It's nice to know what you're talking about

I wrote about The Pirate Bay yesterday, as well as discussing alternatives a bit - it's nice to know that I beat out a majority of the internet with my opinion, as well as the fact that many people seem to feel the same way: that the verdict is a reflection of a stagnant industry that will not amount to much other than delaying the eventual crash of current business practice.

This opinion piece from The Independent summarizes a lot of good points in one article:

• The music industry missed this opportunity to learn and embrace file sharing as a viable distribution method
• The music industry has massively increased the amount of publicity that The Pirate Bay was getting - while this is semi-bad for the current user base, it also potentially greatly increases the amount of users for the company
• The Pirate Bay has servers worldwide, and many in places that the law cannot really touch (Russia is not exactly the most legalized place) so shutting down one server really does not affect The Pirate Bay much
• China's already starting to switch to an alternative business model where advertising is included with free downloads, as piracy has led to regular "sales" being more or less unprofitable

In addition, it is good to note that the public has largely rallied to the support of The Pirate Bay in Sweden (where TPB is based and where the trial took place: demonstrations are taking place, and The Pirate Party has surged in membership, rivaling "serious" political parties (beating out the Green Party... and to think in the US and Canada, all they care about is legalizing marijuana...)

Of course, not all protests are all that serious... Thanks, 4chan, for that.