Why is irrelevant.  Demands made by the pirate party are irrelevant.  Legality is irrelevant.  When something is unavoidable and necessary to accomplish a goal, providing excuses to avoid it will not accomplish the goal.  Emerging tech markets are built, at little to no cost to the providers, by piracy.  The goal of a business in that sector isn't to prevent piracy, it's to expand their market.  Self delusion dosn't change reality.

Yet again you completely ignore relevant context, although I guess I should be grateful you didn't misquote me this time.

Things aren't "irrelevant" just because you say they are.  I don't even know what point you're trying to make.  That people can profit by pirating other people's software?  That's obvious.

That doesn't make piracy a good thing to the people who are being stolen from, and it's certainly not something that can be legalized.  As I said, the only way this new tech sector can make money is if people DON'T pirate their software.  If piracy were legal or widely approved of, then everyone would steal THEIR software as well.  Everyone would steal all software all the time, so all software businesses suffer.

Thats not entirely Accurate. Though its very rare we have examples of releases which follow a "pay what you want" approach. Radioheads "in Rainbow" album for example.

While the -Majority- of people paid nothing, the average price paid was £4. And its pre-release sales (thanks to the volumn of sales and the cheaper online approach) meant it eclipsed the -entire- profit of their previous album.

That was legal piracy in action...allowing people to copy something for free, and yet people paid up and it made them more money.

Well, it does explain how the Pirate Bay got found guilty with the prosecution's total lack of competance(and solid evidence from what I have read).

I don't think any honest person, even the most anti-pirate ones, can deny that this is a conflict of interest and that there needs to a retrial with a neutral judge.

Edit: Just did a little checking and WOW

It is not always a local gov or taxes problem... sometime, it is simply the distributor who steal us directly... by example, i know numerous site who will announce a product at 50$ and when i made the buy, i am charged 50 euro ( who is around 65$ today )... when i complain, they explain that it was write on the site that 1$=1euro... after hours seeking, i find it, write in microscopic letter, font color light grey on a background who is almost the same gray...

Now, if some distributor was not trying to steal our money, sell us product where the promo video is thousand time better that the actual product, sell us product who install unwanted software on your computer without you knowing it, sell us product who have so much bug that it is almost non playable, etc... maybe the number of pirate will lower... many distributor have piss off the customer, in some case, steal the customer... who seed the wind collect a storm !!!

Yes, you have always a little number of hardcore pirate but the main stream of people using pirated version are usual guys who are tired to be ripped by the media, game producent/distributor, etc... they are people who have loose their trust in business because of malpratice of these business !

Yeah that's true; I'm not sure what you're arguing with me about at this point.  Let me try to be a little more clear.

I'm not really arguing about whether or not the current legal loopholes in Swedish law might make the Pirate Bay technically innocent.  Whether it's currently legal or not isn't really the point to me (though I do agree it's important that they receive a fair trial, it's not really the thing I'm interested in in this conversation); it's whether or not piracy, in general, SHOULD be legal.  I see this trial as part of that process: many people feel that coordinating massive piracy is probably a bad thing and should be illegal, and they're trying to figure out a system that works fairly for the people who are creating the products.  Some people, innocent or not, are going to get burned in this process, until we, producers and consumers both, figure out how to deal with this situation.

People come up with certain excuses where they think piracy seems ok: they're poor, they pirate the game and then pay for it later, etc.  I'm not sure what the point of these arguments are.  Are you saying that because sometimes piracy seems helpful, that it should be legalized?  Are you saying that because sometimes some people take advantage of copyright, that all copyright needs to be abolished?  Are you saying that because some major labels are "greedy", that no one should be allowed to protect the rights to their music or movies?

Or are you just saying that you know piracy is illegal, and that you think it should be illegal for most people, but not for you and your friends, because you're on the good guy team?  I'm not trying to be sarcastic here; I'm honestly wondering what you think "should" be happening with piracy.  Don't just say it's inevitable, and that some people will always pirate.  I know that.  People will always murder; that doesn't mean we should just throw our hands up and allow people to murder all they want.

Do you think there should be laws against piracy, or not?  Do you think copyright holders have a right to try to enforce their copyright, or not?  Is piracy always ok, or only sometimes ok?  And who gets to decide whether or not it's ok?

