This House Would Recognize 'The Pirate Bay' As Wrongly Convicted.

Ladies and gentleman, do not let this debate become incorrectly framed. My opponent has tried to refocus the argument to make the artists the ones who are being hurt. This is fundamentally incorrect. First off all, artists do not have the right to sign their work over to public domain, as side opposition has said, as the record industry more often than not owns rights to the music, not the musicians. Furthermore, The Pirate Bay works FOR musicians. It is fighting for a new system that opponents the door and forces an evolution of the median of music sharing. Without The Pirate Bay, Radiohead would have never tried its 'In Rainbows' scheme. Without The Pirate Bay, ITunes would not have had precedent to virtually control the online market for music sales. The Pirate Bay allows users to budget their money and put cash towards things that benefit bands infinitely more than album sales; merchandise and tours. Because of The Pirate's Bay revolutionization of the system, it is now entirely possible for a band to make it on its own without a label, without having to give out the majority of its profit to a corporation. My opponent further derides this debate by quoting me out of context. Yes, if the majority of the populace supports the repealing of a law IN THE CIVIL CODE, it shouldn't be illegal. That is; if there is a law that the government has created that we, the people, feel has overstepped the boundaries onto our personal freedoms, we are well within our right to demand change. My opponent has finally found a point that he thinks will finally destroy side proposition's case, although his faith is misplaced. Yes, artists now have the right to protect their 'intellectual copyright' and whatnot, but I would argue that is a lost cause; a roadblock for change. With the advent of the internet, intellectual copyright has been murdered, chopped up and buried. Look at AP's attempt to control the use of its stories on online blogs. It issued takedown notices to several online blogs for using short headlines and snippets from their stories, despite their sourcing the stories. If one were to analyze this, we see the situation is the same. Yet, in this case it is blatantly obvious that these stories were used in 'fair use.' That is to say, the stories were referenced and properly cited, yet according to AP, it was an infringement of copyright. This is merely a microcosm of what the internet has done to copyright laws. What we've come to know as obvious, integral parts of society are now utterly obsolete. What if the next time you write a blog post, you were to have to pay 20ï¿½ for citing an AP story? 50ï¿½ for inserting a picture? 75ï¿½ for embedding a video from Youtube? 99ï¿½ for adding a song? According to my opponent, this is exactly what should happen. Yes, the torrenting done on The Pirate Bay currently infringe on these copyright laws, but I now illustrate two options for the music industry; roll with it or die. They may either ignore or help to repeal these laws so that they may make way for a new, 21st century music industry, or they will fail. But more importantly, I must mention something my opponent has seemed to have forgotten, and has tried to make everyone forget about too; The Pirate Bay is not guilty. He has not sufficiently proven intent or direct involvement in the infringement of these laws. He has been happy to explain why the USERS of The Pirate Bay are evil and bad, but not the owners. We must remember that those who owned the platform were on trial, and found guilty for the actions of their USERS; you, me, the majority of society. This debate comes down to two fundamental ideas; one, that the owners of The Pirate Bay have not committed any crimes and secondly that the crimes for which they were tried are wrong and anti-progressive, which therefore makes the trial itself faulty. These two ideas unequivocally prove that The Pirate Bay should not have been tried, and should not have been found guilty. I'd like to thank my honorable opponent for the intelligent debate and I will ask that he refrain from citing my arguments without first paying me my dues, and I also ask that he pay his debt of $20 for the times he has cited me. I take checks.