Zachary Elinson

CS 3111

Spring 2020

Table of Contents

History

Foundation

Purpose

Projects

Trial

Convictions

Aftermath

Reservella

Persistence

The Hydra Bay

The Future

Technical Background

P2P Sharing

Torrents

BitTorrent

Magnet Links

Domain Names

Ethical Theories

Rule Utilitarianism

Act Utilitarianism

Peer-to-Peer Sharing

❑ Decentralized

❑ Reliable

❑Unsafe

❑No structure

“Pure” Peer-to-Peer Network

Peer-to-Peer Sharing

❑ Centralized

❑No redundancy

❑Vulnerable

❑ Protects users

“Hybrid” Peer-to-Peer Network

Torrent Overview

Torrent File

❑ Metadata

❑ No content

❑Values hashed

❑ Needs tracker

Torrent Overview

Tracker

❑ Server

❑ Manages connections

❑Groups users, ‘swarm’

❑ The ‘middleman’

BitTorrent ProtocolSoftware❑ Calculates ID

❑ Locates data

❑ Sorts data

Terminology❑ “Peer”

❑ “Seeder”

❑ “Leecher”

Magnet Links

❑ Unique value

❑ Tracker unnecessary

❑ Impossible to stop

❑ Extremely small size

❑ 1,643,194 links ≈ 90 mb

Example: magnet:?xt=urn:btih:6bd956b1844ee643f51856d636eda1cbbe9a9fcc&dn=The.Big.Bang.Theory.S03E08.The.Adhesive.Duck.Deficiency.HDTV.Xvi

Domain Names

❑ Address alias

❑ Suffix = location, purpose

❑ Approved by ICANN

❑ thepiratebay.se,

thepiratebay.org

Foundation of the Pirate Bay

2001 : Rasmus Fleischer,

Piratbyrån

2003 : Peter Sunde,

Gottfrid Svartholm,

Fredrik Neij

2004 : 1 million users

60,000 torrents

2006 : 2.5 million users

Purpose of The Pirate Bay

Associated ProjectsPeRiQuito - ISP

❑ Neij, Svartholm

❑ Hosts WikiLeaks

“…firm believers in freedom of speech,

commerce, and the right to privacy and

anonymity…”

- PRQ

Associated ProjectsPirateBrowser

Mozilla Firefox + Vidalia

❑ Released August 10th, 2013

❑ Plugins, add-ons, proxy settings

❑ Bypass blocks

Associated ProjectsPlayble – Music Store

❑ April 30th, 2007

❑ “pay what you can afford”

❑ Nonprofit

❑ Payout by downloads

❑ Rejected by labels

Humble Bundle

Digital Game Store

❑ November 24th, 2010

❑ “pay what you want”

❑ Revenue divided

❑ 12 million unique customers

❑ $174 million donated to charity

2006 Raid

❑ March : 2.5 million users

❑ MPAA demands action

❑ March 31st : TPB goes offline.

❑ April 3rd : TPB online.

❑ May : 12 million users

❑ Alexa ranked 73rd

2008 Trial ❑Sunde, Neij, Svartholm, Lundström charged

❑“promoting other people’s infringements of copyright laws”

❑17 plaintiffs

❑$15 million USD in damages

❑Half of charges dropped

2008 Trial“The case against The Pirate Bay was not the fight

against illegal downloading of their works but a fight to preserve the monopoly on the distribution means”

– European Digital Rights

Verdict: Guilty

❑ $3.6 million, 1 year prison

❑ Prison 4-10 months by appeal

❑ $6.5 million by appeal

❑ 2nd appeal denied

❑ TPB still active

“A person who is holding someone’s coat while they assault someone else is complicit in the

crime.”

– Prosecutor Hakan Roswall

Västervik Prison, 2014

Reservella, Ltd.

❑Founders sold TPB, 2006

❑Seychelles-based shadow firm

❑Nonprofit

❑No paper trail

❑No employees

The Hydra Bay

❑2014 raid

❑Two weeks offline

❑TPB source on GitHub

❑397 clones of TPB < 1 week

❑70 domain names

The Future of The Pirate Bay

❑Piracy decline, 2014

❑Abundant subscriptions, 2019

❑80% streaming-related

❑Exclusive content

❑“Monopolistic distribution”

The Future of The Pirate Bay

The Future of The Pirate Bay

❑DRM “stops” copying

❑License, not owned

❑“Locked in” to company

❑Remove DRM, reduce piracy

❑38% of music pirates pay

❑34.7% “region locked”

❑80% of files legal

Rule Utilitarianism

Rule:

If I can share information for free

using The Pirate Bay, then I should.

