Talk:The Pirate Bay

North Korean joke

Please, the North Korean thing is a JOKE. Sure they've might have moved to asia (where one of the founder is now living), but it is NOT PRK. Please stop adding that until you have a confirmed routing to PRK. The TPB "press release" is NOT enough to add this as a fact, they have claimed this once before without it being true. BTW, the routing right now ends up in Germany.

Thepiratebay.se pings to 194.71.107.15 which hosts 30 domains associated with TPB. But, 194.71.107.15 points to thepiratebay.org, which pings to 194.71.107.50. This IP is registered to Resilans AB in Germany. However, it traces to a server at Resilans AB in Sweden.74.108.115.191 (talk) 12:28, 5 March 2013 (UTC) norwegian news confirmed it and since it was in norway right before that the norwegians should know.

Thepiratebay.su?

There is a mirror at this address, but its status is questionable. Bearing in mind the potential for spreading malware, this should not be added to the article. The .su domain has a history of misuse.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 09:39, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

.GL move/infobox

Should the infobox domain reflect the history of the domain, or only the most recent? With one change, from .org to .se, it looked ok. But with two changes, it seems cluttered. Discuss? --Lexein (talk) 12:47, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

This is similar to the recent move to the .tt domain by KickassTorrents. Torrent sites seem to be having increasing issues with finding a government backed TLD that will host them, and this should be reflected in the article. Kim Dotcom wanted me.ga but was denied by the government of Gabon.[1]--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 13:03, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

I added the .gl info to the body, though not in a visually obvious place - it currently follows the move to .se. That Torrent sites seem to be having increasing issues with finding a government backed TLD that will host them seems clear to me, but it would need a source, to avoid synth or OR. --Lexein (talk) 14:56, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

It looks like TPB is off the .gl domain and back on the .se domain, but there is nothing about it on their Twitter or Facebook feed at the moment. Incidentally, KickassTorrents did not last long on .tt either, and is back on kat.ph.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 18:36, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Aaaaaaand that's why we try not to act like a news outlet. We lag, in order to be a better encyclopedia. --Lexein (talk) 08:40, 13 April 2013 (UTC) Followup: there's this essay by User:Joe Decker on WP:Breaking news sources. --Lexein (talk) 18:55, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Move to .is domain

Aaaaaaand the beat goes on with .is, and now .sx. Please read WP:NOTNEWS and the discussion here before newsflashing the ever bouncing domain ball. It's not going to settle down anytime soon, so let's not be led around by our noses. In fact, I'm thinking of adding a whole section called "Domain-go-round". Anybody else care to revert the most recent change for a week? --Lexein (talk) 16:58, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

TPB currently seems to be playing musical chairs with its domain. It is unclear whether the .is domain will last for long, so some caution is needed.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 17:04, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

At the time of writing, TPB is using the .sx domain (Sint Maarten). This may as well be in the infobox, as it is the current correct address of the site. It is worth pointing out that TPB had four domains in April 2013.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 05:16, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

.sx domain in the UK

Re this edit. The .sx version is blocked by UK ISPs, eg screenshot from Virgin Media here. The effectiveness of the blocking is questioned by BBC News here.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 04:56, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

I keep forgetting to add the details, glad others have waited, then added. At this point, I wonder about the proposed 7 day lag; it makes one kind of sense, but maybe it also stifles editor momentum too much. I also wonder about the needed level of detail about TPB domains and blocking; it all seems so ... trivial, now. --Lexein (talk) 05:46, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Pirate Bay co-founder charged with hacking and fraud

This is in the news today.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 16:13, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

If I had my way, I'd wait a week to put it in the article, for no other reason than notnews. It would seem to belong on his page, not this one, anyways, since it's not known if he was acting on TPB's behalf. --Lexein (talk) 19:52, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

It would seem to me that the legal activities of the founders, before and after TPB, have been made relevant to the article by the fact that the founders and their supporters have made major efforts at painting them as a purely altruistic “movement”. But, I agree to the logic of a lag in anything related to this article given the incredible amount of misinformation we have seen over the years. The lag in inclusion of self-serving, anonymous press releases should clearly be longer than actions of the state.74.108.115.191 (talk) 00:30, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

At the time that TPB moved to the Greenland domain, they probably did not know that they would be thrown off it within a few days. This was not a silly publicity stunt like the supposed move to North Korea.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 03:43, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

True that they may not have known they would be thrown out of GL. But, how do you know they actually believed their own story of imminent seizure of their current url? How do you know it wasn’t yet another of numerous, silly publicity stunts to keep themselves in the news as a group valiantly fighting for something? How many times have they made false press releases in the past? Why would an encyclopedia repeat every anonymous press release from an organization whose founders are all convicts, particularly given the history? I think delay is prudent.74.108.115.191 (talk) 00:05, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't think anyone's arguing to rush it in. Just sayin'. No need for the harsh rhetoric, really. --Lexein (talk) 02:02, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

No harsh rhetoric. Just a reality check.74.108.115.191 (talk) 11:55, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

explain?

