The Pirate Bay cries foul over Pirate Bay copycats

Beware of unauthorised copies of The Pirate Bay, comes a warning from, er… The Pirate Bay. The Swedish site notorious for indexing unauthorised copies of music, films and books has found itself being copied, and it doesn't like it one bit. On its blog, The Pirate Bay advises fans to use the authentic, original ThePirateBay and …

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha, ha, ha, ha...

It couldn't happen to a more deserving bunch of pirates.

[Tom Maddox]

Re: Ha, ha, ha, ha...

You, on the other hand, are my *least* favorite troll on the site.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Ha, ha, ha, ha...

THIS IS WHY I DONT EVEN USE THE INTERNET

[Iggle Piggle]

Re: Ha, ha, ha, ha...

AC, I love the fact that you are getting so many thumbs downs. I seriously wonder how anyone can fail to see the irony that an outfit that is hell bent on ensuring the hard work of others is freely copied is now the victim of being copied.

Imitation, flattery and all that bull aside, clearly it is painful when you have put in days or years of work only for someone to come along and insist they should be able to rip it off.

Some of my time is spent as a photographer. Time after time I have to explain to people that if they want a copy of the photo then they can pay me or go and take their own photo. How is this a difficult concept? How is this being unfair?

TPB spent years earning a reputation and now they are being copied it is clearly unfair and unreasonable behaviour that I cannot condone. That said it is still hugely ironic and very funny.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Ha, ha, ha, ha...

Can't tell if troll or idiot.

Either way I doubt you understand the issue.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Ha, ha, ha, ha...

Most people in developed countries are entitled little pricks that think everything in the world should belong to them. Then when they meet other entitled little pricks that think everything in the world should belong to them, they disagree with the other person's philosophy. I.e. the philosophy of TPB and their followers is "If it *can* be copied easily/freely, it *should* be copied. And distributed." And now they've learned that a site that indexes torrents of copyrighted material monetarily supported by ads is a *very* easy thing to copy, and so is their brand/image, and they're getting fussy about it. I can't think of a better example of assholery.

[Miek]

If they have a trademark, won't they need to call in the legal dogs in order for it to remain a trademark. I was under the impression that all trademark infringements must be defended against and if you fail to litigate against a trademark infringement; it may invalidate your trademark.

[Anonymous Coward]

Something like that, ceratinly...

Portakabin are viciously protective of their trademark, Google really hate people saying "google it" because it'll become just like Tannoy or Hoover, totally normal speech and therefore unprotectable.

However: I can hardly see TPB taking anyone to court for any IP issues, that would be the utmost hypocrisy.

[Dave 126]

Re: Something like that, ceratinly...

That I can confirm. I once put a portable site-toilet on eBay, only to find the next day that my listing had been removed at the request of Portakabin, who make Portaloos. Fair play, I guess, but I had never thought about it before, and had just assumed all festival bogs to be 'Portaloos'. Likewise, auxiliary standalone classrooms found on the grounds of seemingly every school in the country...

I can't take seriously anyone who uses 'bing' as a verb, either.

[Field Marshal Von Krakenfart]

Re: Something like that, ceratinly...

However: I can hardly see TPB taking anyone to court for any IP issues, that would be the utmost hypocrisy.

Oh, I don't know now....... hypocrisy yes, but the irony of it.

Consider this; if copyright infringement is wrong then it doesn't matter whose copyright/trademark is being infringed. The law is supposed to treat everybody equally.

Now, where's my popcorn..

[MrZoolook]

Re: Something like that, ceratinly...

"However: I can hardly see TPB taking anyone to court for any IP issues, that would be the utmost hypocrisy."

Maybe not a court in Sweeden, but how about Texas?

[Anonymous Coward]

What irony

Is there is no honor amongst thieves?

[ukgnome]

LULZ

Pirates pirate pirates

[Anonymous C0ward]

Re: LULZ

Buffalo buffalo?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Doctorow's story is funny in so many ways. Thanks for that Mr Orlowski.

