Media Soup

So, everyone seems to agree that the Pirate Bay case is fascinating (well, I don’t know about “everyone” really, but me and some other people anyway) but what I am wondering if anyone has real positions on the issue(s)?

I’ll briefly relate my own experience: my book was pirated as PDF, almost certainly through a security breach at the publisher. After being notified, the publisher’s attorneys pursued notice and takedown on all of the sites where the bootleg was available. All of the sites complied with the request EXCEPT for Pirate Bay, who wrote back basically to say “Fuck You, we pride ourselves in flaunting your laws.”

Now generally, I am very sympathetic to the idea that information wants to be free, a proponent of liberal application of fair use, and fan of the digital frontier organization, open source software and etc. However, there ought to be basic protection of intellectual property at the purest level (for instance in the case of my publisher and Pirate Bay). Right?

I mean, do people agree that Pirate Bay is in some sense in the wrong, and should (in terms of civil society) be held accountable for their actions? Or, do people have radically different views than mine?

To be honest, I struggle with these questions, but come on, when someone steals your stuff, and you ask them nicely to stop distributing for free (or to profit from ad revenues) and they say fuck you – shouldn’t the authorities take them to task?