Demonoid Down, For Now

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1. master
   

   September 25th, 2007 at 4:39 pm

   nooooooooooooooooo!

2. Frog29
   

   September 25th, 2007 at 4:46 pm

   “but as most BitTorrent users access and use more than one sight,” site, not sight, just thought I’d let you know

   And also,
   NOOOOOO!

3. Louis-Eric
   

   September 25th, 2007 at 5:00 pm

   I don’t get your way of thinking here; why should we celebrate the fact that plenty of small software developers will get their work ripped-off from with more ease now, and that any attempt at limiting the widespread theft of their work, livelihood and future interest in desktop software innovation is hopefully failing ? This bugs me to no end. Isn’t TC supposed to be on the side of the innovators ?

4. Jon G.
   

   September 25th, 2007 at 5:06 pm

   Louis-Eric,

   There are plenty of legit reasons for bittorrent and demonoid. The flaw in your logic, as was the flaw in logic with Napster, is that your condemning the service instead of condemning the content.

   Real geeks use Usenet anyways … it’s faster, more stable and more private.

5. Louis-Eric
   

   September 25th, 2007 at 5:23 pm

   That’s one of two arguments that are always offered: alternative uses, and the benefits of free publicity (for an application, an artist, or a movie). Both arguments, while nice in theory, don’t fly in practice: the overwhelming majority of the content found on demonoid and other trackers is entirely illegitimate. Cracked software, entire movies (why should these be made for free ?), etc. It would be one thing if the trackers harbored a frictional, accidental fraction of recently submitted illegitimate titles; but that’s not the case. What they offer reflects the demand, the demand is for illegal material, the providers are therefore complicit. Doesn’t it bug you that the trackers that are actually built to share new music, promote independent films, or any other material made available under a public license are not exactly getting swamped for requests while the illegal contents trackers garner heavy loads as well as the hearts and minds of many more users ? So much for alternative uses. Want alternative uses ? Go to sites actually fostering these ahead of anything else. Demonoid’s not it.

6. Will
   

   September 25th, 2007 at 5:39 pm

   The fact that intelligent geeks and law abiding citizens are continually defending (and using) systems that are mostly for the transfer of illegal content and software, is a social phenomenon, the root of which seems to be largely ignored or not discussed.

   Meaning, there’s no point in arguing whether Demonoid (for instance) is good or bad, but rather ask the question: why do so many people think it is ok to steal online?

   I worked in Disney’s Online group for 7 years and despite being part of an organization tasked with fighting piracy while still providing digital content to customers; it was amazing to me how many employees were stealing music and movies right at their desks. Young and old, executive or entry level position . . . didn’t matter, you have all types of employees (for a major content provider) stealing content off the Internet. And they’d defend it, mostly by saying, “well I’ll buy if it’s good”.

7. Ed
   

   September 25th, 2007 at 5:40 pm

   I used to use Bittorent to download songs from Jamendo, but now where I am at, bittorent transfers are completely cut-off, so I can’t access all those independent artists anymore. Jon-G and Louis Eric both bring up good points, you really can’t fault Bittorent, the technology, but rather sites like Demonoid which mostly feature illegal content

8. Irtehnewb
   

   September 25th, 2007 at 5:43 pm

   Usenet is Pro but demonoid is pretty slick also i must admit. shame to have the site down for a while,

   i got my Operating system from demonoid hehe. Nice OEM Vista 64b Ultimate.

   No matter how you look at it, Some of the shit you download from demonoid. alot of you [including myself] cannot afford. but are still more than capable of using the software and utilizing its features….

   Like for instance i got a Adobe CS3 master Collection package off Demonoid.
   Sorry if its considered theft or whatever. But the real theft lies in adobe’s price for this product…

   $2,499 for it. Cmon. i use the damn thing to make clothing on secondlife lol..
   Even The photoshop CS3 Full version is about $700.

   Not saying this completely justifies getting it for free but everyone deserves to have software such as this for an affordable price, not just rich people and corporate programmers.

   So with that being said. p2p is an absolutely amazing system which should not be banned from the web. if you want to ban stuff from the internet.

   maybe we could get some of those terrorist beheadings and scat porn off my interwebs :>

9. Irtehnewb
   

   September 25th, 2007 at 5:46 pm

   Also i wish someone would take http://www.goatse.cz off the web, i have it bookmarked and i cant stop looking at it

10. Louis-Eric
    

    September 25th, 2007 at 5:48 pm

    #8: Why do you want to use software you can’t afford while there are free alternatives available ? I couldn’t afford a $4000 Armani suit when I was an undergrad, so I got $129 Brionis instead. There are plenty of low-priced and free graphics packages, why not use these ? Why steal from Adobe ? Don’t like their prices ? Try the competitors’ offerings !

11. Irtehnewb
    

    September 25th, 2007 at 5:51 pm

    Louis i understand your point but still. these programs are cheap knockoffs, hell they are inadequate in so many ways compared to the real deal.

    I have Equasions!!

    Adobe CS3 Photoshop > Corel Paint Shop Pro 10.0

    I have expensive taste and no money so sue me!

12. ~
    

    September 25th, 2007 at 6:00 pm

    “Recently they opened up the last 14 days worth of torrent listings to public access, making the site a quasi-private tracker”

    Demonoid is a public tracker, semi private site.