[h4rm0ny]

Re: Doctorow story

It's even funnier when Doctorow wades into the comments section gets corrected again. And again. And again. He should climb back down into his Internet echo chambers where everyone can keep telling each other how right they are (and turning on the occasional free thinker who accidentally wanders in).

[Anonymous Coward]

errrr

Having used a proxie to actually read the blog post, its not a case of TPB moaning about infringing (to my knowledge the don’t give a "hoot") they are warning users that there are people out there charging for access and suggesting that you check another well known site (torrent freak) for up to date list of

[JDX]

Re: errrr

Yes of course that's how they present it.

[El Presidente]

LOL

Hot Freetard on Freetard action.

[Jeffrey Jefferson]

'Moooog'

Moooog can't even spell 'lets'.. His IQ wouldn't surprise me either.

[h4rm0ny]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Funniest thing I've seen this month.

[Mike Brown]

thats not what this article is about

the article dosent mention sueing people, or legal threats or anything that the el reg is mentioning. Its actually a warning not to pay for access to the proxies that have sprung up in the pirate bays semi absence.

poor show reg.

[Invidious Aardvark]

Re: thats not what this article is about

If you listen carefully, you'll hear the sound of Andrew grinding his axe in the background. He won't let small things like facts get in the way when he's crusading against the freetards.

Classic piece of personal bias and making a story about one thing about something else instead. For those who can't be bothered to click on the link and read it, the blog says:

"A lot of proxies in support of TPB are popping up, which is a good thing. But not all of these proxies are nice!

We've noticed at least 3 sites that are tricking users to buying access or similar. We do not condone this behaviour, The Pirate Bay is a free service!"

It then goes on to advise users to be wary of sites that are trying to charge for services and use sites that provide reliable lists of safe proxies. They do also say that it's is probably safest to use the original TPB site, which I guess is what caused Andrew to start frothing at the mouth and manufacture this drivel about IP and trademark infringement and how they could be using these protections to go after these scam sites.

TL;DR;

TPB say be careful on the internet, it's a hive of scum and villainy.

Andrew says HAHAHA IP TRADEMARK FREETARD IRONY

[MrZoolook]

Re: thats not what this article is about

"TPB say be careful on the internet, it's a hive of scum and villainy.

Andrew says HAHAHA IP TRADEMARK FREETARD IRONY"

Even so, there's still the irony that they warn us to be wary of scum and villainy, while they themselves ARE scum and villains!

[Mr Young]

Brnng,brnng - it's the phone

Hello? This is your local singularity calling

What? Press 1 to make a payment

What? Press 2 to disappear up your own arse

What? Press 3 to select option 1

[Ian Ferguson]

Try reading your sources before hurrying out a story

The Pirate Bay dislike these sites for charging users for access, not for 'copying' TPB's material.

In fact they actively encourage proxies.

Neither of the quoted articles mention 'trademark' once.

I'm sorry that the facts aren't bending to the convenience of your article, Andrew.

[Anonymous C0ward]

It's like raaaaaaaain

on your wedding day...

[Annihilator]

Re: It's like raaaaaaaain

The irony of course being that none of the examples represent irony, much like this case given TPB actively encourage copies/proxies and are just objecting to the money-grabbing elements?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: It's like raaaaaaaain

I'm going for the poster having actually read the comments to date, realising that, and ironically pointing towards the fact that the truth behind the story is not ironic at all by way of quoting a song which is not ironic.

Which you ironically call up for not being ironic, and the poster being wrong, after automatically assuming that you're smarter than they are.

Fortunately, one of the 10,000 knives in the drawer at work has a serrated side; so I can use it for cutting up my lunch.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: It's like raaaaaaaain

Song quote fail. 10,000 spoons when all you need is a knife.

