Ed's Note:
This morning online piracy has been dealt a blow (major... minor... we're not yet sure) by the news that The Pirate Bay founders have been found guilty of ‘assisting in making copyright content available’ and sentenced to a year prison. (Pirate Bay Four Get A Year In Prison, TechRadar).
Last year, Total Film sat down with co-founder Peter Sunde and spoke to him about online piracy, copyright and the service they provide. Take a look below:
PirateBay.Org
Theft isn’t a word used in the offices of The Pirate Bay.
“We’re not anti-copyright,” co-founder Peter Sunde told us. “We just don’t give a damn about it.
"We don’t want people to change the copyright laws. Copyright doesn’t work – that means we don’t have to care about whether we’re for or against it.”
Since The Pirate Bay doesn’t actually hold copies and acts as a vast indexing service, Sunde argues the site isn’t breaking the law.
“[It's] a digital library where you can share anything in digital form.
"Since there aren’t a set number of copies that you can loan to people, we’re creating a library with an endless amount of information.
"This must be good for humanity, otherwise why aren’t we all shutting down libraries?”
There’s a major flaw with that logic though. None of the creators have agreed to put their work into this “digital library”.
Comments
fishosaurus
Dec 4th 2008, 17:56
"Surely if something's worth watching, it's worth rewarding the people who made it?" WHAT A STUPID THING TO SAY. How do you know if its worth watching until you've seen it? Especially when alot of/most films now are RUBBISH and definately NOT worth rewarding the people who made it (or even worth paying to see).
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murphy
Dec 5th 2008, 4:18
have to agree with fishosaurus i've bought hundreds of dvds and some of them have been stinkers so these days i'd rather check out a copy first before adding a film to my collection and i don't go to the cinema very often unless it's a film i'm really looking forward to there's been nothing since the dark knight that i've been willing to pay to watch because it's pretty damn expensive at my local cinema
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murphy
Dec 5th 2008, 4:20
and some of the crappy films that have been out lately they should have been paying me to watch!
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chicks
Dec 5th 2008, 10:32
How do you know if anything is worth paying for until you've paid for it? You wouldn't expect to get to live in a house for a month before you rented it, or play on a console before you bought it. Why expect that for movies?
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murphy
Dec 5th 2008, 15:20
well you get to view a house before you decide to rent it and most electrical stores have games consoles set up so you can try them out in the shop before you buy one most people make sure they like something before they hand over the money so chicks do you just purchase things in blind faith?
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ashley.russell
Apr 17th 2009, 14:48
the fact is cinema is too expensive but I'd rather pay to watch something like Wolverine with all the effects on a giant screen then download a s****y unfinished version. I got more respect for film making than that. 7 or 8 quid for a ticket is rediculous though.
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spudmonkeysteve
Apr 17th 2009, 14:52
seriously Chicks, you can try most things before you buy them these days and you have the right to a refund if they are not suitable. The film industry is one of the few places where if you don't like what you saw you are not entitled to a refund so why shouldn't you be allowed to view it before you commit to owning it? Why is it any different than borrowing a dvd off a mate? I personally avoid downloading films because I don't like doing it but on the odd occasion where I have watched a downloaded film and it has been good I have recommended it to friends who have bought the DVD and in a lot of instances bought it myself as a result of liking the film. If filmmakers were confident in the quality of their output they would not need to worry about downloading because people would treat it as a preview and those that don't buy it would not have bought it anyway. Too much of Hollywoods output is based around the smash and grab Blockbuster mentality, whereby they get as many people to see it as possible before people start to realise how bad the film actually is.
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EthanRunt
Apr 17th 2009, 14:53
I've always felt guilty about watching some films online, so much so I go out of my way to buy copies of them, even if they are relative stinkers, Departed, looking at you. With Wolvierine I couldn't care less, summer film I wanted to watch turned into some awful soppy film about hugh making $20 million and the audience will suffer hell. And most of the films this year have been averaging around 4/10, not good at all, It's time we turned our back and let them reboot cinema, until then you can suffer the low quality online, or watch the classics at home on DVD.
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