Talk:The Pirate Bay/Archive 3

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Recent news:The Pirate bay ordered to close in the netherlands

highlights: The Dutch anti-piracy outfit BREIN has won its court case against The Pirate Bay. The Amsterdam court today ruled that the site must cease all operations in The Netherlands within 10 days, or else pay penalties of 30,000 euros ($42,300) a person, per day. 208.191.39.44 (talk) 21:09, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Pirated Piratebay

There is now a torrent with all the torrents from piratebay. The torrent Thought it might be worth to mention 79.119.14.9 (talk) 10:43, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Isn't their a WP rule against adding links to illegal sites?Objective3000 (talk) 20:07, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

I would dispute labeling TPB as an illegal website. KodakYarr (talk) 14:47, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Illegal in what country? The country where Wikipedia management is based (USA, I believe)?, Where the Wikipedia servers are (currently Florida, Amsterdam, and Seoul)? The country where The Pirate Bay is based (see my comment below under the heading "CyberBunker" for the difficulty of figuring that one out...)? I would be most interested if anyone could point to the text of an actual law anywhere in the world where it clearly says that hosting a torrent tracker is illegal in that country. 67.150.122.103 (talk) 17:14, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Monday 24/08/2009

The Pirate Bay Taken Offline By Swedish Authorities http://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-bay-taken-offline-by-swedish-authorities-090824/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.47.4.35 (talk) 16:03, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

As far as the status in the infobox, a court-ordered cutoff of service is cause enough to change the status to offline. Equazcion (talk) 19:27, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Check the link again - the article was updated recently stating that it is in fact back online, although many people still can't access it as the DNS servers need to update. --User:SinInSpira —Preceding undated comment added 19:48, 24 August 2009 (UTC).

According to one of the admins, the downtime is temporary. Which is why the past-tensing of this article is immature. Haakon (talk) 19:51, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

I haven't looked at the recent edits, but I'd agree, changing the article to refer to TPB in past tense doesn't seem warranted at this point. Equazcion (talk) 20:04, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Why is there such a bloody rush to change the "is" to "was" every time TPB goes off-line for a couple of minutes? Rsduhamel (talk) 22:42, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Because people love to hate what TPB stands for (or, they think they do, at least). Anyway, I just wanted to mention that I edited the section header from "Closure" to "Disconnection" just now. According the the sources provided (and what I can currently see), TPB hasn't closed, they seem intent on reopening the site and appear to have some plan after all. They were however disconnected, obviously.
— V = I * R (talk) 05:15, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm not an expert on this, but if somebody could please advise on two things: (1) if/when Pirate Bay gets bought by this "Global Gaming Factor X" company (that now appears to not have the money to buy it), does anybody know how the new owners plan to handle pre-existing downloads? Let's say that I am in the middle of downloading a file, and then the sale occurs - am I out of luck and have to pay at that point?, or do they intend to "grandfather" existing downloads and let them continue and simply charge for new downloads? (2) If I have a file download that is only 50% complete - can I somehow switch to a bittorrent from, say, Mininova, and get it to recognise the existing partial download??? - I mean, if not, then I am going to be SOL (sh!t-out-of-luck) and had better start making preparations today for when Pirate Bay folds. (the big problem is that I mainly only download old black-and-white TV shows from the 1950's and 60's, and there are not very many seeds (I can't even buy what I want on DVD - I would do that if I could), and so it takes WEEKS for me to complete a download (many of them never complete). Thanks for any advice. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Betathetapi545 (talk • contribs) 09:41, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

If I understand Bittorrent correctly, as long as a torrent has one free tracker or DHT is working you can download for free. Therefore, if you are downloading files from a torrent that has one TPB tracker and one mininova tracker, and the TPB tracker suddenly requires a password, the files will still download from the mininova tracker. I also believer that if you are downloading files from a torrent with only a TPB tracker, then the tracker suddenly becomes unavailable, and there is another torrent for the exact same files using a mininova tracker, you could switch torrents and resume the download. Someone correct me if I'm wrong. Rsduhamel (talk) 06:28, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Don't note your reverts "vandalism" if they're not!

It is fair to revert IPs & other contributors that go against the consensus here and make the article past tense; but, it would be charitable to not revert them as "vandalism," considering they are pretty obviously (not to mention AGF) not acting with vandalistic intent. I need not quote the Wikipolicies regarding the throwing around of the term "vandalism" in inappropriate situations? Peace and Passion ("I'm listening....") 06:35, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

It's not all that obvious to me. And I'm not sure vandalistic is a real word. But that's not important right now. Anyway, I'm reverting those as vandalism because, a) I think they are intentional or at least immature, and b) it's tiresome having that same edit repeated over and over, even if it is by different IPs, and I'm seeking to discourage it. I'm not actually warning people about vandalism on their talk pages. Equazcion (talk) 06:51, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Correction, it seems I did warn someone on their talk page and didn't realize it, which is evidence that I should probably have been in bed a while ago. I still stand by my views on the other stuff I mentioned above though. Equazcion (talk) 06:54, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

it Is vandalism though.--UltraMagnus (talk) 07:08, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

It was not a hoax, as UltraMangus implies; the site was down and newspaper articles all over the net noted it was closed down. We can only AGF that the editors were just attempting to incorporate that into the article.

From Wikipolicy How not to respond to vandalism:

Avoid the word "vandal". In particular, this word should not be used to refer to any contributor in good standing, or to any edits that might have been made in good faith. This is because if the edits were made in good faith, they are not vandalism. Instead of calling the person who made the edits a "vandal", discuss your concerns with them. Comment on the content and substance of the edits, instead of making personal comments.

See also WP:VAND#NOT, especially specific notes such as that → → →"Disruptive editing or stubbornness" are not to be labeled vandalism.← ← ←

Peace and Passion ("I'm listening....") 07:19, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

PS vandalistic (lol)....

Image of news search

I just happened to do a news search for The Pirate Bay and the top 5 results (which all fit on the screen at once) were articles in English, German, Russian, French, and (?)Swedish. They're all also labeled within a few minutes of each other. I thought this image might do a very good job of illustrating the sudden and widespread "round-the-world" press reaction to the shutdown by authorities; however, I have never worked with images in Wikipedia. I "print-screened" the image and saved it, as it looks quite aesthetically impressive and illustrative of the worldwide significance of this event (it also happens to have the Pirate Bay symbol placed nicely beside one of the results). As I have never worked with images on Wikipedia (though I have seen a few Google screen captures used), I thought I'd ask here first if it would be good to place beside an explanatory section after all these recent events have "worked themselves out." I'd just need help uploading and placing appropriate copyright permissions on the file. Any comments from other editors? Peace and Passion ("I'm listening....") 08:01, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I believe permissions / fair use rationale etc. would be very similar (if not identical) to File:Googlebombscientologycult.PNG(don't know how to display it without making it appear other than as an external link). Peace and Passion ("I'm listening....") 08:28, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Addition of a new 'History' section

Since the Lead section seems to be turning into a history lesson, perhaps it would be wise to move most of this information, along with some other sections of the article, into a new section named 'History'? KodakYarr (talk) 14:42, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

The Incidents section is pretty much a history section already, though not in chronological order. The intro could probably be cut down though. Equazcion (talk) 15:47, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I take it back, reading through the history section again, I think only the major events have been summarized there, and the intro would seem lacking without them, I think. Equazcion (talk) 15:55, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

