The Pirate Bay punts BitTorrent cloaking device
IPRED gets IPREDator
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The Pirate Bay's swashbuckling Swedes have launched their very own VPN service, hoping to combat a new Swedish law that would force ISPs to cough up the personal details of suspected copyright infringers.
The new law is called IPRED (Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive). And the new VPN is an IPREDator.
"The network is under our control, not theirs," reads a post announcing the new service, designed to anonymize BitTorrent traffic. "The Pirate Bay likes and knows real kopimism. And waffles."
IPREDator is currently in private beta, and you can request an invite by supplying your email address. The VPN (Virtual Private Network) is slated for public release before April 1, when the new law takes effect.
The service costs €5 per month, and the swashbuckling Swedes say they will collect no personal data if you sign up. Um, well, other than an email address.
Based on the European Union's IPRED directive, the new Swedish law allows both cops and copyright holders to nab the personal details of an ISP's users who are suspected of swapping copyrighted content via the net. That includes phone numbers and email addresses.
In November, The Pirate Bay said it had 22 million active peers, up from 12 million just six months earlier. But for years, Swedish authorities have struggled to shut down the famous BitTorrent tracker. In 2006, the cops raided the site, and its brain trust is currently on trial for copyright infringement.
Clearly, they intend to fight this one all the way down the line. But here at The Reg, we question whether the IPREDator is much more than a play-on-words. Odds are, the average Pirate Bayer won't pay €5 for anything. ®
COMMENTS
@ Sean Baggaley
"You know, even back in the days of the travelling harpers of Ireland, composers and entertainers were treated with more respect than you've suggested.
Michelangelo, Leonardo Da Vinci and Turlough O'Carolan were all *recompensed* for their work. And copyright didn't even exist back then.
Explain, please, why you demand people provide you with free entertainment. Go on. I'm listening."
Each and every one of those you named were paid for live performancies or original versions. No one is saying artists shouldn't be allowed to carry on doing live performances or selling originals.
This is the crux of the problem. Most artists nowadays believe they should only have to do a few days work in the studio once every couple of years and maybe 4 or 5 evenings performances a year and are pushing to get paid for this 90 years on. They already get paid for it 50 years on.
This is why people have a problem with it. All the artists you mention got paid for actually working - doing live performances or creating originals. Not for copies of the acts or works that cost no one anything to produce.
The fact is, as demonstrated by how quickly tickets sell out, the demand exists for these various forms of entertainment, but the supply is not provided yet despite not being willing to provide the supply to fill the demand they still expect to get paid millions.
If artists actually worked 37hrs+ a week like the rest of us (even if they still got their high wages) I'd have more sympathy for them. But seeing as they only work a few hours a year and get paid far more than most I have zero sympathy.
If they want more money they can fucking work for it like the rest of us and not expect us to pay them for not working - that's what dole scroungers do.
@andy Barber
Public Library = Public Lending Rights.
Google.
Talent? @Colin
>>These people have talents beyond the understanding of the average joe
Not really, talent rarely comes into it, saleability is the comodity they have, I have found that the average session musician has far more actual musical talent than those that are famous for their music.
As pointed out above, there are far more rare skills which are hardly ever rewarded, but vacuous popular "artists" get rewarded in vast quantities for talents which ARE very common, with advertising, showmanship, production (basically investment) they become popular and the investment of the record companies pay dividends.
Don't get me wrong, there are talented popular musical artists, but please don't assume that just because they are popular and work hard at what they do that they have any musical talent whatsoever.
I wonder, if the music industry was less about saleability and more about talent, would people be more likely to pay for it? personally I think that if the music was truely artistic and less disposable then people would give it more respect, but as it is, the downloaders pay what it's worth (nothing), I paid a lot for my original Dylan and Joy Division albums (as they are worth it), who will be looking back with the same affection on their SClub 7 albums? (ps. Britney is a real artist, in a different era she would have far more respect and a far less manufactured catalog of music, she is very misunderstood).
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