlets where you could legally get this
Speaker 1: content and it was easier to find, the access was
Speaker 1: simple and UH and usually also that it was priced
Speaker 1: in such a way that it made sense to the consumer.
Speaker 1: So I would argue that there are a lot of
Speaker 1: services that are really cutting down like taking the bite
Speaker 1: out of piracy, stuff like UM services that allow same
Speaker 1: day UH debut on the online as stuff that appears
Speaker 1: in movie theaters, which, by the way, movie theater owners hate.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you know that because that's a tough industry
Speaker 1: to just running a movie theater and to have the
Speaker 1: content come out online at the same time as it
Speaker 1: comes on the theater is that's a tough thing. There's
Speaker 1: there's different groups of people who want to go to
Speaker 1: a theater and who want to download something online to
Speaker 1: see to me and introverts versus extroverts thing. And also
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I feel like I feel like
Speaker 1: if it's something like Pacific rim like I would want
Speaker 1: to see and it's something that's a spectacle film, you
Speaker 1: definitely want to see it on a big screen well.
Speaker 1: And also like streaming services things like Spotify, Pandora, which
Speaker 1: allows you to listen to music for free. You know,
Speaker 1: you're getting ads, so it's ads supported, but you're also
Speaker 1: listening to, uh, you know, to stuff that that really
Speaker 1: interests you. You don't have to end up downloading something
Speaker 1: that may or may not have malware involved. You can
Speaker 1: listen to it safely and legally. And and just and
Speaker 1: just the price and available availability of music on on
Speaker 1: Amazon and iTunes and Google and Google everything. And then
Speaker 1: you've got you know, television and movies that are available
Speaker 1: on things like Amazon Prime, Hulu plus, Netflix, all of
Speaker 1: these different services that are uh that are growing around
Speaker 1: the world. I mean in the United States we've got
Speaker 1: access to a lot of them, but they're starting to
Speaker 1: appear in other countries as well, and that I think
Speaker 1: are an industry response to to piracy. They're saying, well,
Speaker 1: you know, it's I feel like piracy is mostly mostly
Speaker 1: people saying why won't you let me give you my money? Right?
Speaker 1: There are certain I think for a certain population, particularly
Speaker 1: the younger population of pirates, it's more like I want
Speaker 1: access to stuff and I don't have any way of
Speaker 1: getting it other than piracy, which may be either access
Speaker 1: or it may be financially motivated. There is and and
Speaker 1: there's also a certain punk rock segment of the community
Speaker 1: that is always going to be like a copyright is dumb,
Speaker 1: why does it exist? Or information should be free? Right,
Speaker 1: There's gonna be a segment of the population that isn't
Speaker 1: even thinking along those lines and just says, this thing
Speaker 1: exists and therefore I want it and I should have it,
Speaker 1: and I'm entitled. But but I think that's the minority.
Speaker 1: I think that most people, you know, if you were
Speaker 1: to give them a legal, safe way, for example, getting
Speaker 1: Game of Thrones without having to subscribe to HBO and
Speaker 1: a cable package, then that might mean that more people
Speaker 1: would be willing to support that content. Now, you know,
Speaker 1: This is a complicated issue because there are a lot
Speaker 1: of different parties involved. It's not just the content creators,
Speaker 1: it's the companies that provide the platform for these things,
Speaker 1: and and long histories of of you know, in the
Speaker 1: case of Game of Thrones, for example, will company agreements
Speaker 1: with service providers. Sure, yeah, this gets really complicated. It's
Speaker 1: not like someone just has the freedom to say, oh,
Speaker 1: that totally makes sense, will make way more money if
Speaker 1: we don't, like George R. Martin is going like, no,
Speaker 1: keep it all on broadcast television. It's it's an obligate,
Speaker 1: it's an obligation thing. Yeah, but there wasn't nearly enough
Speaker 1: beard in that voice for George RR. Martin quote. But yeah,
Speaker 1: so so, I mean, it's like we said, it's very complicated.
