Entertainment Industry Really Really Really Wants To Believe Pirate Bay Verdict Is A Win

from the this-is-what-we-call-delusional dept

As was easily predicted when The Pirate Bay verdict came out last Friday, the entertainment industry celebrated it as a big win. Amusingly, Arts+Labs, one of many, many entertainment industry lobbying groups (and run by a guy, Mike McCurry, who thinks that Google doesn't pay a dime for its bandwidth), was quick to praise the decision, with McCurry claiming that this is a turning point and that people will now realize that file sharing is "something both dangerous, criminal, and unfair." (I'll let the grammar nazis figure out which two of three things he meant when he said "both").

I love these proclamations of turning points. Especially since there's absolutely nothing to support it. We've seen the entertainment industry shut down Napster, Aimster, Morpheus, Grokster, TorrentSpy, OiNK and others over the years, and none have been "turning points" in the direction the entertainment industry wanted. In every case, things actually went the other way. Every time they shut down one of these services, another one shows up to pick up the slack and turns out to be bigger and more popular than the previous ones. In the meantime, over in Sweden, the ruling had generated large protests and thousands rushing to sign up to be a member of The Pirate Party. If it's a "turning point" for anything, it seems to be the opposite of the what the industry wanted.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I don't think that most file sharing is legal or right (and I don't participate in any of it). But, millions of people who know that it's illegal have absolutely no problem taking part in it, and no "education" campaign or shutting down of a particular site or service is going to stop that. Continuing to pretend it will doesn't help the industry at all. What helps the industry is to stop denying that this is something that can be stopped legally, and finally moving on to experimenting with business models that work -- such as the business models that we've been describing here for over a decade. It's not that hard, no matter what entertainment industry lawyers (and it's always the lawyers) insist.

72 Comments | Leave a Comment..