To start at the beginning, The Pirate Bay deals in BitTorrents. A method of sharing very large files in an extremely efficient fashion, BitTorrents have become the cutting edge of what the RIAA and MPAA are afraid of. It’s like Napster but reliable in quality and speed. Uh oh.

Naturally, the Pirate Bay has received numerous take-down notices, asking them to remove the files from their site. Each one gets published on their website, sometimes with a snarky reply, and they have—as of this writing—never deleted a single torrent. Ever. Not even one.

A grand majority of the comments on Digg express hearty congratulations to the Pirates for standing strong in the face of rude American media conglomerates (it should be noted that The Pirate Bay operates from Sweden which has markedly different copyright laws than the U.S.). However, there are plenty of comments like the following:

I hope the pirate bay knows in the US, divulging trade secrets has the same punishment as treason.

Keep “fighting against the man” kids, then sit back and bitch when prices are going up. Hopefully the end result will be your mom and dad will lose their jobs and you’ll have to pay for those new rims you got for your Honda by working at McDonalds.

I hope they catch these leeches and “waterboard” them.

Such venom!

What the debate really boils down to is a discussion of pre-conventional, conventional, and post-conventional ethics. Under what level of development is The Pirate Bay operating? Here are the typical reasons that people follow rules:

1. Pre-conventional. Rules are followed only out of fear of the consequences. Might is right. If you can enforce it, it is moral.
2. Conventional. Rules are followed because they’re the rules. Society wouldn’t function without them. Right?
3. Post-conventional. Rules are followed when they’re good rules. Otherwise, personal codes of ethics take precedent.

Which of these apply to The Pirate Bay? They are obviously not afraid of the consequences; in fact, they verbally abuse their accusers. U.S. copyright laws do not apply to them, since they’re in Sweden (and Swedish society seems to be doing okay). Finally, The Pirate Bay has made in painfully obvious, at every opportunity, that they don’t find these rules to be “good rules”. From their perspective, there is no reason to follow them.

Now which of those levels best apply to the copyright-holders?

I am loathe to use the G word, but domestic anger over The Pirate Bay is one of the consequences of Globalization. The same lack of international law that allows corporations to lower costs by avoiding minimum wage, skirting environmental law or criminal negligence is playing out in the other direction by allowing those pesky Swedes to circumvent our enlightened copyright laws.