    [quote]I don’t get your way of thinking here; why should we celebrate the fact that plenty of small software developers will get their work ripped-off from with more ease now, and that any attempt at limiting the widespread theft of their work, livelihood and future interest in desktop software innovation is hopefully failing ? This bugs me to no end. Isn’t TC supposed to be on the side of the innovators ?[/quote]

    Explain to me how copying a file over the internet is “theft”?

    If you can afford something, and you think it is a fair price; Buy it. If you can’t afford it or don’t think it is a fair price, but still want it, download it.

13. Ed
    

    September 25th, 2007 at 6:01 pm

    Irtehnewb, the free options are not just cheap knockoffs, but competitors, you just need to take the time to get to know how they work, same as it took you a while to learn to use Photoshop or any such program

14. itsmedia
    

    September 25th, 2007 at 6:03 pm

    I use demoniod to download tv shows because I don’t have cable or a dish and canadian broadcasters don’t transmit on a strong signal to make attenna tv viable. nobody provides content to purchase via web in Canada(apple sells apple tv but no content is provided) so wheres the crime I am downloading a few hours later what was broadcast for free.the cable company should be happy I pay more for internet than basic tv(its one or the other) but I guess the big corporations need to suck us dry.

15. Ed
    

    September 25th, 2007 at 6:03 pm

    #12 - Did you even read what you quoted? You are ripping-off people’s jobs. If you want free, look for something in the public domain, or that’s GPL’d

16. Coolman2003
    

    September 25th, 2007 at 6:05 pm

    http://www.thecircuitbox.com/demonoid/

17. Irtehnewb
    

    September 25th, 2007 at 6:17 pm

    #13

    I know virtually everything there is to know about the programs i am talking about, ive been using them for years, the differences are vast…believe me.

    The Filters and standard tool bar with brushes n such are nowhere near the same. The only thing where they compare really is the name…photoSHOP paintSHOP.

    Not trying to sound cocky though im sure i do. Photoshop is the best. hands down

18. Marty
    

    September 25th, 2007 at 6:19 pm

    This is soooooooooooooooo unfair. This is one of the best sites that i have found for films, games, music & tv. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

19. Max
    

    September 25th, 2007 at 6:24 pm

    i’m using Vistaz Ultimate Cracked right now, dont care how wrong it is
    hell im even using Firefox with Keygen

20. Irtehnewb
    

    September 25th, 2007 at 6:30 pm

    marty there is always

    Mininova, ISOhunt, ThePirateBay, Suprnova, Eztvefnet, PureTnA, PussyTorrents
    Sumotorrent, torrentscan…I can go on lol.

    Demonoid is good stuff, my fav one of these sites but the majority of these sites have the same files or alternatives.

    And if u want music just download limewire pro from one of those sites =/

21. Nik Cubrilovic
    

    September 25th, 2007 at 6:37 pm

    Because I simply don’t believe that piracy has the effect that we are lead to believe it has. Take the big summer blockbusters, bourne, pirates, transformers, and die hard. All had CAM or DVD-rip versions online, yet they all booked $300M+. Most movie fans just dont substitute a cinema visit with watching a CAM version at home (same for most good TV series DVD box sets)

    For software developers I believe that piracy has a net benefit, since having your software pirated is much better than being in complete obscurity. I believe with software (especially business software) is if somebody is pirating it, they probably weren’t going to pay for it anyway

    We are never going to get to zero piracy, so we just need to deal with it. Adding up all the piracy that takes place and calculating that as a ‘loss’ to business is completely insane and untrue. On the positive side, piracy is forcing publishers into more consumer-friendly business models, like DRM-free music, better prices etc. There are economic forces at work here, and they wont be stopped

22. edgar
    

    September 25th, 2007 at 6:45 pm

    o.k. guys - not trying to flame anyone here, but downloading copyrighted content without legal consent is NOT stealing. It’s copyright infringement. If you feel guilty downloading copywrited media, then don’t download - but don’t accuse people that do of stealing.

    I think one of the biggest reasons people do it is because of the draconian, assinine laws in place to prevent the spread of information. Couple that with the repeated, proven track record of these corporations and industry groups trying to screw the consumer (the guy that actually PAYS for the content) - and you’ve got a lotta pissed off people with broadband.

    This isn’t about the “artist” - check the accounting ledgers. It’s about maintaining a bunch of archaic monopolies through questionable legal maneuvers and lining the pockets of politicians through special interest groups.

    Sorry guys - the BSA/RIAA/MPAA aren’t trying to be noble. Just like the dinosaurs, they aren’t willing to evolve - and so, they’re gonna go extinct. Good riddance.

23. Boomer
    

    September 25th, 2007 at 6:55 pm

    The effect of internet piracy on music sales is inconclusive — there is a small number of people who would have bought but downloaded, a small number of people who downloaded and THEN bought, and a very large number of people who would not have bought and downloaded. No one really knows how many fall into the first two camps, and I bet the same thing happens with software. I ended up buying Roboform after using a fully unlocked downloaded copy, but definitely would not have bought it after experiencing only the crippled unregistered version.

    I understand why file sharing makes content creators nervous, but it’s not as simple as “you downloaded, therefore you stole from me.” Someone grabbing a $15 album that he would never buy — or at least he assumed he would never buy before hearing — does not equate to $15 stolen from the artist.

24. Starfeeder
    

    September 25th, 2007 at 7:07 pm

    That really sucks, they had a great logo too

25. chrish
    

    September 25th, 2007 at 7:21 pm

    http://www.zeropaid.com/links/bittorrent/

26. Frank Turd
    

    September 25th, 2007 at 7:23 pm

    It has always blown my mind just how pro-piracy, pro-IP theft, pro-copyright theft Techcrunch is. Always. You guys always write with such alacrity about how great it is to steal from legitimate copyright holders. Why?

