Pirate Bay loses trial: defendants face prison time, hefty fines

Next Case

So when are they going after Google, since the PB defence is that they were just a search engine for Torrents, as is Google

Interesting.

In a way before the trial I figured they probably would lose, because they'd been so arrogant about it all.

When the trial went ahead however and we saw how utterly incompetent the prosecution was, how they failed to prove anything, how they shouted down the judge, how they broke the rules of the court by introducing evidence that wasn't submitted previously and wasn't hence eligible to be used, how they couldn't get hold of their key witnesses I changed my opinion.

The fact the prosecution won despite showing an immense amount of ineptitude and an inability to prove anything suggests that this is almost certainly a case of political meddling or simple bribery.

I fail to see how the prosecution could've won this case with the level of ineptitude they showed and the fact they didn't actually manage to prove their point in court. Effectively they won the case based purely on their accusation, because they never actually managed to prove their accusation, it seems in the Swedish court system an accusation is enough for declaration of guilt by the court.

I'd care less if the prosecution had won by demonstrating that what TPB had actually done was in some way more illegal than when Google references torrent files and copyrighted material but they haven't done this, they've won purely on their accusation alone with no burden of proof.

Couldn't they afford...

...To bring a private prosecution against Google now for exactly the same thing? Pointing out legal contradictions is usually a good way to overcome stupid law.

The prosecution explained verbally how what google did was different. Anyone with half a brain can physically demonstrate that it's the same, ergo the prosecution lied. Mistrial!

guilty of WHAT

"being accessories to breaching copyright laws" seams to me to be the most half assed offence I could think up I mean it is not even conspiracy shuley every maker of videos cd-rws dvd-rws search engins etc the list is just 2 long to type here. can be done under that description

Ok next on the list

paper and pen manufacturers!

OMFG!

So Sweden have just set a legal precedent that renders ALL search engines illegal.

WTF?

fp

fp

Hey El Reg, a favour

If there's a possible way, can you avoid posting an article about the triumphant self-congratulatory trumpeting the MAFIAA will doubtless be releasing any time about now....

PB were always gonna get slapped but it's just as tasteless listening to the legally sanctioned thieves in the industry crowing about themselves too...

Who else

So now that linking to copyright material has been found to be criminal, should we now expect Swedish prosecutions of the Google, Yahoo and Microsoft directors?

How long?

How long till a hollywood studio decides this'd make a good film plot. That'd be ironic.

A nice bit of theatrics

Well the prison sentence (no doubt bailed until appeal) is a good bit of huff and puff while swedish copyright law catches up.

What really gets me is that as a tracker it is content neutral. It should be the responsibility of the person initially seeding the torrent.

Search engines are content neutral and index both legal and illegal content.

If anything Pirate bay are doing the media companies a service. As the biggest torrent index site the copyright enforcement bods know where to look and find the sharers.

there attepts are futile anywau. content will get out one way or another and putting things into context. When the media companies started taking a pop at Napster it boasted indexing a mere 1TB of content. Thanks to the publicity, by the time they finally closed it it was indexing 4TB. These days a single harddrive can hold 2TB of content and it wont be long before those are being passed around stuffed with new content.

Even if they eventually make this stick, it will barely make an impact on filesharing.

Actually ...

@ Lee Jackson - Actually the boys arent the culprits the people downloading it ar ethe culprits their the scapegoats.

Google next then

Title says it all

@ lee

the onslaught starts

first point downloading copyrighted metrial is not stealing it is copyright infringement

and as a lot of pepol have pointed out it should not be stoped cos if TPB is guilty they so are a LOT of other pepol google and sony to name but a few

and record compay profites are not going down cos of piracy I think that was one of the points in the trial I would look the refrance up but I can not spare the time cos I am at work I am shure some other person will

yes it is a massive issue but it is a issue that needs the scalpel of reform not the sledge hammer of litigation

The right choice

It's a common sense ruling, it's the right ruling.

It won't put a stop to the Bit Torrent method of downloading this material, links to seeds will just move somewhere else.

Once the film and music industry get a grasp on new models e.g. Spotify, piracey might decline.

Until then, we'll just have to keep socking it to the man.

