So, if someone made a webstie that was pro-marijuana, would you assume that was a crime? They're encouraging/tolerating piracy.
The pirate bay did not host nor distribute any pirated files. So where's the crime?
The pirate bay did not host nor distribute any pirated files. So where's the crime?
The law recognises intent in most situations, and the Pirate Bay exists to provide access to expensive-to-create content without compensating the people who made it. Hence, they have problems (and justifiably so).
This is how they said Google was not guilty, but the pirate bay was (they mentioned Google specifically in the question and answer).
1. is it legal right now
That I can't say. Ask a lawyer. Most probably not, depending.
2. should it be legal right now
Yes, yes it should. That's the entire point behind "free speech" - once you start drawing lines, shit happens. And the problem isn't with child porn per se, the problem is with the horrific acts that produce it and the mentality of the people who enjoy it, but the image itself should not be in any way illegal. Think of scenes of gruesome manslaughter. There are people who get sexual satisfaction from seeing bloody dismembered corpses. Even so, those images, unsettling as they are to a mentally healthy person, aren't illegal.
The act of living in a society involves the drawing of lines and without those lines you don't have a society.
The difficult question has always been where to draw the line?
So the argument of "they're not distributing content themselves" is invalid. The argument should be about the legality of file sharing, property and ownership.