I've read most of the post and there are many interesting views to this. I would simply like to share my views and see what you think too.

Being from Sweden and all I could say that media has covered this fairly well.

First off, they only had a site with tons of links from where you could download stuff. I wouldn't call that illegal since they are not the people uploading media (and by that violating the copyright laws). It's stupid to send someone to jail for that, it's everyone who uses the torrents that are doing something illegal when we upload and download.

Secondly, The swedish goverment (which imho dislikes to the point of rebellion ) made the IPRED-law take effect on the 1st of April (what a bad joke that was). IPRED makes companies affected by piracy to demand IP-adresses from the ISP's to see who did what so they can raid out homes for the evidence. However a small flaw in the plan is that the companies must legally ask for permission to raid our houses (thank god) and that is something the public has a right to see. So you yourself could see if you are on the "houses to raid"-list and get rid of all the evidence in time if you were to be a pirate.

I think they got jail and a huge fine just because the record and film companies really dislike them. But back to the red line..

Now, most of the public dislikes being watched this much, I do too. It's a kind of violation on all people looking for a few criminals..

Here is a few ironic things about the current status of Sweden. One is that the police hunt pirate effectively but neglecting important matters such as murder and rape cases.

One that happened recently is a teenage girl commited suicide because she had ben raped for a long time, the case was closed for an unknown reason. The thing was that in this case there where enough evidence to convict the murderer.. wierd country.

Another Ironic fact is that of another law (The "FRA"-law which lead to the creation of an agency with the same name was made to look for terrorist activity in signals crossing the borders). Irony is they only look on non-crypted information.. soo we feel so much safer now (...not)

Same with IPRED though, people has started making non-crypted open networks for everyone to use so the IP can't be backtraced to you. People also start using VPN, which also makes this useless.. it's like there is countermessures against the piracy countermeassures and law after law people continue in an undifferiented rate to copy files from Pirate Bay.

End of my article

A personal opinion I have though is this. I think you should be able to download material you can't get your hands on in your country. A good example is Japanese Anime which you can't get your hands on at all (if so then very very..... very rare). The producers of the anime in Japane would legally not make any money from swedes and so they won't lose money on swedes pirating it. Some might think we should still BUY it despite of this as an import from Japan of another country.. but I say I won't buy it at such a huge price to read japanese subtitles or hearing them speak German

Also this applies to real copyrighted material in sweden to which is my second opinion and this I'd like to discuss with you people here that really think Piracy is theft. Now I think it is.. but there is NOTHING and I repeat NOTHING that says people would BUY a CD or DVD just because they can download it for free. That is what imho make the pirate bay people innocent and the public too from the excuse and logic the record and film company has.. that they lose the amount of money that get's downloaded. So come on people, think that through.

Last but not least, reports indicate that people buy as much DVD's and CD's now as before.. if not even more.. so I can't for god's sake understand that the companies can sue people for theese resons

They deserved it.

Marx a good argument does not make

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also, psychoak, I am inherently on your side with your arguments, as I was in other posts but arguing with Zyxpsilon will be like talking to a wall. Zyxp, you seem like you've watched "Guns Germs, and Steel" way too many times.

Exactly what make them deserve it? and I mean exactly what makes the 4 of them deserve it?

Less then 1 hour ago the entertainment industri wanted to shutdown The Pirate Bay (the website) from the internet. Though the ISP's refused to censor it away from the web which would be a very bad idea. Is it something acceptable to make the goverment decide what webpages we can visit?

This is another step towards the facist NWO global regime. Total control over what is allowed to be written, read and shared with each other.

Wake up, before it is too late.

If internet was an alien technology, it would be the equivelant of telepathy. Think about it for awhile...

The ball is bouncing off the wall, ricochet to my left hand and i kick it back to you with my right foot.

Sounds like a Yoda phrasing structure, though.

Anyhow, if you were to pull out "communism" precepts from Marx idealistic reasonings you'd soon find out they're more about social & economics decisions by (generally) democracy driven populations than ANY political agenda, Capitalism systems included.

Only problem is, we're in '09 and whomever is trying to deny individuals their freedoms for good reasons (ref; putting thieves in prison for exploiting a particular situation) has Justice with a big J to support their own argumentative - not necessarily mine, btw. Still, nothing is perfect and once the International nature of the web is properly defined - then, we'll know who's stealing from others; users or/and those who facilitate such questionable activities by law or otherwise.

"Guns Germs, and Steel"? Never even heard the terms together before you wrote them here.

Oh, and i'd have to highly recommend Toffler's Future Shock too... if only to DEFINE and examine for yourselves where our rational & reasonable rights stand (or simply fixed within historical time period X of the 21st century) in the greater scheme of personal Liberty.

So how would you explain Youtube?

How does the Sony Bono law go against the Constitution?

Could you cite a section of the Constitution that it traverses or a Supreme Court decision?

On a side note, I do believe piracy to be a technological revolution for some cultures.

If you live in a country with a shitty economy, you cannot afford the culture from the rest of the world. They will never buy the movies, the music, the games. Because they live on scraps. Now, the game and movie companies will not loose anything if they consume their products. 

I bought demigod, cuz ive got the cash to do so, and people buy my albums when they afford it. I do not hold anything against poor people deciding they would rather pirate my stuff and save their money for food, shelter or education. Cuz lets face it, pirates are often poor, that is why piracy is more popular in the youth culture. Be a little bit generous people. The era of greed should be over by now.

The era of greed is still alive and well, it just deserves a new name, as the greed is now mostly on the consumer end, not the creator/distributor side. It's still greed if you're hoarding software you didn't pay for instead of cash.

We are into the era of entitlement. That is what I find most infuriating about the attitude of pirates and pirate apologists (sorry, using it as a demo is still piracy. You can't go to a concert and decide whether to pay or not on the way out, why should software be any different?). These people feel entitled to have access to everything, and just hope creators continue making more for them to use. You want access, pay for it. No, you don't get to use it first and THEN decide to buy it or not. You want real demos, boycott game companies that don't have them. Yeah, you'll miss out on a few good games, and lots of mediocre ones. It won't kill you.