Two days ago, a court in Sweden found the four men who created the internet file sharing site “The Pirate Bay” guilty of copyright infringement and of aiding and abetting the piracy of copyrighted material. The men were each sentenced to a year in jail and a fine of 30 million Swedish Kroner (about $3.6 million USD).

The reaction in the media and in cyberspace was swift; much of the commentary came down on the side of The Pirate Bay founders, blaming the entertainment and software industries for causing the need for such sites in the first place through years of unfair pricing of music, video and software, as well as the draconian steps these companies have taken to stop piracy in recent years. Others are of the opinion that the Pirate Bay creators got what they deserved, since piracy is stealing, and stealing is against the law. The notion that the Pirate Bay guys did nothing wrong and therefore should not have been prosecuted is a mentality that is unfortunately common among those who do not create commercial intellectual property themselves.

Believe me, as an independent musician/songwriter/producer, I have absolutely no love for the tactics of the major labels and film studios, the RIAA or the MPAA regarding piracy; I’ve always believed that Apple’s approach to the piracy issue -offering good value for money, thus making the urge to pirate content less great- is the right approach. However, I have even less tolerance for people who believe in their hearts that using sites such as TPB or P2P networks to STEAL content is OK, because it’s not. People who create such IP invest a lot of time, energy and money into their craft and deserve to get paid for it, regardless of whether or not the content gets to the end user via major labels, big movie studios, or large software houses.

Those who use sites like TPB believing that by doing so they are “sticking it to ‘The Man’” don’t realize that in the end it’s the thousands of content creators who end up getting screwed. Granted, there are a few content creators who use such networks to promote their content, but the vast majority of content creators who do control their own copyrights are more affected by piracy than most piracy advocates seem to think.

Perhaps this “intellectual property should be free” mentality stems from the age-old notion that creating something of artistic or entertainment value doesn’t constitute having a “real job”. Creating intellectual property is a job just like any other, and people who create such content deserve to get paid for it. Not everyone can be a stockbroker, a scientist, or even work at McDonald’s; if everyone could be an artist or programmer, then everyone probably would be, since (at least in my experience) most human beings would like to enjoy the job that they do, and I really enjoy my job. It is this context that I’m happy that the Pirate Bay guys were found guilty.

The problem is that nowadays, in the case of intellectual property, people want everything for free; cheap can only compete with free to a certain point. As phenomenal as Apple’s iTunes Store’s sales have been so far, they’re still being dwarfed by piracy via file sharing. Even if songs, movies and software were being sold at a quarter of the prices they’re going for currently, the majority would still steal, because most folks have been conditioned to think that piracy is perfectly fine.

The fact of the matter is: theft is theft, and the guys from The Pirate Bay got what they deserved, in my opinion.

Read the full article HERE.