Many don't agree with the principles of TPB, but Sunde was willing to take risks for what he believed in. He deserves a lot of respect for that no matter what people think about the morality of what he helped to create. Most people go their whole lives without caring strongly about any issue at all, and almost all of those that do care are willing to sacrifice exactly nothing. I'd like to think that I would be willing to give up everything for what I believe is right. But everyone likes to <i>think</i> that. And most of us will never find out, not how Sunde did.<p>That said, everyone also wants to be a martyr. TPB wasn't about rights or freedoms or standing up to government oppression. People used it primarily to obtain media and software without paying for it. It does sound like a noble crusade when he expands the context to include SOPA or PIPA or net neutrality, but TPB isn't really related to those things and served only as a rallying point for people who feel strongly about them. The ideal of freedom of information is only tangential to fighting the good fights that he listed in the opening of the piece.<p>The truth is that Sunde didn't have to go to jail. TPB's popularity gave him a platform and helped him to centralize an ideological movement. But there are other ways to do that, significantly more effective ways. Martin Luther King (as an example, not a comparison) went to jail too, but he also went to the right schools, wore a suit and influenced the right people. Creating a popular and morally dubious website is a quick way to put your ideas into the spotlight. But it doesn't last, and it doesn't really change anything. His effort and conviction are genuinely admirable but he's still a long way from winning the battles that matter.
I'm sorry, but downloading entertainment is not a human right. He didn't exactly feed starving people by breaking the law. He put up a torrent aggregator to, mostly, Hollywood movies and shoved aggressive and high-revenue porn and malware ads into every nook and cranny of that site.<p>HN and those passionate about internet freedoms deserve better heroes than guys like Sunde, Dotcom, and Ulbricht. These guys very much enriched themselves via what was essentially a web based business and any "freedom fighter" argument is pretty disingenuous at this point.<p>Personally, I see malware coming from ad networks and other dirty tricks TPB did as a bigger issue than being able to watch Spiderman 3 without paying. Honestly, now he's painting himself as a some anti-spying hero when his site was the #1 vector of aggressive spy and malware onto people's computers? I mean, it fucking took over the search box when you clicked on it and launched a download to suspicious-toolbar.exe immediately. What link actually took you to the torrent? Not the dozen of so "DOWNLOAD NOW" buttons Sunde happily populated his site with. We need less of that stuff, please.
He went to jail for creating a website that enabled people to download music and movies without paying for them. Jail is a harsh punishment IMO for that. ACTA/SOPA etc. are all terrible things that we can't allow and we can't allow the internet to become more centralised/controlled by government. But that's not why he went to jail. Enabling illegal downloads of content has little to do with those causes.
I think the problem is that no one realizes the internet we grew up with and loved is changing fundamentally and we can't be passivist users of the medium anymore.<p>If you are you're basically saying you're okay with a future where governments regulate which services you can use and ISPs control how fast you can download bits based on whether you're using their sponsored services or not.<p>Its bullshit but its what's happening. At its core though, I think its a hardware problem. We REALLY need a decentralized networking solution to replace ISPs and DNS and if we don't get it, the road is going to be really hard going. This still doesn't solve the problem of intercontentinal networking, and I have no idea how we could solve that one without some monopoly/govt controlling everything.
I feel this is a very important article with a very important message, but I'm just not sure what I can do to help! They have money, guns, political support, media and very powerful, highly emotional rhetoric. The only thing I can do is hack on software, but most people don't care enough about "geeky stuff". I feel that the only way this issues will get resolved is if they get much, <i>much</i> worse first (i.e. high-profile people jailed for what they say, internet controlled China-style, disappearance of middle class, ...).
I don't agree with all (or most) of the principles of TPB, but I can appreciate his criticism of slacktivism. He had his beliefs, stood by them against the law, and served his time for it. It's unjustified to criticise a lack of action on his part.<p>My only concern with his methods would be if he hurt people in the process (indirectly through TPB). Also I fail to see how it was an effective protest against the things he mentioned in the article (SOPA, PIPA etc).
