Report: Founders Of The Pirate Bay File Sharing Website Convicted Of Breaking Copyright Law, Receive Jail Time
April 17, 2009, 15 years ago
The UK's BBC is reporting that four men behind The Pirate Bay, considered "the world's most high-profile file-sharing website," have been convicted of breaking copyright law and have received jail time:
"Frederik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Carl Lundstrom and Peter Sunde were found guilty of breaking copyright law and were sentenced to a year in jail.They were also ordered to pay $4.5m (£3m) in damages.
Record companies welcomed the verdict but the men are to appeal and Sunde said they would refuse to pay the fine.
Speaking at an online press conference, he described the verdict as "bizarre."
"It's serious to actually be found guilty and get jail time. It's really serious. And that's a bit weird," Sunde said.
"It's so bizarre that we were convicted at all and it's even more bizarre that we were [convicted] as a team. The court said we were organised. I can't get Gottfrid out of bed in the morning. If you're going to convict us, convict us of disorganised crime.
"We can't pay and we wouldn't pay. Even if I had the money I would rather burn everything I owned, and I wouldn't even give them the ashes."
Go to this location for the complete report.