Man is this topic big....

I'm a Swede from Sweden and I say it's right that they got punished. They have clearly helped things that should be illegal, possible.

If they have really made all that money then it's time to pay back.

All such torrent trackers in where there are illegal torrents must be shut down and the operators brought to justice.

Conflict of Interest?

I knew this was going to come up in the usual "for_against" argumentative somewhere for a simple reason;

-- If you dig deep enough you may yet find that there are CIA agents hunting down ghosts in Oslo, that the KGB is still actively infiltrating every last European Capitals, that the Queen of England is chatting online from Westminster palace daily with The Who's lead guitar talkin' pedophelia - and - so - on.

Proof, once again, that the collective mindset of any social groups can be tied straight with paranoia and that the truth is never rational enough when it is wrongfully perceived or interpreted by ANYONE suffering from lack of intelligence.

I thing that the judge and the three lawer who represented the entertainment industry need some jail time too...

Together, they have corrupt the justice system, make these story become a big farce...

Final result will be more people "loving" the pirate... And after, the entertainment industry will ask why they have a bad reputation... you don't fight something maybe illegal ( hosting tracker ) but a complot between a judge and the accusation lawer ( who is illegal )... here, it will not have a retrial, simply the "cassation" court who will break the verdict for major fault in the procedure... and the guys will be free...

All these story give me the impression of a thief ( entertainment industry ) accussing someone ( pirate bay ) to have steal them... a little like the story of Robin Hood... never forget that for a lot of people, Robin Hood is a hero, not a thief !!!!!!!!

Acctually, this prosecution was not against the site itself, only the people behind it. And yes, anyone could take over if they go to jail yes. As for the server it's located in Sweden and has been raided a couple of years ago by the police but got online pretty quickly again since.. well.. the police had no good argument for doing that. Hope this shed some light on the issue.

and Campaigner, I thought of that analogy about drug users too since it's quite similar, that both drug dealers and users would be illegal. But honestly.. to continue on that path is like asking ourselves this question: Is the drug they are sharing illegal? Does it harm you?

Think what you want, but arresting a nation is ludicrous. People want some drugs (like coffee) to be legal and aviable. Besides swedish law is so nice and soft it kinda temps you to use it and play pillow fights

The applicable definition for steal: to take or appropriate without right or leave and with intent to keep or make use of wrongfully.  For the sake of argument, we can ignore that nothing is actually taken by copyright infringement and just pretend it's theft.

If I were to download a song off the internet that I already own, the RIAA would sue me for 750 dollars per song in response, assuming I were a bleeding moron and actually got caught.  If I were to download a song I don't own to listen to it, then delete it immediately after, same thing happens.  Both of them were legal activities until the entertainment industry lobbied Congress to make them illegal.  They also gave them the right to subpoena private records without showing cause.

Does the Robin Hood analogy apply to TPB?  I doubt it.  The sherrif of Nottingham on the other hand is a really good fit for the RIAA.  Buy up the legal powers, rewrite the laws to suit your own goals, then railroad your own customers over what were at the time legal activities.

ohh.. and almost forgot an important view people seem to forget here

Someone said about understanding poor people doing piracy (where noone get's physically hurt ofc)..

One MAJOR thing to remember people.. if a student with a very little to none income downloads a mainstream film for free and sees it does not mean he or she would have bought it.. even if it was avaible in a store 20 meters away.. and why not? Because she or he don't or can't put money on entertainment even.

Not saying it's right but that's why they are doing it.. they don't think really bad thoughts before they do it either. so get this.. They are doing it cause they don't got the money to spare on entertainment, and it's wrong ofc.. but people are going to share the entertainment they bought for their friends and they are getting it for free and it's real, it's a black market with free goods.

Now, how can you stop that kind of thing? I mean people won't stop because people think it's wrong.. way not enought

You get a real job, struggle enough to justify a raise in your pitty salary... then go to that store and buy what you earned. And do whatever you please with the rest of that bunch of extra cash cuz you deserved it.

Students?

Make a choice... get an education worth HIGHER salaries or waste your life away playing. Eventually, time will catch up to you -- it's called adulthood.