Stockholm court jails The Pirate Bay founders for a year
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STOCKHOLM - A Swedish court found four men guilty Friday of promoting copyright infringement by running The Pirate Bay, one of the world's top illegal filesharing websites, sentencing them to a year in prison in a landmark ruling.
The court also ordered the four -- Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm, Peter Sunde and Carl Lundstroem -- to pay damages of 30 million kronor (2.72 million euros, 3.56 million dollars) to the movie and recording industry, which hailed the conviction as a symbolic victory.
"The Stockholm district court has today convicted the four people charged with promoting other people's infringement of copyright laws," the court said in a statement.
"We are of course going to appeal," defence lawyer Per Samuelsson told Swedish Radio.
The effect the verdict will have on the website was not immediately known, but The Pirate Bay founders vowed to carry on.
"Don't worry, nothing will change for The Pirate Bay, neither for us nor for filesharing," Sunde wrote on the community website Twitter, Swedish news agency TT reported.
A comment posted on The Pirate Bay's website read: "As in all good movies, the heroes lose in the beginning but have an epic victory in the end anyhow.
That's the only thing Hollywood ever taught us."
Representatives of the movie, music and video games industry had sought some 117 million kronor (10.6 million euros, 13.9 million dollars) in damages and interest for alleged losses incurred from tens of millions of illegal downloads facilitated by the site.
The verdict topped headlines around the world and immediately prompted a flurry of comments on Internet blogs and community websites.
Forrester Research analyst Mark Mulligan raised the possibility that the Swedish court's ruling could affect other websites including giant search engine Google.
"There are some interesting implications from this ruling, most notably the question of whether Google could now be held responsible for posting links to content that does not have copyright cleared," he wrote on The Music Ally blog.
Founded in 2003, The Pirate Bay makes it possible to skirt copyright fees and share music, film and computer game files using bit torrent technology, or peer-to-peer links offered on the site.
None of the material can thus be found on The Pirate Bay server itself.
The Pirate Bay claims to have some 22 million users worldwide.
"By providing a website with... well-developed search functions, easy uploading and storage possibilities, and with a tracker linked to the website, the accused have incited the crimes that the filesharers have committed," the court said in a statement to the media.
A filesharing researcher at Sweden's Royal Institute of Technology, Daniel Johansson, called it a landmark ruling.
"For Sweden and Europe it's the most important case ever when it comes to filesharing," he told AFP, recalling the Napster trial in the United States.
He added that the verdict could contribute to tighter controls on Internet usage.
IFPI, which represents the recording industry worldwide, hailed the court's decision.
"This is good news for everyone, in Sweden and internationally, who is making a living or a business from creative activity and who needs to know their rights will protected by law," IFPI chairman and chief executive John Kennedy said.
Mulligan however pointed out that file sharing will not go away with a new threat coming from non-network sharing via Instant Messenger, email, blogs and iPod ripping.
During the trial, the four had maintained that filesharing services can be used both legally and illegally.
One of the defence lawyers, Per Samuelsson, had argued that The Pirate Bay's services "can be compared to making cars that can be driven faster than the speed limit."
Another defence lawyer, Jonas Nilsson, had insisted that "the individual Internet users who use Pirate Bay services... must answer for the material they have in their possession or the files they might share with others."
Swedish police raided the company's offices several times and seized nearly 200 servers in 2006, temporarily shuttering the site. But it resurfaced a few days later with servers spread among different countries.
The site is still in operation. -
the above is extracted from channelnewsasia.com
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Originally posted by dragg:
STOCKHOLM - A Swedish court found four men guilty Friday of promoting copyright infringement by running The Pirate Bay, one of the world's top illegal filesharing websites, sentencing them to a year in prison in a landmark ruling.
The court also ordered the four -- Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm, Peter Sunde and Carl Lundstroem -- to pay damages of 30 million kronor (2.72 million euros, 3.56 million dollars) to the movie and recording industry, which hailed the conviction as a symbolic victory.
"The Stockholm district court has today convicted the four people charged with promoting other people's infringement of copyright laws," the court said in a statement.
"We are of course going to appeal," defence lawyer Per Samuelsson told Swedish Radio.
The effect the verdict will have on the website was not immediately known, but The Pirate Bay founders vowed to carry on.
"Don't worry, nothing will change for The Pirate Bay, neither for us nor for filesharing," Sunde wrote on the community website Twitter, Swedish news agency TT reported.
