The Pirate Bay Financier Carl Lundstrom Files For Bankruptcy

Carl Lundström, the financier for The Pirate Bay, has declared bankruptcy according to TorrentFreak.com.  This will make it hard for movie studios and record companies to collect damages from him.  Lundström was one of the four members of The Pirate Bay that was placed on trial and found guilty of criminal copyright infringement.  Even after serving around a year in jail, the founders had to pay $7 million in damages.  Fredrik Neij also filed for bankruptcy and so now The Pirate Bay is on the shoulders of Peter Sunde, the former spokesperson for the website.  The fourth member of The Pirate Bay Gottfrid Svartholm Warg was extradited from Cambodia to Sweden where he will face charges.

The Pirate Bay Founders’ Appeal To Supreme Court Rejected

The Supreme Court in Sweden has decided not to grant an appeal for the founders of The Pirate Bay torrent website. This means that Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm and Carl Lundström will have to serve their jail sentences. The three of them were found guilty of criminal copyright infringement.
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The Pirate Bay Founders Hit With $6.5 Million Fine And Jail-Time

Three founders of The Pirate Bay torrent-sharing website has been hit with prison sentences and $6.5 million in damages. The four people connected to The Pirate Bay was found guilty of “Contributory Copyright Infringement.” The founders of The Pirate Bay appealed to the decision and they were given reduced fines.
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Pirate Bay Judge May Have Been Biased and Pirate Party More Than Doubles

A couple of days after The Pirate Bay team decided to appeal the verdict comes the news about the connection between the judge of the trial and copyright organizations.  On a Swedish radio station, the judge denied a “conflict of interest” when it was found out that he was a member of the main copyright association in the country.

The radio station is called Sveriges Radio and it is the equivalent of the BBC in Sweden.  Judge Norström is a member of the Swedish Copyright Association and is even on the board of the Swedish Association for the Protection of Industrial Property.  That organization focuses on tougher copyright laws.

Last Friday the four co-founders of The Pirate Bay were found guilty of copyright infringement.  The judge denied his conflict of interest over what is considered the most high-profile trial revolving around filesharing in European history.  The four co-founders were asked to pay $3.6 million in damages and serve a one year sentence.

The defense lawyers for the four co-founders will be calling for a retrial.  “I will point that out in my appeal, then the court of appeal will decide if the district court decision should be set aside and the case revisited,” stated Peter Althin, the lawyer for Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde.

Ever since the verdict was decided on Friday, the Swedish Pirate Party membership has more than doubled.  This may give the party a chance to win a seat in the European Parliament.  Over 22,000 members joined the party since the verdict.   Now there are over 37,000 total members.

The Pirate Party organization focuses on copyright law regulation and they keep a close eye on the government.  The party gained some attention last September when they found out the Bavarian and German governments were developing a trojan horse that would intercept calls made on Skype.

[via Guardian/Wired]

The Pirate Bay Team Appeals Decision

One of the lawyers for The Pirate Bay team has already filed for an appeal to a decision that was made this past Friday.  The decision was that the team would be expected to sentence one year in prison and pay a fine that is worth $3.6 million in damages.  Lawyers for the other three defendants in the case are also expected to appeal.

The four members of The Pirate Bay team are Carl Lundström, Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, and Peter Sunde.  Stefan Jevinger, one of Carl’s lawyers stated that the appeal was made to make a statement about how wrong the sentence was.

According to the written appeal, the lawyers are pointing out that the decision had not shown that Lundström knew about the main crime which was being an accessory to copyright law.  You cannot be sentenced to a crime you don’t know about states the appeal.

The appeal is expected to be heard by the court of appeals sometime in the first half of next year.  “This is a bit more complicated than your ordinary bank robbery, and therefore it will take time,” stated Wag’s lawyer Ola Salomonsson.

Until everything is sorted out, The Pirate Bay website will remain online.  For full Pulse 2.0 coverage on The Pirate Bay, check out http://pulse2.com/category/the-pirate-bay/.

Friday Is Judgement Day For The Pirate Bay

“I would rather burn that money than give it to them.”

This Friday a court in Stockholm will make a ruling on whether the four men involved in the creation and maintenance of The Pirate Bay will be charged for copyright violation.  The Pirate Bay is used to download torrents, a cluster of files that are downloaded by groups of people using the BitTorrent platform.  The RIAA and MPAA basically are the enemies of The Pirate Bay and pushed for the lawsuit against the service.  The Pirate Bay does not actually host any copyright files on their own servers.

Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij, and Carl Lundstrom are the guys behind The Pirate Bay.  The Pirate Bay has about 22 million people using their service.  Prosecutors want the four people involved in THe Pirate Bay to do one year of time and they also want $14.3 million in compensation.  The compensation would be paid to MGM, Colombia PIctures, 20th Century Fox Films, Universal, EMI, and Sony BMG.

“I would rather burn that money than give it to them,” stated Sunde.

If the four are charged, it would also put Google in the hot seat as well.  YouTube hosts many copyrighted videos but are willing to comply with removal.  The main difference between Google and The Pirate Bay is the attitude of the people behind the websites according to Andre Rickardsson, a former investigator of the Swedish security police.  When companies ask to have music or videos removed from The Pirate Bay, the e-mails are posted with an explicit response from The Pirate Bay.

On the second day of the trial, 50% of the charges were dropped against The Pirate Bay team due to weak evidence.

I suppose the moral of the story here is a little niceness can go a long way.  If you’re going to distribute copyright material, at least be Mr. Nice Guy about it when you are given a DMCA notice.

[via SacBee]