Firefox Pirates Take Over Amazon
Written by Ernesto on December 03, 2008Amazon, the world’s largest online retailer, is under attack by online pirates. An add-on for the Firefox browser called ‘Pirates of the Amazon’ makes it possible to shop at the Amazon store but leave without paying a dime. Instead, on Amazon product pages the add-on integrates links to ‘free’ copies on The Pirate Bay.
The timing of the ‘Pirates of the Amazon‘ launch could not have been more (un)fortunate. At the busiest time of the year for on- and offline retailers, this Firefox browser add-on offers users a download link to pirated copies of products that can normally be found in the Amazon online store.
When the add-on is installed, it integrates a new “download 4 free” button into the Amazon product page when the same article is also available via The Pirate Bay. It works for CDs, DVDs, games, books and basically all products that can be converted to a digital format.
With their mashup of the largest online retailer and the largest BitTorrent tracker, the project aims to “be a counterpart to the current models of media distribution”, and to “redistribute the wealth”.
The people behind the project have chosen to link to The Pirate Bay, but clearly state that they act independently. “We are not affiliated with The Pirate Bay, and do not host or even link to any illegal content,” they write. “This artistic project addresses the topic of current media distribution models vs. current culture and technical possibilities.”
‘Pirates of the Amazon’ is not the only pirate add-on for Firefox, in fact there are quite a few. IMDB, Last.fm, and Rotten Tomatoes all have their own pirate skin available. Most of them use the Greasemonkey add-on which allows the installation of all kinds of useful user scripts which customize the web to your pirate needs.
The Amazon Store with Pirated Alternative
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HEHHEHE TPB…. FTW?
Oops, the above submitted before i wrote the rest of my comment, so mods if you want feel free to merge the above with this comment.
It really is crazy, how in the world can the antiP2P and governments hope to stop this when there are sooo many realllly brainy folk coming up with new ideas all the time and cracking the silly ideas the MAFIAA come up with at the same time.
Those silly antiP2P slobs are going to be playing catch up forever, the writings clearly visible on the wall… how f*cking blind do you have to be to not see it?
Lol SWEET
Awesome.
Heh, now that is funny stuff. However, I can smell a law suit coming post haste.
http://www.fetchmp3.com (off to futz with the firefox api lol..)
J.
Jyeah.
fuckin stupid especially with the amazing price cuts amazon gives its customers, don’t get me wrong i’m a huge bittorrent fan not to mention i pirate just about everything i possibly can, but stupid shit like this is what causes amazon to jack the prices right back up to retail… this is the one time i can honestly say, fuck you
Gonna get that addon right now.
Anybody able to get that add on? site seems to be down :(
Well done!!
This is stupid people should learn how to do it or just find someone who does who would teach them… This is stupid!!! And is a reason as stated in post 7 that online/retail shops put their prices up every so often!!! its a nightmare!!! and its just a vicious circle meaning people just pirate more and more because they cannot afford the stuff!
MeH
Mayhem excites Hell
I’ve gotta agree with #7 here. I’m all for pirating where I can, but Amazon.com is one of the good ones. Why not pull this kinda crap with a DRM site or something? This is one move I don’t agree with.
Site’s down, but you can download from the Google Cache: http://preview.tinyurl.com/6j8y5w
While I find this an extremely cool and very in-your-face-ish idea I also believe that this will cause some trouble. Now that the direct connection of these two “worlds” has been made someone will want to stop this at all cost (if only Amazon). And to be honest if there’s something more dangerous than pissing on the studios … it’s pissing on their retail pimp.
Things will get worse … not that I care but I’m just mentioning it before everybody acts surprised :p
the title of the article is COMPLETELY misleading.
You clearly write as if the addon somehow downloads the content from the amazon servers without having to pay.
Where as this is merely just searching for a torrent with the same name as the page you are on then offers it to you. There’s no guarantee of quality or if it will be available to download.
This is hardly news.
Awesome… now if only I used FireFox (although when I did, I just had TPB toolbar for it instead).
Creative thinking though… +1
Shop for Spore then maybes? :D
About the example: I downloaded that soundtrack months ago from TPB.
If it’s the same one, it’s botched; as it was ripped from CD, I think the program ‘normalized’ the sound level wrongly and the bass got clipped in many places. Sounds horrible.
Especially “Bootstrap’s bootstraps” makes me cringe.
Anyone that is familiar with Firefox add-ons is going to be familiar with torrents. Shockingly uninteresting.
Ah crap, that was anticlimactic!
Surely, shopping without paying (that would include getting your stuff actually posted to you) is out of question, but I was hoping for some sort of shopping cart spam, showering the bots with phantom requests or something… just to piss them off for not giving away stuff for free…
I admit I torrent a lot. but I also shop amazon often for their low prices, I will not be using this add on because I strongly support amazon. In fact I just bought 3 albums off amazon for 7$ a piece.
oh, and I agree with #7
What fool would trust an add-on written by anonymous pirates. What ELSE is it doing I wonder.
Well I think this would be cool if a product was out of print or something to that effect where you couldnt buy it online. I think we should try pay for things if we can offord them. right now I cant so this could be a cool thing for me.
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