    Why? Why do you feel sorry for crap-holes like Demonoid? Screw them. They’re vermin feeding off the creativity of others. They facilitate the whole say theft of content that is not theirs.

    I can’t imagine that if I were to mirror the content on Techcruch in a way that I made money off of it or in a way that took a chunk out of the $200,000 or so that Mike A. makes monthly, that Techcruch wouldn’t have some horse-faced lawyer pounding on my door demanding that I stop or he’ll shove is shoes sideways up my ass. I would think that if I were to even use the name “Techcrunch” in a pecuniary way I would get sued.

    Why?

27. Louis-Eric
    

    September 25th, 2007 at 7:28 pm

    “For software developers I believe that piracy has a net benefit, since having your software pirated is much better than being in complete obscurity. I believe with software (especially business software) is if somebody is pirating it, they probably weren’t going to pay for it anyway”

    That’s the thing Nik; read from this thread. What gets copied is what *is* known. Nobody’s copying en masse the $10 softpack bundles from Walmart (which are usually rock-bottom licenses on original software). I can’t keep counting the number of people who are building their “million dollar start-up” on ripped off copies of Zend Studio (what was that, $89 ? A few bucks more if you want more whistles ? Will make a million but can’t spend $89 or install Eclipse ?); full-time graphics designers (like our friend up there who claims expertise with everything in that realm) selling their services using a ripped PhotoShop. Contract software developers selling products built on a ripped copy of Delphi (they earn a full year of a pretty good salary on a tool, and they won’t pay for it !?).

    The net effect for a large guy is significant, but for a small software producer in a niche market it really means life or death. Survey any market; there are far, far fewer producers of niche consumer-oriented desktop applications. Part of it moved to SOAS platforms, that’s true, but many simply choose not to invest in this space anymore. It’s not worth it. They target their efforts at businesses now (or produce hybrid-market software that will get ripped by — or explicitly allowed for — customers who will bring it to businesses); businesses can’t rip with impunity (the large ones anyway). Not all software is great for business, though. Take a look at SOHO and consumer-grade backup utilities, for instance; the area was red-hot in the early 90s, with plenty of small companies breathing down the necks of the big guys; that category got good fast. Now, the smaller players have left the market; and what you find on the shelves from big producers sucks so much (I can understand a failed restore from tape, but from files !?) little if anything is actually worth the sticker price anymore (obscure counter-references will be cute but won’t prove the point). Nobody’s rushing in to fill that void, and net-based solutions aren’t anywhere close to providing viable ones either. 3D design tools for the SOHO market ? Forget it, the real software development talent is focusing on large-scale studio uses. The gap between what SOHO can find and what LucasArts can use is astounding. Not paying for many innovations is borrowing against your market segment’s future. Talent just goes elsewhere, and you end up with dross, or have to wait for people tired with the state of affairs to organize an open source solution.

28. Boomer
    

    September 25th, 2007 at 7:29 pm

    Frank>>

    Techcrunch is provided free to the people who read it. There’s nothing to steal.

29. gates
    

    September 25th, 2007 at 7:29 pm

    #21 hit it on the nose, at least in my world. I could never afford these apps. so I will never buy them. where is the loss ???? But they have infact gained a fan of their wares. And will and do promote them.

30. Yatti
    

    September 25th, 2007 at 7:33 pm

    NOOO!!…. Demonoid will be back I’m sure… LONG LIVE DEMONOID!

31. phenom
    

    September 25th, 2007 at 7:48 pm

    damn…hope they come back soon
    http://vidsonly.blogspot.com

32. DemonLover
    

    September 25th, 2007 at 7:49 pm

    Demonoid rules, screw all the software developers, and movie/music producers that have been ripping the public off for years. Bill Gates is worth how many trillions of dollars now?

33. Frank Turd
    

    September 25th, 2007 at 7:53 pm

    @Boomer

    Horse crap. None of this is free. All of the production that goes into Techcrunch cost MONEY. Servers, bandwidth, salaries, Advertising, etc…They would NOT be happy if a bunch of people hijacked their (Techcrunch) content and said hijacking affected the money flow at Techcrunch. They would sue. That’s the hypocrisy here. Sure as hell Techcrunch would sue if their content was being used without their permission and if it affected their bottom-line, but noooooooooooooooooooooooooo … they don’t give a rat if millions of people are stealing other’s content. Instead, they feel…sad.

    Nik Cubrilovic is wrong.

34. blah
    

    September 25th, 2007 at 7:55 pm

    They have the largest selection of hypnosis files on the net. I hope they come back

35. Ed
    

    September 25th, 2007 at 7:57 pm

    #29 and #32 - Read #27. It doesn’t hurt the big guys, sure, all those movie studio execs still make their money, Mr Gates is still worth trillions. But what about the smaller guys? Those that aren’t as well known, suffer a lot, since you might “promote” them and such, but you aren’t paying their livelihood. You might recommend them to another friend, who will in turn, also download with paying anything to the developer, and this continues on and on, and for the big companies like Adobe, nickles and dimes, for the small time developer, big setback, unless he gets bought by Google or Amazon or Facebook or Adobe or whatever big-time company’s acquisitions you follow

36. DemonLover
    

    September 25th, 2007 at 8:02 pm

    #35
    The smaller companies rip you off just as much. I can’t count how many times I’ve paid $30 for software from a small company and it turned out to be a major piece of garbage. At least with torrent sharing, I can try out a full featured version to make sure it works for what I’m doing before I dish out the cash.

