Swedish Pirates Captured!
In April of this year, four Swedish men were found guilty of breaking copyright law. These men, operators of the website The Pirate Bay were sentenced to one year in jail and millions of dollars in penalties. The lawsuit was brought by a consortium of recording industry groups and companies.
The Pirate Bay is a peer-to-peer filing sharing site that acts as a search engine to connect users with BitTorrent files (audio, video, games, porn, etc) that are available for download. Once a user identifies the file they wish to download, they would then use a BitTorrent downloader to get the actual file. BitTorrent files are files that are downloaded in pieces from various users on a Peer-to-peer network and then reassembled to once again form a whole. This saves download time, and reduces strain on browsers and networks. The Pirate Bay connects users to other users with the sought-after files.
The Pirate Bay does not contain any copyrighted material, nor can the site be used to download copyrighted material. BitTorrent does contain pieces of copyrighted material, but does not provide full copies of copyrighted files – the complete files must be assembled by the user who is ultimately responsible for the use or misuse of any copyrighted material. There are uses for these bits of files other than reassembling them to make the original files complete again. Software uses, editing and remix uses, etc are all valid reasons to download and use BitTorrent files. The law, however, came down on the side of the recording industry claiming that The Pirate Bay was conspiring to commit piracy by showing users where to find these files.
Here is a brief video from BBC News about the incident:
Inside the Pirate Bay
Here are some questions for contemplation and discussion:
Regardless of the political views of The Pirate Bay website operators, do you see their website (which is little more than a search engine) as an infringement on copyright?
We can locate copyrighted images on Google and we can download them. Is Google legally responsible to the copyright owner for presenting us with the image? If not, then why is The Pirate Bay in trouble for offering a similar service?
Would The Pirate Bay have gained as much attention or have come under as much attack if its name was something less anarchical? What if it was called “Cute and Fuzzy Bunny Bay” for example? Would the intent of the operators have been as obvious to those who feel threatened by piracy?
Do you think the recording industry has been justified in going after this website and if so, do you feel that the sentence was appropriate for the “crime”? If not, what more amicable solution could have been reached (such as charging a fee to search, perhaps)?
Do you think that, like jaywalking, file sharing/piracy will become a law that remains on the books, but is never, or rarely enforced?
BONUS:
In the spirit of the Lessig lectures, here is my favorite Internet remix/mash up video: 
Photo Credits:
P1000001.JPG (pirate ship) is by FlickR Creative Commons user jurvetson
Copyright will protect you from Pirates is by FlickR Creative Commons* user loan Sameli *note on this Creative Commons license: The user admits to possibly having stolen this photo and it is not clear if the FlickR user made a fair use of this work. I am re-using it based on the CC license, but I cannot verify that the CC license is valid.
Video Credits:
Inside the Pirate Bay is by BBC News
Total Eclipse of the Heart: Literal Video Version appears on You Tube and was posted by dascottjr
