I consider myself lucky to be growing up in the "age of information." As a child, I saw the birth of AOL and the beginning of the internet. I got to witness first hand as hi-speed internet was rolled out and made available in many areas. I'm afraid that if I live through this year, heaven forbid, that I might see the beginning of the end of the internet as we know it.  Companies will start bullying their way around laws to restrict you from seeing information they want to keep off the internet.  A truly epic trial has just wrapped up in Sweden between the popular peer-to-peer downloading site, ThePirateBay.com, and many American companies desperately seeking to control what denizens of the internet can see and download.  Although an initial guilty verdict has been handed out, the case is going to be appealed in higher courts in the near future. The overall outcome of this case will set an important precedent about the freedom of information, and if big business is allowed a win here, many more restrictions will be placed on what you're allowed to see in the near future.

Since you probably don't understand the scope and history of this trial, let me explain some of the technical points. The trial is taking place in Sweden, where The Pirate Bay is located (mainly due to lack of any copyright laws in that country.) On their website, they openly post all "cease and desist" orders they get from businesses, not to mention their hilariously rude replies such as telling Apple, "Instead of simply recommending that you sodomize yourself with a retractable baton, let me recommend a specific model - the ASP 21-inch. The previous lawyers tried to use a cheaper brand, but it broke during the action. " They also often make the point of telling the law firms who sent the letters that they should realize that Sweden is not under the jurisdiction of US law, and instead have "sane laws." Past courts haven't been able to prosecute our jolly pirates because they don't actually host any copyrighted material on their servers; the sole function of their site is to connect people who are looking for certain files.

Needless to say, this is not the first effort big business has put forth to try to stop the downloading of copyrighted material; in early 2008 Comcast throttled the speeds of the internet for people using a specific method of downloading and definitely payed the price for it in a class action lawsuit. Perhaps the largest threat to the internet right now is in a multitude of bills that have been kicked around in congress in relationship to what is now known as "net neutrality." Most of these bills are the work of internet service provider lobbies to try to make websites pay according to the amount of people that visit the site and the amount of information passed between the site and the user. Their goal is to ultimately turn the internet into what TV or radio is: a system for displaying a message, but only for the highest bidder. I might not care about very many things, but at the risk of sounding preachy, this is the one thing that I will actively fight for as long as I live.

The case being argued against the Pirate Bay is being led by multiple companies that make billions of dollars a year, and whose previous attempts to take down the site have failed. In 2007 the IFPI, RIAA, and MPAA conspired with (and payed off) the police to seize control of the Pirate Bay servers that kept the site running. They took them and kept them for 3 days, copying things off of them and trying to "gather evidence." At the end of the 3 day period, the companies tried to come up with a case against them and ultimately failed due to Swedish copyright law (or lack thereof.)

Initially, I thought it looked like the huge businesses were going to be handed another loss.  The prosecution made too many blunders and ultimately didn't make a strong enough case to bring about any kind of conviction, in my mind.  I'm not sure if you can consider personality an essential trait to winning a case, but the prosecution came off as cold-hearted and hot-tempered, firing insults and personal attacks while cross-examining witnesses, not to mention having to be silenced by the judges several times. This is in stark contrast to the defense's cool, calm demeanor, often cracking jokes at the prosecution instead of becoming inflamed at many of the false accusations. For example, when told that his website it turning over profits of ten million crowns, Mr. Gottfried simply said, “Where is my ten million, please, I want it, where is it?” Another great example is when the defense's expert witness was asked if he wanted reimbursement for his appearance, he simply stated, "You are welcome to send some flowers to my wife." The same people who download music and have been painted as criminals who don't care about people or business's responded by sending over five-thousand dollars worth of flowers to his house collectively.

Don't expect to be seeing any flowers outside the judge's house anytime soon.  Only days after the verdict was handed down, the defense did some researching and found out that the citizen-judge was actually a pro-copyright lobbyist.  With this new information on their side, the defense's legal team is looking to have the entire case declared a mistrial and thrown out.  The judge, meanwhile, defends his claims that his association with the lobbyist group didn't effect his judgment whatsoever.   Either way, this isn't the end of this case; the defendants said they would refuse to pay, and one person went as far as to comment on "burning everything" before giving the groups a dime.

In the end, the internet is a valuable resource and a great media outlet.  It's the one of the first times in history that no matter who you are or what you have to say, you can have an equal chance of being heard. It's a form of media by the people and for the people. You control what you want to see, and you put out what you want others to see. It's simple, beautiful, free, and over my dead body will anyone change that.