Pirate Bay tests limits of copyright laws
February 3, 2008
So, what counts as breach of copyright laws? Pirate Bay founders face two years in jail for “conspiracy to break copyright law and being an accessory,” The Age reports.
Pirate Bay says “since no copyrighted material is stored on Pirate Bay’s servers and no exchange of files actually takes place there, they cannot be held responsible for what material is being exchanged.”
Some bloggers call the website “the world’s most notorious BitTorrent tracking site.”
Ars Technica dug out claims that the information-must-be-free company operated solely out of mercantile purposes. “The profiteers behind The Pirate Bay have no interest in free speech, and they are not running The Pirate Bay because they love music and films,” said Ludvig Werner, chairman of International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. “They are totally mercenary and are driven by the desire for personal wealth.”
According to Ars Technica, Peter Sunde of Pirate Bay, said “the site’s high bandwidth, power, and hardware costs eliminate the potential for profit. [It] may ultimately be operating at a loss.”
Picture: Flickr