Today's pirate is the entrepreneur of tomorrow

Before the Super Bowl on Sunday (a frigid Monday morning in Beijing), the FBI prepared for the TV event by closing down more than 300 Internet domains that streamed sports events and sold NFL merchandize. At the same time, the US Department of Justice was prosecuting by proxy the Megaupload boss Kim Dotcom. Meanwhile, the three entrepreneurs behind file-sharer Pirate Bay were denied appeals and will sweat it out behind bars for up to 10 months, in addition to paying millions of dollars in fines.

Their crimes were copyright infringement, and the sentence is commercial death.

Mr Dotcom is a fascinating figure, a German for whom the epithet "larger than life" is entirely appropriate. He and his minions had settled themselves in enviable luxury at a lavish villa complex in New Zealand, where they drove around in Mercs, Rolls-Royces and Maseratis with license plates boasting they were "MAFIA" or "CEO" and "GUILTY" - which was obviously a red rag to a bull.