News article

April 6th 2009
Is It Really Stealing?

The Pirate bay being charged


The pirate bay is a torrent tracking website based in Sweden. A torrent is a file that someone places online, this person is called a seed. Then when it is placed online anyone, like you, can retrieve it and download it to there computer for personal use. The problem here is that people place music, movies and other things that you would normally have to pay for. This is where the conflict is, should the site be allowed to do so?

The Pirate bay are being charged for ``promoting other people’s infringements of copyright laws.`` The charges are being brought forth by International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI). The trial had taken place in Stockholm Sweden in the district court. The start date of the trial was February 16th, on the 17th half of the charges laid were dropped due to lack of evidence. The evidence was presented for the following weeks till March 3rd. Now the record companies and web surfers alike wait for the verdict of the judge which will be delivered on the 17th of April

There will be a lot of people affected by this trial, if the charges stick. A lot of other torrent websites rely on the pirate bay for their torrents. Also up and coming artists like my band Kept in Combat, post there E.Ps and demos on torrent sites so that they can be heard and exposed to a wide range of people. Twentieth Century Fox, Universal Music group and Sony BMG Music Entertainment are some of the companies involved with the charges. All these companies want the torrent sharing to be stopped because it is hurting their profits.

Just last week there was a leak that was found on The Pirate Bay. This leak was of the new X-Men movie, X-Men Origins: Wolverine. This movie is said to be unfinished and not a very good representation of the movie. Fox chairman, Tom Rothman says: "It's a complete misrepresentation of the film and is deeply unfair to the people who have worked on it for years." This leak is found on Pirate Bay, and this incident will help prosecutors get the charges to stick.

Nowadays downloading music has become the norm, weather or not it’s illegal. As far as I remember people have been downloading music. But none of that changes the fact that downloading pirated music IS against the law and can result in a 250 000$ fine per song or a maximum sentence of 5 years in prison.
Patrick Comeau