Not Comics: Pirate Bay And Protests

There was a 1000-person protest in Stockholm over the weekend protesting the sentencing of two founders and two key personnel of the Pirate Bay web site. Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Fredrik Neij (the two founders), Peter Lunde (programmer) and Carl Lundstrom (who provided funding) were sentenced to a year each in jail and ordered to pay approximately $4.5 Million USD in damages. The Pirate Bay did not host copyrighted content but brought folks' attention to it when it was hosted elsewhere.

I only have a couple of thoughts, which are very broad and not really informed by the specifics of this case. The first is that it's hard for me to accept that this isn't at least some sort of setback for folks who won't to conduct business in this way no matter how deliberately it's argued, if only that if the four were exonerated I bet it would have been seen as a huge victory -- and still will be if an appeal is successful. I'm also not sure that anyone with half a brain was ever claiming something like this might eliminate file-sharing, except maybe for those who want to point out in very strong language that it won't.

The second thought is the same one I always have. I just find faulty the logic frequently expressed that the existence of a market compels anyone to use that market, let alone that they must pursue a strategy that person A, B or C asserts or even assures will be the most profitable.
 
posted 8:00 am PST | Permalink
 

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