Overclockaholics Forums - The Pirate Bay members get 1 year in prison

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The Pirate Bay members get 1 year in prison Written by Lars-Göran Nilsson Friday, 17 April 2009 11:19

http://www.fudzilla.com/images/stori.../piratebay.jpg

Damages of up to €2.7 million

The Stockholm tingsrätt (district court) has finally delivered its verdict in the Pirate Bay case and all four members of the Pirate Bay has been sentenced to serve one year in prison and to pay damages of as much as 30 million SEK (€2.7 million).

This is a very unusual ruling in Sweden and it's the first time ever someone has been given a prison sentence for file sharing, anywhere in the world as far as we're aware. The reason behind the prison sentence and the high fines are according to the court statement because the Pirate Bay has promoted the spreading of copyrighted materials in a significant way and it was also deemed that the Pirate Bay had been run as a commercial business with intent to make a profit.

Carl Lundströms lawyer is calling it a "grave failure of justice" while Fredrik Neijs lawyer is surprised at the verdict and goes on to say that "30 million SEK is an enormous amount". Details seemed to have leaked from the court late last night, as Peter Sunde was expecting them to lose based on information he'd been given last night.

Considering that the Pirate Bay only has made about 10 million SEK (about €900,000) according to the prosecutor, although this was a low estimation, one has to wonder how the court could come up with the 30 million SEK figure. It's unlikely that this money will ever be paid in damages, at least if we're to believe the defendants who say that all the money they've made on the Pirate Bay has gone into investing in new equipment and bandwidth costs.

At the end of the day, things aren't likely to end here, as all four of the defendants are set to take the case to the high court in Stockholm. The Pirate Bay will hold a press conference today at 13.00 CET and a link is said to be posted on the Pirate Bay ahead of it kicking off. The Pirate Bay won't be closing anytime soon though, at least not according to a recent statement on the site.

Below are a list of damages that each of the media companies wanted from the Pirate Bay, although the court only granted them a total which was less than one third of the total claims.

Damages in euro:
Sony Music €41,467
Universal Music €73,782
Playground Music €28,159
Bonnier Amigo €4,290
EMI €162,988
Warner Music €146,484

Damages in SEK:
Yellow Bird film 3,150,000 kr
Nordisk film 225,000 kr
Warner Bros 2,484,225 kr
MGM and Columbia Pictures 5,579,325 kr
20th Century Fox 10.822.500 kr
Warner 714,000 kr
Fox och Mars media 4,495,950 kr

SOURCE:
http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?op...13230&Itemid=1