The Pirate Bay (TPB), ExtraTorrent and YTS.ag Now Listed as Top Free Download Alternatives; Torrenting Still Hurting from KickassTorrents, Torrentz Shut Down (Photo : Facebook)
Copyright holders taking down the YTS/YIFY release group, free movie streaming Popcorn Time and torrent tracker Demonii are all but symptoms of a broken Internet and fighting for it is a lost cause, according to The Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde
"It's broken. It was probably always broken, but it's worse than ever," Sunde told Motherboard.Vice.com.
The Internet of today is in "closed and controlled state," where rights and privileges take the back seat, the TPB founder said, adding that capitalist interests have taken over and easily prevailed because people just don't care.
He said that the demands of capitalists are what matter, which explains why giant movie producers can pressure governments to take on operators of file-sharing sites and lock them up. Sunde himself and The Pirate Bay co-founders Fredrik Neij and Gottfried Svartholm served jail time for "assisting in copyright infringement," Motherboard said.
The same interest groups, the Motion Picture Association of America or MPAA as among the most prominent member, are also the behind the successive takedowns of popular torrent sites YTS and Popcorn Time, proving that fighting for an Open Internet is all for nothing, the report added.
"I have given up the idea that we can win this fight for the Internet ... because apparently that is something people are not interested in fixing," Sunde explained, somehow allowing that Internet users' indifference is partly to blame for the prevailing situation.
Nothing can be done to alter the situation as Sunde stressed that the Internet at its current state is being governed in a way to generate profits not to make knowledge and information freely accessible for everyone. In this age ruled by the biggies Facebook and Google, both earning billions of dollars, it's hard to imagine how the concept of an Open Internet will survive, the TPB spokesperson hinted.
As it stands and despite the ongoing efforts by governments and copyright holders to make it disappear for good, The Pirate Bay, which Sunde and company started in 2003, remains the most stable and safest torrent player around, likely making it as the last man standing for an Open Internet.
