I'm very surprised that they still maintain that all their income from advertising went to pay for their hosting infrastructure. TPB were hosted by PRQ which were owned by Fredrik Neij and Gottfrid Svartholm. Any bills PRQ sent them would be them paying themselves.
That part of the story is really fishy to me. TPB has roughly the same type of advertising as one of the many porn tube sites. But a porn tube visitor easily costs the site tens of megabytes in streaming video while a torrent tracker only has to serve a few 10-30kb large torrent files. Yet the tube sites appear to be able to make some money, but TPB with less than 1% of the bandwidth costs/visitor couldn't?
I don't see how it is wrong to keep your business and yourself as separate entities (or your other business in this case). For example, isn't it good practice to keep track of office renting space even if you are a freelancer and work from home so you can take it in consideration when deciding how much to charge for your work?
At no point in the article do they mention how long is the sentence Sunde has to serve. It's important because a few months in prison (less than a year according to the article) is ridiculous compared to most prison sentences.
Of course, that doesn't mean that even a few weeks in prison isn't atrocious. But a lot of people have been through much more, sometimes when they weren't even guilty, and didn't have a voice to be heard.
The SMH article I shared explained this was because the MPAA funded a lawyer to hang around in Thailand. Neij had been in and out of Thailand 30 times (he lives in Laos with his wife and young family) and the Thai's never cared .. until the MPAA funded a change in official perspective.
They can and do have books, TVs and offline computers.
The article is just whining by someone who tried to escape his prison sentence for two years and after getting caught (and then bragging about destroying evidence) is shocked that the system treats him as not being very trustworthy.
I'm surprised a Swedish prison doesn't provide a vegan diet. Prisons in California provide a number of different diets, although I'm not sure about vegan. It's a large expense for them.
But that said, I think there are times to give up on your vegan diet having to do with the culture that you find yourself immersed in. This has nothing to do with prisons, but if you're traveling in a culture where veganism is unheard of you should be a good guest and not push your beliefs on them, making your hosts uncomfortable. Just eat the meat.
In the West veganism is a luxury. A fetish for the rich and it is classist. Even outside of the West eggs and animal fat (not meat) are an important diet of many poor people.
The idea that morals are a fetish or a luxury strikes me as a dangerous point of view. If I went to a country where businessmen frequent 12-year-old prostitutes, would you expect me to do that as well so as to be a good guest? I kind of suspect that in reality, there are things some people do that you simply wouldn't, and you are specifically dismissing veganism because you do not agree with their morals.
I wonder if you feel the same way about Orthodox Jews or Muslims eating pork.
[+] [-] bjourne|11 years ago|reply
That part of the story is really fishy to me. TPB has roughly the same type of advertising as one of the many porn tube sites. But a porn tube visitor easily costs the site tens of megabytes in streaming video while a torrent tracker only has to serve a few 10-30kb large torrent files. Yet the tube sites appear to be able to make some money, but TPB with less than 1% of the bandwidth costs/visitor couldn't?
[+] [-] towelguy|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] philip1209|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] somehow|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aragot|11 years ago|reply
Of course, that doesn't mean that even a few weeks in prison isn't atrocious. But a lot of people have been through much more, sometimes when they weren't even guilty, and didn't have a voice to be heard.
[+] [-] towelguy|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] frou_dh|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 6t6t6|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] neverminder|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cholmon|11 years ago|reply
"He went to jail for piracy? I better stop pirating!"
[+] [-] xefer|11 years ago|reply
Strange timing. He was just arrested:
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/pirate-bays-fredrik-neij-caught-tha...
[+] [-] contingencies|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] titusjohnson|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jackmaney|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] polack|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] contingencies|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scotty79|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] johansch|11 years ago|reply
The article is just whining by someone who tried to escape his prison sentence for two years and after getting caught (and then bragging about destroying evidence) is shocked that the system treats him as not being very trustworthy.
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] comrade1|11 years ago|reply
But that said, I think there are times to give up on your vegan diet having to do with the culture that you find yourself immersed in. This has nothing to do with prisons, but if you're traveling in a culture where veganism is unheard of you should be a good guest and not push your beliefs on them, making your hosts uncomfortable. Just eat the meat.
In the West veganism is a luxury. A fetish for the rich and it is classist. Even outside of the West eggs and animal fat (not meat) are an important diet of many poor people.
[+] [-] kiba|11 years ago|reply
Now in the west, eating only plants is an expensive luxury.
[+] [-] chc|11 years ago|reply
I wonder if you feel the same way about Orthodox Jews or Muslims eating pork.
[+] [-] modifier|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] quadrature|11 years ago|reply