[Steve Knox]

Whoooooosh

All of those people complaining that Andrew has missed the point have missed the point.

It's not about why The Pirate Bay dislikes these sites.

It's about the fact that TPB is well within their legal rights to get these sites shut down, but they won't because it doesn't fit with their ideology.

It's about the fact that the very attitude towards IP that is the soul of TPB is now being used to take advantage of their users, and the best TPB can do (without being complete hypocrites) are these weak advisories.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Whoooooosh

"the very attitude towards IP that is the soul of TPB"

I don't remember the pirate bay attempting to charge people for content that is available for free elsewhere... quite the reverse in fact.

[AdamWill]

Re: Whoooooosh

so...organization sticks to principles, orlowski points and laughs? well, that's about par for the course.

[Old Handle]

Re: Whoooooosh

Oh. That's even dumber than what I assumed the point was.

[mark l 2]

how many freetards are going to pay one of these proxy sites for accessing the torrents? Surely if the freetards were going to pay for the stuff they wouldn't be trawling torrent sites

[Anonymous Coward]

A few

TPB receives donations I believe, to help pay for its various hosting and legal ventures. Wouldn't surprise me if a few people trying to support TPB ended up paying a carbon copy while trying to help out.

[Annihilator]

Font??

"Using The Pirate Bay logo or font is a trademark violation"

Really? I'm not allowed to use Blackletter any more? Must let Microsoft know to remove Old English Text MT from Word installations too...

[phulshof]

Disappointed

I'm quite disappointed in the Register for posting an article with so little research behind it. As several have already mentioned: TPB doesn't care one bit that they're being copied. They're just warning people away from sites that resemble TPB, yet who try to squeeze money from unsuspecting users.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Disappointed

Agreed, this is a poor article.

[AlterEgo33]

Ignorance Is Bliss

The article portrays TPB as being hypocritically against the copying of their site.

In reality, TPB aren't bothered about the copying, they are bothered that people are being scammed out of money for access to TPB.

The article's author even recommends TPB take action that actually would make them hypocrites by calling in IP lawyers (again, demonstrating the author's sheer ignorance to the subject matter of the story).

The author is aware of the statements made by the parties involved but has drawn a conclusion that is contrary to what those statements imply. This is either bad journalism due to ignorance or a disingenous attempt to portray TPB as being hypocrites when they're not.

I expect better than this from The Register.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Ignorance Is Bliss

I can only assume that the author either failed to engage their brain and do 5 minutes of research (poor show for a reporter), or that they are just twisting the facts to make a political point for their own ends (poor show for a reporter, but poorer show for the editor).

I love the Reg, but the ridiculous soap-boxing of Andrew and Lewis is dragging the publication down to tabloid-like levels of respectability. Please, Reg: Sort it out. We expect a degree of frank opinion, humour and irony, but I'm just getting tired of having a couple of wilfully ignorant right-wing agendas shoved down my throat on a regular basis.

[MrZoolook]

Re: Ignorance Is Bliss

"In reality, TPB aren't bothered about the copying, they are bothered that people are being scammed out of money for access to TPB."

What I got from the article is that TPB are providing a service that allows people to rip off copyright owners on one hand, while complaining that other people are trying to rip off TPBs customers... the people who are ripping off content owners.

Who seriously gives a flying f**k about TPBs copyright anyway?

[Sean Timarco Baggaley]

@AlterEgo33, et al...

"In reality, TPB aren't bothered about the copying, they are bothered that people are being scammed out of money for access to TPB."

The point is that many users—mostly newbies—will be caught out by the scam sites. (And it's not actually that uncommon for some torrent uploaders to demand payment for encryption passwords either.)

TPB have no way to prevent this if they stick to their guns. How can you take down a website that is deliberately passing itself off as your own when you don't believe in the concept of intellectual property? All TPB can do is put up useless blog posts that those who are going to the scam sites instead won't get to see anyway.

