somebody <x### [at] ycom> wrote:
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8003799.stm

  What I find disturbing about that is that the damages are awarded to
entertainment companies, not to software companies, even though pirate
bay distributes as much illegal software as illegal music/movies.

  From the point of view of piracy, software is in a similar position
as music: It's easy to copy, and people copy it a lot without a second
thought.

  However, software is only namely protected by law. There are no
institutions a la RIAA to protect the rights of software authors, to
lobby governments into passing draconian laws protecting software, to
extort people money for downloading illegal software. Cases of people
getting sued and/or fined because of music piracy outweight similar cases
of software piracy at least 100/1 (in the US probably 10000/1).

  This pirate bay case follows the same pattern: The admins of the biggest
online piracy community gets fined. Who gets the money? Music companies.

  As a software developer this grinds my gears.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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