    I understand what you’re saying though, which is why I primarily use Demonoid for music and software from the big companies.

37. xp
    

    September 25th, 2007 at 8:04 pm

    I hope demonoid comes back.

38. Ed
    

    September 25th, 2007 at 8:05 pm

    Demonlover - You’re right, sometimes they can be ripoffs, but you have to realize, they are competing against the big boys, they’ll do anything to stay ahead. If anything, you can always take your business somewhere else

39. edgar
    

    September 25th, 2007 at 8:08 pm

    I’d love to see some actual facts (or at least testimonies of) how the existence and activities of demonoid.com have caused musicians, software developers, artists, etc to lose their homes, go hungry, file bankruptcy, etc.

    Oh wait - that’s right - the trade groups have released multiple “studies” in which they’ve claimed to have “lost” [big, shocking number] in revenue. Yeah, that’s hard evidence.

40. Rodd
    

    September 25th, 2007 at 8:11 pm

    Well, I am sorry that the site is down. I really liked it.

41. Ed
    

    September 25th, 2007 at 8:11 pm

    edgar - Read Louis-Eric’s posts, it’ll save me the time of having to write what he has written already.

42. DemonLover
    

    September 25th, 2007 at 8:13 pm

    Edgar,
    It’s all propoganda so that record companies can still charge $15 for a CD, movie theaters can charge $10.50 per ticket for a movie, and companies like Adobe can charge $1000 for photo editing software. They will never have any hard evidence.

43. M_D
    

    September 25th, 2007 at 8:18 pm

    Edgar

    That’s not the point though.

    The point is that you and I are still stealing from other people. What you are doing is rationalizing the theft of copyrighted material.

    It’s like saying, “bah, who cares if I killed this bastard, nobody really liked him anyway”.

44. Zombiekirk
    

    September 25th, 2007 at 8:24 pm

    I have friends who have bought games and software because they saw and used it on my puter. Most all I would have not bought anyway. For the most part I used Demonoid to get very hard to get music resently a remixed Aqualung album. There are very few copies of this even made. On top of this I own and paid for Many different verions of this album on vinal, casset, cd and and @ one time a few on 8 track. So did I steal?? No. At one time I had boot copy of Xp when first came out many of my friends went out and bought it after seeing how slick it was on my pute. I bought it also later plus three more legit copys for my three other putes. As someone once said “I’m not a Thief” Z.K.

45. Louis-Eric
    

    September 25th, 2007 at 8:30 pm

    #42: Wrong; let’s take movies for instance. In any major metropolitan market the movie presentation market is offered in five phases: a) Front-point theatrical releases; the movie is new, you want to see it before everybody else spoils it, or you like spending your time in comfort; they pay premium, you pay premium. b) Pre-DVD theatrical presentation; the movie has been showing in the full-comfort theatres for a few weeks and the big screens are shopping for new titles; the movie moves to budget movie theatres (here those are $2.50, less than the price of rental), so you can still see it on a big screen, albeit with less comfort (those are pretty much the old state-of-the-art theatres of a few years ago, so this is hardly a trash can, just not as nice as the latest and greatest); they don’t pay premium, you get a bargain; c) DVD release; three phases to that a) Rental Premium, b) Retail, c) Rental Discount. Same business as before.

    Now instead of taking the movie industry numbers as gospel, go do your homework: how many discount movie theatres are there left in your neighborhood. Do movies last as long in the premium theatres as they once did, or does stuff get to DVD at a surprising speed ? How many of the small rental players are left now in your neighborhood, now that the premium rental market has collapsed ? How many independent movies have actually made it to your mainstream theatres ? Whenever people rip movies instead of paying for them, studios lose premium screen revenues, small businesses like mom-and-pop discount retail theatres collapse (funny how that is, the people actually offering you the best value in this whole chain get hurt the most, unlike what is claimed in previous posts), retail discount rental shops get replaced by Blockbusters, and you get to have your choice of risk-reduced major studio fare or…. well, not much else (when’s the last time in the last few years where you’ve seen a major studio take a risk on something like Fight Club ?). The big guys are hurting, but the small guys are pretty much gone. Every pirated industry’s that way now. You may be stealing software from the big enough guys, but even then you are preventing them from tooling up to actually compete with the company you loathe the most.

    Look at university enrollment in movie departments; down, no jobs. Music ? Forget it. Software entrepreneurs ? Plenty, but they’re generally not thinking of your needs, just as you are not thinking of theirs.

46. edgar
    

    September 25th, 2007 at 8:45 pm

    I’m not trying to fuel a flamewar … but I still haven’t seen any real evidence of anyone directly suffering financial loss because of demonoid.com (or any other torrent site).

    As for the closing of small movie theaters, mom-and-pop retail stores, etc - there are numerous factors that shape the landscape of business. Changing customer trends, new technologies (”legal” technologies), business acquisitions, etc. Everyone’s pissed and moaned about Walmart for years - killing small business by selling low (because they can buy at bulk). But no - let’s blame Demonoid. We’ve got all that concrete evidence to back up claims of joblessness and financial ruin.

    Anyways … there’s TONS more copywrited content on IRC … why aren’t trade organizations going after IRC hosts?

