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

I appreciate my opponent's swift response, impeccable spelling and grammar and organized style; characteristics somewhat hard to find on this site. Although he has presented his argument in a very clean way, one must not be deceived by the faulty logic. First, the opposition side has defended the record industry, presenting them as artists who merely wish to protect their craft. While it is seemingly a strong moral imperative, one must take several things into account, first that many, many artists support file sharing. In the case of Radiohead, they released their album to the internet in a 'pay what you wish' format. Many other bands have expressed support for torrent sites and have embraced this new technology by leaving these record labels, namely those in the RIAA. Furthermore, con has suggested that these artists merely wish to protect their work. Perhaps he has been creating invisible enemies, as no one wishes to harm their intellectual property. File sharing is a way to appreciate music, movies and the like, not to destroy them and not to make a profit. The Pirate Bay has repeatedly expressed the fact that they barely cover the bills, due to their limited advertising. While the moniker 'The Pirate Bay' may imply an intent to infringe copyright law, in the eyes of the law it simply cannot be accepted as irrefutable evidence as it is circumstantial, at best. If that is all the prosecution had for proof of intent, I would label the verdict as nothing short of a travesty of justice. My opponent has suggested that The Pirate Bay itself provided seeds of copyrighted material, which is utterly false. The Pirate Bay merely provided the arena with which users may create torrents of any kind. To say otherwise shows a misunderstanding of the situation, as it was never proven in court that The Pirate Bay provided any seeds. As in regards to my first point, I was merely translating the position of the defense. Because the Pirate Bay never provided seeds of copyrighted material, they cannot be found guilty of infringing copyright. They were found guilty of breaking copyright laws because their users torrented copyright material. The straw man my opponent has created appears to be on fire. Of course murder should not be accepted if everyone does it, but this is an entirely different case. Murder is a clear infringement of another's right to safety. File sharing violates no one else's right, as the record industry has no inherent, constitutional right to be protected from torrenting. If I down load Nickelback's newest album (something I would rather not do), it would not affect Nickelback at all, as I would likely not buy their album regardless. They do not have a right to my money. But onto your actual point; in the case of civil matters such as this, where no one else's rights are being infringed upon, if a majority of the population believes a law should not exist, it should be repealed. Furthermore, there is proof that these anti-pirating witch-hunts actually hurt the industry more. In the seven hours after the verdict, 3000 new members joined the Swedish Pirate Party, a political organization that supports the reforming of copyright laws. I agree absolutely that musicians must profit from their work, and I would argue that by ignoring these sections of copyright laws, they may finally move on to make real profit, rather than having their record label divert money from hiring new bands or advertising to pay for legal council and lobbying and the like. Now I do not advocate that anyone must be able to take a John Mayor song and sell it as their own, merely that I should be allowed to download their albums for personal use. If this means I have to pay $2 a month more on my internet bill; sign me up. If the industry were to offer me new incentives to buy physical albums, I would. If more bands toured to my area, I would pay to go and see them. It appears as though you're arguing against torrenters using these songs/movies/etc for a purpose other than their personal enjoyment. If I were expected to pay for every movie and album, I likely would not appreciate much of the arts. Torrenters appreciate the painstaking hours taken to produce this material, which is why we love it so. We're not soulless monsters squirreling all of this material away for our own hidden agenda, we're merely music/film fans who wish to take in the art. I have over 5000 songs on my computer, should I have to pay for all of them? I could absolutely not afford it. I have, however, purchased about 1/10th of the songs of my own accord, therefore I am not merely a free rider or an anarchistic rebel. Furthermore, I work at a movie theater, and anyone who tells you that the movie industry is struggling should explain to me how many of our movies sell out every weekend. This is further incentive to create the very best albums, the best movies, the best artists, etc. If the movie industry, for example, can turn larger profits from opening weekends, that may be a way to remain cost-effective. Look at The Dark Knight; it made an absolute killing, despite being available online, because it was such a fantastically made film. I absolutely do not want to tear down these 'big media' companies. I have given them money for the better part of my life. I merely argue that if they cannot remain cost-effective, innovative and flexible, they cannot survive and we will see a new industry take shape.