The operators of BitTorrent-tracking site The Pirate Bay have been sentenced to a year in jail each after being found guilty in a Swedish court for making copyrighted material available online.
But the four men have said they will appeal the verdict, and will not pay the court-ordered $US3.6 million in damages to music studios including Warner Bros, Sony Music Entertainment, EMI, and Columbia Pictures.
The verdict was handed down by judge Thomas Nordstrom in the Stockholm District Court, who accused the group of helping others in their attempts to download and distribute copyrighted material.
“We have tried here a question about whether these four men who have been prosecuted in this case have been acting to help other file-share, and that is a crime,” he said in the verdict.
“They have been helpful to such an extent that they have entered into the field of criminal liability.”
But the four founders have said they will appeal the verdict, with spokesman Peter Sunde saying in an online interview that “we cannot pay and we wouldn’t pay”.
The Pirate Bay is a site that tracks a type of file called BitTorrents, which are used to help download pieces of a file from different users downloading that same file at the same time.
While the technology itself is not illegal, legal liabilities occur when the technology is used to download copyrighted material. The Pirate Bay was not convicted for hosting the copyrighted material, as the site only “points” to where the copyrighted material can be found.
Meanwhile, protests have erupted in Stockholm in demonstrations against the court’s decision. Organised by the The Pirate Party, which runs on a campaign platform of copyright reform, the rallies were used as a public outcry against the verdict.
“The establishment and the politicians have declared war against our whole generation,” party chairman and founder Rickard Falkvinge said, and called on “file sharing for the people”.
An appeal of the verdict will be lodged in the next few weeks.
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