Speaker 1: But it does seem that the more legitimate avenues are opened,
Speaker 1: the more likely people will stop pirating stuff because it's
Speaker 1: just as easy and it's safer to buy it or
Speaker 1: to access it in a legal way than it is
Speaker 1: to pirate. And that seems to be the argument all around,
Speaker 1: is that if you make it easier and uh and safer,
Speaker 1: then there's no reason for people to go this extra
Speaker 1: route where they could either encounter malware or perhaps the
Speaker 1: wrath of one of these enormous organizations. It makes more
Speaker 1: sense to go the legal route. UM. So, I mean
Speaker 1: it's you know, we'll have to see if that continues.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a lesson that every industry learns on
Speaker 1: its own, right. We saw the record industry learn it first.
Speaker 1: The movie and TV industry is still learning it right.
Speaker 1: Industry publishing industry is a little behind. But that's the
Speaker 1: thing is that we see this happen over and over again.
Speaker 1: It's and it's almost exactly the same story each time. Yeah.
Speaker 1: That that Computer Museum in um Lynch Being Sweden. The
Speaker 1: curator Thomas Clifford, when he when he got that that
Speaker 1: original server that the Pirate Bay was hosted on UM
Speaker 1: was talking about the impact that the Pirate Bay has
Speaker 1: had on on the world and why he wanted to
Speaker 1: have this as part of his exhibit, and he said,
Speaker 1: it's been a good way for people all over the
Speaker 1: world to take part of a lot of cultural expressions.
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about the right or wrong of it here,
Speaker 1: but simply stating that it has had a culturally enabling effect.
Speaker 1: Interesting and I feel like that that I mean that's
Speaker 1: it's that's a valid statement. It definitely has had a
Speaker 1: cultural effect. And really, I mean it's it's changing industries.
Speaker 1: It's not just cultural, it is industrial. We're seeing entire
Speaker 1: industries respond to this and then adapt with this being
Speaker 1: a reality. And uh, you know, I think in the
Speaker 1: long run things are going to be all right, Right,
Speaker 1: It's just that every time this an industry encounters. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, well, you know, any content creator is not
Speaker 1: gonna want to Just think. I put in so much time, effort,
Speaker 1: and money into creating this thing, and now people are
Speaker 1: just taking it, whether you're the person who's actually making
Speaker 1: it or you're the person who's providing the tools for
Speaker 1: people to make it. Whatever. I want everyone to get
Speaker 1: paid for for what they do. Yeah, I think that's groovy. Personally,
Speaker 1: I don't pirate anything anymore. I used to. I was
Speaker 1: a terrible pirate. I'm not terrible pirate. Was actually pretty
Speaker 1: good at it. Um. But I don't do that anymore.
Speaker 1: Patch Jonathan no, no, I got a hook. Uh. I
Speaker 1: don't do anymore. But at the same time, I'm like,
Speaker 1: please make it easier for me to buy the things
Speaker 1: I love, because if if, if it is I'll buy them,
Speaker 1: and if it's not, I don't buy them, and either,
Speaker 1: you know, either you get my money or you don't
Speaker 1: get my money. So all right, Well, this wraps up
Speaker 1: this discussion about the Pirate Bay. It's an interesting and
Speaker 1: very you know, obviously polarizing kind of of topic. Uh,
Speaker 1: let's know what you think you know? Are are you?
Speaker 1: Are you of the mindset that copyright should just go
Speaker 1: away entirely? Does it just need to be adjusted to
Speaker 1: need to be tweaked so it's not quite so extensive
Speaker 1: as it is right now? Do you think that's ever
Speaker 1: going to happen or is it just going to require
Speaker 1: a world like the one the Pirate Bay has envisioned
Speaker 1: where the copyright doesn't matter because you can just get
Speaker 1: around it anyway. Any let us know what you think.
Speaker 1: We're really excited to hear from you. Also, if you
Speaker 1: have any suggestions for future topics, let's know that too.
Speaker 1: You can get in touch with us in one of
Speaker 1: many ways. If you have a lot to say, I
Speaker 1: recommend email. That's a tech stuff at Discovery dot com.
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Speaker 1: characters are fewer, try Twitter. You can find us. There
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Speaker 1: got something somewhere in the middle and you think that
Speaker 1: it's really funny and it should appear on our Facebook page,
Speaker 1: go to Facebook. We're Tech Stuff HSW there too, Lauren
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