The Pirate Bay Takes on YouTube

[Logan Westbrook]

The Pirate Bay Takes on YouTube

In a move that is as provocative as it is baffling, The Pirate Bay is starting its own video hosting site.

As you may have heard, the Pirate Bay guys are at something of a loose end and so to fill the time, they've flicked the switch on their announced video streaming service, The Video Bay [http://thevideobay.org], from 'closed beta' to 'open beta'.

The service was announced two years ago, and a spokesperson for the site said that it would have 'no censorship' and that unlike YouTube, would not act as 'moral police'. But after the announcement, it all went pretty quiet. That is until the Open Video Conference in New York City earlier this month where Pirate Bay creator Peter Sunde announced this new phase of the service to the assembled crowd.

"This site will be an experimental playground and as such subjected to both live and drunk encoding, so please don't bug us too much if the site isn't working properly," he said.

Rickard Falkvinge, the head of Sweden's Pirate Party, spoke to the BBC about the site, saying that it was another step in the "prolonged legal battle with the record industry".

"It's obvious that, given enough time, The Pirate Bay will win this war which will go on as long as the record industry has yet another penny to file a lawsuit. I think they [The Pirate Bay] are taking an important part in that battle, fighting for freedom of expression and culture against monopolistic companies," he added.

Of course, from a layman's point of view, it looks like The Pirate Bay have given their detractors a rather large weapon to use against them. Hosting torrent files is one thing, because you can legitimately claim that you don't host copyrighted material, but a video hosting site is very different beast.

The site that the Video Bay is based on, YouTube, has been criticized and even sued a number of times by copyright holders, and while I'm not an expert on Swedish law, I can't imagine The Video Bay will fare much better.

We shall just have to wait and see how this develops.

Source: BBC [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8123989.stm]


Permalink

 

[Jamash]

a spokesperson for the site said that it would have 'no censorship' and that unlike YouTube, would not act as 'moral police'.

So it's just going to be another porn and video nasty streaming site then?

In a World Wide Web where Rule 34 (and worse, [small]much much worse[/small]) rears it's nasty head at almost every opportunity, sometimes a little censorship isn't a bad thing, especially if you're foraying into European Politics and are trying to gain credibility.

 

[Lvl 64 Klutz]

Just more proof that these folks are simply self-important twits with an inflated sense of entitlement.

 

[Internet Kraken]

Just more proof that these folks are simply self-important twits with an inflated sense of entitlement.

This

I couldn't care less about what a bunch of pirates decide to do.

 

[notyouraveragejoe]

This seems interesting but I'm pretty sure it'll descend into porn and other similar stuff instead of a way to post interesting videos with copyrighted without being shut down.

 

[midpipps]

Finally an alternate to YouTube, thank god for this!

what like vimeo and the dozens of other great streaming services???

This is going to be full of fail it will basically just end up being a bunch of pirated content and porn. Hence giving record movie and tv companies even more reason to go after them with the lawyers.

 

[InsanityBaronOfAtrocity]

These guys are ballsy. They'll have to be careful not to get sued into oblivion but if they survive then this will be another amazing victory for the pirates!

 

[xHipaboo420x]

Go get 'em fellas. A viable alternative is always a good thing, and these guys will really have to get the lead out to compete with youtube.

 

[bodyklok]

When they say they won't act as 'Moral Police' does that mean they will allow all manner of porn on their site? Including rape, and CP?

 

[Logan Westbrook]

When they say they won't act as 'Moral Police' does that mean they will allow all manner of porn on their site? Including rape, and CP?

Well, no censorship would seem to imply that that would be the case, but as the service is still in its infancy, there's no way to know for sure.

 

[Symplify]

I don't entirely know what to say. I don't think it'll be as popular as YouTube, it's pretty damn hard to do that, and I suspect, as others have stated, that it'll just descend into a cesspool of hatred and porn, and both.

 

[Zombie_Fish]

It's obvious that, given enough time, The Pirate Bay will win this war which will go on as long as the record industry has yet another penny to file a lawsuit.

Whether for better or for worse, piracy will always be in the world. Where there is a law, people will try to find a way round it, and that is what happens with Piracy against copyright law. Even if The Pirate Bay is stopped for good, there are millions of free download sites across the internet, and the record companies and copyright industries don't have anywhere near enough money to tackle them all.

 

[Cheesebob]

Moral Police?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uYWYWPc9HU

I prefer Karma Police

 

[D_987]

It's obvious that, given enough time, The Pirate Bay will win this war which will go on as long as the record industry has yet another penny to file a lawsuit.

Whether for better or for worse, piracy will always be in the world. Where there is a law, people will try to find a way round it, and that is what happens with Piracy against copyright law. Even if The Pirate Bay is stopped for good, there are millions of free download sites across the internet, and the record companies and copyright industries don't have anywhere near enough money to tackle them all.

So we know who to blame when the industries eventually collapse...

 

[Ranooth]

Whoa hold on hold on!

Theres a Google Chrome 3?!

 

[Zamn]

There will have to be some censorship if they don't want it to become another porn streaming site. It is an unfortunate truth of the internet that any site that doesn't actively avoid porn will become a porn site.

 

[ThrobbingEgo]

Of course, from a layman's point of view, it looks like The Pirate Bay have given their detractors a rather large weapon to use against them. Hosting torrent files is one thing, because you can legitimately claim that you don't host copyrighted material, but a video hosting site is very different beast.

It'll probably end up using some embeddable, torrent streaming video player [http://www.downloadsquad.com/2009/05/05/tribler-and-bitlet-offer-two-takes-on-torrent-powered-video-stre/], so they won't end up hosting their own files.

But I don't think this will amount to much. There are a lot of similar services out there and the bulk of new original talent will post their videos where they can get the most exposure. Though this may lead to a metric asston of embeddable copyrighted content. Hopefully that'll mean Hulu gets more open, as I'm sure The Pirate Bay wouldn't have any problems opening their now easily accessible content to Hulu and the PS3. But that's only if they're a credible threat.

Edit: Just checked out the site - it's pretty crappy looking. There's no content, the search engine seems pretty bad, and it won't let me see the videos, so I can't confirm if it uses a torrent streaming client or not. My guess, based on the lack of content, probably not.

 

[KSarty]

a spokesperson for the site said that it would have 'no censorship' and that unlike YouTube, would not act as 'moral police'.

So it's just going to be another porn and video nasty streaming site then?

In a World Wide Web where Rule 34 (and worse, [small]much much worse[/small]) rears it's nasty head at almost every opportunity, sometimes a little censorship isn't a bad thing, especially if you're foraying into European Politics and are trying to gain credibility.

I believe by "no censorship" they mean they will not take down videos that have copyrighted content in them like youtube does, not necessarily porn.