Last paragraph was biting and very powerful - side note: Who sends a copy of 1984 to Peter Sunde in prison?<p>"My feeling of some life-altering insight might be nothing but rants on the spoiled, lazy and naive parts of our internet community. And maybe I'm using those terms just to piss people off a little bit more. But hey. I went to jail for my cause and your TV shows. What did you do? You want that copy of Orwell's 1984 returned? I'll take one of the 25 copies I got sent to me in jail and send it back to you. Maybe you'll read it instead of just sending it to someone else to take care of."
This is a complex issue.<p>While I believe copying without compensation is bad, and not something to feel proud of, I also understand the position of a Chinese or a person from Ghana that have to work 15 times more to be able to access the same item than an American.<p>The West has used countries like Ghana to dump technological trash that make children get malformations and cancer.<p>Think on this for a moment: what does 20 dollars means for you, now multiply it x15.<p>Now if you want to access an important resource for you or your family like a book, what do you do? You pirate it.<p>Most of the people in this world economic power is closer to the people of Ghana that to the people in California.<p>Copyright is out of control, it should be like patents 20 years, with the extensions it is becoming eternal and making impossible to reuse any work legally.
> "What people reveal, what people fight for, are major causes. Freedom of information. Liberty. Democracy. Governmental transparency and due process."<p>I have a really hard time trying to link this with my experience on TPB. It's all about downloading stuff without paying for it. Honestly, that's it. I'm not proud of that, I'm not saying it's a noble thing to do. I really don't get what trying to "determine" what should or shouldn't be free by sharing other people's stuff without their permission has to do with freedom.
I see many people in this thread debating (1) whether Sunde is some sort of freedom fighter, and (2) the ethics of intellectual property law. In my interpretation Sunde is mainly arguing that people who are criticizing him for not defending TPB should instead get their hands dirty and make something that sidesteps the established internet control structures, for better or worse. I don't think that's such a controversial idea.
The man choosed to do what he did, but when they were heavily fined I already felt an obligation to pay a part of it, as I was a regular user before that. About the future of the web and other larger social questions, I find it hard to believe.. when it's mostly movies and tv shows (even though there was some hard to find vintage content on it sometimes). Lastly, as for anything, when technology N is unavailable, we go back to N-1. We won't stream the latest show from the other side of the planet right from peers in real time but well.
He mentions Snowden and Manning, but he left Dread Pirate Ulbricht off the list of comparative figures. A real shame because that may actually be a more accurate comparison.
What I did was finance a feature film and get it released on DVD. Shame some people think that they can just take all my investment and piss it on to the internet.
“The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.” - Wilhelm Stekel<p>I think we need Peter Sundes in this world to keep the rest of us vigilant ... I'm not sure going to jail for a cause really helps much either. While I admire him for sticking to his principles, I'd rather he was out in the world doing his work.
I like the way he selflessly teamed up with a Neo-Nazi. How noble.<p><a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/26/pirate_bay_neo_nazi/" rel="nofollow">http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/26/pirate_bay_neo_nazi/</a>
Do you think he's being ironic about the cell phones?
Seems like a strange stance on them if he's all in favor of skipping Facebook, for similar reasons and with similar consequences.
Wow all I see here is top-paid man-hours being used to produce a wall of text.<p>I'm not against discussion, but look at what are we doing, arguing to each others instead of just producing something valuable.
Some similar thoughts:<p><a href="http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.h...</a>
I think what most people here are missing is that TPB didn't actually host any illegal content and yet it still got shut down and its members sent to jail. Sunde went to jail for free speech and distributing completely legal files. I think that's implicit and am rather surprised that it's a point missed by so many people. In that sense, it's a lot more egregious than Manning or Snowden because, AFAIK, he did not commit any crimes. Perhaps he wants it to be a warning to people like many of the commenters here who are deriding or belittling his actions yet still claim to support free speech.<p>If the files he distributed contained freely available chemistry information, would he have been sent to jail for assisting others in making bombs or poison? That seems rather ridiculous, but that's essentially what equating his actions with piracy is actually doing.