Legal and Ethical Issues in The Pirate Bay Case Study

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Table of Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................2
Identification of Stakeholders......................................................................3
Identification of Ethical Issues.....................................................................3
Possible Solution......................................................................................5
Legal and Regulatory Issues........................................................................6
Relevant cases.........................................................................................7
Australian Legal Perspective....................................................................7
Conclusion...................................................................................................9
References................................................................................................10

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Introduction
The Pirate Bay (TPB) is a website that allows its users to download
copyrighted content from its portal without paying any fees or charges. It
is referred as an online index which contains a large number of digital
content relating to entertainment media and software (Laudon and
Traver, 2017). The website was founded in 2003 in Sweden, and it allowed
its users to search, download and contribute magnet links and torrents
files for pirated content. The company also provided the facility of peer-to-
peer (P2P) file sharing for its users through the BitTorrent protocol (Poort
et al., 2014). The objective of this report is to evaluate the legal and
ethical issues which are raised in this case study by evaluating a wide
range of factors. This report will identify the key stakeholders and analyse
the ethical issues which are raised in this case along with an evaluation of
their impact on stakeholders and recognition of potential solutions.
Suggestions will be made regarding potential solutions and
implementation of ethical principles that might assist in justifying the
arguments. Legal issues which are raised in this case and their impact of
stakeholders will also be identified along with the evaluation of any
potential violation of Australian laws. Lastly, this report will make
arguments against TPB and support those arguments by relevant
research.

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Identification of Stakeholders
There are a number of stakeholders who are affected in the case of TPB
due to the number of ethical and legal issues which are presented in this
case. The music industry is the key stakeholder that was adversely
affected in this case because the corporations operating in this industry
were facing challenges relating to their profitability because people were
using their content without paying for them (Larsson, 2013). Along with
music content, TPB also allowed its users to download videos and movies
which also adversely affected production houses that invested millions on
those videos and movies since they were pirated on the internet. Other
stakeholders were the users of TPB who were able to get access to pirated
content due to the freedom of the internet. Although the users were
exercising their right to access free content on the internet; however, it
was also illegal for them to consume such data without paying for the
same (Laudon and Traver, 2017).
They were engaging in illegal practices which were affecting the interest
of music and film companies since their profits were reduced. The
government is also a key stakeholder in this scenario since it becomes
difficult for the government of Sweden to impose a ban on TPB since the
company was always able to find another way to host itself on the web
(Larsson, 2013). The government failed to implement policies and laws
that govern the actions of TPB by imposing an obligation on the
organisation to make sure that it did not engage in unethical practices
(Poort et al., 2014). TPB is also a stakeholder in this scenario since the
company was engaging in unlawful and illegal actions in order to generate
profit for itself. The company was not focusing on the negative impact of
its actions on a diverse range of stakeholders.
Identification of Ethical Issues
One of the key ethical issues is that TPB was providing a platform to
people from all across the globe where they can find illegal and pirate