Huffington Magazine Issue 5 | Page 80

PIRATE BOOTY HUFFINGTON 07.15.12 FREDRIK PERSSON/AFP/GETTY IMAGES The Pirate Bay’s supporters hold a demonstration in Stockholm after four men involved with the file-sharing site were found guilty and sentenced to a year in prison. tipiracy technology, and a more forceful pursuit of paid online video on the part of the studios, would probably be more effective than all their lawsuits. But he also said that he thinks that the legal challenges presented by the Internet will eventually require a truly innovative solution, perhaps in the form of a new international convention on digital law. The Pirate Party agrees that intellectual property laws need to be rethought to accommodate the Internet, but it would go much further than Montagu by eliminating penalties for copyright in- fringement within the home — if not altogether. After all, some party members say, the battle over copyrights and digital piracy is only a skirmish in a broader and inevitable war over how technology is continuing to change and challenge the foundations of the global economy. “When there is an abundance of anything, capitalism seizes up; it’s meant to allocate scarce resources,” argues Adam-Green. “In that sense, piracy is a dress rehearsal for the new economy. Because art and culture have become like tap water — it’s abundant, it’s infinite and, as it turns out, the traditional system has no idea what to do when that happens.”