Topic: Pirate Bay Owners In court

[Reno]

Four men who run one of the most popular file-sharing sites in the world have been charged with conspiracy to break copyright law in Sweden.

The Pirate Bay's servers do not store copyrighted material but offer links to the download location of films, TV programmes, albums and software.

The website is said to have between 10 and 15 million users around the world and is supported by online advertising.

Police seized computers in May 2006, temporarily shutting down the website.

Prosecutor Hakan Roswall said the website was commercially exploiting copyright-protected work because it was financed through advertising revenues.

According to the Pirate Bay website, its users are currently downloading close to a million files.

On the site, a statement says: "In case we lose the pending trial (yeah right) there will still not be any changes to the site.

" The Pirate Bay will keep operating just as always. We've been here for years and we will be here many more."

In an interview with the BBC's technology programme Click last year Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde said: "I think it's okay to copy. They get their money from so many places that the sales is just one small part."

The other three men facing charges are Carl Lundstrom, Frederik Neij and Gottfrid Svartholm Warg.

If convicted, the four men could face a maximum of two years in prison.

The charges relate to 20 music files, nine film files and four computer game files.

In the indictment, Mr Roswall said the four should pay damages of 1.2 million kronor (£90,000), the minimum amount the men profited from the illegal activity, according to the prosecution.

Plaintiffs in the case include Warner, MGM, Columbia Pictures, 20th Century Fox Films, Sony BMG, Universal and EMI.

John Kennedy, chairman and chief executive of global music body, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industries, said: "The operators of The Pirate Bay have always been interested in making money, not music.

"The Pirate Bay has managed to make Sweden, normally the most law abiding of EU countries, look like a piracy haven with intellectual property laws on a par with Russia."

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[Reno]

Pirate Bay joy at charge change

Gottfrid Svartholm Varg, partially obscured, and Peter Sunde
Two of the defendants argued their innocence on Sunday in a webcast

Half of the charges levelled at the founders of the Pirate Bay file-sharing site have been dropped.

Swedish prosecutors dropped charges relating to "assisting copyright infringement" leaving the lesser charges of "assisting making available copyright material" on trial day two.

Pirate Bay co-founder Frederik Neij said it showed prosecutors had misunderstood the technology.

The music industry played down the changes as "simplifying the charges".

Peter Danowsky, legal counsel for the music companies in the case, said: "It's a largely technical issue that changes nothing in terms of our compensation claims and has no bearing whatsoever on the main case against The Pirate Bay.

"In fact it simplifies the prosecutor's case by allowing him to focus on the main issue, which is the making available of copyrighted works."

The Pirate Bay was launched in 2003 and quickly established itself as the world's most high profile file-sharing website. In February 2009, it reported 22 million simultaneous users.

At the start of the trial in Stockholm, Frederik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Peter Sunde Kolmsioppi and Carl Lundstrom were facing a large fine and up to two years in prison, if convicted.

"This is a sensation. It is very rare to win half the target in just one and a half days and it is clear that the prosecutor took strong note of what we said yesterday," defence lawyer Per E Samuelson told the TorrentFreak website, which reports on developments in the BitTorrent file-sharing community.

BitTorrent is a legal application used by many file-sharers to swap content because of the fast and efficient way it distributes files.

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.

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[Reno]

Pirate Bay: we don't know nothin' about org charts, contracts

Whatever the truth about The Pirate Bay, its administrators certainly put on a convincing show of not being particularly astute businessmen—the sort of people who don't read the contracts they sign, don't proof the speeches they read, and don't actually care much for the law.

The Pirate Bay trial just wrapped up its fourth day in Sweden, making front-page headlines in local papers ("Fiasco for prosecution in Pirate Bay case," said one) and stirring up comments from Abba members ("Is it really so damn difficult to pay your way?" asked Björn Ulvaeus). Music trade group IFPI even had its local Swedish website hacked and defaced by a group called "The new generation."

