>> "And you also argue that basically providing links should be illegal"

I specifically avoided saying this. By providing those links they 'enabled' downloading of content illegally.

The issue for me is then, where do we draw the line of "enabling" copyright infringement? I'm pretty sure that if certain industries had their way in the 90s, peer2peer communication between regular people would be illegal for "enabling" copyright infringement.

Considering that the US government forbade the export high level encryption, it's not hard to think they would also forbid any peer2peer communication not going though a "certified and approved" server, if the winds had gone that way.

The bottom line is, crimes should be illegal, tools should not be illegal, even if they enable crime. If you have a tool that can ONLY be used for illegal purposes, you might have a good case, but even pirate bay had links to legal content, that got taken down along with the links to the illegal content.

And "enabling" copyright infringement was not illegal in many jurisdictions until the content industry either created case law or lobbied for laws to be altered. Policy changes he opposes.

This whole argument disappoints me. Every manufacturer of a DVD or CD Writer has "enabled" illegal copying and potential distribution of copyrighted content. I haven't seen any of those entities reprimanded for their product manufacture.

Major content producers have attacked duplication mediums before and failed:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Corp._of_America_v._Univ....

The difference is that the ostensible intent of these products is to enable consumers to make archival copies.

What is the ostensible intent of TPB?

There's a tax in some countries over blank CD/DVD exactly for that reason, enabling illegal copying. It is a crazy world, anything is possible.

Edit: found a link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_copying_levy

You have understood that wrong. In those countries, private copying is legal, and the private copying levy is a tax on recordable media to collect some money from the people who legally practice private copying.

As a further note, the levy is intended for cases where the person doing the copy already has the right to do the copy (for example, recording from radio, recording a tv-show, or making a back-up copy of a movie one already owns a legal copy of). It is not intended to compensate for copying that is currently illegal (such as copies obtained using any form of pirating).

Many people misunderstand this, and think it is a levy to compensate for illegal copying. That is not, and has never been, the purpose. This misunderstanding is also one of the common arguments against the levy, since it gives the impression that even though some copying may be illegal, it is compensated.

So, by that definition, it's not illegal.

Nope, still illegal. You're paying for something you can't legally do.