Pirates at bay?
GlobalTV called me this morning to see if I would do an interview about the apparent conviction by Swedish courts of the owners and operators of ThePirateBay.org, a site that indexes “torrent” files from around the world. They operate a search engine of shared content and their facilitation of that sharing has been deemed illegal. They have indicated they will appeal, but they are facing jail time and a substantial fine. GlobalTV wanted a “implications for file sharers” perspective from me.
In preparation for the interview, I asked some friends (via Twitter) to help me think of some things to say. A number of ideas surfaced in the subsequent conversation:
- The notoriety may give rise to political careers for the founders of ThePirateBay.org;
- The fine could be paid by their users (apparently $.16 per user if divided evenly);
- The conviction had everything to do with “sending a message” and nothing to do with the facts presented and the law in Sweden;
- People turn to sites like ThePirateBay.org because there are no legitimate alternatives or the alternatives are priced out of range;
- The technology - “torrents” - has many legitimate uses (even the CBC distributes content via torrent) and it is an efficient use of internet resources;
- This case is really about larger issues, issues that affect the whole world, such as the role of copyright - is it for the exclusive benefit of creators or is it to be used for the benefit of all?
- While this is a win, it is the last gasp of a dying business model and an example of cultural imperialism at its worst.
- This calls into question the practice of “linking” to copyrighted content (since thepiratebay.org doesn’t actually host any of these files); do we think that Google will be next in line for such a trial?
- ThePirateBay.org is not going to disappear and even if it did there are dozens of other, similar sites.
- And even if torrent indexing sites disappear, something new will appear in its place. Just like ThePirateBay.org and brethren appeared when Napster was shut down and file sharing grows ever larger each time.
The interview is over now. We'll see what they end up using. It is Global National, and "they rarely go over a buck and a half" (1 minute 30 seconds in TV talk, apparently), according to the cameraman.
...r
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