Peter Sunde arrested in Sweden

I have my own feelings about it which that it is not really theft, but perhaps it is worth considering that the work of musicians and artists is devalued. I hear a lot of rationalization about how the artists don't get any money anyway, but I personally think that is a separate issue from sharing music.

It's an interesting question, especially when you mention software. Because here on HN and other forums I get the impression the majority are in favor of TPB. The more interesting thing is when somebody is caught appropriating a site design, graphics, violates GPL, etc there will be universal rage against them. I guess it is different when you are on the receiving vs. the providing side of things.

I'm not making any judgement on whether it should be legal/illegal etc. but I think saying it's a victimless crime at worst is potentially incorrect.

In the worst case, it's absolutely possible that you share something with someone, A, which A would have bought and then they don't buy it. In the worst case they don't in the future buy anything from the author/creator etc. In the worst case I'd consider that author/creator a victim in this case, they would have been paid whatever amount A would have paid but now haven't been.

I'm not arguing that's often the case (I don't think it is) but to absolutely rule it out feels like too much of a simplification. There can be a legitimate victim, it almost certainly isn't the person suing you and in most cases there probably isn't - but there can be I think.

I don't think I'd be really comfortable with convicted serial murderers walking around. Hell, any murderer. Manslaughter can be a mistake or an accident, but if you intentionally aggressively killed someone I'd rather not be walking past you on a street or participating with you in an open market...

I don't believe in the death penalty, but I also believe an essential function of prison is to remove the irredeemable from society so they aren't a threat anymore. I'm not sure you can classify anyone insane just for wanting to kill people, but I'm also not a psychologist. I also would not want to be the psychologist who released a serial murder considering him safe to return to society only for him to on another murder spree...

There is a very real difference between people voluntarilly sharing the information they have, and breaking and entering into someones personal networks to steal stuff.

When you torrent a file, you are never participating in an involuntary transaction. And very little torrented material is procured through breaking into secure networks - an example of that would be the half life 2 prerelease source break in.

These are people performing legal valid transactions with businesses (be they physical discs, or digital downloads) and then they share the information they now posses, but under copyright do not own (you never own it unless you are the creator or rights holder) with others that want that information.

Like I said, if you break the encryption on someones private network to steal their data that is still a violation of their property rights because you are breaking in. You aren't stealing, but the act of breaking in is still violating their property rights, or in this context their right to security.

In movie terms, it would be fine for a movie studio to create a film, and never distribute it. Then it is theirs, privately, and nobody has the right to forcibly take it from them, even if the encoded information is valuable to someone or useful. But when they start selling DVDs outside the studios front door, and you buy one and go home with it, rip it and share it on TPB, there is never a violation of voluntary exchange or property rights besides you breaking an implied contract with the media distributor that nobody understands exists and thus no market in the world is operating without it. People also break contracts all the time, and that usually doesn't result in a jail sentence, it results in a secession of business. And IP is ridiculous in how you enter perpetual contracts by having a sequence of polarized magnetic splotches on a composite disk.

Hell, when people try to release software public domain (like sqlite) there is a massive legal morass and their disclosure license is pages long just to cover all the corner cases.