I should have got back into this one sooner, but I want to respond to Mapleleaf's point about "should we ban libraries?"

What libraries do is totally different from what Pirate Bay are doing, as follows:

1. When you borrow a book from a library, you are only borrowing it - you have to give it back after a couple of weeks. When you download a music file illegally, you will presumably keep it.

2. When a library adds a new book to their shelves, they have to pay for it. For each payment, they get ONE book they can loan out. Whereas using torrenting, I could buy a CD from a record shop and use Pirate Bay to allow thousands or even millions of people to get a copy of it at the same time. Libraries don't buy one book and then make thousands of copies of it.

Libraries and Pirate Bay are not the same at all, and this is a totally spurious comparison.

@Dingleberry Jones - I'm not advocating a socialist society only a fairer one. I take your point about musicians, authors etc should be able to charge the going rate just like any other businessman and be entitled to make a profit. But my point remains we (the taxpayers) don't pay for every other businessman's raw material, wghereas we do pay for people who own intellectual property to acquire the intellect in the first place.

Maybe we should scrap all post 16 education and then see if the musicians, graphic designers and authors etc would invest their own money in their long term business?

Can I add that I have created 'intellectual property' which i may one day wish to sell - at the moment i give it away. When I created it I did it for the sake of doing it, not to get rich quick - art for art's sake, that's what I say.

@Maniac,
I can't say I understand what you are saying. Are you saying that since the taxpayers developed the intellect of a musician, that they are entitled to share in the proceeds of that intellectual property? If so, don't other businessmen succeed because of their intellect?

Theft is when one individual takes the property of another with the intention of depriving the owner of it's value, be it temporarily or permanently, right? So surely downloading illegal music isn't theft (hear me out)

I've downloaded some illegal songs in my time. Most of them I would never have bought otherwise, so in this circumstance the song is not stolen... I haven't deprived the artist of their song, or the money it's worth, since I wasn't intending to buy it otherwise. I'm not stopping them selling it again, and who knows, I may even go out and buy the album if I like the songs I have downloaded. I'm sure there'll be someone who's quick to point out a hole in this theory, but those are my thoughts.

I'm not saying it's not illegal, just suggesting in some circumstances it's technically not theft.

If I steal your car while you are on vacation in another country, so I am not depriving you of its use, then it isn't theft?

As long as I have it back before you get back that is...

Well that's different - a car is property, a song isn't. A song can be copied with no harm to the original, a car can't. A downloaded song is a copy, not the same song which the artist wrote.

So in other words, 'theft' has nothing to do with it. You don't believe you can possess something that you can't hold in your hand, correct?

Dingle - I have to admit that's a fair point.
How about if Glorious didn't even know you had it:
Glorious goes away, leaving his car at home knowing he owns a car and it will be there when he gets back.
You borrow it whilst he's out, and return it in just as good condition as it was.
He didn't know you had it, but only knows that this sort of thing does happen whilst you're not looking.

Now suppose instead of a car, he runs a company that loans out vans to people (removals maybe?), and you borrow a van that isn't being used
You move your stuff from A->B
You put the van back, and he doesn't know that you used it.
----
The way I see it, the 2nd scenario is actually very like the music thing. If you use the van, then you're not paying him for the right to use the van.

What if I sit in your house and watch TV while you are out of the country? Are you cool with that?

why would they even go after PirateBay?
ISOhunt and Demonoid are far better and much more popular.

Say you work at a parking lot. You go on break, and someone parks their car while you were away. They didn't pay for the use of the lot, but went in for free. I think that's a better example.

@ Jann:

1) are ISOhunt and Demonoid under Swedish jurisdiction?
2) even if they are, there is the simple matter of starting somewhere and TPB is pretty high profile - quality of service is utterly irrelevant.

@ Glorious:

I just do not follow your argument.

"I've downloaded some illegal songs in my time. Most of them I would never have bought otherwise, so in this circumstance the song is not stolen... "

You seem to be claiming that if you take something that is not yours and without permission but it is something you would never have paid for then it does not count as crime...

Well, I must go and nick a Bentley then cos I'll never get round to buying one.