47. Sadako
    

    September 25th, 2007 at 8:45 pm

    so you download expensive software and music from a torrent site? Who cares? People who refrain from stealing warez, mp3s etc are so completely retarded. Why not take whatever you want so long as it’s freely available?
    Sites like demonoid are a way of leveling he playing field in terms of what you can afford and what you want. If companies don’t want their software, music, films etc stolen, they should keep them unreleased. I have never felt any guilt whatsoever, and my downloads on demonoid exceed a thousand gigabytes. Internet=freedom.

48. Zombiekirk
    

    September 25th, 2007 at 8:46 pm

    Small time theaters went down when the average guy got a 65″ big screen at home with suround sound and you can rent a DVD. Now you can enjoy big movie and a beer! Z.K

49. SwordOfWar
    

    September 25th, 2007 at 8:48 pm

    No matter what reason people have for piracy, against or for it, the fact is that it will always be here, and you can’t change it.

    However I do believe that the majority of people using pirated software would probably not buy any of them or a very minimal amount.

    Who wants to pay a high price for photoshop when your a teenager who just wants to learn to make a few awsome looking pictures or avatars for a small fan site or forum?

    I do believe that pirating as far as software does hurt companies. I do not however think that it affects them in as great a way as they say it does.

    The only reasonable and effective solution to solve piracy is to provide optimal quality products at fair prices. If people feel a price is worth what they will get in return, then obviously this greatly reduces the possibility of high piracy rates. If they feel what the product offers is not worth the price, then they either don’t get it, or they pirate it for little or no charge at all. This is the reason DVD pirating is so high. People would rather pay 5-10 dollars for a DVD rip with slightly less quality, but about the same experience, versus 20 dollars for nothing more but a small increase in clarity.

50. Ed
    

    September 25th, 2007 at 8:50 pm

    Sadako, the point is, it isn’t intended to be freely available, at least not in the sense that you just download it and move on, not worrying about the developer/creator/songwriter.

51. Sadako
    

    September 25th, 2007 at 8:53 pm

    #50;
    “you just download it and move on, not worrying about the developer/creator/songwriter.”

    EXACTLY!!!

52. Steve Ballmer
    

    September 25th, 2007 at 8:58 pm

    Torrents are the hangouts for criminals, theives, iTards, linux-folk, child abusers, miscreants of all types,….. It should be illegal or run by Microsoft!

    http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com

53. Zombiekirk
    

    September 25th, 2007 at 8:59 pm

    Sadako-You seem a litle on extream side any one who would download over 1000gigs of any thing has a problem! And I am for p2p. You don’t get out much for sure. Z.K

54. Ed
    

    September 25th, 2007 at 9:01 pm

    #53 I’m sure he has a very big por…portable music collection, since he must keep everything in separate hard drives

55. Sadako
    

    September 25th, 2007 at 9:09 pm

    lol

56. gates
    

    September 25th, 2007 at 9:13 pm

    speaking of music downloading….Janis Ian (”At 17″; circa 1975) has a good read on her website about music downloading, If you have time..

57. gates
    

    September 25th, 2007 at 9:14 pm

    http://janisian.com/article-internet_debacle.html

58. tomas
    

    September 25th, 2007 at 9:17 pm

    Ed, what is the title(s) of your creative work(s)? I’ll seed all of them for you for free, b/c I am such a nice guy. No need to thank me, really.

    P.S. The Web Sheriff is hiring, maybe you could get a job with them to hunt down the evil-doers.

59. Louis-Eric
    

    September 25th, 2007 at 9:23 pm

    #46/#48: If you are so sure of it, then go ask the local mom and pop rental store in your area: are rentals up or down since broadband came to the neighborhood ? Sales of DVDs ? (Discount bin sales ?) If you suspect the owner might be shilling, ask an employee who has been there for a while. Those revenues did not move from small theatres to rental shops. They went to piracy. Before you click again, at least you’ll know what the effect of it is. (For some reason though, everyone I suggest this to finds some reason to protect their illusory beliefs and fails to even ask that question.)

    #47: 1T of rips ? What the heck do you do with linear years of music and video ? Watch it all over and over again, or just store it for some reason ? It’s a little freakish.

60. Ed
    

    September 25th, 2007 at 9:26 pm

    tomas - I’m not trying to imitate the RIAA’s or MPAA’s “web sherrif” tactics or anything similar. Thanks for the offer of seeding, but if say, I did make creative works, you shared them all over, I became popular, I could stand to be picked up by a record label/movie studio…..but that hardly happens as much as we’d like.

61. Khemo
    

    September 25th, 2007 at 9:29 pm

    …so where was the RIAA when the first dual-cassette tape deck came out? It wasn’t “illegal” then. It wasn’t “stealing”.

    Also, I would enjoy seeing the anti-torrent/download advocates post their annual salaries. Then, I’d like to compare those to the majority of the salaries earned by the pro-torrent/download community. What we have here, gentlemen - is a classic example of the “have’s” and the “have-not’s”.

    If you’re some two-bit software programmer that’s starving because a couple copies of your program were downloaded - consider a new career. If you haven’t licensed it out to a major distributor by now, then you may want to consider filling out an application at the local Best Buy. Your argument is moot. Look at the creator of HiJackThis, a piece of software that was FREEWARE! Recently he sold it to TrendMicro…and yet millions of people had already downloaded it…for free.

    Movies. Oh, please - don’t even get me started. They make millions regardless.

