Four Pirate Bay founders jailed

[Kev]

The four co-founders of BitTorrent index and tracker site The Pirate Bay have been jailed and fined by a Swedish judge.

The website was set up in 2003 by Swedish anti-copyright organisation Piratbyran, and offers a search engine for torrents, small downloads that contain information about where files - such as pirated TV shows, music and movies - may be downloaded from other BitTorrent users. The Pirate Bay also hosts BitTorrent trackers, which directly facilitate the peer-to-peer sharing of files using the BitTorrent protocol, on its servers.

Since 2004, The Pirate Bay has operated independently of the Piratbyran organisation and was the subject of a criminal complaint from the Motion Picture Association of America. A raid by Swedish police in 2006 failed to prevent the service from becoming one of the world's largest file-sharing websites.

Today, co-founders Frederik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Carl Lundstrom and Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi were found guilty of "assisting making available copyrighted content". An earlier charge of "assisting copyright infringement" was dropped. In addition to a year in jail, the four were ordered to pay a fine of ?2.4m.

It is understood that an appeal is planned.

Digital Spy

[fortinian]

This is a shocking verdict. Not so much as in the Pirate Bay four were innocent of their copyright breach - they weren't... but that fact that such a shoddy prosecution case managed to get a sucessful result.

I'm also concerned at the precedent that this case sets; whilst it may be a bit alarmist to say this puts into question the entire infrastructure of the internet, it certainly puts the worriers on the free dissemination of information as now there is a legal precedent for search engines and ISPs to restrict what they are used for.

All in all, a terrible shame.

[danensis]

The pirate bay four certainly were innocent of any copyright breach. There was no copyright material anywhere on their web site.

If I tell you where to buy a book on how to commit a crime (WH Smiths is as good a place as any!) I'm not guilty of that crime should you choose to commit it.

John

[Ged]

That's a good way of putting it. :)

[bluchilli]

Call me old fashioned but there is a lot of press about 'pirates' these days and theres not one eyepatch, parrot or wooden leg in sight!

Aaaaaaar shiver me timbers how things have changedl!

:PDT_Piratz_26:

[fortinian]

If I tell you where to buy a book on how to commit a crime (WH Smiths is as good a place as any!) I'm not guilty of that crime should you choose to commit it.

John


I don't see it quite as simple as that. It's more like the author of the book taking you to a house with an open window and telling you that there is cash, jewelery and the owners are away.

It's more than simply providing the tools to commit crime, there is a degree of facilitation.

[danensis]

But the choice is still yours as to whether or not you commit the crime. The author is not stealing the silver.

[wsteve55]

But surely there are legal terms,such as intent, malice aforethought,(an old one!) which would,or could apply?