I usually stick to writing from a technical perspective but this time, I need to get a few things aired. I’m sorry to break the focus with this first post in a long while.
I assume that few have missed that there is an ongoing trail against the founders of The Pirate Bay, the world’s largest torrent tracker. The trial is being intensely followed by people across the world with disperse interest in what’s going on. From discussions I have followed, I understand that there is a bit of a misunderstanding of what is really going on so I thought I’d clear things out.
Illusion 1:
If the case is lost, The Pirate Bay will shut down and defendants will go to jail.
- Truth:
There is a huge voluntary organization following and supporting TPB’s cause. Even if there is a substantial fine (in Swedish measures) involved, the defendants most likely already have this part covered by external support. Jail would be an extremely unlikely outcome. The site itself is no longer hosted in Sweden but at a number of locations abroad. In fact, the defendants have made a point out of not knowing exactly where, by leaving that part to their supplier. This all will result in the defendants walking away free, with fines covered and The Pirate Bay still up and running.
Illusion 2:
The Pirate Bay trial is bothersome and a threat to a popular file sharing site but whatever…
- Truth:
The case for The Pirate Bay is only in its smallest perspective related to the world’s most popular file sharing site. In fact, the implication that shutting down TPB would have have no other effect is absurd. In essence, this trial is not about a torrent site at all. To Swedes, this is a trial that will precedent whether American lobbyists have the power to force the Swedish legal system into obedience. Also, this will mean that there will be open season to go after any other foreign organization that refuses to abide by the whims of the American lobby organizations.
Illusion 3:
C’mon! What the guys do is illegal. They only had it coming!
-Truth:
As long as there is an international agreement on the rights of intellectual property holders, there is no reason to applaud the act of providing copyrighted material without the copyright owner’s permission. However, it would nice to see IFPi and the other stake holder clean up their own back yard first. TPB is not providing copyrighted materials, nor do they provide torrents that do. The Pirate Bay is an indexing service (or search engine, if you like) that provide its users with information similar to what Google is doing. This goes for Live Search, Yahoo! and most of the other internet search engines. The guys on trial are Swedes, being tried in Sweden but even if we looked at this from a US perspective, it would much more be a matter of a case against freedom of speech that a breach of DMCA.