piracy

The Pirate Bay Found Guilty — of Piracy!

Oh, what a bittersweet day for file-sharers! A Swedish court today found four people behind the popular BitTorrent hub the Pirate Bay guilty of violating copyright law. Frederik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Peter Sunde, and Carl Lundstrom were sentenced to a year in prison and ordered to pay $3.6 million in damages to movie and music companies. Though the site facilitates the daily downloading of millions of movies, TV shows, albums, and video games, TPB had argued they aren’t liable for infringements since none of the offending files are technically hosted on their servers. Predictably, they plan to continue operating the site during the appeals process, and we expect it to be shut down shortly after the eventual collapse of the worldwide entertainment industry. And still, Roger Friedman walks a free man.

Court Says File-Sharing Site Violated Copyright [NYT]
Court jails Pirate Bay founders [BBC]

The Pirate Bay Found Guilty — of Piracy!