I’m all for supporting local music and film. Go to the shop, buy the CD or DVD, pay the bills for our hard-working local talent.

But, when it comes to them big international stars, I don’t feel too bad about a sneaky download here and there. When police raids in Sweden shut down famed online torrent site The Pirate Bay, however, illegal downloaders around the world wept a little into their microwave meals.

In the wake up of new developments on the site’s home page in the past week it seems the site could be up and running again rather soon. This from Mashable:

 There is no firm confirmation of the date, but the site has been adorned with a timer ending Feb. 1 for the past week. Over the weekend, the site’s regular logo was replaced with an image of the phoenix — likely symbolizing rising from the ashes — that was last used in 2006 when the site returned after a police raid.

Whilst there is no shortage of other sites to get your favourite shows from The Pirate Bay is revered as one of the originals, with all of the site’s original founders having been sentenced to a year in jail in 2009. During this time the site still remained functional in an act of defiance…respect.

These are the kind of pirates we can get behind. Those ones on the Somali coastline, not so much.

[source:mashable]