Rule Utilitarianism

❑ Sum of knowledge increases

❑Accessibility

❑Derivative work

❑ Expose corruption

❑ Innovation

❑Collaboration

Benefits:

❑ Less/no business profit

❑ Fake information

❑ Illegal information

Drawbacks:

Sharing Free

Information

Judgement:

Moral

Act

Utilitarianism

Scenario:

Allow the The Pirate Bay to exist.

Act

Utilitarianism

Let The Pirate

Bay Exist?

Service One-time Cost ($) Annual Cost ($)

Apple TV 5 60

Shudder 6 72

Disney Plus 7 84

Hulu 8 96

CrunchyRoll 8 96

Netflix 9 108

Starz 9 108

CBS All Access 10 120

Showtime 11 132

Youtube Premium 12 144

HBO Now 15 180

Sling TV 30 360

Playstation Vue 40 480

Youtube TV 50 600

Hulu TV 55 660

AT&T Now 65 780

Digital Purchase 5-20

Digital Rental 6

Theater Ticket 9.16

❑ Average person has 3 subscriptions

❑ ≈ $37 / month

❑ 47% “need” multiple subscriptions

❑ 57% - “shows disappear after subscribing”

❑ Estimated 20% share accounts

❑ 18% of 1500 admitted “piracy at least once”

Act

Utilitarianism

Let The Pirate

Bay Exist?

Judgement:

Moral

United States Movie & Television Revenue:2017 : $87.36 billion2018 : $97 billion2019 : $101 billion

United States Media & Entertainment Revenue:2019 : $717 billion2023 : >$825 billion

Estimated global lost revenue2017 : $31.8 billion2019 : $29.2 billion

Slide 1:

“The Pirate Bay.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 27 Apr. 2020, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pirate_Bay.

Slide 3:

Zhang, Lily. “The Network You Forgot You Had.” The Muse, The Muse, 15 Oct. 2019, www.themuse.com/advice/the-network-you-forgot-you-had.

Slide 4:

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Changhoon_Lee3/publication/259635464/figure/fig1/AS:297232688533507@1447877203422/Structure-of-a-BitTorrent-network-for-data-sharing-with-

peers-on-the-network-who-receive.png

Slide 5:

Torrent File Editor 0.3.17.” Chocolatey, http://chocolatey.org/packages/torrent-file-editor.

Slide 6:

“Why are the authorities only after The Pirate Bay when there are also others, like Kickass?” Quora, 13 December 2014, https://www.quora.com/Why-are-the-authorities-only-after-The-Pirate-

Bay-when-there-are-also-others-like-Kickass

Slide 7:

Sharma, Anchit, et al. “10 Best Free Torrent Clients for Windows and MAC ~2020.” TechWorm, 4 Feb. 2020, www.techworm.net/2018/10/torrent-downloader-10-best-torrent-clients-for-

windows-2018.html.

Slide 8:

btarunr Feb 29th, 2012 09:19 Discuss (18 Comments). “Pirate Bay Gets Rid of Torrents, Serves Magnet Links.” TechPowerUp, 29 Feb. 2012, www.techpowerup.com/161466/pirate-bay-gets-rid-

of-torrents-serves-magnet-links.

Slide 9:

Didactico. “Tipos De Dominios Geográficos, De País o Territoriales.” Internet Didáctica - Programas, APP, Formación y Cursos Online, 20 Nov. 2018, www.internet-didactica.es/dominios-

geograficos/.

Slide 10:

Mejia, Paula. “Ahoy, the Pirate Bay Has Returned.” Newsweek, Newsweek, 15 Mar. 2016, www.newsweek.com/ahoy-pirate-bay-has-returned-303551.

Slide 11:

O'Brien, Chris. “One Of The Pirate Bay's Founders Has Been Released From Prison After Almost 6 Months.” Business Insider, Business Insider, 10 Nov. 2014, www.businessinsider.com/pirate-bay-founder-peter-sunde-released-prison-2014-11.