    Music. I’m a musician. Have been for fifteen years. The artists see little to no revenue from their songs. Most of their money is from merchandising and live shows. Neither of which is disturbed by the “illegal” downloading of music.

    If I bought it and want to share it with someone across the planet…I will. If someone on the other side of the planet bought it and wants to share it with me…they will.

62. Khemo
    

    September 25th, 2007 at 9:31 pm

    “If you are so sure of it, then go ask the local mom and pop rental store in your area: are rentals up or down since broadband came to the neighborhood ?”

    Uh…

    …Blockbuster.

63. Zombiekirk
    

    September 25th, 2007 at 9:35 pm

    #59 That’s not true most pirate movies look like crap and take days to download for reasonable copy even with DSL. Plus it ties up your bandwith so you can’t use pute! I personally just rent and copy much easier and someone got paid! Mom and Pop can’t compeat with Block Buster or the likes. Small shops allways have to many issues and don’t have the movie you want. Z.K.

64. Khemo
    

    September 25th, 2007 at 9:38 pm

    Blockbuster is the devil. Ironically enough - I support a local “mom & pop” shop.

65. Brandon
    

    September 25th, 2007 at 9:57 pm

    Ha. Fun debate to read, yet a pointless one.
    Piracy is here to stay. Deal with it.
    Whether you are for or against it, it is never going away.

    Companies will always have outrageously expensive software.
    People will always be too cheap to pay outrageous prices.

    Endless cycle.

66. Louis-Eric
    

    September 25th, 2007 at 10:13 pm

    #65: So will murder and theft; doesn’t mean that we should cheer when they happen. People make individual choices; they are responsible for the choices they make; there is no piracy without someone’s individual choice to steal. The choice that was made here is to celebrate the inefficiency people who oppose the theft of intellectual property. Kind of like cheering the robber at the bank and booing the police (money’s just information nowadays, isn’t it ? people will always want some, and some people just won’t want to work for it).

    I think that a guy who is being paid by a publisher for content celebrating the fact that others won’t be is a dubious choice to make. That’s the central argument made in this thread again and again.

    That people think differently is moot; if you disagree with the law, go change the law; don’t sit by as the copyright law is being discussed without calling your local government representative to have your point known, do the same as the DMCA law is passed, fail to join any active lobbying to have the law changed, and think that you are somehow a true hero by silently, stealthily violating a law that you happen not to like.

67. yshiuli
    

    September 25th, 2007 at 10:15 pm

    This is a piece of writing from the net, …. i know, i know, this is a chicken and the egg argument but i can’t help it…

    The writer is a musician by the way…

    Dr.Godfried-Willem RAES

    1. Information cannot be possesed . It is not property since it cannot be taken away.It is object nor energy , but essentially form.

    2.Every form of treating information as a product is intrinsically contradictory to its very nature.

    3.Copyright protection is not only based on an epistemological lie, but it is also immoral towards society as well as it is a reactionary reflex towards capitalisation of thought.

    4.Composers, authors nor inventors need protection since the use of their work is not an attack, but contrarywise it rather constitutes an honour.

    5.Regardless any ideological considerations , the further development of new technologies will make the idea of copyright completely anachronistic and obsolete. Copyright protection will reveal itself to be just inefficient.

    … that’s just a summary… if you want to read more http://logosfoundation.org/copyleft/copyrigh.html

68. Terry
    

    September 25th, 2007 at 10:18 pm

    Actually I’m surprised that Demonoid lasted so long without being shut down. With so many tracker sites shut down in the past it was only a matter of time until this happened for the most popular torrent site.

69. TxCatTayl
    

    September 25th, 2007 at 10:44 pm

    NOOOOOOOOO! I had to move from one state to another due to my job so I was out of pocket for about a month. And then the first day that I have time to go back to Demonoid it’s down. I really, really pray that it comes back as it is my resource for audiobooks, which like software can get expensive to buy and hard to get good ones at the library. I’ve not found another BitTorrent client to compare for content and speed. If Demonoid disappears for good, I bet they come back in another guise.

70. God Says...
    

    September 25th, 2007 at 11:07 pm

    jesus guys, write a freaking book why don’t you? lol i never liked demonoid cause it was private, but i pirate some stuff, just software, not music. flame away

71. Choada777
    

    September 25th, 2007 at 11:11 pm

    Small rental shops have gone to the pages of history books due to franchises (such as Blockbuster, Netflix, etc.) moving in and stealing their customers with larger selections, greater availability, and cheaper prices. Same goes for small theatres who have to compete with multiplexes like AMC and operate under pressure from greedy distributors. By the same logic are you going to blame the demise of drive-in and palace theatres on downloads of movies over the internet? Also I don’t do movies much, but if I were, I would rather rent it for $2 bucks and copy it than download it (This way the rental store inadvertently makes a profit too). Most movies posted have such crappy quality they’re not worth the download; and the good quality movies take forever to download.

    Most people that download software off of Demonoid end up using it for their own personal use. I downloaded Photoshop CS2 so that i could edit and print pictures that I took and make fancy CD labels. I downloaded Illustrator to make designs for t-shirts. Never made a cent off of anything. A majority of people who download this software use it to do the same thing. Somehow $1000 for an application that will help make pretty pictures is not a good trade-off. To claim that people are downloading this software and generating income off of it is quite a stretch (Maybe for start-ups but they’ll have to buy it eventually if the business grows). If anything businesses are the greatest copyright law abiders there are; because they’re more susceptible to getting caught. Computers in the workplace and in educational institutions are put under the microscope to ensure every piece of software on it has a license. Otherwise the business could suffer sever fines and penalties. Also, if someone does not want to pay for software they won’t. Plain and simple. If I can’t find a free version of a software application, I either find a GNU equivalent or find a similar program. Getting back to the root of this, all information should be free anyway. It stifles innovation.

