Pirate Bay

There is no doubt that the Pirate Bay trial in Sweden has created ripples. Initially, many torrent sites closed, especially those located in Sweden. Interestingly, it has now been revealed that the judge in the matter has ties to copywrite advocacy groups and therefore may be biased in favor of copywrite holders.

Even if this verdict holds on appeal, I suspect the movement of servers into locations where similar lax copywrite laws exist. Even if the operators are located in one country and the gear is located in another, the complexities will be astounding. There will always be a movement to circumvent a product or service that is too expensive in the mind of the end user. Open source software will progressively take a larger bite of the windows market, music companies who are perceived as screwing the artist and the consumer will be involved in a running battle with a wide variety of pirates as will the film industry.

I continue to watch and hope for a balanced outcome.....