IN a landmark judgement that could create a fresh controversy over filesharing on the net, a court in Sweden has sentenced the four men behind The Pirate Bay (TPB), the world’s most high-profile file-sharing website. The court order will bring out the ongoing controversy on music piracy and copyrights.
The Pirate Bay 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. The Pirate Bay (thepiratebay.org) has an estimated 22 million users, downloading torrent files to easily and illegally download movies, music and computer programmes; the entertainment industry estimates downloads of such films as Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire has cost it billions of dollars each year. Frederik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Carl Lundstrom and Peter Sunde of The Pirate Bay were found guilty of breaking copyright law and were sentenced for a year. They were also asked to pay $4.5 million in damages. They were convicted of charges relating to copyright infringement.
While most of the companies have welcomed the verdict, The Pirate Bay men have decided to appeal. Peter Sunde said they refused to pay the fine. Describing the judgement as ‘bizarre’, 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.” The court awarded the damages to a number of entertainment companies including Warner Bros, Sony Music Entertainment, EMI, and Columbia Pictures. John Kennedy, the chairman of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), said the verdict sent out a clear message. “The Pirate Bay did immense harm and the damages awarded don’t even get close to compensation. 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 pointed out.
The Pirate Bay men denied the charges throughout the trial, saying that because they did not actually host any files, they were not doing anything wrong. Speaking on Swedish Radio, assistant judge Klarius explained how the court reached its findings. “The court first tried whether there was any question of breach of copyright by the file-sharing application and that has been proved, that the offence was committed.
The court then moved on to look at those who acted as a team to operate the Pirate Bay file-sharing service, and the court found that they knew that the material which was protected by copyright but continued to operate the service,” he said. Per Samuelson, lawyer for Carl Lundstrom said, that he was shocked by the verdict.
Rickard Falkvinge, leader of The Pirate Party - which is trying to reform laws around copyright and patents in the digital age - said that the verdict was ‘a gross injustice.
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