
The
verdict in the Pirate Bay trial surprised many people, seeing as how many errors the entertainment industry's lawyers had made, and how little understanding they seemed to have of how BitTorrent works. The height of the sentence also surprised many; for aiding in sharing just 33 copyrighted items, the four founders were sentenced to one year in jail, and a massive fine of 3.6 million USD. Well, as it turns out, we now know why we were all relatively surprised: the judge in the case, Thomas Norstrom,
is member of the same pro-copyright groups as many of the people representing the entertainment industry in the case.
Member since:
2005-07-06
However, the high prices are only part of it. Some people just refuse to pay and no matter what you do, they're not going to change. Many people are simply entitled to whatever they see that they want.
I don't know how many times it has already been said, but I want to stress it once again: most "pirates" wouldn't buy what they download anyway.
Even Microsoft seems to undertand this simple fact. Rather a few pirates than a shrinking userbase.