What I am suggesting is merging these sections into one "big" History section, instead of scattering the information among the Lead section and Incidents section. How this History section should be designed/structured/sectioned exactly however is uncertain and less important, so long as they're merged. I think a new History section will prove even more valuable as time passes, as there is a lot of continuing turbulence surrounding the website. It is possible some other informations can be moved into a History section too. KodakYarr (talk) 16:52, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Everything in the lead is already in the Incidents section. They're just summarized in short in the lead, which is what the lead is supposed to be for. The only beneficial change I could see is maybe changing the name of the Incidents section to History and putting the events in chronological order. Equazcion (talk) 17:06, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, since that essentially is what I've been talking about, let's do that then. And the Lead section isn't supposed to sumamrize the ongoing history of the subject, but rather to present the subject itself. KodakYarr (talk) 09:19, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

The history of Pirate Bay is its most prominent aspect and takes up most of this article. It seems appropriate to me that the lead section reflects that. Equazcion (talk) 14:02, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Anyone else have an opinion on the subject? I've added a few cleanup templates to the article to draw attention to the issue. KodakYarr (talk) 16:01, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Only the website itself is up

Only the website itself is up. All of its trackers remain down after a week. Are you ready for IPv6? (talk) 17:37, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

True. I don't know if it'll turn out to be a week, but so far they've been down since the ISP disconnection. Equazcion (talk) 18:03, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

The site is up. Things were defeineatly downloadable if someone were to want to do such things MrSAmitt (talk) 18:27, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Albiet the connection is painfully slow MrSAmitt (talk) 18:28, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Yeah the site is up. But the trackers are down. You can still download a lot of torrents due to them containing other trackers, and peer exchange, but the Pirate Bay trackers are still down. Equazcion (talk) 18:37, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

piratebay and openbittorrent trackers and maybe others are all down. I want to mention it on the article because it's inaccurate, but I worry someone will revert it for being unsourced. Are you ready for IPv6? (talk) 03:04, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

It's not exactly unsourced. See the torrent freak article here. It says the site is back up and "the tracker is expected to follow soon", basically meaning the tracker is down. Equazcion (talk) 03:09, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Update torrentfreak 2009-11-17 Tracker is and stays down. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.239.213.74 (talk) 14:45, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Why is the tracker not back up???

They got the website back up and running, but does anybody know the reason why they haven't been able to/can't get the tracker back up and running somewhere??? It seems to be permanently down (as of 1 September 2009). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.149.160.52 (talk) 10:42, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Pirate Bay IP Addresses Assigned to Prosecution Lawyers

from http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-ips-assigned-to-prosecution-lawyers-090426/

Pirate Bay IP Addresses Assigned to Prosecution Lawyers Written by Ernesto on April 26, 2009

"The Pirate Bay recently got a new range of IPs and to everyone’s surprise they are now linked to several movie and music industry lawyers involved in the TPB trial. According to the Pirate Bay’s Wikipedia entry the change was due to a hostile takeover, but most people know better.

"RIPE is the Internet registry that keeps track of all IP-addresses allocated in Europe. When the Pirate Bay got a new range of IP-addresses this week, something odd happened. Aside from the usual TPB ASCII art there was some unusual information added to the RIPE database.

"According to the recently updated RIPE database entry, the Pirate Bay is now listed as a customer of Danowsky & Partner law firm (who represented IFPI), Maqs Law Firm (representing the MPAA) and the Swedish anti-piracy bureau. All three were involved in the recent trial, which led some to believe that they somehow gained control over the site. This is nonsense of course.

"So why is this info in there, some might wonder. One explanation might be that during the Pirate Bay trial the prosecution used (incorrect) data from the RIPE database claiming that this was the absolute truth. The Pirate Bay team probably put the lawyers’ info in there themselves to show that this is not the case. Indeed, there is no doubt that they will have a hard time selling this ‘truth’ to the public now, with their own names being featured in the recent entry.

"One of the other advantages of the new RIPE WHOIS is that the Pirate Bay team doesn’t have to deal with any of the takedown requests anymore, as it states that all abuse email should be directed to the earlier mentioned law firms. Aye, that will teach those landlubbers."

75.84.238.18 (talk) 22:47, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Tracker down/Website up issue

The site isn't exactly useless right now. Pirate Bay started automatically adding the OpenBitTorrent tracker to their torrents, which although affiliated with Pirate Bay's hosting, is currently working. Many of the more prominent torrents also contain other trackers added by their uploaders, and are listed on multiple torrent sites. Most torrent clients also use other methods for finding peers, aside from trackers, like DHT and "Peer Exchange".

The bottom line, as far as the tracker making everything not work on the Pirate Bay site, is that it doesn't. You can still click on nearly any existing torrent there and download it.

A major problem with the Pirate Bay tracker not working, though, is that's the only tracker the Pirate Bay site uses for scraping torrent statistics and listing them. So the "seeds" and "peers" numbers a torrent shows on the site are stuck right now, at the last numbers seen before the site went down. The Top-100 torrents lists, which list the current most-used torrents based on number of peers, are similarly "stuck". Since number of seeds and peers is the standard way that people determine how "healthy" a torrent is, and consequently, which torrents to try downloading, this creates a huge usability problem for the site -- especially with all other Torrent sites giving accurate such numbers.

As far as saying this stuff in the article? Well, I haven't seen anything published yet. If we wanted to cheat slightly we could give the technical aspects -- like the scraping being affected, and how that impacts functions of the site. But the personal opinions should be left out -- such as saying that the site is "still useful" or "now useless". Equazcion (talk) 16:44, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, all I can say, is, TPB may have "started" adding the OpenBitTorrent tracker to its torrents, but they sure didn't get very far. Maybe it's because they only put the alternate trackers in the popular downloads, i.e. recent movies - I don't download those - I download older movies and TV series from the 1960's that I can't get on DVD. I mean, I was downloading National Geographic's "Lockdown: Predators Behind Bars" documentary because I can't get it/buy it over here in Europe (Nat Geo never put it on DVD), and even that torrent no longer works.

You may be able to download the torrent, but that doesn't mean it's got a link to a working tracker in it - the majority of what I try to download using TPB don't work because of "Problem connecting to tracker - ('url error, 'unknown URL type', 'udp', 'udp://tracker.thepiratebay.org:80/announce?info_hash=.............". Maybe TPB put alternate trackers in the top downloads (read, "most popular recent movies"), but I'm not interested in that stuff. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.149.160.52 (talk • contribs) 06:06, 2 September 2009

The OpenBitTorrent tracker is in all of Pirate Bay's torrents, including that National Geographic documentary you mentioned (which I tried and was able to start downloading, though slowly). There probably won't be as many peers available on OpenBitTorrent as there would be on the Pirate Bay tracker, just because OpenBitTorrent was added more recently.

The UDP/'unknown url type' error you're getting in not related to Pirate Bay going down. Rather, many torrent programs don't accept UDP tracker addresses, and will only use HTTP addresses. That includes uTorrent, one of the more popular torrent programs. Luckily, Pirate Bay has both a UDP and an HTTP tracker address, and most torrents contain both of those. But, unluckily, even the HTTP one is currently down. Equazcion (talk) 06:15, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for all that. I think I may have figured out what a large part of my problem has been - my bittorrent client. I was using ABC (Yet Another Bittorrent Client) which hasn't been updated in 3 years (it's basically a dead bittorrent client). It's what somebody gave me - and I'm not one of these people who download loads of recent movies. Anyway, I've switched to utorrent (I was told LimeWire was rubbish) and it seems to be doing the job. Thanks. This can be erased after you read this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.132.184.128 (talk) 17:43, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Current Status of Tracker

The wikipedia page on The Pirate Bay currently reads,

"The website was inaccessible, but a few areas reported services restored within 3 hours; it was claimed that the services restored within 24 hours,[13] but the tracker remained offline as of 1 September 2009.[14] However, as of 3 September 2009 it is back up and functioning."

however the claim that the tracker is currently online is not substantiated by any references and therefore should be removed.

