The PirateBay - Guilty Verdict but Hollywood Still Likely to be Disappointed

[TheBigotBasher]

Pirate Bay administrators Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg and Peter Sunde, along with Carl Lundström, who was accused of funding the 5 year old site have all been found guilty and sentenced to one year jail time each.

The defendants have also been ordered to pay damages totalling 30 million kronor ($3.6 million) to a handful of entertainment companies, including Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Bros, EMI and Columbia Pictures, for the infringement of 33 specific movie and music properties tracked by industry investigators. The movie studios and and record companies had sought $13 million in damages for the 33 movies and music tracks. The Prosecution had sought a two year prison sentence and fines of $180,000 in addition to the damages.

The PirateBay site is on a distributed network and it is unlikely to be affected by the prosecution. Sunde, The Pirate Bay's spokesman, announced the news over Twitter Friday morning before the verdict was official. He remained defiant, and offered comfort to supporters. "Stay calm -- Nothing will happen to TPB, us personally or file sharing whatsoever. This is just a theater for the media."

The prosecution has resulted in many more users for the Pirate Bay and a growth in the PirateParty, who look set to use the case as publicity for the European elections. 22 million people now use The PirateBay. Most from the US.

In response to fears of individuals being prosecuted, Piratebay have started selling a $6 anonymization VPN service, which allows torrent feeders and seeders to hide their IP addresses.

Membership of Sweden's copyright reform Pirate Party has grown 50 percent during the case, its youth affiliate is now the second largest in Sweden. The party's top candidate, Christian Engström, commented, "Sweden has now outlawed one of our most successful ambassadors. We have long been a leading IT nation but with these kind of actions we will be left behind and become dependent on other nations' arbitrary views".

The defendants are expected to appeal, and they remain free pending further proceedings. The site remains up.

The PirateBay defence was based on the way BitTorrent works, pirated material is not stored on or through PirateBay servers. Instead the site merely provided an index of torrent files that direct a client software to shares of the content.

The Prosecution based their argument on assisting culpability, citing caselaw from a 1963 Swedish Supreme Court decision in which a defendant who held a friend's coat while the friend beat someone up was considered culpable.

A message on the site says "We see this as a film This is the first set-back for the heroes. ... In the end we know that the good guys will win, as in all movies".

[cbc5g]

1. I'm sure big business will be disappointed when file sharing is stamped out

and their profits still suffer, even more so.

[TheBigotBasher]

2. I do not think

that they can ever stamp it out. It is for the Media organisations t ochange their business models and the Governments should stop using their criminal systems to bail out a dead distribution method.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

3. This is only round 1. Both sides said they would appeal earlier if the decision went against them

[federationfilms]

4. tragic

old-school fear-mongering political decision....the ghost of mccarthy survives!

[TheBigotBasher]

5. agreed

and welcome to DU.

[cbc5g]

6. So should we sue Google now because google has links to some illegal activity

uh like child pornography links? This ruling is very dangerous and wrong. This has everything to do with pressure from multinational corporations, not justice.

[Javaman]

7. nothing more than hitting mercury with a hammer. nt

[hunter]

8. The best big media will ever do...

... is to train their most loyal customers to stay away from material with onerous copyright restrictions.

I purchase DVD's because I can. Most movies sell for about the price of a movie theater ticket or two.

Most of the music I listen to is the sort big media companies don't produce. I have a lot of music I've purchased over the internet, either directly from the artist, or from places that send a very substantial portion of the purchase price directly to the artists.

It's completely baffling to me why the big music studios can't adapt to the modern world, especially now that producing and distributing music recordings is so inexpensive. The musical instruments many artists play cost more than the high quality equipment they record their music with. For simple recording sessions the electronics for a pretty decent studio fit in a safari jacket or suitcase.

Digital electronics has changed everything.