P2P rights vs Copyright- compromise between individual privacy and property rights

The Pirate Bay trial
Recently, I came across the article about the Pirate Bay trial which led me to further reading through wikipedia. The Defendants, who are the pioneers of the Pirate Bay, are all found criminally and civilly liable for infringement of copyrights in Sweden. This signifies the change of the view in judiciary towards the peer-to-peer file sharing tools in the cyberspace.
What is peer-to-peer? It simply derives from the concept of real space regarding sharing of information. Example: A owns a music CD, then A borrows his music CD to B to share the music—is it wrong to do so? Strictly, yes. It would be an infringement of copyright to do so. However, in real world, the activities of sharing is difficult and impractical to be traced. It is just not a social norm to sue and prosecute a civilian for such infringement cause the potential negative effects would be destructive to the recording companies, hence, not economically viable. Now, if peer to peer sharing is allowed in real world, why is it not allowed in cyberspace? If I can invite friends to my house to share the movie I bought, why am I not allow to do so in the cyberspace? Should the consumer/internet users be blamed for copyright infringement? Or instead, the recording companies should have invested their profits on prevention of duplicating their products?
Pirate Bay provides a platform for the internet users to share their files. They do not initiate the transfer of copyrighted materials. In 2003, the U.S. court has held that the service providers bore no legal liability for copyright infringement occurring on those networks (http://news.cnet.com/Landmark-P2P-ruling-back-in-court/2100-1027_3-5152269.html). If the service provider could be punished for transfer of materials in the internet, this would essentially means that all the activities of the internet users would be closely watched and scrunitised. We do not need our daily activities to be under close surveillance in real world and so do our activities in cyberspace. We are progressing to a better life with freedom of individuals and this decision would change the future development of the cyberspace to the reverse.


picture from Wikipedia showing the crowds in front of the Court

The Pirate Bay trial - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia