well obviously they assist in copyright infringement but does that mean every ISP, in the world is guilty of doing so as well ? Google, yahoo, msn.
Every HDD manufacturer, well its gotta get stored on something so it can be copied illegally.
Curious to see how long this will take to go through appeal process and actual see a final verdict
Reading up about it on Ars, it seems that since Google (and various other internet search algorithm and results providers) take down offending links as soon as there are 'people' contacting them about it (child porn, copyrighted material, links to other illegal stuffthingies etc.), they are considered 'compliant' (not a quote), which seems to be the way to go if you want to avoid conflict. That's why the Google/TPB comparison does not work.
HDD manufacturers cannot be held liable for the use people make of their hardware because they have no way of controlling who has access to the contents on the disks they sell, much like car manufacturers cannot avoid people using their cars as means of a getaway vehicle whe robbing a bank. The TPB admins were in a position to moderate the content linked to on their site and deliberately ostensibly explicitly did not do so.
That said, I'm not against P2P sharing and any of its exponents (it would be fairly hypocritical of me). I'm aware that I'm in a grey zone of the law if I use it, though. I'm also hoping TPB will win an appeal, though I'm not too optimistic.