    Now music…the Industry is rotten to the core. You can hear it through the quality of its output. Radio stations play the same songs 20 times in one day in an effort to sell promote a crappy song. Even oldies stations do this. Decades upon decades of music available and all the station can play is the same five Beatles songs over and over? Most modern music artists are promoted based on their looks rather than their talent. Radio isn’t even worth listening to anymore. Music is an art and should be treated as such. Once an attempt is made to capitalize on it it degrades. Hip hop music (a musical art popular among the young in urban neighborhoods to describe anything from politics to love through storytelling-that emphasized diversity and skill) is the perfect example. Hip-hop has been taken by the music industry and perverted. Commercial hip-hop now emphasizes materialism, sexism and violence; completely devoid of any of its positive origins. CDs aren’t even worth buying anymore; why would I pay $15 to $20 dollars for an album with two decent songs on it? An why would I PAY for a song on the internet that has had its quality reduced (192-128 Kbps - and likely has DRM on it, so I now have an opportunity to buy the same song three times). Finally, people should never get into music expecting to become famous millionaires (Especially if you look nothing like a model). ‘Artists’ that claim that people downloading music are the driving factor behind their financial struggles are sadly mistaken. Honestly, the true reasons can be attributed to exactly the point when you decided to ‘be in a band.’ I am a musician myself but play as a hobby; for my own gratification and the gratification of those that want to listen. Those that think with their pocketbook will likely be too blinded by greed to write a decent tune.

72. Noid-ee
    

    September 25th, 2007 at 11:15 pm

    serious, get a blog. this is a place for an “N” followed by a self fufilling amount of “O”s.

    NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO (and some of these) !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    if i know piracy, which i do, you’ll be back

73. fathead
    

    September 25th, 2007 at 11:31 pm

    [quote]Torrents are the hangouts for criminals, theives, iTards, linux-folk, child abusers, miscreants of all types,[/quote]

    Seriously????

    How many companies(i’m talking about the big ones) have gone “kaput” after bit torrent? we still have adobe, windows and their lot….At the rate windows is going…..linux is stealing their show albeit a little slowly.It’s only a matter of time before people switch over to macs or linuxes…..

    as for the movie and music industry, they are still making their big bucks.Sure, “illegal content” appears over bit torrent sites, BUT people still prefer to go to theaters to see movies.

    [quote]i never liked demonoid cause it was private, but i pirate some stuff, just software, not music[/quote]

    Your logic amazes me:). If you don’t like Demonoid(or other BT Trackers) why download the “stuff”? You’re still pirating:) so why not love it???

    Demonoid maybe down but they’re not out.If not Demonoid…then mininova and pirate bay and rapidshare and megaupload and their lots will continue.

    Their community is also great. Good luck, Demonoid. Keep fighting!

74. CaptainFuture
    

    September 25th, 2007 at 11:53 pm

    Will, #6:
    “why do so many people think it is ok to steal online”

    Why do so many people keep using this verb? Calling file sharing stealing is like calling the Soviet regime Communism: disinformation. Stealing is Ctrl+X, not Ctrl+C. Isn’t it weird, that the borders between the concepts of sharing and stealing are being deliberately blurred?

    When I buy a book or a music album, I am happy to let my friends read / listen / make copies. I keep my purchased music in a web-shared folder. You wouldn’t buy something that you’d be proud to hide, would you?

    Then again, whoever wants to pay, pays for the heap of 1s and 0s of the original virginity, quantity and functionality. I wouldn’t buy most of the downloadables, were they available only for money. What’s stolen, Will?

75. saac
    

    September 26th, 2007 at 12:46 am

    have to say, i dont agree with people making money using pirated software. I use Adobe Photoshop and premiere just for the experience of personal achievement….If i want to become a professional with these products, i’m meant to go out pay a huge amount of money to learn to use them?! thats bs.
    demonoid was a godsend…….but there are plenty to replace it (until its back :)…)

76. jf23
    

    September 26th, 2007 at 12:51 am

    oh this is bad… the best torrent site I ever had

    -> best community, nice, friendly people - able willing to help me anytime
    -> best detailed category sorting
    -> fast downloads, many people with great ratio
    -> i was able to find there almost ANYTHING (99% of non Czech rep. material), many rare things…
    -> rare section of “self-help audio tracks” with hypnosis, meditative, relaxing and similar material (i will miss this section most)

    so I strongly hope that the last sentence of this article will be true!

77. requiem99
    

    September 26th, 2007 at 12:52 am

    This comment section is full of dumb and insanely ignorant people. Hard to believe that the “stealing” meme has taken off among people who really should know better. If I paint a picture and you look at that picture over the internet without paying and without my permission are you a thief? What did you steal from me? Try making a tiny leap of logic from that point and maybe, just maybe, you’ll figure it all out. Or maybe you want your ISP to control what web sites you can visit, how much of your activities they can log and report to the government/MPAA/RIAA/whoever else asks nicely.

