Pirate Bay co-founders lost

Pirate Bay co-founders lost

theregister.co.uk

It's official - the four defendants in The Pirate Bay versus entertainment industry trial have been found guilty in a Swedish court of being accessories to breaching copyright laws.

The court has sentenced each of them to one year in prison.

Additionally, the defendants have been ordered to pay 30 million Swedish crowns ($3.58m).

The Pirate Bay Co-founders Peter Sunde, Carl Lundström, Frederik Neij and Gottfrid Svartholm Warg have already gone on record to say they will appeal the decision.

(visit the link for the full news article)

SECOND SOURCE:
news.bbc.co.uk...

[edit on 17-4-2009 by Daniem]

Its a sad day indeed. The men behind the bay represent many millions of people who want everything on the Internet to be free, and shared for everyone.

And still they get locked up.. which means the people is no longer allowed to decide what is lawful and not.

Updates to come.

Today at 13:00 The Pirate Bay will have a press conference which can be seen on their main site thepiratebay.org...


source:
www.theregister.co.uk...

or:

news.bbc.co.uk...


[edit on 17-4-2009 by Daniem]

Was there any doubt that were going to lose? I mean I would have loved for them to win as it would have struck a blow against such bullcrap organizations as the RIAA but I never honestly thought it was a possibility they would win.

Of course they will lose, the industry against them have so many people on there side. The general public does not matter one bit.

My sources tell me they have to pay 30 million swedish kronor.

They are sentanced to 1 year in prison.

The thing that fell them was how their business was aimed at sharing content they did not have the copyright for.

No links to english sources as of yet.. im sure it'll come soon.

It's so strange, that they've gone to jail for sharing things. I was always taught sharing was a good thing, but there you go.

And sure, they may have made it easier to share files illegally, but using that line of argument so did Microsoft, by making a platform people can install Bit Torrent clients on. And so on recursively until you get to the person who first invented the internet.

I mean, accessory to copyright theft? Surely you could recursively blame everyone who made the system, down to the last telephone engineer by that.

I'll be fine with their fine (pun not intended) if it goes to the people who actually make the films etc themselves. They actually do the work, the entertainment companies who publish it with things like DVDs rip everyone off. If the old piracy of on the corner, back of car copied DVDs made a profit and were still cheaper than the 'official' thing, it doesn't say much about the markup on the real thing.

[edit on 17-4-2009 by apex]

reply to post by apex


Exactly! And what about Google?? I can go there and search for a movie, and i'll instantly find torrents og the movie or the movie itself online, on for example youtube. So why is google allowed to help us find stuff? Cause thats what pirate bay does.. it help us find stuff.

Google spreads illegal porn! Fine THEM?

Car companies makes it possible for me to break the traffic rules / laws.. should they be sentenced to jail?

It obvious what producers of blank dvd's and cd's are thinking of.. jail them? fine?

[edit on 17-4-2009 by Daniem]

This verdict is insane!! The reactions are pouring in and most people in Sweden seem to be as outraged as I am. It's time for the entertainment industry to realize that artists thrive on sharing their material and being heard, not making a profit. And if the audience likes the material the artist will make a fortune anyway with concerts and merchandise and what not!! A record company is nothing but a lowlife pimp.

It's not a total loss. If you read the full article, you'll see that the original prosecution demand was much higher, yet they were totally unable to prove that they illegally shared any files, so the only angle they could play is "enabling copyright infringement", which I still feel is a smelly heap of bull's poo. The whole case is a farce about what legislators will do to appease people with lots of money. As if we needed a reminder.

Kind regards, M.

And what of Google you ask? Well it's funny you should mention Google.

YouTube on Thursday unveiled an agreement with major Hollywood studios, including Sony (NYSE: SNE), CBS, and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, to show their movies and TV shows on a new section of the online video site. YouTube, which is owned by Google (NSDQ: GOOG), has had a rocky relationship with studios, which have criticized the site for not doing enough to prevent users from uploading copyrighted material, such as movie clips, songs and music videos. YouTube's policy is take down such material as soon as it is notified by the copyright holder. The latest deal, announced on a YouTube blog, is a further indication of an easing of tensions. In conjunction with the studio agreement, YouTube also launched a wider roll-out of in-stream ads that site has been testing in videos since last October.