Oakdog8 contributed this claim. The details of this contribution can be seen in this comparison

Finally, for what it's worth, downloading from one of pirate bay trackers is working for me right now, with peer exchange turned off. The tracker that is online is OpenBitTorrent, which Equazcion has already mentioned as currently working in the previous section. The tracker that is down is tracker.thepiratebay.org. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Weezology (talk • contribs) 20:48, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

The Pirate Bay's tracker itself is offline, I would think that would be worth mentioning but I'm not going to add it in without other opinions. —Preceding unsigned comment added by bobrocks95 (talk • contribs) 20:48, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Speaking to the people who are reverting the claimed status of the tracker being offline on the grounds that it's unsourced: It seems odd to require a third-party source to tell us whether a tracker is on- or offline. Anyone can try accessing the tracker and see whether or not it's online. I think that counts as a primary source. Additionally, if you want to say that we need a source to say the tracker is offline, shouldn't we also need a source to say it's online? I see no source making that claim either. Equazcion (talk) 04:55, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

that would be wp:original research, verbal's current solution seems the best, as you point out, the is no source either way, and it is not the norm to indicate if a website is on/offline on wikipedia as far as I know.--UltraMagnus (talk) 20:16, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

05/10/09

Quote "On 5 October 2009, The Pirate Bay's bandwidth suppliers were disabled by the Swedish government." Unquote

Not true, a dutch routing company called Nforce was disabled by the Dutch anti-piracy organisation BREIN. See HERE

The bit about the Swedish government mentioned in the source of above quote is actually about the earlier 3 hour downtime of 24/08/09. 82.169.112.106 (talk) 02:22, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

On 5 October 2009, one of the IP transit providers to The Pirate Bay's blocked all Pirate Bay traffic causing an outage for most users around the world.

Better? JeremyWJ (talk) 02:34, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

It's not a real outage - since the ISP in question is only a transit provider, any number of alternate proxies can still be used to access the site from anywhere. Should that be reflected in the lede? 84.130.234.123 (talk) 15:42, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

It's back up for me today. Equazcion (talk) 17:33, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

And since when does that mean you should remove it ?Unless someone has a objection with good arguments (dont think there will be any ,but oh well) i am puting it back up right now. (/huge facepalm)Never mind ,i just saw that now there is a section for "incidents".—Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.59.198.12 (talk) 22:35, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Offline - October, 2009

I've tried several proxies to reach thepiratebay.org, but it seems to be vanished currently. Shouldn't we update "Current status"? Cheers, theFace 18:12, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

I think we should not. Wikipedia is not a blow-by-blow status reporter of websites. There is a comment in the article saying (excuse my screaming) "DO NOT CHANGE THE CURRENT STATUS UNLESS THE CHANGE IN THE SITE'S STATUS IS INDEFINITE. JUST BECAUSE THE SITE IS OFFLINE DO NOT CHANGE IT!!!" The status "Active", I take it, means that the site has not been shut down officially. Haakon (talk) 18:35, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

I wanted to go onto piratebay today from my work, connecting via VNC to my server back home in Sweden (I work in Denmark). I could not open piratebay from Sweden, but when I tested it using my office computer piratebay came up. Telia my ISP has blocked the piratebay IP which can easily be seen by sending a ping to piratebay.org. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cccp200 (talk • contribs) 20:09, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Looks like it is down again. 67.101.189.93 (talk) 15:27, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

IT IS NOT A BLOW BY BLOW ACCOUNT, AND SHOULD NOT BE CHANGED UNLESS YOU CAN CITE A WP:RS THAT IT IS DOWN --UltraMagnus^speak 18:27, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I got that already. Note that I did not change anything in the article. Can anyone access TPB site? 67.101.189.93 (talk) 23:04, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

It appears to still be down, but this is not the place to discuss that. http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/ is a good resource if you want to know if a site is down for just you or everyone.JeremyWJ (talk) 23:24, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

It's back up and running fine as of 10/22/09. Я£ΙИӺΘЯСΣĐᴙᶕᵻᴎᵮᴓᴚᴐᶒᵯɘᴎᴛᶊ (talk) 19:40, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

See WP:FORUM. I think a forum such as this one is more proper for questions such as this. Haakon (talk) 19:43, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Edit-warring

The parties have been warned. Further edit-warring will result in blocks. Enigma^msg 07:40, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

CyberBunker

It is not clear whether, as this article currently claims, "...on 6 October 2009, the site was back online from CyberBunker located in a NATO territory surrounded by the Netherlands."

According to www.republic-cyberbunker.org, "We can announce your own PI or 'DirectAssigned' IP space on one of our AS'es, or we provide you with a sub allocation out of one of our own IP ranges. This IP space is then routed to any datacenter around the world you desire, or even to your own facilities (office server room, etc). The routes are not visible from the 'outside' world. All that is required is one static internet IP provided by your colocation or access provider, after which you have an untracably routed block of IPs, provinding you with nearly as much privacy as colocating at our facilities, yet maintaining easy physical access if you are overseas."

So maybe The Pirate bay is currently hosted at CyberBunker, or maybe it's somewhere else entirely and simply routes through CyberBunker. 67.150.122.103 (talk) 17:14, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

You bring up an interesting point, but we go by what can be referenced as the truth. Therefor despite this possibility, we must go with what we have. However, I would not be in protest of possibly making a small comment in the article that CyberBunker does offer this service. JeremyWJ (talk) 04:58, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

I just clarified the paragraph in "Recent incidents" concerning the move to a CyberBunker IP address. I noticed that the same information is at the end of the "The Netherlands" section. Should these be merged, and if so, where should the merged info go? Also, I cannot find any references to back up the claim that CyberBunker is in NATO territory (some blogs claim that it is under different laws). One would think that when NATO sold the base to a private entity, it became part of the nation surrounding it, but of course we need verified references, not my guesses about what might have happened. 72.251.91.251 (talk) 19:50, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Pirate Bay shuts down it's trackers in favor of DHT + PEX

The following was posted by TPB on Nov 11, 2009:

---

Now that the decentralized system for finding peers is so well developed, TPB has decided that there is no need to run a tracker anymore, so it will remain down! It's the end of an era, but the era is no longer up2date. We have put a server in a museum already, and now the tracking can be put there as well.

http://thepiratebay.org/blog/175

---

Does this warrant any mention in the main article? It's a major technical change to how TPB operates and it's exposure to future legal challenges I would think. This would seem to indicate that DHT and Peer Exchange will become more important than trackers for bit-torrent in general, and this observation or fact should also be mentioned in the wiki article for bit torrent. Comments? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.231.125.101 (talk) 15:15, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

GA Reassessment

This discussion is transcluded from Talk:The Pirate Bay/GA2. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the reassessment.

