Wil Wheaton, he of Star Trek: The Next Generation and “Don’t be a dick” fame, took to his blog on Monday to defend BitTorrent and stand up for Net Neutrality.  In the post he shows the positives of using Torrents such as increased download speeds, but it’s his commentary on the entertainment industry that’s the most intriguing.  The post opens:

I frequently find myself in an unpopular position in the entertainment industry: I believe in network neutrality, I don’t believe that piracy is the end of the world as we know it (I particularly don’t believe that a download or file shared automatically equals a lost sale*) and I don’t believe in crippling the Internet to protect a business model that desperately needs to change.

In his post he goes on to say:

Some ISPs are blocking all bittorrent traffic, because bittorrent can be used to share files in a piratical way. Hollywood lobbying groups are trying to pass laws wich would force ISPs to block or degrade bittorrent traffic, too. Personally, I think this is like closing down freeways because a bank robber could use them to get away, which I know is an imperfect comparison, but is the best I can do after a night of not-especially-good sleep.

This comes out around the same time the band Counting Crows is using the torrent service to spread some of their latest album in hopes of gaining more fans.  We’ve seen some comic book creators take to torrents to promote their works, it’ll be interesting to see if more are to follow.