Why the Alexa ranking is indicated with a red (indicating decrease) upward (self-explanatory) icon? ie: () vs. () Is the rank up or down? Thanks. - thewolfchild 18:36, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Nobody knows. There's a symbology fight: does the pointy tip mean arrow, as in that-a-way? Or does the fat end mean growth that-a-way? This fight has been going on for decades, and can be seen in automotive vent handles (where fat end=bigger=more air) vs turn indicators (where tip points in the direction of turning). It will never be solved. I nominate + and - to be the symbols, to replace arrows and colors entirely. --Lexein (talk) 03:44, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Weasel words: "piracy", "anti-piracy"

Why are these words/terms used to describe file-sharing if it has nothing to do with piracy? They should only be used to describe 'the name anti-filesharing organizations. 85.246.174.236 (talk)

I don't believe they have been. Do you have an example? And, they are not weasel words. OTOH, "anti-filesharing organizations" is an example of weasel words.:) 74.108.115.191 (talk) 10:29, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

And obviously you are a copyright troll (yes I have seen your vandalism on Wikipedia).

"Piracy is typically an act of robbery or criminal violence at sea. The term can include acts committed on land, in the air, or in other major bodies of water or on a shore. It does not normally include crimes committed against persons traveling on the same vessel as the perpetrator (e.g. one passenger stealing from others on the same vessel). The term has been used throughout history to refer to raids across land borders by non-state agents."

vs

"File sharing is the practice of distributing or providing access to digitally stored information, such as computer programs, multimedia (audio, images and video), documents, or electronic books. It may be implemented through a variety of ways. Common methods of storage, transmission and dispersion include manual sharing utilizing removable media, centralized servers on computer networks, World Wide Web-based hyperlinked documents, and the use of distributed peer-to-peer networking."

Troll harder. 85.246.174.236 (talk)

I have no idea what a “copyright-troll” is; but am quite certain your two uses of the word troll and accusation of vandalism are violations of WP:CIV and WP:FAITH.

From the Oxford English Dictionary definition of piracy: “infringement of the rights conferred by a patent or copyright.” First use of piracy with this definition was in 1771. 74.108.115.191 (talk) 15:39, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

The changes that you are making to the article, substituting “piracy” with “file-sharing,” are incorrect, not supported by the refs, and, at times, libelous. There is a difference between legal and illegal file-sharing. Your changes accuse anti-piracy organizations with being anti-file-sharing. 74.108.115.191 (talk) 15:57, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Is TPB a commercial website?

Is TPB a commercial / for-profit website, or not? It relies on ad revenue... how to classify it? This is in regards to the infobox in this article which has the following entry: | commercial = with the following edit-mode visible only text "Infobox fields are for uncontroversial statements of fact. This is disputed, and thus clearly not uncontroversial." --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:39, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

This has been discussed previously at Talk:The_Pirate_Bay/Archive_4#Infobox_commercial.3D_parameter and Talk:The_Pirate_Bay/Archive_4#TPB_and_commercial_status. The Swedish courts said that TPB is a commercial organization, TPB disputes this. Since the ownership and funding of TPB is secretive, it is hard to say how much money it makes.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 04:51, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

“Commercial” is a legal term defined by the state. The state has ruled that the site is commercial, and there is no ongoing legal dispute. Therefore, the site is commercial. Unfortunately, some WP editors appear to believe that court rulings are simply “hearsay” with no greater standing than anonymous sources or convicted defendants and simply refuse to believe that the rulings of courts settle disputes, even after all avenues of appeal have been exhausted. WP used to be better than this. 74.108.115.191 (talk) 14:21, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

This February 2013 article in The Guardian is worth reading. It is not disputed that the TPB website is full of click-through advertising, and it must make a good deal of money from this. TPB's official position is that it is a non-profit [2], albeit in a way that would be hard for an outsider to prove.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 16:53, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

TPB can claim it’s a duck. That doesn’t make it a duck. The state gets to define and adjudicate commerciality. The state ruled that they are commercial. There is no longer any legal dispute. TPB’s claims are completely irrelevant since the court ruled the claims to be false. The statement that commerciality is in dispute and the issue is controversial is simply false and should be removed. But, it won't be. 74.108.115.191 (talk) 18:54, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

If a Swedish court ruled that TPB was indeed a duck - but this was verifiably quite controversial in public spheres (as one would expect) - wikipedia would NOT add a duck Taxobox to the article. Court rulings are not epistemological absolutes, and do not erase controversy. Your statement that no controversy exists around TPB's commercial status is false, unless one has a severely narrow definition of controversy. Roidroid (talk) 02:57, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

If your definition of controversy is that all people don’t agree, then everything is a controversy. You cannot call ANYONE guilty of ANYTHING. The Wikipedia article on September 11 Attacks says Perpetrators: al-Qaeda in the infobox, even though polls say half the people think there was some government conspiracy. It does not say this is controversial. Sweden has determined that TPB is commercial according to Swedish law, and sentenced the founders accordingly. Like it or not, the Swedish courts get to make this call, not the defendants or anyone else. The legal case has ended. There is no continuing legal dispute. The fact that many people, that have no way of knowing, don’t agree is irrelevant. There is a mechanism for resolving legal disputes. That mechanism, courts of law, was used. Court rulings, at least when they have run the full course of appeals, do, indeed, erase legal dispute. That is their function. If you wish to claim that this is still in dispute, you would have to point to a reliable source that claims the courts did not make this ruling. 74.108.115.191 (talk) 10:41, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

