Newspaper, today, were ready to say: Pirate Bay (file sharing site), which was declared illegal, will close permanently. In turn, there were already people, on internet, who had tried to download the complete archive, to avoid losing a priceless heritage. At the end the law did not win: a couple of hours and the world's most popular site of file sharing is again on the web.
The news agencies confirmed the news, discovering, from social networking sites like Twitter, the truth of the facts.
But in the end, it easy to verify: you simply type the right address to find out that the Pirate is still there. They announced it, but few were convinced that they would succeed. If you gon on internet you find a page with a black T-shirt that says "I lost months of time and millions of dollars to close down The Pirate Bay and all I'll get is this beautiful t-shirt" with love The Pirate Bay. It is not a joke. Who cares about the survival of the site can now also buy t-shirts with the classic symbol of the Pirate and help paying the fine that the Swedish court may impose upon the website: around 70 thousand dollars.
Because now the process undertaken by the recording industry (lost by TPB at first instance) goes on and to this trial was added the one which arises from a complaint of the Hollywood majors, again for the crime of copyright violation.
Control over file sharing is a problem that is very dear to European politicians. Not only Sweden but also France, with Sarkozy, has tried more than once to make a law to condemn Internet users exchanging files protected by copyright like films, TV or music. But now Britain is trying to do this, too. Overthere, according to the statistics, six million users of the net download from the Internet illegally each year and this behavior is costing bilions of losses, according to the record companies.
The Guardian today, anticipates that Brown government will submit a bill that would make downloading illegal: the penalty would be "cutting off the broadband connection" for those who persist in downloading files.
But English users don't have to lose hope: there is always the French example, where a similar law was declared unconstitutional.
The problem of legalization of file sharing, however, remains. Artists are the first to ask for better rules because they would like to see protected their jobs.
A major step forward in finding a solution could be done if people who are trying to make a law about this would have a minimal knowledge of what they talk about and what the problems are. Because if people who discuss about this have a not familiar knowledge of internet and are more interested in defending the interests of industries rather than the rights of composers and writers, it is unlikely that the law will find an agrement among users, producers and majors.
Marianna Lepore
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