@Lee Jackson

An understanding of what the case was all about has clearly eluded you. Your fatuous reference to 'a spare key' is irrelevant - the links provided by TPB don't allow you to illegally access locked up material, they merely point to where material is freely available. Exactly what Google does. As others have said here the prosecution's case was riddled with holes and inexactitudes and on the strength of the case presented the verdict is a sham. Note 'on the strength of the case presented'. That's what we're talking about here. Evidential.

People 'lose jobs' FFS - when will you lot learn the difference between 'loose' and 'lose'. You're a 'loser' not a 'looser'. <sigh> I haven't seen anyone in the music business 'lose' their jobs recently, the record companies still have their collective heads in the sand and are still trying to sell 30 year old back catalogue for full retail price on new media. Same o, same o.

"If you think ur OK cos" Please use adult English. This is not a texting forum for kiddies. Now I think I heard your mummy calling you in for tea, you'd better run along.

If you want free music....

.... throw a brick through the window of your nearest brick and mortar CD store and take whatever you want. Since, you know, piracy is stealing after all, you may as well get a nice hardcopy if you bother to steal.

@Lee Jackson

Yes using torrents to download copyrighted material is and should be illegal. Does that mean operating a website that searches them should be illegal? No, it doesnt, anymore than Google is. These guys are scapegoats, because the record industry doesnt know how to deal with a threat that is distributed and lacks leadership at all. They tried suing individuals, that didnt work, they are always trying bribery and threats against ISPs, and now they influenced the course of justice against 4 guys who operate a website. Of course, they'd never try to update their business model, you know, respond to their environment. Better to just blame it on piracy.

The pirate bay guys website was strictly content agnostic. They wouldnt care if the torrents linked to your high school essay on the American Civil War or Sony's latest movie. And thats the point - they provide a service, and it is the users that choose whether to use it in an illegal fashion or not. As The Pirate Bay themselves have said, this does nothing at all to stop piracy. Not a thing. The attention these guys have got has made them martyrs, they've gained a lot of support for their cause, and embarrassed the record companies in court. Despite the verdict, this isnt a win for the record companies, other way round. If you really want to stop piracy, A) give people an incentive to pay for music, B) stop being such douchebags so people wont pirate out of spite, C) price your music in a realistic fashion so that people think they get their money's worth, D) give better support to artists instead of spending money on marketing the latest greatest and crappest pop music.

Not to rain on a self-righteous parade, but...

@index argumenters: Google - and other search engines - indexes websites in general, including whatever links are on those websites. Thepiratebay (and mininova, etc. etc.) do not "index" torrent files by going out and finding them, they specifically ask users to submit them, and then in the case of really audacious sites, offer those files through their own tracker system.

I love downloading stuff through torrents, but I also love using my brain - if you run a website dedicated to categorised user-submitted ilelgal content and offer a tracker service to enable people to find your way into the cloud of seeders for a particular file, then yes, you're very obviously quite specifically oriented towards bringing people illegal material. You're not an "index" for external content, you're a user-based content provider, geared specifically towards offering world+dog illegal material. It''s really not a complicated argument to make.

Personally, I hope torrent trackers stay available, because they offer neatly categorised content that would otherwise cost me an arm and a leg, but you're deluding yourself if you validate using them by pretending they're just "google for torrents".

And @Lee JAckson, no: downloading copyrighted material is not stealing. It's an activity that can, but not always does - that said, in the vast majority of cases does - lead to immaterial damages. Copyright infringement of this nature is tantamount to exactly what it says on the tin: copyright infringment.

Don't go and equate it to a crime that's defined by taking posession of something by taking it away from the original holder. You woldn't steal a car, because you´re removing someone´s posession. If you had a machine that could instead scan that car and make a perfect duplicate, without paying the manufacturers that contributed to putting that car on the road, then hell yes, everyone would be cloning those ferrari 335s and pagani zonda's.

You wouldn't steal [fill in real thing here], but you sure as hell would copy it for free if you could, because that's what we like, and that´s what we see in these cases. Any amount of money for a product compared to free will only lead to people paying money if they think the product´s worth it, or the creators deserve it. Welcome to psychology 101.