Original article

[edit on 17-4-2009 by Manawydan]

An interesting one...

They obviously didn't technically share any content - just provided torrents. They didn't 'store or host' content and the letter of the law would say that this isn't an offence under copyright law.

So basically the courts bent the law to rule onside of the publishers?

I'm not sure this is fair - especially the fact that they will receive a prison sentence. A fine I could maybe swallow. I'll be interested to see what happens at the appeal, I have a feeling the prison time will be wiped.

I'm not sure how I feel about torrents/'illegal' download.

I would never download a video game...but I have downloaded movies and I have downloaded music.

Most of the time, if I like a movie I've downloaded, I'll then go and pay to see it on the big screen, for the experience. And if I hadn't downloaded it then I probably wouldn't have gone to see it as it probably wouldn't have appealed to me.

Likewise, with music - I've discovered 100's of artists just by downloading content for free. I've then gone out and bought more of their stuff.

Obviously in those cases, the record companies/studios actually got more money from illegal downloading. It would be crazy if they sued me for actually making them more money through my actions!

I appreciate that this isn't the case for everyone - but then - it's not like the music industry/movie industry is crippled by this - they are still making a fortune. Is this not just greed on their part?

Should they not just accept that this is an evolution - a consequence of technology like the internet? Maybe they need to change their business models - i.e. music artists make more money through touring more - studios make money primarily from the cinema and maybe make that experience more enticing for people?

Things like this should make businesses evolve and adapt - not stamp their feet and cry about it.

In the UK, in London, I have to pay around £12 to see a film at the cinema. I'll be dammed if I'm gonna pay that unless I know the film is damn good.

Now if the cinema was around £4 - infinitely more reasonable in my opinion - maybe I'd have a different opinion on this...

Here is the official response from the founders, i have not watched all of it yet.
Pirate Bay Press Conference

They have no plans to stop what they are doing so this is going to be drawn out for some time to come.

En veldig trist dag ja.

A sad day indeed. I had a hope they'd win, but knew they really wouldn't. Not against the big businesses and their lawyers.

Oh well, I have a feeling they'll keep on trucking.


Peace,
FK

Man, good for the PB guys. I was active on torrentspy when it went down a couple years ago. It was a big mess. The admins there basically started working for the MPAA and tracking IPs. Many of the forum members were summoned to court along with their private data (other members usernames, torrents, tracking ect).
After having been through that I can really appreciate what these guys are doing, good for them.

They asked for an appeal, but by the time that happens their jail sentence will be over.

They didn't even host anything on their servers.

There was another thread, it is closed now - www.abovetopsecret.com...
I added this, just not to waste the discussion.

So Sweden caves-in to the lobbyists, no big deal they will move servers to Russia or another country where they have more open and free intellectual property laws. Or they will appeal and win on appeal in Sweden.

Its disheartening for sure but not the end of this particular battle.

Also though I am a big believer in eliminating copyrights, I think the fact that their Name was PIRATE bay had a lot to do with this.

Maybe if thier name was sharealike or knowledgeforall they might have gotten off.

yeh this is quite scary. they might start hitting some of the the other big names in the torrent industry.

but like with everything if they go under. something new will pop up and take its place

here is a bbc news article about it.

has some funny quotes from the guys at pirate bay

"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."

news.bbc.co.uk...

also a short video on the page

How did they break copy-write laws? They didn't redistribute any copy-writed files. The users did and now all they have to do is change tracker; but even that is not nessesary as TPB is still up. If anyone thinks this will fight piracy they are highly mistaken. And why, WHY do these loons NEVER go after programmes such as LIMEWIRE, EMULE and so on? Practically the same thing.

[edit on 17/4/2009 by C0bzz]

i think the general tactic is to go for a big player to scare off the competition.

like napster for example.

"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.

OH COME ON.

And ANY business ISN'T? Also, what files did these guys redistribute? Just like going after Napster this is a complete waste of time. I hope people pirate the companies seeking damage even more. I hope, myself not included... of course.

[edit on 17/4/2009 by C0bzz]