[kictanet] Court jails Pirate Bay founders...Worlds most high profile file sharing website

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Coming to Kenya soon

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Court jails Pirate Bay founders

Pirate Bay's Peter Sunde, speaking on his website: 'We cannot and 
wouldn't pay'

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


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.

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.

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 material which was protected by copyright but continued to operate 
the service," he said.

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.