A comment posted on The Pirate Bay's website read: "As in all good movies, the heroes lose in the beginning but have an epic victory in the end anyhow.
That's the only thing Hollywood ever taught us."
Representatives of the movie, music and video games industry had sought some 117 million kronor (10.6 million euros, 13.9 million dollars) in damages and interest for alleged losses incurred from tens of millions of illegal downloads facilitated by the site.
The verdict topped headlines around the world and immediately prompted a flurry of comments on Internet blogs and community websites.
Forrester Research analyst Mark Mulligan raised the possibility that the Swedish court's ruling could affect other websites including giant search engine Google.
"There are some interesting implications from this ruling, most notably the question of whether Google could now be held responsible for posting links to content that does not have copyright cleared," he wrote on The Music Ally blog.
Founded in 2003, The Pirate Bay makes it possible to skirt copyright fees and share music, film and computer game files using bit torrent technology, or peer-to-peer links offered on the site.
None of the material can thus be found on The Pirate Bay server itself.
The Pirate Bay claims to have some 22 million users worldwide.
"By providing a website with... well-developed search functions, easy uploading and storage possibilities, and with a tracker linked to the website, the accused have incited the crimes that the filesharers have committed," the court said in a statement to the media.
A filesharing researcher at Sweden's Royal Institute of Technology, Daniel Johansson, called it a landmark ruling.
"For Sweden and Europe it's the most important case ever when it comes to filesharing," he told AFP, recalling the Napster trial in the United States.
He added that the verdict could contribute to tighter controls on Internet usage.
IFPI, which represents the recording industry worldwide, hailed the court's decision.
"This is good news for everyone, in Sweden and internationally, who is making a living or a business from creative activity and who needs to know their rights will protected by law," IFPI chairman and chief executive John Kennedy said.
Mulligan however pointed out that file sharing will not go away with a new threat coming from non-network sharing via Instant Messenger, email, blogs and iPod ripping.
During the trial, the four had maintained that filesharing services can be used both legally and illegally.
One of the defence lawyers, Per Samuelsson, had argued that The Pirate Bay's services "can be compared to making cars that can be driven faster than the speed limit."
Another defence lawyer, Jonas Nilsson, had insisted that "the individual Internet users who use Pirate Bay services... must answer for the material they have in their possession or the files they might share with others."
Swedish police raided the company's offices several times and seized nearly 200 servers in 2006, temporarily shuttering the site. But it resurfaced a few days later with servers spread among different countries.
The site is still in operation.
i hope the situation doesnt get bad and affect singapore too. we have a history on clamp downs too -
Pirate Party wins surprise Euro seat, calls for Web freedom
- Story Highlights
- Swedish pro-file-sharing site Pirate Party won 7.1 percent of Swedish vote
- Party's popularity increased markedly following Pirate Bay court case in April
- Founders of Swedish file-sharing site found guilty of copyright infringement
- Pirate Party leader: "The citizens have understood it's time to make a difference"
June 8, 2009 -- Updated 1348 GMT (2148 HKT)(CNN) -- A Swedish political party which wants to legalize file-sharing on the Internet scored a surprise victory Sunday when it took a seat in the European parliament.
Pirate Party supporters celebrate the party's surprise victory in Sweden.
The Pirate Party won 7.1 percent of the Swedish vote to claim one of the country's 18 seats in the European parliament.
"Together we have changed the landscape of European politics," Pirate Party leader Rick Falkvinge told file-sharing news Web site TorrentFreak after the win.
"The citizens have understood it's time to make a difference."
The single-issue party was founded in 2006 through anger in Sweden at controversial laws that criminalize file-sharing.
The party's popularity increased markedly in April this year after the four founding members of the Sweden-based The Pirate Bay, a file-sharing site used by millions worldwide, were found guilty of collaborating to violate copyright law and sentenced to jail.
Shortly after the conviction, Tomas Norström, the judge who presided over the case was removed for bias when it was revealed that he was a member of industry copyright-protection groups.
A second judge, Ulrika Ihrfelt, who was assigned to investigate whether the four men should be granted a retrial was also removed from the case after it was found that she was a member of the same organizations, it was reported in a Swedish newspaper
The membership of the Pirate Party more than trebled following the verdict and now stands at more than 48,000 members, according to TorrentFreak.
The Pirate Party's aims include free file-sharing, abolishing the patent system in Europe, reform of copyright law and outlawing digital rights management, which inhibits the ability to copy computer files.