> Gay people want to be able to get married. Currently, this is against the law in many places. Should we censor all sites that are advocating gay marriage?

That's a silly analogy. First of all, there's no victim when two gay people get married. In the case of filesharing, there is. Second, for the analogy to be correct, we would need to censor The Pirate Bay and censor all discussion of The Pirate Bay or copyright law. The IFPI is certainly not advocating such an extreme position!

> Perhaps copyright is dead, and doesn't deserve legal protection anymore.

Copyright, for the purposes of recorded music, is dead, because it's not being enforced. But you seem to go further, and suggest that it "deserves" to be dead. Now let me ask you something: do you honestly think that any film studio will drop USD 100MM to make a film without copyright protection -- so that anyone can legally and freely copy the film (even cinemas!)? Remember that in the context of music, the counter-argument for the point that in the absence of copyright law, revenues from recorded music will fall to precisely zero, is that musicians should instead find other revenue streams, such as touring revenue and merchandising. Well with movies, scratch out touring revenue. The only movies that will make money if you can't make money on ticket sales are movies that make up for it with merchandising. So in this brave new world that you're advocating, one of two things will happen. Scenario one is that movie industry decides only to invest in films like Toy Story and Star Wars. Scenario two is that movies simply acquire all movie chains themselves and only screen movies in the movie theatres -- effectively shielding themselves from theft by grossly limiting the distribution of the material.

My point is that copyright law has been in place for centuries and has thus far worked, if not perfectly, rather well. What you're suggesting is extremely radical, effectively tearing down four centuries of legal edifice, and it's not clear to me that you've thought through the consequences in any greater detail than "it will allow me to download what I want for free, which is cool!". The law of unintended consequences surely applies here.

> Well, not today. But after they have set the precedent, why not censor everything they don't like?

Because you need a sensible argument, that's why. Which was my point in the first place -- they're only censoring where there's evidence that the overwhelming majority of activity is illicit.

> Ask all you want, but censoring the Pirate Bay just means that they will change their IP addresses and will be down for a grand total of 10 minutes.

True, but believe me, if The Pirate Bay guys end up in jail it will send a strong message to those who would attempt the same. No anti-piracy solution is going to be 100% effective. That's not the point. The point is going from a 10:1 illegal to legal mix to a 1:10 illegal to legal ratio.

> Censorship is harmful to society

Look, I understand the liberarian argument against censorship, but that pertains to speech and thought in the context of a democracy in which optimal policy, in theory and in the long-term, results from all possible viewpoints being aired. While there is certainly overlap between music and politics, it would be ridiculous to suggest that removing Lady GaGa from The Pirate Bay's servers is going put democracy under some threat.

And need I remind you that there are plenty of legal alternatives to filesharing? In effect, your argument is: "A: IFPI want to censor The Pirate Bay. B: Censorship is harmful to society. Therefore censoring The Pirate Bay is harmful to society." But there's a subtle shift in the meaning of the word "censor" from statement A to statement B. Statement A refers to censorship of a channel, whereas statement B relates to the content. Even if The Pirate Bay were successfully "censored", all of the music available previously available through it would still be available through other -- legal -- channels. The IFPI are proposing banning The Pirate Bay, not the music or other content on it. So while quoted point (i.e. statement B) may be true and indeed incisive, in the context of The Pirate Bay it is quite irrelevant.

One argument that you make that I think is valid, however, is that successful censorship would encourage other interest groups to demand of censorship something they find unpalatable. I agree that this is a major risk. There is an alternative, but I'm guessing you're not going to like it either: a three-strikes rule like that proposed in France, or essentially any rule with penalties for continued theft of copyrighted material. At that point, who cares if The Pirate Bay or whoever else is hosting illegal torrents -- if you download it, you might get nabbed. That would work on the great majority of non-tech-inclined folks.