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Wanted to clarify on:

> Sure you are. You're directly helping people perform it. I'm not saying what you're doing should be illegal, but let's be honest here. You are "interested" in piracy. One could argue you're even involved in it.

To be, again, completely honest with you, no. If you could have that much exposure showing photos of shoes, we'd do it instead.

I see it as... a start-up without the worry to make profit. We use analytics only to improve the product. We use this as a product building exercise, that's all.

We don't upload movies, we don't run a tracker, we don't belong to any release groups: that's how not interested in piracy we are.



  > We don't upload movies, we don't run a tracker, we don't belong to
  > any release groups: that's how not interested in piracy we are.
That's like saying "We don't sell crystal meth, we're not distributors for crystal meth, we don't belong to any drug production groups, but our site helps kids obtain crystal meth from those who do: that's how not interested in crystal meth we are."


Your analogy is paired because both piracy and meth are illegal in the USA. However, the pairing lacks equivalence in my view because crystal meth is clearly (and by nature, not by law) harmful to the user, while piracy is not.

A better analogy might be a website that helps others circumvent the Great Firewall of China. It is illegal in one particular country, but circumvention does not harm individuals (only the society, one could argue). "We don't circumvent the wall, we don't run a proxy, we don't belong to tor: that's how not interested in circumventing the wall we are."


"crystal meth is clearly (and by nature, not by law) harmful to the user, while piracy is not"

Methamphetamine is helpful for hyperactivity, obesity, and narcolepsy.

I am having trouble constructing parameters in which your statement is true, but does not apply to nearly everything. For example, Tylenol (APAP) is clearly harmful to a user's liver.


Your censorship analogy is flawed, since copyright infringement is not legal in any country (im not sure, but Ethiopia might have started recognising foreign copyrights now)


Downloading movies from torrents is legal in Canada (covered by a copyright levy on data storage media), for example.


In Poland it's also completely legal if you don't distribute (seed) it. Legal for movies and music, illegal for programs/games.


Same goes here in Switzerland. We have a tax on storage media that is supposed to cover that use case.


In many countries or at least Mexico, copying or linking to copyrighted material != copyright infringement , copying + profit does.


>since copyright infringement is not legal in any country //

Last time I looked there were still a few countries that weren't signatories to international copyright laws, PNG I think was one? Maybe Nauru, Tuvalu, Vatican City?

http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/summary.jsp gives details of those places that aren't party to _international_ IP treaties. Note Vatican City is in that list as "Holy See" and is a signatory to a few IP treaties.


Linking is not considered copyright infringement in most of Europe.

Your analogy has no legs.


I'm curious if you have a better analogy?


In retrospect, you're right, we probably should blacklist Twilight from our DB.


I find your comment disingenuous. I cannot take you seriously when you argue that you are not "interested" in the very thing you enable and are focused on.


I can see why you would think that. However, if there were APIs to license all that content on an invidual basis instead of linking to torrents, we'd do it instead. Can't really argue beyond that, you're right to some extent.


How about just linking to the movies themselves if they are available on Hulu, Amazon, Netflix, Lovefilm, iTunes or VUDU instead then?


Actually, we're planning on doing that for US visitors.

The rest of the world is way too much trouble to serve legally so far (it's not even consistent across providers, it's content-dependant..)




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