I don't generally bother with FA/GA stuff, but it strikes me that this article is quite outdated in parts. It speaks of the site as if its still operational etc. (It seems the site currently works only a search engine, not as tracker anymore [1]) If so, who's operating it? The same guys while waiting for the appeal? I assume this all because the GA happened in 2008. The article is terribly disorganized. The "Raid", "Legal issues" and "Trial" sections are miles apart with random stuff in between; "Service issues" is inserted between "legal issues" and "support campaign" (which is related to legal issue or the trial, I gather). There's lots of random stuff was added, like the "Video streaming" section (can this be under projects?) There are also a bunch of tags. Also NPOV problems, even in lead "the judge was accused of bias". By God? (The Pirate Bay trial is more up to date, but not anymore NPOV.) Another example, why is Piratbyrån's opinion of the site included in the "website design" section, but not that of, say MPAA? Pcap ping 13:28, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

You need to inform the main contributors to the article about this review. I'm one of them, but don't have time to work on this article at the moment. The others might, though. Gary King (talk) 18:19, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

I notified the other two top three contributors. That should be sufficient. The extremely elaborate GA/GAR procedures is why don't bother with this shit usually, except when the article is horribly unworthy. A a GA is sort of maintenance promise, so they could at least watch the page. Pcap ping 23:19, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Zero progress here in 10 days or so. I'm removing the GA bit. Feel free to add it back if you address the above. Pcap ping 11:22, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Recent incidents

This is a GA, so I wasn't about to alter anything, but doesn't the name of this section go against WP:DATED? Should it be changed? – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 20:30, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

I came here to make that exact same point.--SPhilbrickT 12:23, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Pro-Piracy

"Fredrik Neij (alias TiAMO) speaking at Mynttorget in Stockholm during the 3 June 2006 pro-piracy protest"

Has a resource really referred to this as a "pro-piracy protest"? Not only does this sentence sound biased, but it's also grammatically flawed. Protest implies that there is a group expressing a complaint, making the use of "pro-" awkward since a protest would be executed against another force. I think using "anti-copyright" or "pro-piracy rally" would be more appropriate, preferably "anti-copyright" out of respect for the protesters intentions. OhSqueezy (talk) 01:45, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Support campaign

On 18 February 2009 the Norwegian socialist party Red began a global campaign in support of The Pirate Bay and filesharers worldwide that lasted until 1 May. Through the website filesharer.org filesharers are encouraged to upload their photographs as 'mugshots' to 'let the music and movie industry know who the file-sharers are'. The site encourages participation urging people to "Upload a picture of yourself and show them what a criminal looks like!". Red politician Elin Volder Rutle is the initiator of the campaign and she states to the media that "If the guys behind Pirate Bay are criminals, then so am I, and so are most other Norwegians." The campaign was timed to coincide with the trial against the founders of The Pirate Bay which began on 16 February.

This campaign was short-lived. The domain name FILESHARER.ORG is for sale and the proprietor has turned the website into a commercial enterprise. Is the information notable enough to forever remain in the article? Wikispan (talk) 17:50, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Cyberbunker Injunction

I am putting this up on the talk page because things are still changing too fast for inclusion in the main article. After the smoke clears this may be the basis for an addition to the main article.

Last month, http://torrentfreak.com/movie-studios-threaten-strike-on-pirate-bay-nuclear-bunker-100422/ talked about the MPA threatening cyberbunker with legal action over their hosting of The Pirate Bay and other sites.

Then, in http://torrentfreak.com/hollywood-gets-injunction-to-disconnect-the-pirate-bay-100512/ we saw that Columbia Pictures, Disney Enterprises, Paramount Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox, Universal, and Warner Bros. obtained a preliminary injunction against the owners of cyberbunker from the Regional Court of Hamburg, prohibiting them from connecting The Pirate Bay website and associated servers to the Internet.

Here is an English translation of the injunction and response from Cyberbunker owner: http://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-bay-cyberbunker-mpa-injunction-in-full-100516/

Naturally, this got plenty of press: http://www.thelocal.se/26704/20100518/ http://www.datacenterdynamics.com/ME2/Segments/NewsHeadlines/Print.asp?Module=News&id=62721A2DF43D4623B1227796B2302D64 http://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-bay-goes-down-following-legal-pressure-100517/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/05/18/pirate_bay_injunction/ http://www.businessofcinema.com/news.php?newsid=16223 http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2010/may/17/pirate-bay-offline http://www.neowin.net/news/main/09/08/24/the-pirate-bay-officially-sunk

And as I and everybody else predicted, TPB simply moved -- but to a surprising new host. The Pirate Party (Sweden) -- the third-largest political party in Sweden -- is now hosting The Pirate Bay. http://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-party-becomes-the-pirate-bays-new-host-100518/ http://thepiratebay.org/blog

This too is getting a lot of attention, first from blogs then from the press. http://www.thelocal.se/26714/20100518/ http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/196552/the_pirate_bay_back_thanks_to_the_swedish_pirate_party.html http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/The-Pirate-Party-Is-The-Pirate-Bays-New-Host-108459 http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/05/18/pirate_bay_pirate_party_last_link_in_bandwidth_chain/ http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2363923,00.asp Guy Macon 16:18, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

This is an encylcopedia. IMHO, we should avoid loaded terms like "lawyers attack" as they suggest an agenda instead of an objective view. Just an opinion.Objective3000 (talk) 17:34, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Point well taken. I just changed it to "Cyberbunker Injunction." Thank you; correction/criticism much appreciated. Guy Macon 11:20, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Archived discussion

Discussion about UK vs US English archived Here .

Guy Macon

Piratbyrån is not the same as The Pirate Bay

Recently (June 23, 2010) the group Piratbyrån disbanded. Since then a series of edits, mostly by anonymous IP addresses, have attempted to insert claims that TPB was shut down for good, TPB was down for a while but is back up, etc. None of these claims have been backed up with citations to reliable sources, so we really don't know whether the claims are true. Even if they are, I would question whether Yet Another Temporary Outage in noteworthy. Guy Macon 17:22, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

HTTP vs. HTTPS

Recently user Lent1999 changed the HTTP links to TPB to HTTPS, giving as the reason "to protect users from eavesdropping." User Objective3000 changed it back, giving as the reason "We are not here to help people circumvent their country's laws. http:// works fine for the purposes on encyclopedic refs." I like the conclusion (http works fine), but I strongly disagree with the reasoning. If the police want to access a person's web usage history, they should get a subpoena and use it to either compel the user to give access to the information on his computer or compel the website to give access to the information on their servers. You aren't circumventing any laws (well, maybe in China or North Korea..) by not revealing your browsing history to every system between you and the website you are accessing.

Even if there was some law that made it illegal to encrypt your communication, the claim that "We are not here to help people circumvent their country's laws" is not strictly true. We are here to present encyclopedic information, including encyclopedic information about circumventing laws. For example, the following Wikipedia pages...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China#Technical_efforts_at_breaking_through

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lock_picking

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis_cultivation

...all help certain people to circumvent their country's laws.

If I am wrong and there is a Wikipedia policy that calls for withholding information because it helps certain people to circumvent their country's laws, please let me know. Again, I agree that changing HTTP to HTTPS is not needed here; it's just the reasoning hat I question.

Guy Macon 17:30, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Fair question. The laws on aiding and abetting are way beyond my legal understanding. WP:EL states “For policy or technical reasons, editors are restricted from linking to the following, without exception: Material that violates the copyrights of others per contributors' rights and obligations should not be linked….” WP:LINKVIO states : Knowingly and intentionally directing others to a site that violates copyright has been considered a form of contributory infringement in the United States (Intellectual Reserve v. Utah Lighthouse Ministry [1]). Linking to a page that illegally distributes someone else's work sheds a bad light on Wikipedia and its editors.” Now, there are, of course, a very large number of apparent violations in this article. As I understand it, editors believe it acceptable to link to the site, because the article is about the site, even though the policy says “without exception.” I’m not sure I agree, particularly given the large number of links. But, if the links are in this article only as references, we do not need to bend this WP rule yet further by a move that does not enhance them as references, but serves only to aide infringement, as per WP:LINKVIO. IMHO, WP doesn’t need the hassle. Regards, Objective3000 (talk) 18:23, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Definitely agree that WP doesn’t need the hassle that using HPPS on TPB links could cause, plus it wouldn't do much to help protect an infringer (the usual method used by the RIAA and MPAA is to look at the IP addresses of torrent peers, not to try to intercept data packets in between the user and TPB). Those are interesting policy links. Clearly WP is a lot more concerned about copyright violations than they are about lock-picking, presumably because editors often add material that violates copyright, but don't as a rule use Wikipedia to directly pick locks (smile).

