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Any recording business executive celebrating the court victory over The Pirate Bay should have been in San Francisco this weekend for a reality check. Attending CodeCon 2009 would have brought them swiftly down to earth, and emphasised the futility of trying to prevent P2P file sharing. What’s the point, when you can make money off it instead?

Legal “victories” become ever more expensive – and Pyrrhic. I didn’t hear a word of anti-copyright rhetoric from the hardcore coders here unlike the poseurs at Pirate Bay. Instead, there were demonstrations of working code designed to enhance the security of users. The fact that this ingenuity was designed to obscure music lovers from snoopers is a consequence of how the incentives are lined up today. If P2P was legal – in controlled, licensed situations – these coders would be coding great music services.

(If you think Pirate Bay or Rapidshare is as good as music services can get, you are suffering from a severely crippled imagination).

Various projects suggested that detecting copyright infringers may soon become a whole lot harder.

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David B. Kellermann, the acting chief financial officer of the troubled mortgage giant Freddie Mac, was found dead Wednesday morning at his home in Northern Virginia, the police said.

The executive apparently committed suicide by hanging himself, according to people with knowledge of the investigation.

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Flamboyant billionaire Tim Blixseth lived the high life as the posh mountain resort he founded for the ultrarich spiraled into bankruptcy.

The timber baron turned luxury resort developer bought plush airplanes, sprawling estates in France, Mexico and Scotland and a private island in the Caribbean.

But creditors say he paid for all of that with a 2005 loan ostensibly meant for the Yellowstone Club, a 13,600-acre private ski resort that counts former Vice President Dan Quayle and Microsoft’s Bill Gates among its members.

A civil trial for Blixseth was set to begin Wednesday, with creditors seeking to have the $375 million loan arranged by Credit Suisse declared illegal. They also want Credit Suisse to return to the club $146.4 million in principal and interest already paid.