The infobox is not the best place for simple yes/no statements. It would be better for the main text of the article to make clear that the Swedish courts found that the site had a commercial element. This is something that can be reliably sourced. The IFPI cite about profitability from 2008, and the whole period of the trial relating to the late 2000s, is now well out of date.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 11:16, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

I don't think Ars Technica should be used as a source, particularly on this subject about which they have displayed unusual bias. The WP article on Ars Technica states "Articles on the website are often written in an opinionated tone, as opposed to those in a journal." It seems odd that a source would be used multiple times in a WP article when WP itself says the source is opinionated. In fact, this particular ref illustrates the dangers in using biased sources. 74.108.115.191 (talk) 12:39, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

It's important to be cautious with sources, but that quote from the Ars Technica article is a mis-paraphrase of two sources, with undue emphasis on the word "opinion", in my opinion. I've boldly edited it to more closely match the meaning of the cited sources. The article also points out the academic and industry qualifications of Ars authors. So IMHO Ars is reliable if attributed properly and quoted or paraphrased responsibly. Also, WP:RSN has deemed Ars reliable repeatedly. --Lexein (talk) 23:47, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

With all due respect, I believe you have worsened the situation. The author of the reffed Ars Technica article calls himself an "evangelist." The word clearly means someone with a POV agenda, even to the point of religious fervor. There is a reason Ars Technica was called opinionated. It is extremely opinionated. ALL, I repeat, ALL of their articles on this subject are slanted in the same direction. The author of the reffed article specifically claims he is on one side. The articles conclusions were not only absurd, and based on nothing but opinion, they were proved wrong. This article is a serious embarrassment. It seems any attempt I make to bring back balance results in a yet more extreme slant. 74.108.115.191 (talk) 00:04, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

Careful. "Attributed properly", I said. That includes distancing language like, "Joe Blob, Ars self-described "evangelist",^[1] opined that ... (whatever).^[2]" That's properly attributed. Pretty sure a) the situation isn't as bad as you make out, and b) I didn't make anything worse. Even the most opinionated sources can be sensibly used, depending on their assessed reliability as measured by WP:RS standards (standing, training, publications, etc). Also, WP:RSN. --Lexein (talk) 00:47, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

But, sources in this article are NOT properly attributed. Large numbers of refs are extreme. Even to the point of calling intellectual property rights crimes against humanity and repeatedly claiming that all Swedish courts and judges are biased and worse. If the article on the U.S. Presidency were written and reffed like this article, it would be 70% refs from birther sites. Why would such sites be used as refs in an encyclopedia? Seriously, in its day, Wikipedia had a reasonable balance. In the last couple of years, many of the balanced folk have left and we are left with a larger percentage of extremists evangelizing radical change and erasing any attempt at balance as an NPOV violation. Read again the WP discussion to which you linked, arguing that judges have no more standing than random fan sites. That the rulings of courts are “hearsay.” Basically, they are arguing anarchy. I have no problem with people debating where law and government should be headed. But, to argue that governments and courts have equal weight to anonymous sources and anarchist sites is not what I think of as NPOV. Many like me have no more desire to expend energy trying to debate such logic. 74.108.115.191 (talk) 02:24, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

BTW, some food for thought. The article on the Pirate Bay Trial has 60% more refs than the article on the Nuremberg Trials. And, I think anyone would conclude that the knowledge, reliability, verifiability, balance, importance, and just plain usefulness of the refs in the Nuremberg Trials article vastly exceeds the refs in the Pirate Bay articles, even in today's world. The TPB trial was barely covered at all in the U.S. press and didn't hit the front pages of any major U.S. paper, even though TPB supporters kept claiming it was somehow related to the U.S.74.108.115.191 (talk) 02:39, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

As of 2013, the ownership and funding of TPB is opaque, something that the site probably wants. It is not possible for an outsider to know what its revenues and running costs are, although estimates by outsiders have suggested that the site makes a profit despite the site's official non-profit status. During the pre-trial investigation, e-mails were obtained showing that the site was more than covering its costs through advertising in 2005.[3] The problem is that there is very little up to date sourcing on the commercial status. Most of it relates to the period of The Pirate Bay trial.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 05:17, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

I'd suggest that we add a line commercial = Disputed, with an inline note explaining the situation (TPB version - ref, suthorities version - ref). It'd be much better than having no mention in the infobox, which some - like me - can find confusing. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 08:52, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

It is NOT disputed. It is commercial. The courts made their ruling. It would be like saying Guilt - Disputed. The appeals are complete. The findings made. 74.108.115.191 (talk) 10:56, 13 June 2013 (UTC)