The article titled “Pirates of the Multiplex” discusses the new age of sharing movies over the Internet with the help of technologies like BitTorrent. The author describes his experience with UKNova, a torrent site of which he was a member. It allowed him to view old British TV shows and any number of movies. He says, it “changed [his] life.”

He then goes on to talk about one of the most popular torrent sites of them all, The Pirate Bay. While talking about the Neij & Gottfrid, the owners of the site, the author doesn’t make them out to be something they’re not. His description is honest. And yet, the The Pirate Bay pair come out looking cool.

If Svartholm and Neij’s experience sounds like something out of a generic mid-90s cyber-thriller, neither of them is exactly leading-man material. Neij, a 28-year-old who is the more gregarious of the pair, is a scruffy, impish type who regards his outlaw status with wry detachment; Svartholm is a sad-eyed 22-year-old with wispy hair and near-translucent skin that positively scream out “Dungeons and Dragons Master.”

So, when did server admins turn into superstars? Well, it’s been a long time coming. The Pirate Bay is possibly one of the most well known sites on the Internet. And even though “mininova” was one of the most googled words of 2006, The Pirate Bay is better known to the press. The site’s name personifies BitTorrent and movie “piracy” better than anything else can ever hope to. And each attempt to take them down only makes them more popular.

The Vanity Fair piece is lengthy and covers a lot of things, including the MPAA’s struggle to stamp out piracy, the increasing losses of Hollywood, and how the “heartfelt testimony of of Ben Affleck, a man who was paid $12.5 million to star in Gigli,” didn’t help one bit. It’s definitely worth a read.

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