The next sentence after "Linking to a page that illegally distributes someone else's work sheds a bad light on Wikipedia and its editors." clarifies the meaning: "This is particularly relevant when linking to sites such as YouTube, where due care should be taken to avoid linking to material that violates copyright." The guideline does not say we shouldn't link to YouTube, just not to material on YouTube that violates copyright. I would argue that linking to TPB is fine, but linking to a torrent of a copyrighted work is not allowed. Full disclosure: I personally use TPB to distribute open-source software, so I may be biased. Guy Macon 23:07, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your thoughts. First, I don’t perceive bias in your disclosure. Although I think there are better sites for your purpose (personal opinion).

Although wp:linkvio uses a particularly egregious example to help in understanding of the issue, I think the wording is still clear that we are not here to aide copyright violations or expose WP to problems, legal or reputational.

On lock picks, I don’t know the laws in Florida, where WP has its servers and the largest legal exposure. In most US states, the mere possession of lock-picks is a felony as they are considered burglary tools. Again, I don’t understand the legal niceties. But, describing the mechanics of lock-picks is probably a great deal less of a furtherance of a crime than supplying a direct link to a site that will aide a crime, and advising potential violators that this will make them less likely to be caught. (Besides, if they are caught, they could also sue WP.) In addition, WP is in the milieu of the potential crime and some people may mistake WP for supporting what is a legal violation in most countries.

I would also suggest that linking to YT and TPB are fundamentally different as YT has agreed to abide by the law, and abides by DCMA requests, where TPB thumbs its nose at the law and the founders have all been convicted of crimes. Whether or not the editors agree with the courts shouldn’t matter to an encyclopedia.

But, most of all, I just don't see that making this unusual change to refs in this article is in the furtherance of the aim of WP. Regards, Objective3000 (talk) 00:25, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Agreed, in that WP Is Not A Privacy Shield or Security Enhancement Tool. People can put the "S" in their own URLs. --Lexein (talk) 03:19, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

The article and WP should not shy away from the reported fact that The Pirate Bay website is accessible by SSL (and therefore HTTPS://), supported by RS. I would go so far as: 1. List both (once) HTTP://thepiratebay.org and HTTPS://thepiratebay.org in the infobox, w/citation. 2. Explicitly state (once) HTTPS:// in the SSL sentence (introduced as a response to changes in Swedish law). So I did it. --Lexein (talk) 03:07, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I like the edit you made. The original edit by Lent1999, though well-meaning, simply made the http link a https link, adding no information to the encyclopedia. Your edit adds to our knowledge by documenting why TPB added SSL capabilities. Good job, IMO.

(The SSL announcement was buried in the Opentracker para. I just added the parenthetical about HTTPS: , and a supporting citation. --Lexein (talk) 07:24, 13 July 2010 (UTC))

Concerning the comment by Objective3000 that linking to YT and TPB are fundamentally different, that's a very good point. Would you consider the websites we link to through http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Gambling_websites to be thumbing their noses at US online gambling laws? Guy Macon 06:06, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

To return to the topic of improving articles, we're just here to write an encyclopedia, and cite reliable, verifiable sources, with WP:NPOV. WP is not a primary, or secondary source. So I adamantly don't care if the websites are thumbing their noses or browning them. WP:NOTCENSOR, WP:NOTADVOCATE. --Lexein (talk) 07:24, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

The above discussion has reminded me to closely question why I use https wherever practicable: (what I should have stated in my edit summary) "HTTPS'd [...] to protect users from eavesdropping & man-in-the-middle attacks.". (At the risk of ranting)
Because:
Eavesdropping and/or computer surveillance and/or telephone tapping and/or fiber tapping, the vast majority of these activities (if and when disclosed to the public) have been determined to be illegal {eg.Greek telephone tapping case 2004-2005, NSA warrantless surveillance controversy & other types of mass surveillance violates:
FISA, the First & Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution,
The Constitution of Russia - Article 23:
1. Everyone shall have the right to the inviolability of private life, personal and family secrets, the protection of honour and good name.
2. Everyone shall have the right to privacy of correspondence, of telephone conversations, postal, telegraph and other messages. Limitations of this right shall be allowed only by court decision.
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights esp. Article 12 (Privacy (law), honour & reputation), but also Article 3 (Liberty), Article 11 (Presumption of innocence), Article 13 (Freedom of movement within & to any country), Article 18 (Freedom of thought from government propaganda advocating legalized surveillance, on mass or otherwise), Article 19 (Freedom of speech/information from censorship) & Article 20 (Freedom of assembly in a community of bloggers/torrent-peers etc.)
and probably hundreds if not thousands of legally binding documents.}
[HTTP] eavesdropping allows an individual or group to gain access to humiliating and/or incriminating information about the subject of their activity, which can then be used to commit blackmail, espionage, racketeering etcetera, and then finally to having them arrested after nothing more can be gained from the subject of their eavesdropping. Also note that fewer than 1% of the populous is involved with law enforcement, thus it should be more likely that any eavesdropping is not being executed pursuant to a legally binding court order.
A Man-in-the-middle attack could be employed by an attacker to pose as the intended [HTTP] web-server, such that when a user downloads a webpage or piece of software, they may in-fact be downloading: malware (that infects/damages their data/system) and/or spyware and/or humiliating and/or incriminating data that may be used against them to commit blackmail, espionage, racketeering etcetera, and then finally to having them arrested after nothing more can be gained from the subject of their attack.
Ofcourse I have never intended, nor believe I shall ever intend, to cause any hassles for wikipedia (WP) or it's users (whom I believe shall continue to enjoy the presumption of innocence should they use encryption or not). As illustrated above, I honestly believed I was doing a good thing (by encouraging the use of https), and I will continue to use https for myself wherever I find it practicable, but I will not make any further such changes to this article until I believe my edit(s) will be found to be acceptable. I and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, believe that we should all use encryption & authentication on ALL data, quote "[i]n an ideal world, every web request could be defaulted to HTTPS", and has provided an add-on for the Firefox browser that does so for several frequently used websites, , to protect users from eavesdropping (which is almost always illegal) & man-in-the-middle attacks (which are almost always illegal).

--Lent1999 (talk) 10:40, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Lent1999. I believe your edits were in good faith. But, as you appear to have just described, were motivated by something in addition to improving WP. Lexein's solution appears more in line with the purpose of an encyclopdea. regards, Objective3000 (talk) 11:15, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Lent1999, another way of looking at this is that your original edit did not improve this particular Wikipedia page, but an argument could be made that a Wikipedia-wide policy of using https where available improves the encyclopedia as a whole by reducing the possibility of man-in-the-middle attacks against Wikipedia users. I would like to see you present this on the policy discussion pages as a proposed guideline. Something along the lines of "when http and https external links have the same content, https is preferred". You can use most of the same arguments you used above with a bit of cleanup. Please drop me a line on my talk page if you decide to do this. Guy Macon 13:22, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Just an opinion, but I think such a site-wide change would lend an air of paranoia, conspiracy-thinking and suggest a political agenda on the part of WP. (Even if the change was not made with such thinking.) WP thrives by not taking sides or expressing points of view. It is WP that should avoid being "in-the-middle" of a political debate. regards, Objective3000 (talk) 13:55, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

User Lent999 can present his case on the relevant board, as per the suggestion above, but until such time we only need one web address for the purpose of the infobox. Wikispan (talk) 15:33, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Makes sense to me. There are sites with dozens of urls. Objective3000 (talk) 18:33, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