But it was the courtroom action today that was most interesting, as two of The Pirate Bay defendants took to the witness stand and answered questions. Sweden allows a commingling of civil and criminal cases sometimes, leading to the odd spectacle of the defendants being questioned both by state prosecutor Hakan Roswall and industry lawyers from the music and movie industries.

Fredrik Neij was questioned by lawyers who tried to paint him as the point man for The Pirate Bay operations. Peter Danowsky, who represents the music business, pointed out that Niej owned The Pirate Bay's domain and then showed him a contract he had signed saying that he would oversee operations for the site. Neij's response? "But I didn't read it."

Neij was also asked about a speech he gave back in 2006 (watch it on YouTube) in which he said that the site had received many threatening letters over the years from copyright owners. Lawyers tried to use the speech to show that Pirate Bay admins were aware the site hosted links to copyrighted content. Neij's response? "I just read the text which someone at the Pirate Bureau had written.” (Neij says he's dyslexic and has difficult writing his own material.)

When asked about his view of the law as it related to copyrights, Neij said that he doesn't worry much about the law, doesn't care about the ideology behind (some) file-swapping, and does what he does because it's fun to run a large site. He did indicate that he thought the site was legal.
The datanörd speaks
Gottfrid Svartholm Warg
Image credit: Wikimedia Commons

Gottfrid Svartholm Warg is exactly the sort of person who shouldn't wear a scruffy little beard, but does—one Swedish commentator referred to him today as a prototypical "datanörd" (data nerd). He took the stand today and showed the same lack of apparent interest in ownership, contracts, and legal papers as Fredrik Neij.

The prosecutor kept trying to pin him down on who ran the site, how it was organized, and who paid for (and received the revenue from) site operations. Varg kept insisting that the project wasn't a "top-down" business, but that interested users volunteered time and effort to make different pieces of it work. The prosecution appeared not to believe this and continued asking questions to tease out the relationships between everyone involved. Warg continued to insist it was a "loose project"—even the moderators who took down material that didn't match its stated description were volunteers.

The apparent disconnect between the defendants and a prosecution convinced that The Pirate Bay is an organized criminal enterprise swimming in cash prompted Swedish Pirate Party leader Rick Falkvinge to reflect on the "generation clash" between the two sides.

But prosecutors and industry lawyers remain convinced that the appearance of disorganization is an illusion. Many of today's questions turned on The Pirate Bay's relationship with an Israeli businessman who served as an ad broker and helped the group with some other business ideas.

Peter Danowsky of IFPI yesterday said in a statement, "This [case] is about a purposeful crime on a grand scale with significant income as a result," noting that the Bay continued to display ads after being raided by Swedish police.

We checked in with the Bay's Peter Sunde in 2008 after claims emerged that the site was pulling in more than $3 million a year. Without providing any specific numbers, Sunde told Ars that real numbers weren't that high and that bandwidth, power, and hardware bills meant that the site was either breaking even or operating at a slight loss.

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[sam]

good for them for not sitting down and taking it.

[Simon]

A fascinating case!

[GillE]

I can't see this ending happily for supporters of the Bay  .

[Sandra]

Is it really so damn difficult to pay your way?" asked Björn Ulvaeus

I dont suppose it is if you have sold as many records which presumably still generate a fortune in royalties Bjorn 

[Reno]

I've been watching the legal problems develop for the piratebay over the last few years. I've also been watching to see how the european governments handle these copyright problems. It seems there solution is to turn the ISPs into the 21st century SS. If you don't play nice you get cut off. I think in a few years that's gonna filter down into the US policy. I hate to say it but, the internet is not the free wide web it use to be.

[sam]

http://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-bay-innocent-or-guilty-090303/

[Simon]

What is pretty much certain is that this won’t end with the verdict that is due on April 17. No matter what the outcome it seems unthinkable that either side will accept a defeat. An appeal seems almost inevitable.

Stay tuned.

We will - this is intriguing! 

[Reno]

Are we taking bets?

[Simon]

I wouldn't like to, either way, but I hope TPB wins!