File Sharing.

The fines and prison sentences handed down yesterday by a Swedish court to the founders of The Pirate Bay file sharing network for breach of copyright laws are very unlikely to deter people from illegal file sharing. You get the sense with many of the cases that have been brought in relation to breaches of copyright law that it is a case of slamming as loudly as possible the stable door long after the horse has bolted in order that the noise might just pursuade it to come back. I doubt very much that anyone half computer literate has not come across an illegally shared music or video file somewhere in their career on the internet and stories of those who have downloaded whole music, film, and television collections are known to most internet users. You can bet for every attempt to shut down something like The Pirate Bay, there will be dozens of computer geeks out there somewhere who will be dreaming up even better and faster methods of file sharing. The attempts to enforce copyright laws are likely to be essentially useless even when backed by the might of the US government and the international legal establishment.

Perhaps what needs doing is having a total rethink of what the idea of copyright means in the digital age and rather then pumping endless sums of money court cases that have little or no effect, the multi billion do;;ar entertainment industry might be better employed leading and funding that rethink.