"There are sites with dozens of urls" does not apply to the infobox discussion. Which is it: "Lexein's approach appears more in line..." or "only need one"? Wikispan has contentiously(WP:JUSTDONTLIKEIT) interpreted this waffling to declare "no consensus", to remove the citation-supported HTTPS link from the infobox . Policy: the infobox template documentation is only a guideline. Two URLs are ok, especially in this reliably sourced, publicly purposefully declared case. --Lexein (talk) 22:22, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't like the statement "Wikispan has contentiously(WP:JUSTDONTLIKEIT) interpreted this waffling to declare 'no consensus,".... There is not a consensus now.Objective3000 (talk) 22:44, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Back to WP purpose: the article is improved by inclusion of the HTTPS URL in the infobox, because it's a citation-supported notable feature of this website. Straightforward. --Lexein (talk) 22:59, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

An info box (Help:infobox) must be comparable, concise and Materially relevant to the subject. I don't see it fitting all these constraints or any need to change the concept for this one site. I've always had a problem with the infobox on this site, as it has been the subject of a multiple year's long edit war. The Current Status has been changed over 100 times. I tried to change it to a compromise status at one point a couple years ago, reflecting the fact that it goes up and down in toto and access in various countries bounces even more. My attempt was to end an unending edit war that continues to this day. Despite the fact that TPB is likely the least stable, high-popularity site in history, my attempt resulted in nasty edits to my Talk Page. Apparently, it must be stated as "active" even if it isn't. Serioiusly, this is an encyclopedia. This article looks like a fan page. And no one is even allowed to suggest a problem.Objective3000 (talk) 00:07, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

0. WP:OWN. 1. Fan page? Tag it. 2. Infobox status param war: Seems calm now. 3. HTTPS link: relax. Adding HTTPS to the infobox URL param will still be on policy. We have discretion. HTTPS is 100% relevant to this article about a website which implemented it as part of its ongoing legal battle, and notable enough for the infobox. A two-link infobox exception is appropriate for this particular article. --Lexein (talk) 13:12, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

The info box provides very basic info. It contains a link. There are many links, including proxies, used by pirates to get around various restrictions and to hide their use. It is not appropriate, in my mind, to add additional links. The main link identifies the site for the purposes of an encyclopedia. Let the pirate blogs list all the links.Objective3000 (talk) 14:28, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Calm down. Red herrings(many links, proxies), generalizations(pirates), and value judgments aside, you're letting your personal bias stand in the way of improving the article, in deprecating a verifiable, supported-by-reliable-sources URL. WP:OWN. --Lexein (talk) 14:56, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

You have made several gratuitous, slights in this thread, including "waffling," "relax," "calm down," "less hormones, more logic." The last, a pointless, sexist comment. I am perfectly calm, have no problem with my hormones, and presented I believe a logical argument with terms that fit the situation. So far the consensus appears against you; yet you use these charged terms. If the attempt is to convince me, that's the wrong way. I stated my opinions and will leave it at that since you no longer appear to be adding anything constructive. I suggest you re-read WP:CIVObjective3000 (talk) 15:56, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Your offense was unintended, and my edit comment was inappropriate. Note my strikethroughs above. My main points remain. I'm open to discuss by email. --Lexein (talk) 11:19, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Lexein, please address the issue at hand without making any further comments about other people who are discussing the issue. Guy Macon 09:14, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Always my intention. Offense and discussion derailing never my intention. Email. --Lexein (talk) 11:19, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Re: "The info box provides very basic info. It contains a link. There are many links, including proxies, used by pirates to get around various restrictions and to hide their use. [...] Let the pirate blogs list all the links", we aren't discussing adding many links. We are discussing adding one link to TPB. Also, I agree that the Current Status needs a permanent fix, but again we aren't discussing the Current Status here. On the issue at hand, (two URLs in the infobox) I don't have a strong preference either way, but my weak preference is to have two URLs, because the argument "is 100% relevant to this article about a website which implemented it as part of its ongoing legal battle, and notable enough for the infobox" appears to be a sound argument. I am open to arguments that would change my mind on this. Guy Macon 09:14, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

To condense: As I understand it, the purpose of having a url in the infobox is to associate the article with a website. Adding one of the several additional urls pointing to the same page does nothing to add to that purpose. WP:LINKVIO states: “Knowingly and intentionally directing others to a site that violates copyright has been considered a form of contributory infringement in the United States” (the WP host). So, one link appears to be a violation. In my opinion, further bending this rule to add a second link, one specifically designed to hide one’s access to the site, would serve only to “shed a bad light on Wikipedia and its editors” as per WP:LINKVIO. Regards, Objective3000 (talk) 11:43, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

I still say WP should not shy away from reporting RS-cited fact. The WP:LINKVIO policy, and the case law which it cites, applies to source material, not links in infoboxes, applies to pages, not whole websites, and applies to deep-linked hosted content, which TPB does not host, which is not the subject of this discussion. "Hide one's access": As of 15 July 2010 using SSL to communicate privately to a website is legal in all English-language countries, and this is the EL WP. HTTPS does nothing to hide the DNS lookup to the site, nor the initiator's IP address, and so provides no hiding of the fact of the conversation, only of its content. This is no more sinister than writing letters in envelopes instead of postcards, and is also not the subject of this discussion. So, one link to the homepage is not any kind of violation, nor would two be so. As long a WP article cites only legal content torrents (70% according to Sunde), or the home page itself, nothing remains to shed any bad light on WP or its editors.

--Lexein (talk) 13:45, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

1. IANAL and unless you are, I would suggest not giving detailed legal advice. I did not read all the limiting conditions that you've stated at WP:LINKVIO.

2. If SSL indeed has so few advantages in this case, why add it? It starts to sound like WP is just spreading TPB PR.

3. I really don't think Sunde should be taken as a source on anything related to what constitutes aiding copyright infringment since he was convicted of aiding copyright infringment.:) Seriously, we cannot claim as true and as a defense, statements made by a founder of a site ruled in violation of law on anything related to the site. He also claims to have nothing to do with the site.Objective3000 (talk) 14:14, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

1. In WP:LINKVIO the word site is used only in the context of a link to a page with copyvio content. So, it does not apply to this article.

2. SSL: RS citation. Relevant. I'm rather strictly NPOV, not ever prone to PR, BTW.

3. Sunde's testimony was under oath, accepted by the court, and not rebutted by the apparently quite able prosecution. My point was that the site also links to legal content, and the home page has no illegal content whatsoever. See point 1.

--Lexein (talk) 16:09, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Re: "If SSL indeed has so few advantages in this case, why add it?". Nobody claimed that SSL has few advantages, just that the alleged advantages you think it has (helping copyright violators) are not among SSL's major advantages. The claimed advantages (resistance to (mostly illegal) eavesdropping and resistance to (always illegal) man-in-the-middle attacks) are real.

Re: "I really don't think Sunde should be taken as a source on anything related to what constitutes aiding copyright infringement since he was convicted of aiding copyright infringement", there is such a thing as being unfairly convicted of something, and many such as Cory Doctorow argue that this is one such case. It is by no means an established fact that the RIAA and MPAA are right and the EFF and TPB are wrong here. The fact that TPB is now being hosted from servers inside the Swedish Parliament by the third largest political party in Sweden -- a party that also has two seats in the European parliament -- should be enough to establish that this is far from a cut-and-dry bad guys vs. good guys situation.

As I said, I am open to arguments that I am wrong, but the arguments I am seeing are not compelling. It would be useful if you were to explain why you think the two URLS are somehow "Knowingly and intentionally directing others to a site that violates copyright" in a way that one URL is not. Guy Macon 16:38, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments. The arguments for including a second link have not been compelling in my mind.

I'm sorry, but the concept that we should accept the word of someone on a subject when he has been convicted of crimes related to that very subject makes no sense to me. Of course it is possible to convict someone wrongly. But, why would you assume the courts to be in error and use such a person as a reference?

We cannot assume that the main purpose of a site that calls itself Pirate Bay is not piracy.

I did not say two urls are "'Knowingly and intentionally directing others to a site that violates copyright' in a way that one URL is not." I said that one does this. The rule is already violated. Why compound the violation?

