James Delahunty
15 Apr 2009 8:26
The founders of the infamous Pirate Bay BitTorrent tracker remain confident that they will be victorious in the court battle over alleged copyright theft, which has gotten significant media coverage around the world since it kicked off. Frederik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Carl Lundstrom and Peter Sunde founded The Pirate Bay in 2003. "We are quite confident we are going to win," Peter Sunde said.
In February 2009, the Pirate Bay recorded 22 million simultaneous users of the service. The site hosts no copyright infringing content whatsoever, but instead let's users download torrent files which can be used to download and share films, TV shows, albums, video games and everything else in between from other users.
Representatives for the movie, music and games industry are seeking about 115 million kronor (€10.6 million) in damages. A charge of "assisting copyright infringement" was dropped on day 2 of the trial, and instead the founders are charged with "assisting making available copyright material", which would be considered a lesser offense.
"We still don't think we have done anything illegal under Swedish law," Mr Sunde told BBC News. "We don't share any files; we just link to material." He went on to say that despite the verdict, the Pirate Bay will continue operating. "The Pirate Bay will continue. Nothing is going to happen if we lose, for a multitude for reasons, not least because we will immediately appeal," he said.
As would be expected, there has been a lot of comments from the entertainment industry in the course of the case. "We are... tired and sick of services like The Pirate Bay who have no understanding or respect for the creative community, and instead have their own financial interests at heart," Jonas Sjostrom, chairman of the Swedish Independent Music Producers Association, said.
John Kennedy, chairman of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industries (IFPI), said that the Pirate Bay has done "significant damage to the music industry as a whole". A written judgment by the Stockholm court will be issued on Friday.