It may also be a boost for material not published by big companies but by artists and writers themself. At least I hope so. The record company belongs to the old economy and is not really needed any longer, which I think a lot of artists will realise in the near future. If there is something good coming out of this, it is that even the artists themselves is becoming more and more aware of the possibilities for them with the new technology. We may see more diversified art, more niched and less mainstream, when the big companies get cut off. After all, their role is mainly to provide the economic resources, which is less and less needed today since technology gets cheaper and cheaper.

I disagree to some extent. It's in many cases not the "authors" who hate you for downloading the material. In England for example, 140 artists has organized to let their fans download their material peer-to-peer (artists including Radiohead, Peter Gabriel, Annie Lennox and Robbie Williams). As for Sweden, one of the most popular artists, Håkan Hellström, is used in the record companies arguments to forbid filesharing, when in fact Hellström himself at numerous occasions has said that he rather see people downloading his music for free than not beeing able to listen to him to the extent they want to. So freedom in this case is NOT turning against the artists or authors. (Writer Marcus Birro said in his radio program Karlavagnen that if people read you texts for free, then maybe you can do something else to earn your living, as long as you get the message out there. Like having your own radio show, perhaps?) I think the truth is that the record companies see a future where they are disposable. And if they continue to criminalize their onwn customers instead of adobting to the new techdriven "set of rules" in society, they will be. But it seems as for now they actually think it's more convinient to legislate than finding new business models.

Honestly, somebody should organize a boycott for one week when nobody downloads a single byte of music, movies, tv series etcetera. Not "legal" nor "illegal" (unsigned bands and "legally free" material excluded). Let those companies that pisses on their on customers be totally dead for one week. Make it a global manifestation, then maybe they will wake up from their slumber and accept that customers of today don't care for yesterday's business models and that they actually have to be so creative that they say they are. Why not make it a week when you take some time to discover some great undiscovered bands?

Legislating against both the technology development and society development is a great way to keep back humanity. Congratulations Henrik Pontén, you've succeeded to stomp on the break of humanity's accelerating steps of knowledge. At least for a couple of days. If you're lucky perhaps even for a week! You're the greatest! Now, please run along and forbid axes so we can go back to using rocks...