RIAA's Mitch Glazier, The Pirate Bay's 'Winston' Get Into Internet Shouting Match | Village Voice
RIAA's Mitch Glazier, The Pirate Bay's 'Winston' Get Into Internet Shouting Match
by Victoria Bekiempis
When The Pirate Bay switched its domain from .org to .se two weeks ago, the file-sharing website was hoping to escape shutdown by American cops.
Recording Industry Association of America VP Mitch Glazier just published a reply to the Pirate Bay's move, calling it a "rogue website" and the worst of the worst, according to TorrentFreak.
But the Pirate Bay's 'Winston' quickly shot back with his own op-ed, describing the RIAA as "delusional."
Glazier wrote of Pirate Bay and others like it:
"A blatantly illegal file-sharing site, proud that it's an online bazaar of every conceivable U.S. copyrighted work, found criminally responsible by its own country's legal system and who has been ordered by courts in at least seven European countries to be blocked by ISPs, has publicly acknowledged changing its domain name to escape U.S. laws."
"It is motivated by its brazen philosophy of thumbing its nose at the basic rights of America's creators. It is, in a phrase, one of the worst of the worst."
'Winston' countered Glazier's statements, casting the RIAA as a spoiled kid that has lost touch with reality, TorrentFreak writes.
"Yes, Glazier is upset that TPB moved away from a US-controlled domain name. He doesn't seem to understand that there is a worldwide problem when one single country tries to take control over a global infrastructure. TPB has no connections to the US so why should the US be able to control it?
It's a very undemocratic procedure which obviously the RIAA is supportive of.
Apparently 'escaping US laws' means not being born in the US, not living there, not working there or not wanting to kiss your ass."
The kicker?
"The RIAA wants the tech industry to sit down and talk to them. Fuck that. You're not in charge. If you want the help of the tech industry, ask for it. You'll probably get it since most tech people are nice. You're not in charge anymore and that's probably why you're pissed off.
Plz stop calling yourself 'the creative community.' You're not a community, you're a coalition of some of the richest companies in the world. And the only thing you seem to be creative with is your accounting procedures.
The recording industry is like a kid screaming for candy. The problem is that the kid has diabetes."
Runnin' Scared will see whether either side continues the debate today.
Indeed, this development and others suggest that the weeks to come should be interesting for the IP world.
Remember that U.S. law enforcement officials and their allies have recently been cracking down on file sharing sites, busting Kim Dotcom's Megaupload and seizing 16 other domains. There's even thought that Google might face a lawsuit for failing to censor its search results. Some sites have responded to flack by simply themselves offline, such as BTjunkie. Even Pirate Bay plans on deleting its torrents, and will switch to magnet links instead.
The recording and movie industries still maintain that illegal file-sharing saps them of profits and jobs, though new research refutes those claims.
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