The Pirate Bay

The Pirate Bay (commonly abbreviated TPB) is an online index of digital content of mostly entertainment media, founded in 2003, where visitors can search, download and contribute magnet links and torrent files, which facilitate peer-to-peer file sharing among users of the BitTorrent protocol.

In 2009, the website's founders were found guilty in Sweden for assisting in copyright infringement. In some countries, Internet service providers have been ordered to block access to the website. Subsequently, proxies have been providing access to it, and its content is being provided by multiple round-robin servers, collectively nicknamed the "TPB hydra".

History

The Pirate Bay was established in September 2003 by the Swedish anti-copyright organization Piratbyrån (The Piracy Bureau); it has been run as a separate organization since October 2004. The Pirate Bay was first run by Gottfrid Svartholm and Fredrik Neij, who are known by their nicknames "anakata" and "TiAMO", respectively. They have both been accused of "assisting in making copyrighted content available" by the Motion Picture Association of America. On 31 May 2006, the website's servers in Stockholm were raided and taken away by Swedish police, leading to three days of downtime.

The Pirate

The Pirate is a 1948 American musical film produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. With songs by Cole Porter, it stars Judy Garland and Gene Kelly with co-stars Walter Slezak, Gladys Cooper, Reginald Owen, and George Zucco.

Plot

Manuela Alva (Judy Garland), who lives in the small Caribbean village of Calvados, dreams of being swept away by the legendary Pirate, Mack "the Black" Macoco. However, her aunt and uncle (who have raised her) insist that she marry the town mayor, the rotund and bullying Don Pedro (Walter Slezak).

Shortly before her wedding, Manuela visits a nearby town, Port Sebastian. A traveling circus has arrived, and Serafin (Gene Kelly), its handsome leader, flirts with all the girls in the song "Nina." When he encounters Manuela, however, he falls in love at first sight with her. Serafin compliments Manuela's beauty and begs her not to marry Don Pedro, but, angered, she hurries away. That night, however, Manuela cannot sleep, and she sneaks out to go see Serafin's show.

At the show, Serafin hypnotizes Manuela, thinking that she will admit she loves him. Instead, the hypnotized girl wildly sings and dances about her love for "Mack the Black." Serafin awakens Manuela with a kiss, and she flees in horror.

TPB AFK

TPB AFK: The Pirate Bay Away From Keyboard is a documentary film released on 8 February 2013, directed by Simon Klose, based on the lives of the three founders of The Pirate Bay: Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij and Gottfrid Svartholm. Filming began in Summer 2008, and concluded on 25 February 2012.

Production

The film's website was launched on 28 August 2010, along with a Kickstarter campaign to raise US$25,000 to hire an editor after the Court of Appeal trial. The campaign was fully funded within three days and raised $51,424 in total. In February 2011, the Swedish government's Arts Grants Committee Konstnärsnämnden granted the project an additional 200,000 SEK (≈ $30,000).

Release

The full film was released under a Creative Commons license (BY-NC-ND) onto The Pirate Bay and other BitTorrent sites. Also, a four-minute shorter version was released at the same time for those who wish to remix or re-edit their own version of the film, featuring an edit with certain copyright restricted content removed, under a different Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license.

Piracy

Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence at sea. Those who engage in acts of piracy are called pirates. The earliest documented instances of piracy were in the 14th century BC, when the Sea Peoples, a group of ocean raiders, attacked the ships of the Aegean and Mediterranean civilizations. Narrow channels which funnel shipping into predictable routes have long created opportunities for piracy, as well as for privateering and commerce raiding. Privateering uses similar methods to piracy, but the captain acts under orders of the state authorizing the capture of merchant ships belonging to an enemy nation, making it a legitimate form of war-like activity by non-state actors.(For a land-based parallel, compare the association of bandits and brigands with mountain passes.) Historic examples include the waters of Gibraltar, the Strait of Malacca, Madagascar, the Gulf of Aden, and the English Channel, whose geographic strictures facilitated pirate attacks.

AFK

AFK may refer to: