This weekend, a conversation was sparked on the topic of the Pirate Bay’s founders being sued on the grounds of copyright infringement. My afternoon companion found the zealous with which the founders presented their case surprising, although he did find a few of their arguments compelling. I took the opportunity to rant about the delicate balance we currently reside in, between the democratic power of the market moving to the masses by popularity (google is a great example of that), and large corporations scrambling to establish legal protections that will allow them continue to operate as they have in the 20th century. The latter leads to some rather questionable outcomes — such as the patenting of seeds for farming, stripping farmers the right to keep seeds for next season — which in turn is causing the very customers large business depend on to turn back on them.

I brought up the digital divide as well in this conversation, by using an example of a more ‘traditional’ form of media: documentaries. Read the rest of this entry »