...well, brace yerself m'hearties, this one's a HOOT! - it seems piracy DOES PAY (at least if you're one of the TPB4), to the tune of more than £4,000,000! (4 MILLION POUNDS!!! )...
...SELL OUT! cry the screaming hordes HERE, HERE, and HERE, but scratch that veneer and we can see the WAY, brothers and sisters, but let's retrace...
...April 09 -TPB4 sent to JAIL - straight past GO! pay £2.2 million to banker's Media Cartel : most people are on this page, this is where most mainstream media streams mysteriously stalled on the story even though NOBODY went to jail and NO FINES were paid because of an appeal launched over the obviously biased judge, a fully paid up member of the SAME copyright cabal as the prosecution! AND the GOOD ship sailed on, see HERE and HERE...
...25 June and the jaundiced judge is cleared of perjury (according to REUTERS, HERE) under a hail of accusations of appeal court bias (let's not forget the second judge proffered ALSO had the same handshake)...
...Present - and here we are, 5 days later and the recording industry is still "cautious" about the decision!?! - TPB goes legit and the cabal get their CASH, ('cos coincidentally, HALF of the TPB4's £4.4 million "sellout to themselves" is IN cash, the other in shares of the allnew legit TPB) and the cautious cabal continue their obfuscation with tall tales of sinking ships and Davy's locker...
...Kindwhile, back in reality, NOBODY's mentioning jail anymore (UPDATE:except Reuters in THIS misleading headline, in FACT, the case is under another appeal) - the GOODship TPB sails on as usual, (used it myself to find an album, whilst writing this, that i couldn't BUY if i TRIED, which i HAVE!, now i finally HAVE a COPY and NOBODY has lost or made any CASH, but JOY has been SHARED) - and the TPB4 have (on top of the £4.4million sellout) another £8million to invest in Peerialism, in a NEW paradigm shift that'll make TPB as old skool as a walkman...
...AND (fanfare please) - the Pirate PARTY goes from strength to strength in Canada, across France, Germany, the Baltic states and into the European parliament on a platform against "government and corporate monitoring of Internet activities, unless the monitoring is part of a criminal investigation. And it also wants to phase out patents, arguing that patents on new drugs, for example, raise the cost of medical care and keep life-saving medicine out of the hands of many people"...HIP HIP - HURRAH!...
...and FINALLY, a message of HOPE from our HEROES - "A lot of people are worried. We're not and you shouldn't be either! We will also not stop being active in the politics of the internets - quite the opposite. Now we're fueling up for going into the next gear. TPB will have economical muscles to let people evolve it. Don't worry - be happy!...
...and REMEMBER - SHARING is CARING...