    Follow the money and read history. Those who make money off a product, process, or idea will kick bite scream and even kill to keep their share of the market. Read up about electricity, textiles, and marijuana. Three example areas monopolised and propaganda blasted by big corporations using blatantly illegal and false business practises to keep away something better for the consumer than what they are trying to sell you, SOLELY because there is less profit and less control in the unpatented/unregulated alternatives. It is what has kept us all addicted to petroleum since the turn of the last century, kept DuPont and others in golden rivers of synthetic fabric profit margins so wide the Grand Canyon in comparison resembles something my son made in his sandbox.

    This is not just a part of life, it IS life in the modern world and it’s been going on for centuries. It’s the rich versus the poor, even today. Do some research. Educate yourself. We may not have much of a future if we let corporations control our governments and walk all over us and our personal freedom.

    I don’t remember who originally said this, but it’s true: “Beware any man who denies you access to knowledge, for in his heart he thinks himself your master.”

    Apply that to today.

    Class dismissed.

78. John
    

    September 26th, 2007 at 1:15 am

    Lots of good points here from both sides, but at the end of the day, these sorts of tools are going to remain. Tools don’t break laws, people do… And even in the unlikely event that the torrent system would be wiped out, there are plenty of other alternatives out there to satisfy people’s needs to share files, for instance there’s a little known but widely used private p2p program (http://www.gigatribe.com) that allows it’s users to share and exchange entire folders of large files easily, pc to pc… And even if all p2p apps were magically wiped off of the face of the earth, there would still be millions of sites that matched up people who have content with those that want copies of the content through the mail (actually a lot of bootleg trading sites like that already exist)… Cat and mouse game here, nothing more, and we all know the mouse wins (just watch any Tom & Jerry episode!)

79. jf23
    

    September 26th, 2007 at 1:39 am

    … well and I hope thy will never stop puretna.com :¤)

80. Blue Glum
    

    September 26th, 2007 at 1:41 am

    Most of all I miss the Demonoid community. Some of the users became kind of friends. I miss their comments, their criticism, their suggestions. And how nice it is to share a hard to find or out of print album with a few like-minded music-lovers! Where do they go, those lossless jazz and classic Demonoid members? Could someone tell me on what sites I have to look for them? Sumotorrent? Torrentbox? Seedmore? I wish I knew…

81. Whoo
    

    September 26th, 2007 at 1:44 am

    Let us avenge!

82. anti-ernesto
    

    September 26th, 2007 at 3:13 am

    Ok folks, here it is. Demonoid is down. It has been for around 1 day 2 hours. The reason is down is unkown. It hasnt been RAIDed, shutdown, terminated, deleted, burned, mamed, or thrown under a bridge. There have been speculation as demonoid.com whereabouts. Well the rurmors are false. A no name site in Netherlands has a blog about Demonoid.com being down. As I don’t speak douche, I can not translate. However TorrentFreak Decided upon there own free will to further spread this and rumors. Torrent freak has known to be a sleazy site they post false rumors and hope they turn out true. They do this in order for money and popularity. Quite sad isn’t it. To prove this is quite easy:

    [05:26] *seanap* [09/25/07 - 18:00.54] ((
    [05:26] *seanap* [09/25/07 - 18:00.54] .. Query with (ernesto)/(~info@P2PNET-41E95253.groni1.gr.home.nl) opened on (Tuesday, September 25th 2007, 18:00:54).
    [05:26] *seanap* [09/25/07 - 18:00.54] .. Total queries: (40)/(~0.7 per day)
    [05:26] *seanap* [09/25/07 - 18:00.54] .. Queries today: (1)
    [05:26] *seanap* [09/25/07 - 18:00.54] .. Common channels: (+#demonoid)
    [05:26] *seanap* [09/25/07 - 18:00.54] ((
    [05:26] *seanap*
    [05:26] *seanap* [09/25/07 - 18:00.54] (ernesto) hi
    [05:26] *seanap* [09/25/07 - 18:01.01] (ernesto) it’s ernesto from TF
    [05:26] *seanap* [09/25/07 - 18:01.05] (seanap) hello
    [05:26] *seanap* [09/25/07 - 18:01.27] (ernesto) brb 1 min
    [05:26] *seanap* [09/25/07 - 18:01.28] (seanap) are you part of the staff there?
    [05:26] *seanap* [09/25/07 - 18:02.01] (ernesto) I’m the staff
    [05:26] *seanap* [09/25/07 - 18:02.03] (ernesto) hehe
    [05:26] *seanap* [09/25/07 - 18:02.32] (seanap) that article is completely false.
    [05:26] *seanap* [09/25/07 - 18:02.39] (ernesto) well, I based my story on a respectable source
    [05:26] *seanap* [09/25/07 - 18:02.47] (ernesto) but I doubted it
    [05:26] *seanap* [09/25/07 - 18:02.55] (ernesto) so what’s going on then?
    [05:26] *seanap* [09/25/07 - 18:03.05] (seanap) there hasn’t been word yet
    [05:26] *seanap* [09/25/07 - 18:03.44] (seanap) the 2 IRC ops that are usually in contact with Deimos haven’t been around
    [05:26] *seanap* [09/25/07 - 18:03.45] (ernesto) last time demonoid staff said it were hw problems you relocated to CAN
    [05:26] *seanap* [09/25/07 - 18:04.11] (ernesto) they said my story was false then too
    [05:26] *seanap* [09/25/07 - 18:04.20] (ernesto) but it turned out not to be
    [05:26] *seanap* [09/25/07 - 18:04.46] (seanap) well i’m saying we as site and IRC staff haven’t heard anything.. and we’d be the first people