TPB have become a victim of their own ideology. The article is merely highlighting the irony.

[Ole Juul]

When is a victim not a victim?

TPB have become a victim of their own ideology. The article is merely highlighting the irony.

Neither TPB nor their ideology is suffering, so they are not a victim - and hence there is no irony.

[MrZoolook]

Re: When is a victim not a victim?

There is most certainly irony. Irony that a site dedicated to taking revenue away from producers of software/film/audio is warning people about having their money taken away by others.

You don't see irony in that?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: When is a victim not a victim?

Nope.

The site isn't dedicated to taking money away from anyone. It's dedicated to free distribution. There's a marked difference.

[Anonymous Coward]

How could this even work?

People go to TPB to avoid forking out cash.

Therefore, why would anyone pay, in any circumstance?

[jake]

::snicker::

That is all :-)

[The Jase]

lol

[NomNomNom]

i've always thought one of the best best defences against pirates would be to flood their networks with misinformation. Seed faulty copies of movies - movies that turn into rick rolls midway through or lose sound 20 minutes. The movie industry just needs to pay people to sabotage the networks in this way and create a general feeling that downloading movies is unreliable. The more decentralized the networks are - especially peer to peer ones - the harder it is to prevent such misinformation floods. If you look up a movie and find 100 copies of it, how will you narrow it down to the 5 that aren't rickrolls?

[NomNomNom]

In terms of games, developers should compile faulty versions of the game and put them up on file sharing sites both before and after the real game is actually published on the market. Let the pirates copy the faulty versions around and spread them, making it harder later for pirates to track down the genuine versions.

The faulty versions should contain very subtle bugs - like random corruption of save files at infrequent times, or the end of the game simply not being there, it just crashes out at a certain point.

[Crisp]

Unfortunately, the system is self regulating.

The people that download torrents do occasionally talk to each other.

[NomNomNom]

Re: Unfortunately, the system is self regulating.

not if you flood the networks with fake personas who vouch for the authenticity of the faulty copies and warn people off the "real" copies. It becomes less accessible to newcomers who don't know who to trust. People get put off. Less people download/less people share. Network crumbles.

[Andrew Orlowski]

It's been done - this was very common practice a few years ago:

see “I poisoned P2P networks for the RIAA” – whistleblower

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/01/17/i_poisoned_p2p_networks/

posted 17th January 2003

[mrmond]

The networks already do this, it usually get spotted fairly quickly and then you see there are no seeds on a new torrent.

People grabbing torrents tend to download from someone who's built up a reputation for providing consistent seeds that are good.

[NomNomNom]

One thing to do there is to focus all prosecution effort going after and taking down the individuals "who have built up a reputation for providing consistent seeds that are good" who are essentially single points of failure for the network.

[Anonymous Coward]

*Groan*

I take it today you're having a fact-free day then Andrew...

Between a total failure to join up the words and understand the nature of the complaint (whatever you think of TPB, you have to acknowledge the difference between "wah, they're copying us, NO FAIR" and "those guys are copying us and charging for stuff we don't charge for, watch out") and a misrepresentation of Doctorow (again, there's a difference between "all re-use should be free" and "non-commercial attributed re-use should be easier", but hey, don't let facts get in the way...I guess you're still smarting from being the inspiration for Rat-Toothed Freddy) this is a sad return to the bad old days of Orlowski pieces, click-trolling at its worst.

[adam payne]

Irony

I don't really see how they can call in the lawyers when quite a lot of the material linked to by their site is illegal in the first place.

[MarKo1]

What a shame

This article does not reflect the reality... after reading this article I went over to the TPB to find totally different informations....I could not find anything about trademarks an so on.

If people like the author of this article are the one proposing laws ( bribery & lobbying) I start to believe that sites like TPB may have some good reasons to be up.

Shame on the register to post wrong informations.

[Anonymous Coward]

The scum leading the dumb

A sucker is born every second.