The Pirate Bay is not literally holding 'stolen items'. They are merely providing a roadway to them. The analogy would be a person who gives directions to pawn shops. Giving directions isn't illegal, right? However, I don't know about the rules for crime by association in Sweden.

> 20% stolen content is HUGE.

What are you comparing it to?

I do not know the Swedish law either, but let's take it to an extreme:

If someone were to run a site called Assassin Bay, where clients could post .target files specifying jobs and hit men could accept those jobs, I'm sure that the site would be taken down within hours and the site owner would go to prison. Even in Sweden.

EDIT: To allow for the possibility that the Assassin Bay also has legal traffic, replace .target with .ad files. Then assume generously that advertisements for legal jobs make for 80% of the traffic and 20% are hits. The argument I made would still hold.

I see your point.

However, I reworded the comparison a bit and some things don't look right even though they are.

  Pirate Bay       : Assasin Bay
  Legal .torrent   : .ad
  Illegal .torrent : .target
  Illegal Download : Loss of Life
  
  Property         : Life

The last analogy seems a bit inhumane. Then again,

> let's take it to an extreme

Thanks for seeing the point, which was that beyond a certain stage a website should not be able to maintain an "impartial" stance.

Your list will not look shocking any more if you add a line for the respective sentences:

Pirate bay : Assassin Bay

slap on the wrist : 15 years (1)

(1) if the admins provably and repeatedly have refused to remove .target files.

I think a much better analogy would be if someone were to run a site called "Craig's List," and had a section devoted to 'personals.' Would the webmaster be _legally_ responsible for those using that service for prostitution?

(again, not the site's moral responsibility to itself [craigslist cracks down on this sort of thing], but to the point of being able to arrest and imprison craigslist webmasters.)

If a site has been running for several years and a substantial portion of the ads are illegal and during all that time the site admins have repeatedly refused to remove illegal ads, then yes, the site admins have some responsibility.

No, that's wrong. It <i>feels</i> the same if I click on a .torrent or if I download from iTunes. Either way I started a download and have a new album within the half hour.

The analogy would be if the pawn shop had transporters that weren't accurate enough to build a new copy from one location in a warehouse somewhere, so it had to make many copies from warehouses around the US, combining them all into a single coherent and accurate copy.

err, something like that. I'm not saying the Pirate Bay should be illegal, just that the pirate bay <i>is</i> called The Pirate Bay. I expect it is more than 20%, by data or .torrents. That is to say, I don't like incorrect analogies.