A court in Sweden has jailed four men behind The Pirate Bay (TPB), the world's most high-profile file-sharing website, in a landmark case. Frederik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Carl Lundstrom and Peter Sunde were found guilty of breaking copyright law and were sentenced to a year in jail. They were also ordered to pay $4.5m (£3m) in damages. Record companies welcomed the verdict but the men are to appeal and Sunde said they would refuse to pay the fine. Speaking at an online press conference, he described the verdict as "bizarre. "It's serious to actually be found guilty and get jail time. It's really serious. And that's a bit weird," Sunde said. "It's so bizarre that we were convicted at all and it's even more bizarre that we were [convicted] as a team. The court said we were organised. I can't get Gottfrid out of bed in the morning. If you're going to convict us, convict us of disorganised crime. "We can't pay and we wouldn't pay. Even if I had the money I would rather burn everything I owned, and I wouldn't even give them the ashes." It is almost certain that The Pirate Bay will keep on sailing, long after today's court judgement Read more at the dot.life blog Q&A: Pirate Bay verdict The damages were awarded to a number of entertainment companies, including Warner Bros, Sony Music Entertainment, EMI, and Columbia Pictures. However, the total awarded fell short of the $17.5m in damages and interest the firms were seeking. Speaking to the BBC, the chairman of industry body the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) John Kennedy said the verdict sent out a clear message. "These guys weren't making a principled stand, they were out to line their own pockets. There was nothing meritorious about their behaviour, it was reprehensible. "The Pirate Bay did immense harm and the damages awarded doesn't even get close to compensation, but we never claimed it did. "There has been a perception that piracy is OK and that the music industry should just have to accept it. This verdict will change that," he said. Pirate Bay"s first server The Pirate Bay's first server is now a museum exhibit in Stockholm The four men denied the charges throughout the trial, saying that because they did not actually host any files, they were not doing anything wrong. A lawyer for Carl Lundstrom, Per Samuelson told journalists he was shocked by the guilty verdict and the severity of the sentence. "That's outrageous, in my point of view. Of course we will appeal," he was quoted as saying by Reuters news agency. "This is the first word, not the last. The last word will be ours." Political issue Rickard Falkvinge, leader of The Pirate Party - which is trying to reform laws around copyright and patents in the digital age - told the BBC that the verdict was "a gross injustice". "This wasn't a criminal trial, it was a political trial. It is just gross beyond description that you can jail four people for providing infrastructure. Mark Mulligan from Forrester Research says what was different about Pirate Bay "There is a lot of anger in Sweden right now. File-sharing is an institution here and while I can't encourage people to break copyright law, I'm not following it and I don't agree with it. "Today's events make file-sharing a hot political issue and we're going to take this to the European Parliament." The Pirate Bay is the world's most high profile file-sharing website and was set up in 2003 by anti-copyright organisation Piratbyran, but for the last five years it has been run by individuals. Millions of files are exchanged using the service every day. No copyright content is hosted on The Pirate Bay's web servers; instead the site hosts "torrent" links to TV, film and music files held on its users' computers. Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8003799.stm
I know I'll probably be the most unpopular guy on this forum for saying that I actually think it's a correct ruling, but oh well. Why should they get away with enabling the world to steal from copyright holders and take their work for nothing? I think the more that can be done to curb piracy the better.
To be honest i wouldnt mind if that was me, think of how much money they have made over the whole time it's been up, they must have made much more than that! its a very well known site, so 17.5m will be easy for them imo!? regrds, B.
No it won't. They are currently refusing to pay anyhow! Running a site like Pirate Bay will earn you a lot with ads, but the bandwidth and hosting bills are absolutely incredible. I personally think this verdict is unbelievable. The movie and music industry don't seem to realise that torrents and downloads aren't the cause of lack of income and earnings - shitty music, shitty films, poor marketing, and rubbish financial handling is. Secondly, how they managed to find Pirate Bay guilty is baffling. Pirate Bay is essentially a search engine (for torrents). Google can be used in the same way, by simply using the old filetype:torrent trick. Somehow I can't see IFPI taking action against the biggest bully in the playground (Google), because Google will always win in a battle of law. The men in suits from America haven't won anything at all. It is impossible to destroy the torrents and downloads industry. If Pirate Bay goes down (which I actually doubt it will), there are many other sites that can replace it.
This movie industry looks too greedy for money rite now itself thier profits are soo damn high.. these downloads dont hurt them for sure. looks like they want more money
Well guys have the point, they don't host pirated material they just have torrent files that are liking to user's computers.