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.”