Pulse2 Technology and Social Media News » Gottfrid Svartholm Warg

The Pirate Bay Founders Hit With $6.5 Million Fine And Jail-Time

Amit Chowdhry — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 21:59:27 +0000

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.

The Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde is facing 8 months in prison and Fredrik Neij faces 10 months in prison. Carl Lundström, who sold support services to The Pirate Bay, was sentenced 4 months. Gottfrid Svartholm was not in court due to medical reasons, but his sentence will be given later.

This fine is nearly double the original fine of $3.62 million. It is likely that this court case will be appealed all the way to the Swedish Supreme Court. The Pirate Bay was sold for $7.8 million in June 2009. Sunde is no longer working for The Pirate Bay as he is now running a website called Flattr.com, which is like a virtual “tip jar” for content producers. Wikileaks is one of Flattr’s customers.

[The Next Web]

Pirate Bay Founder Plan DDo$ Attack On IFPI

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 14 May 2009 16:43:52 +0000

The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) represents the interests of the recording industry as a whole worldwide and recently took the founders of The Pirate Bay to court. Unfortunately for the founders, they ended up being charged $3.5 million in fines even though they said they would not cough up a single cent. To get back at the IFPI, they have devised a scheme called the Distributed Denial of Dollars (DDo$) attack.

Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, a founder of the The Pirate Bay (known by his alias anakata) came up with the idea. The idea encourages people to use the Internet to pay a tiny Internet gift of $0.13 and send it to the Danowsky law firm. This law firm represented the IFPI in the court case. The law firm only allows 1,000 money transfers and if enough people send them a donation, it will cost the law firm more to handle and process those payments.

Clever move, Svartholm. If the plan goes through and Danowsky decides to sue Svartholm for the attack, it would suck if he had to face the same judge again.

[via BlogPirate.org]

Pirate Bay Judge May Have Been Biased and Pirate Party More Than Doubles

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 17:38:26 +0000

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

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 21:06:20 +0000

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

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 08:31:06 +0000

“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]