Week 14 - New/digital media story

The Pirate Bay crew 'couldn't care less' about being taken offline

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/dec/16/the-pirate-bay-taken-offline-filesharing

This article is about an online file sharing site called 'The Pirate Bay', from this site people could stream almost anything they wanted, from movies to full program sets and software. The site was taken down by Swedish police after they raided the site. However the one of the admins of TPB said that they weren't suprised and that they didn't really care about what happened as they expected it. The admin said that the raid has allowed them to take a break from the site, they also said, "TPB has become an institution that people just expected to be there. No one willing to take the technology further,” he wrote in the days following the raid. “The site was ugly, full of bugs, old code and old design." This shows that they didn't really care about the site, and people didn't protest when the site was shut down as they have so many other options to choose from, and the other torrent sites are new and they have more of an appeal to its users. 

However another admin of TPB said, " “Will we reboot? We don’t know yet. But if and when we do, it’ll be with a bang. The people behind TPB are like one big collective mind. There are no leaders nor any one in charge. About 30-50 people from all over the world pitch their ideas against each other and whatever comes out of that is what will be the fate of TPB.” From this it shows that TPB may come back, and when they do they will bring something new. 

I choose this article as it shows how technology is changing and how peoples needs are changing, as people now don't only want a site to download files from, they are also looking for an aesthetic appeal. As technology improves institutions such as TPB need to also keep up with it and make sure that they have everything to offer to their users.