To state that the main page does not violate copyright, and that WP:LINKVIO doesn't mean "site" by the word "site" doesn't pass the laugh test, in my opinion. I hope that isn't insulting. Couldn't think of a better way of saying it. regards, Objective3000 (talk) 17:28, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Incidentally, I can't find any reliable source that says TPB is actually hosted in the Swedish Parliament. There have been, over the years, numerous claims by TPB about the locations of their servers which turned out to be false.Objective3000 (talk) 17:41, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

http://www.aftonbladet.se/debatt/article7403004.ab

Translation: http://www.p2pnet.net/story/41294

Guy Macon —Preceding undated comment added 21:34, 15 July 2010 (UTC).

That is one source, and frankly, I'm surprised that anyone would consider it a valid source for an encyclopedia. Seriously, read it with an objective mind and tell me that it is a valid source. I am trying to be polite, but it reads like it was written by someone's lover. And, even that article says it will happen in the future, not that it is currently true. And it claims that the site is currently run by "Gottfrid Svartholm and Fredrik Neij," which they vehemently deny. Is there any even vaguely independent source that claims the Swedish parliament is running TPB servers? Even the biased blogs say "plan to." I "plan to" marry Angelie Jolie, but I'm not making an announcement as yet.:)

This is an encyclopedia. We need to use decent sources of information and not just repeat the defense statements in a criminal trial as if they were fact. Particularly when those sources have made years of fantastical statements about their servers, including a private island, countries in Africa, etc., when they were still in Sweden. And frankly, I think this is insulting to the Swedish Government and we shouldn't be making such statements without serious evidence.Objective3000 (talk) 22:15, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

1. "To state that the main page does not violate copyright, and that WP:LINKVIO doesn't mean "site" by the word "site" doesn't pass the laugh test..." -- glad you're laughing, because in WP:LINKVIO "site" is used in the context of a link, not an entire website. The prose, meaning and intent of the policy as a whole is clear. Narrowly seizing upon the word "site" and insisting on expanding its meaning beyond context is disruptive. And the policy simply does not apply to this article, because there are no links to copyrighted content in this article. To continue to insist on its application is disruptive, and does nothing to improve this article.

2. The digression into your opinion about Sunde's sworn testimony is unfortunate, because it was introduced in this discussion only to illustrate that not all content linked to by TPB is copyvio (a fact which you can OR for yourself), for the purpose of rebutting your good-faith assertion of WP:LINKVIO.

3. The digression into hosting TPB at Swedish Parliament is unfortunate, (even though it was reliably sourced as a Pirate Bay statement), as it does not directly contribute to improving the article, and WP:CRYSTAL. WP isn't about respecting foreign governments. If that hosting happens, with RS, it goes in: WP:NOTCENSORED.

4. Wikipedia's standard for inclusion is verifiability, not truth. The bottom line is that we report what reliable sources have said. WP:V and WP:NOTCENSORED in my view apply to the infobox as well. --Lexein (talk) 01:30, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

1. Your interpretation of WP stated rules is interesting. But, it is not what is stated. Claiming that I am being disruptive for quoting WP rules makes no sense to me. If you think the rule is badly stated, change it. But I think it is well stated and sensible, as apparently does the WP consensus.

2. I really do not understand the comment about Sunde. It was hardly my digression. I did not bring it up. Sunde’s testimony may be interesting, but he was convicted. Why would we accept the ”sworn testimony” of a person in a trial when he was convicted? If the judge/jury did not accept it, why would it be used as a “fact” in an encyclopedia? Do you believe it?

3. Again, I did not bring up the Swedish Parliament. I merely responded to a claim that the SP was operating the TPB website suggesting that this somehow made it legitimate, when in fact there is not a single source that claims this to be true.

4. What verifiability? None of these claims are slightly verified by any reasonable source.

I did not bring up any of these asides that you claim I brought up as “disruptive.” They were brought up by someone else and I responded. Please try to make constructive arguments instead of making accusations of disruptive digressions that I did not make. Objective3000 (talk) 01:57, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Lexein, even though I am currently in weak agreement with you, I really must insist that you behave in a more civil manner. You write concerning Objective3000 "To continue to insist on its application is disruptive, and does nothing to improve this article." Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong! Objective3000 is clearly trying to improve this article, just like the rest of us. Furthermore, although I don't agree with her/him, his/her arguments have merit. If you were to ask me whether I think that the Wikipedia rules call for no link to TPB, I would be in weak agreement. It's just the assertion that two links compound the violation that I am not convinced of. Here is my advice to you: before you hit the save page button, review your words and remove any statements that are about another person who is in this conversation.

The "digression" about Sunde's sworn testimony is was introduced by you, and the "digression" about hosting TPB at Swedish Parliament was introduced by me. Objective3000's responses were completely appropriate, rightly calling into question those sources.

Objective3000, re "Why would we accept the 'sworn testimony' of a person in a trial when he was convicted?" Being convicted does not mean that he is not a reliable source. Re: "If the judge/jury did not accept it, why would it be used as a 'fact' in an encyclopedia?" the court neither accepted or rejected the statement in question. The court only rejected one specific claim by Sunde: "Not Guilty." It could very well be true that the court agreed with everything Sunde said other than "Not Guilty." They key to evaluating testimony at a trial is not whether the person was convicted, but rather did the opposing side dispute the statement? If they did not, then it is uncontested under-oath testimony by a reliable source. If the only reference we could find to Sune's nationality was him answering yes when asked if he was a Swedish citizen, would that also not be an acceptable Wikipedia reference? Guy Macon 10:42, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for the first paragraphs. The last paragraph I agree with as far as it goes. I just don't think that "sworn testimony" adds much to verifiability when it is made by a defendent who was then convicted. It doesn't disprove anything. Just doesn't sound like a good basis for a reference. As spokesman for TPB, Sunde made numerous statements that were contradictory, and later found not to be true. He also swore under oath, as did all of the defendents, that he had nothing to do with the operation of TPB. In fact, they all have repeatedly stated thah they have no idea where the servers are located.Objective3000 (talk) 11:04, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

BTW, I looked into the statements about the TPB servers running in the Swedish Parliament. Apparently, the Pirate Party has claimed that they will run the TPB servers there in the future. A bold claim since they have no members in parliament. According to The Register, membership in the party has dropped 50% in the last year. They currently have about 25,000 members. 4% of the vote is required to win seats in the next election, which would be over 200,000 votes. Even if they did win, there is no reason to believe they would be allowed to start a business in the Riksdagen, or that the building has that capability. I would file this along with TPB's past claims that they were going to run the servers on a deep sea oil rig, on their own private island country, etc. Objective3000 (talk) 13:53, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Guy Macon, just ask if I meant a particular word or statement in a certain way, rather than invoke the "uncivil" tar brush again: if you like, I will strikeout/replace the word "disruptive" with "distracting." Next, who brought up which points is unimportant, I find the followon endless missing-the-point digressions distracting, and at the moment I simply cannot see how they're leading to any article improvement. The intent of WP:LINKVIO seems obvious (in spite of its unfortunate, inept use of "site" for "page on a site"), as does the appropriateness of HTTPS in the infobox. My (parenthetical, mind) 4-word citation of Sunde's testimony was in no way a digression in itself, yet it received more verbiage than its accompanying salient point - such excessive attention that it was obviously (to me) disruptive. In this thread, the only improvement that matters to me is the inclusion of the HTTPS URL in the infobox, per policy, per editor discretion, full stop; anything less feels inadequate and worse, timid. Oh, and by the way, Objective3000, "What verifiability"? I don't mind reminding you: the verifiable introduction of SSL & HTTPS in response to the Swedish change in law - only the original and main point of my entire involvement with this discussion. --Lexein (talk) 13:44, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't care whether you call Objective3000's contributions to this discussion "disruptive" or "distracting." I don't if you call them "tuna fish." You are still talking about Objective3000 instead of talking about The Pirate Bay Wikipedia page. I object to talking about other Wikipedia editors instead of talking about improving the page, no matter what specific language you use when talking about other Wikipedia editors.

