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The Pirate Bay Is Making a "Spectrial" of It
IDOXLR8 writes "The Harvard Law students defending accused file-swapper Joel Tenenbaum are doing their best to turn his upcoming trial into a media event. But when it comes to pure spectacle, they have nothing on The Pirate Bay. TPB is referring to the event as a 'spectrial,' a cross between a spectacle and a trial. They have set up a site where you can track their current location, complete with journal entries. The trial begins next Monday and features a live audio feed and Twitter translations."
As far as I know, the Harvard students are helping defend an individual accused of file-sharing and have nothing to do with TPB.
If I remember correctly, a semi-famous law professor is defending the individual and his students are helping him.
most of the coverage will be using internet services, traditional media can't compete with this.
- Human knowledge belongs to the world
What? In America we have something called you shouldn't go to jail if you didn't do anything wrong. If you look out your window and someone's being stabbed you can pour a glass of lemonade and set out a lawn chair for all we care, you are not liable. See Duty to rescue. It doesn't go over the reasoning behind it, but this article does. It's pretty dense but I think the issue really boils down to beliefs about our responsibilities to each other. Although we do have welfare tacked on, we're at least supposedly a cold, heartless capitalist regime with no qualms about suppressing and exploiting the poor because that's their place.. unlike more socialist states like the EU. We can hardly feel completely inculpable if a poor person we pass every day starves (that's not to say many people wouldn't intervene) in this dog-eat-dog game of bottom lines without holding these kind of ideas about duty to rescue in more pressing circumstances.
For some of us moral justification just isn't necessary; intellectual property isn't real property. There are ways to monetize your IP without resorting to imaginary scarcity.
Jesus loves me, he loves me a bunch, because he always puts Jiffy in my lunch.