DJ, I think there's a natural hesitancy to lend you a van or let you sit in my house and watch TV because I don't trust you to return them or not damage them or otherwise lower their value to me. If you were a close friend, I would have no problems, even though the risk still exist. In addition, lending you a van deprives anyone else of a van if they wanted to borrow my van. In Onar's example, I have limited parking spaces so taking one for free lowers the value of the parking lot.

If we're going full hypothetical and saying that you by definition return everything in the same condition and same value and I know that nobody else will be needing to borrow my van, or say I have practically infinite vans and parking spaces then I would have to say that no I don't have a problem with you doing that.

The situation is different with music in the form of information, because I don't need you to return the song, because I still have the song. Nor does it prevent others who want the song from having the song, since it's practically unlimited in supply. You must admit there are certain very important differences between things such as vans, tvs, or parking spots and music in the form of information.

Hello again to everyone positng on this thread. I think it's been a fascinating discussion so far and without too much of the flaming you normally see.

I publish a free-of-charge rock music fanzine* in north-east England and will be featuring the Pirate Bay story in my next issue. I would very much like to reproduce some of the comments above in my article. I am especially keen to reproduce some of the comments made by Mapleleaf, Flashman and Chrispminis above. Would any of you object to me doing so?

(I will attribute the comments to your usernames or, if you wish to provide them, your real names. If anyone wants to discuss this with me outwith this forum, please email me at: [email protected])

* which, before you ask, I do allow people to freely copy, as long as they copy (a) the enture fanzine, not just individual items or pages, and (b) they don't intend to sell or otherwise profit from the material I've created, or pass it off as their own writing.

You have my full permission... as long as you don't misquote... user name would be fun, but I am one of those who believe in being counted, so you can use the real one if you prefer.

Thank you very much Flashman.

What about you guys, Mapleleaf / Chrispminis?

Sure, no problem.

Oh,true,didn't consider the jurisdiction part. I just assumed that if PirateBay was attacked,Demonoid and isohunt would've also been prosecuted in their respective countries.

Thank you Mapleleaf.

The full article - in which I may quote your comments - will be posted on my MySpace within the week, at: www.myspace.com/heavymagazine

@ "You seem to be claiming that if you take something that is not yours and without permission but it is something you would never have paid for then it does not count as crime"

I never said it wasn't a crime. I said it's arguable whether it is theft or not. Stealing a Bentley is not the same - the owner is deprived of the Bentley. Say you steal a CD from a shop, then the shop owner is deprived of the value of that CD which someone else would have bought had you not stolen it. Now imagine there is an infinite number of CD's in the shop. By taking one, you are not stopping others from buying it as there are an infinite ammount to fill it'sa place. If you had otherwise intended to buy the CD, then you are depriving the shop owner of it's price, but if you weren't, then you deprive the owner of nothing.

Whilst I see your point Glor, I disagree with the application.
Even if you weren't going to buy the CD, you would have done something somehow. Quite possibly you'd have listened to the radio, in which case the money 'gets through' that way. Alternatively, maybe you wouldn't have listened to music at all, maybe you'd have watched TV. In that case the broadcasters are loosing another viewer because of the illegal music.

what if he just slept for another 3minutes that day?

Apart from the value of one item, why are we only allowed one Bentley in a shop but an infinite number of CDs? That seems somewhat loaded to fit your argument. It is, of course, impossible. There is a limit to the stock and shops do run out and people are unable to buy items accordingly.

And Glorius, I quote you again because it just does not scan:

"I've downloaded some illegal songs in my time. Most of them I would never have bought otherwise, so in this circumstance the song is not stolen... "

Every time I read this I cannot help thinking that most of the things people steal are things they would not have paid for otherwise. Crown jewels come to mind as well here.

no he means that he liked them enough to download them but doesnt like them enough to buy the cd,i.e if he couldnt download those songs he wouldnt listen to the band- makes sense to me

he could just as easily legally download the few songs he likes

"why are we only allowed one Bentley in a shop but an infinite number of CDs?"

Because there IS an infinite ammount of mp3 tracks that can be downloaded, each is just a copy whereas you can't "copy" a car. The ammount of times you download a song is limited only to the memory of your computer, whereas each individual Bentley must be manufactured.

"what if he just slept for another 3minutes that day?"

Ah, well then the bedsheet industry would benefit from the increased wear and tear on his sheets and pillows, meaning he'd have to replace them more often.