Slide 12:

Dannen, Chris. “Pirate Bay Not Dead After All.” Fast Company, Fast Company, 30 July 2012, www.fastcompany.com/1340752/pirate-bay-not-dead-after-all.

Slide 13:

Musicandcopyright. “Is the BBC Report on the Effectiveness of the Pirate Bay Block Missing the Point?” Music & Copyright's Blog, 18 July 2012, http://musicandcopyright.wordpress.com/2012/07/17/is-the-bbc-report-on-the-effectiveness-of-the-pirate-bay-block-missing-the-point/.

Slide 14:

Torres, Ida. “Amazon, Pandora Testing out Pricing of Music Streaming Services .” Android Community, Android Community, 13 Sept. 2016, http://androidcommunity.com/amazon-pandora-testing-out-pricing-of-music-streaming-services-20160913/.

Slide 15:

Kolar, Bradley. “PSA: Humble Bundle.” The Fanfare, http://bpsfanfare.com/9032/showcase/psa-humble-bundle/#.

https://support.humblebundle.com/hc/en-us/article_attachments/218159567/Screen_Shot_2016-11-30_at_9.30.29_AM.png

Slide 16:

“10 Years Ago Hollywood Awoke The Pirate Bay 'Beast'” TorrentFreak, 9 Jan. 2017, http://torrentfreak.com/10-years-ago-hollywood-awoke-the-pirate-bay-beast-160531/.

Slide 17:

The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, www.theguardian.com/technology/piracy/2009/jun/30/all.

Slide 18:

https://media-exp1.licdn.com/dms/image/C4D1BAQHJ--pgMS_J1Q/company-background_10000/0?e=2159024400&v=beta&t=ypd1IjUkyisdXJW-RoW76eGBuSXqIFE7BbgN8WBTgUE

Slide 19:

Larsson, Daniel Goldberg and Linus. “Pirate Bay Co-Founder Peter Sunde: 'In Prison, You Become Brain-Dead'.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 5 Nov. 2014, www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/nov/05/sp-pirate-bay-cofounder-peter-sunde-in-prison.

Slide 20:

Stenovec, Timothy. “Details on the Royal Couple's Honeymoon Destination.” HuffPost, HuffPost, 7 Dec. 2017, www.huffpost.com/entry/seychelles-map-population_n_860481.

Slide 21:

“The Pirate Bay Aims High with Bizarre Flying Server Scheme.” Geek.com, 20 Mar. 2012, www.geek.com/chips/the-pirate-bay-aims-high-with-bizarre-flying-server-scheme-1476755/.

Slide 22:

Weissman, Cale Guthrie. “The Pirate Bay's New Logo Sends a Loud Message to the Authorities Trying to Shut It Down.” Business Insider, Business Insider, 19 May 2015,

www.businessinsider.com/the-pirate-bay-has-a-new-logo-with-a-clear-message-2015-5.

Slide 23:

“The Streaming Services Are Getting Out of Hand.” Grit Daily News, 22 Jan. 2020, http://gritdaily.com/the-streaming-services-are-getting-out-of-hand/.

Slide 24:

Feldman, Brian. “Piracy Is Back.” Intelligencer, Intelligencer, 26 June 2019, http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/06/piracy-is-back.html.

Slide 25:

“r/BulletBarry - Keurig Coffee DRM.” Reddit, www.reddit.com/r/BulletBarry/comments/796vzx/keurig_coffee_drm/.

Krzywinski, Martin. “DRM Revolution 01.” Flickr, Yahoo!, 24 Mar. 2007, www.flickr.com/photos/fullaperture/432100462.

Slide 26:

“Intellectual Free Property Speech to Copyright Laws Are Anti-Free Speech: Meme on ME.ME.” Me.me, http://me.me/i/intellectual-free-property-speech-to-copyright-laws-are-anti-free-

speech-10086710.

Slide 28:

Kim, Eddie. “After 15 Years, the Pirate Bay Still Can't Be Killed.” MEL Magazine, 23 Mar. 2020, http://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/after-15-years-the-pirate-bay-still-cant-be-killed.

Slide 31:

“’TPB AFK’ – Simon Klose's Documentary about The Pirate Bay out Now.” Grundversorgung 2.0, http://digitale-grundversorgung.de/blog/2013/02/21/tpb-afk-simon-kloses-documentary-about-

the-pirate-bay-out-now/.