Friday a court in Stockholm, Sweden passed judgment on the four guys who run The Pirate Bay—one of the most popular BitTorrent
sites on the Web, with an estimated 22 million users worldwide. The
trial has been mind-numbingly boring and outrageously funny. Although
the fate of four men stood in the balance—they were each sentenced to a
year in jail—one thing this trial hasn't been is terribly important.
Sure, the Web will be abuzz with discussion of legal precedents and
protecting copyrighted information
internationally; but even with the guilty verdict, rampant file trading
will continue unabated. At least until the Web service providers
succeed in their myopic, misguided Internet-metering mission.
Continued...
