And the Verdict Is…
April 18, 2009 7:19 am
Guilty. The four men that made up the Sweden-based Pirate Bay filesharing site have been found guilty in the momentous trial today. According to various sources, “the court has found that by using Pirate Bay’s services there has been file-sharing of music, films and computer games to the extent the prosecutor has stated in his case.” The men have been ordered jail-time of one year, and $905,000 each equating to a total of about $3.6 million. The funds will be distributed to various entertainment studios and companies, including Warner Bros, EMI, Columbia Pictures, and Sony Music.
Although the verdict has been decided, the four men will be allowed to appeal, likely on the basis that the site never actually hosted the copyrighted material, just acted as a catalyst by providing the technology for its 22 million users to download content via torrents. While the judge in the trial noted that the court took into account the ad-driven nature of the site, the defendants argued that in no way was the site commercially driven, an argument that will certainly re-surface during the appeals process.
The Associated Press reported that ” Swedish authorities caved in to pressure from the U.S. when they launched the crackdown on The Pirate Bay in 2006.” Following that trial and the presently concluded case, a grassroots movement fueled by social networking and underground message boards cultivated a mass social a political zeitgeist, arguing the intrusion of the government on the public’s use of the Internet. New bills and laws are currently being developed across Europe in an attempt to define legislation paramaters of the largely polar issue.
