The Pirate Bay Options

[Robert]

For those who download via torrents have probably heard of or even used the website
ThePirateBay.com
It's a torrent site base in Sweden
What you may not have been aware of is the 4 people who operate the site are in court right now for violation of copyrighted laws. The people running the site have always flipped the bird to US and UK companies and their stormtroopers tactics, because unlike the US, the Swedish copyright laws see the difference between a kid downloading a song versus a company selling pirated CD's.
ThePirateBay has a hilarious page on their site documenting all legal threats they have received over the years.
Be sure to read through it when you have some time to kill.
http://thepiratebay.org/legal
One of the best would be from EA Games
http://static.thepiratebay.org/ea_response.txt
I've been known to virtually bitch slap some people over the years but these guys are great.

Anyway, the reason I brought this up is their current legal battle will likely have repercussions throughout the torrent community. So I am happy to report on the very 1st day of court, half of the charges against them have already been dropped.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10165604-38.html

[Robert]

If anyone thinks the RIAA is there to protect the artist, they are idiots.
The RIAA exist to protect the record company.
This is a funny example to prove these laws go to far an need reform.
I've no clue who this band is but it makes a great point.

From Streetlight Manifesto (Official Band Myspace page)

"For some reason our own record label hit us with a cease and desist via YouTube. It seems we were broadcasting copyrighted material (our own music video) on our own YouTube channel. Which is a No-No in douchebag-land. So our video was taken off of our channel forcibly. We'll have a new link up soon. Man, with "friends" like these... One day we'll write a book. Until then, well, you know...
source