You may be convinced in your mind that Objective3000 is engaging in all the bad behaviors you keep listing ("endless missing-the-point digressions", "not leading to any article improvement", etc.), but I have reviewed every word of this discussion more than once, and I don't see any evidence for what seems obvious to you.

I am going to ignore any further comments that talk about other Wikipedia editors instead of telling about improving the page. I will respond only to arguments pertaining to what should and should not be in the TPB Wikipedia page, and I encourage others to do likewise. I really do believe that you want to improve the page and I appreciate the logical arguments you often present, but I can not accept an assumption of bad faith without evidence to back it up.

Objective3000, I reviewed the material you referenced and you are entirely correct about TPB running from the Swedish Parliament. I was misinformed and thought that it was a done deal. I also did a quick sanity check of the "80% of torrents are legal" claim, and I don't buy it. Looking at the most recent 100 torrents at least 90% of them are to copyrighted material. Both claims should be ecxluded fom the TPB page until someone comes up with a citation to a reliable source. I encourage others to do the same test and report the results.

Getting back to the matter at hand, WP:LINKVIO, it clearly states "In articles about a website, it is acceptable to include a link to that website even if there are possible copyright violations somewhere on the site." Based upon this, the http link should stay. SSL protects a user against illegal eavesdropping by law enforcement and by RIAA/MPAA lawyers while doing nothing to hinder police who get a court order or to hinder RIAA/MPAA lawyers who simply access the publicly available list of who is peering/seeding a torrent. Based upon this, the https link should stay as well.

WP:LINKVIO also says:

"[I]f you know that an external Web site is carrying a work in violation of the creator's copyright, do not link to that copy of the work. An example would be linking to a site hosting the lyrics of many popular songs without permission from their copyright holders. Knowingly and intentionally directing others to a site that violates copyright has been considered a form of contributory infringement in the United States (Intellectual Reserve v. Utah Lighthouse Ministry)."

Note that the Intellectual Reserve v. Utah Lighthouse Ministry case was about deep linking directly to copies of copyrighted material.

A strict reading of the above does seem to prohibit both the http and https links, but the statement "In articles about a website, it is acceptable to include a link to that website even if there are possible copyright violations somewhere on the site" clarifies the policy and disallows such a reading. Guy Macon 09:37, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

I understand what you are saying. But, Pirate Bay is not a site that happens to have a few copyrighted works in violation. Copyright violation is the very purpose of the site and the court in the TPB trial ruled the site, as a whole, an illegal site. The lead-in to this article states “According to the Los Angeles Times, The Pirate Bay is ‘one of the world's largest facilitators of illegal downloading,….’" (Hence the name “Pirate Bay.”) I don’t think this is what was meant by “even if there are possible copyright violations somewhere on the site.” (emphasis mine)

Now, I am not calling for a removal of the thirty-some links to TPB despite what I believe to be apparent violations. But, I think that an additional, SSL, link in the infobox has at its purpose a further violation of WP:LINKVIO. If the use of SSL indeed aides someone in the act of piracy, this type of link would be a violation in both word and spirit. If it does not aide illegal activity, then it would simply be WP putting its imprimatur on a bit of TPB PR. In any case, it does nothing to improve the purpose of putting a link in the infobox, that being identification of the site associated with the article. Which is to say, it increases WP legal exposure, and sheds a bad light on Wikipedia and its editors with minimal or no improvement to the article. Regards, Objective3000 (talk) 12:16, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Re: "It does nothing to improve the purpose of...", good point. Good enough point that I am now thinking that maybe it shouldn't be there.

Re: "If the use of SSL indeed aides someone in the act of piracy, this type of link would be a violation in both word and spirit. If it does not aide illegal activity, then it would simply be WP putting its imprimatur on a bit of TPB PR.", This is an example of the false dilemma fallacy ( See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma ). You are falsely assuming that those are the only possible uses/advantages for SSL, despite the actual advantages having been explained in detail earlier in the thread. Guy Macon 21:34, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't think I'm ignoring other uses of SSL. Mentioned was eavesdropping and man-in-the-middle attacks. Eavesdropping I covered in the point about TPB PR. This is the point they are claiming is the purpose of their use of SSL. To avoid getting caught in illegal activity via eavesdropping authority. I don't see any reasonable possibility of man-in-the-middle attacks in viewing TPB.Objective3000 (talk) 22:11, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

"Bit of TPB PR": no. TPB did describe a technical response to a wiretap threat on their blog, and did implement it, with no formal press release. This fact was reported in three reliable sources, and not as PR, but as part of the developing history of a conflict. It was motivated by more than mere PR, and more than mere "protecting illegal activity". Encryption (like other forms of increased protection and privacy like thicker envelopes, better door locks, body armor) is an entirely reasonable, expected, and technologically available response to a stated threat; here, the threat was continuous warrantless wiretapping of cross-border communication for an entire nation, unprecedented (and repugnant, to advocates of privacy rights) in that country. None of the above-mentioned responses implies (nor should be interpreted as) intent to commit a crime. SSL at TPB was in direct response to threatened invasion of privacy by the state, with the side effect of appearing to "protect illegal activity" while at the same time protecting legal activity. SSL itself is neutral. "It does nothing to improve the purpose of the infobox": no. In the infobox, the purpose of url= is to provide protocol+domain for a website, and HTTPS is an alternative, more private, and in this case, RS notable, protocol. It is, from the viewpoint of a newcomer to the article who knows what HTTPS is but doesn't know TPB has it, an improvement, because it provides additional concise information, clicked or unclicked. This can be done compactly, on a single line:

URL      thepiratebay.org   (https: )

There is no slippery slope, and no incremental contributory anything. Note that if the infobox parameter was "domain=", I likely wouldn't have entered this discussion.

-Lexein (talk) 01:23, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

I think that the sources make it clear that this was indeed another bit of TPB PR. They show the TPB spokesman going to the press with calls for an international Internet ban to Sweden and calls to the European Court of Human Rights and other, quite frankly, bombast like putting up "wanted posters" of politicians. This is like their claims that they would buy a country, like Sealand, Ladonia, Isla Montuosa, etc. Objective3000 (talk) 12:13, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

I might add, the Swedish law only applies to Swedes using cross-border traffic. As the TPB servers are now back in Sweden, the law doesn't apply. Further, it's unlikely that SSL ever helped the vast majority of transfers, as it appears that SSL only lasted during the index lookup, and did not cover the actual data transfer.Objective3000 (talk) 13:33, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Four questions:

Lexein, obviously we have no achieved a consensus on the https link. Although I am in favor of the htpps link, it seems to me that we should leave it as it was until a consensus is reached. Comments?

Objective3000, How do you know that the PB servers are in Sweden?

Objective3000, How do you know that PB was not serious about purchasing Sealand?

Anyone: This section is getting too long and needs to be archived. Does anyone have the time to condense it into a couple of paragraphs? I am assuming that whoever does this will bend over backwards to portray the side they disagree with fairly, but it can be edited if not.

Guy Macon 01:48, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Archiving this, and turning on automatic archiving (60 days?) would be fine. No need to condense anything. The consensus is, at the moment, no consensus, so I would prefer that the discussion be continued (if at all) only by WP:3O or editorial assistance editors, and I would request that your two followup questions be pursued perhaps on your talk page. --Lexein (talk) 04:16, 10 August 2010 (UTC)