The Stockholm District Court has found the four guys behind the The Pirate Bay guilty! A Google search will get you millions of articles on this, but here's the BBC's take. More importantly, here is the response from Peter Sunde.
This isn't the final ruling. There are courts of appeal and even the Supreme Court of Sweden (if it were to accept the case). The guilty verdict has been handed down by a district court and The Pirate Bay guys are already appealing.
The four guys were fined 30 million kronor ($3.5 million) in damages, and a year in jail each! In response to the fines, spokesperson Peter Sunde said:
"Even if I had money, I would rather burn everything [I] own and give them the ashes… Not even the ashes, actually. I’d allow them to pick the ashes up and give ‘em to someone else."I think this quote is rockin', but it belies how quiet and reasonable they seem. These aren't anarchists or anything. They're entrepreneurs.
Chairman of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), John Kennedy, said of the rulings:
"These guys weren't making a principled stand, they were out to line their own pockets. There was nothing meritorious about their behaviour, it was reprehensible.Making money is reprehensible to a guy who represents the music industry? Moving on...
For anyone who doesn't download things online, The Pirate Bay is a BitTorrent tracking website. It performs the exact same function as Google, but it tracks BitTorrents, not web pages. A BitTorrent is any file, broadcast to the internet, for anyone who wants it. And people want burned copies of Monsters Vs. Aliens and Lupe Fiasco albums. The difference between Napster and The Pirate Bay is that Napster actually hosted the files. When you downloaded a movie, you were downloading it from Napster. The Pirate Bay is only a seach engine. If you tore apart their servers, you wouldn't find any of the copyrighted material that they are accused of "facilitating." BitTorrent technology is the difference between the two sites.
So, while this is very interesting for Sweden's system of justice, in reality, who cares? In a world where The Pirate Bay could only be hosted in Sweden, this decision might matter. In fact, of the 4 guys found guilty, only Sunde still lives there. Let's say somehow this court case gets all the way to the Supreme Court and they lose. After their jail time and fines, these guys will be able to just pack up their computers and go to some other country where they can get away with it. If the Swedish courts uphold this ruling, they're going to create a hostile environment for internet business and they could potentially chase all of Sweden's e-trenpreneurs out of the country. And what will it have accomplished? Sweden can try to block sites it finds objectionable, but anyone who really wants to find copyrighted material online can find it easily enough. Plus blocking sites violates the very spirit of the internet.
In his video response, Peter Sunde says someone should sue Google. You can find all of the BitTorrents that are available on The Pirate Bay through Google, it's just more difficult. So why not sue Google? I don't think it would be a good idea, but why not?
