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
Read more at the dot.life blog
Q&A: Pirate Bay verdict

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.
Pirate Bay"s first server
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.

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.

Fuck that shit. Keep music FREE.

why should music be free? should art be free? books?

Books and art are made of materials that cost money to produce. A digital copy distributed through the internet does not.

what about the intellectual part? books, art and music do not appear without human energy and time consumption.

I believe in intellectual property rights only insofar as they protect the property from other people claiming it as their own and then using it to profit.

edit: and insofar as it prevents plagiarism

You can own an album or a painting, but you cannot own the contents of that album or painting any more than you can own a sentence that comes out of your mouth. The art can be credited to you, but it cannot be owned by. As far as I'm concerned, intellectual property rights is an obsolete concept in todays society.

well all the pirates are getting fucked as of late it seems

I don't want to get all Alessiana on you guys, but I believe downloading music is wrong. I don't talk about it here because this is obviously a music forum where most people (presumably) download music for free, so it's not a very popular stance and usually epic shitstorms ensue. But in reality. I haven't heard a single argument that doesn't sound like someone twisting logic around just to feel justified in stealing. This shouldn't be happening in the first place because people should have more respect for the music or films that they enjoy.

That said, it's pretty ridiculous that they're going to be jailed. I thought for sure they were going to win. They had a very solid case. The defense must've really screwed this one up.

I fully agree with you. Basically it ignores all copyright law.

Do these people feel the same way regardiing intellectual property and medicine patents? The makeup of any medicine is just intellectual property. I wonder what would happen if we did away with medical patents. I wonder how much investments would be made by private parties into R&D if they knew the minute they achieve anything that every other manufacturer could come along and use that idea for free.

The value in the music is not in the medium, just like the value in the medicine is not in the manufacturing. The value and cost is in the creation. Saying you do not need to compensate people for this is ridiculous.

I do not believe that downloading music is wrong. This stems from my belief that creating music should not be seen as something that is a viable job or career. I believe that creating music is something people do because they enjoy it, it is a hobby. If you happen to make enough money doing it through the goodwill of your fans, then that is great. But you do not deserve to be rich or even make a career of making music by virtue of how many people listen to your music.

I believe that it is morally wrong to listen to music without supporting musical artists. This includes buying their albums, buying their merchandise, and paying to see their shows. This does not mean you must buy every album you hear. It only means that the morally right thing to do is give support to the people who sustain your hobby. The only person who can measure the level of your support and whether it is enough, too much, or too little, is yourself. Someone who listens to 10,000 different albums does not have a moral obligation 1000 times greater than someone who listens to 100 albums.

When I buy albums, I am paying money for a physical collector's item. I am not paying for the right to listen to the sound contained on a disc.

Buff, I don't really have the time or energy to give that post the rebuttal it deserves and get into an in-depth debate on the subject. I wish I did, because it's certainly something worth discussing. For now I'd just like to say that I'm having a hard time getting my head around this:



This is a very common mindset these days that I can't really understand. No offense, it just seems particularly insulated and myopic. Maybe you'd like to explain why you feel this way? Do you think the same of all arts and literature? Or just music?
I'll be back in a few hours.

I get what your saying...

but do all the artists that produce these albums subscribe to the same moral code as you? if not, you are still cheating them by downloading their art in a way that does not support them- even if you choose to support some one else with your money..

We all need to eat food. Therefore bread making is an art, and the product of making the art should be free to everyone, so regardless of the laws, or the breadmakers wishes, or the merchants who make the product available I am totally justified in taking a loaf of bread off the shelf, because my moral code allows for it.

I agree with both sides. Not that it's possible, but anyway...

I don't think the food analogy works, edzeppe. We pay people/companies to provide us with food because we're incapable and/or unwilling to hunt and/or farm, and like you said, food is something we need.

We don't need music, and we don't pay artists for a specific or pre-determined product. It's a luxury.

Can you substantiate this please.

I love my job but fully expect to be reimbursed for my efforts. Even though some parts of my job are so challenging and enjoyable that I'd do it for free if I had to I still expect to get reimbursed for my efforts. I see no arguement for saying that a musicians job is any different from any other job. It would be like saying that serving your country is an honor and hence the military should not get paid.

The production costs to produce 10,000 pieces of music are quite a bit higher than to produce 100 pieces of music. Why do you think the consumer should not have to pay for what they use and why should the consumer be able to let their conscious set the price?

Open a liquor and whore emprorium and I'll be your first customer to pay what I feel is morally right for your products.

makin' minstrels outta millionaires ain't bad

* let me add a couple more broad points, as I often mentioned in debates with Sun_ Devil about this years ago...



1.) Inevitably, someone in this type of debate will say "Downloading music introduced me to so many new bands that ive actually Spent MORE on albums then i would have otherwise." I wont even say you're lying... what i will say is that you are an exception to the rule. You are someone passionate about music, and artists, that you spend some of your free time on the internet talking about it. You are NOT the average person downloading each single as it comes across the radio, and maybe an album of something you like... Most folks download tons of songs and albums they very well may have purchased legally otherwise. If you post on a pearl jam message board regularly, you are not the "average" person downloading music.

2.) I think its interesting that in some cases (sun devil comes to mind) that this is an issue that people kind of change course on as they mature. S_D used to battle on about how it was not theft and totally justified, and i believe now he is against illegally downloading music.. and younger folks, like Jammer are steadfastly for it still.

Jammer and PD- a great team!

we are all totally capable of finding edible fruits, plants, water and even meat... But could any of us find anything we would WANT to eat? I can strum a guitar, but it sure as hell wouldnt be music I, or anyone else, would want to hear.

We are paying for a product that is made that we are incapable of making as well ourselves.

yes, music is a luxury... even all the more reason we SHOULD pay for it.

Yes, I feel that way about all artists. It's a sentiment I developed after years of listening to music made by people who do it in their spare time, because they love it, and for the most part never make any money out of it.

The community of metal artists and metal fans is easily the strongest music community I have ever seen, and almost none of the artists make any money. It is a community based on a shared interest, and people support each other as much as they can, but noone gets into it to make money.

I think it's great when people make money by creating art. But I don't believe that money should come from purchasing the ability to simply see or hear, because I don't think you can own art itself, and if you can't own it, you can't sell it. I don't think art has intrinsic monetary value. Instead, it has artistic value which cannot be priced.