Sweden formally charges The Pirate Bay
p2pnet news | Freedom:- Swedish prosecutor Håkan Roswall has now formally announced the charges against The Pirate Bay’s Fredrik Neij (’TiAMO’), Gottfrid Svartholm (’Anakata’), Peter Sunde (’Brokep’) and businessman Carl Lundström.
It’s the government of Sweden, Time Warner, Viacom, Fox, Sony, NBC Universal and Disney – aka Hollywood – and Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG, the members of the Big 4 organised music gang, versus a handful of young guys running a search site, p2pnet posted on Monday, going on:
“Because the entertainment cartels have finally coerced Sweden into officially charging the people running The Pirate Bay.”
Now the four men, aged 23 to 37, are being charged with “assisting copyright infringement” of four software applications, nine films and 22 music tracks, says TorrentFreak, going on to quote Roswall as saying:
“The operation of The Pirate Bay is financed through advertising revenues. In that way it commercially exploits copyright-protected work and performances.”
He also claims TPB generates an
nual ad revenue of more than $4 million and with that in mind, he’s demanding a $188,000 fine for each of the four, says TorrentFreak, going on:
“The plaintiffs, including Warner Bros., Colombia Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Sony BMG, Universal and EMI have until the end of February to file claims for damages.”
TPB users won’t, though, have to worry about the site being taken offline, says the story.
“In case we lose the pending trial (yeah right) there will still not be any changes to the site,” Sunde promises. “The Pirate Bay will keep operating just as always. We’ve been here for years and we will be here many more.”
Adds TorrentFreak:
As we wrote earlier today, The Pirate Bay is not hosted in Sweden anymore. In fact, the Pirate Bay crew claims that they themselves have no idea where the servers are located. After the raid on their servers in 2006, they decided that it was better not to know where they are. One thing is sure though, they are not hosted in just a single country.
Responses
Spokesman for pro-file sharing group Piratbyrån, Magnus Eriksson, said: “The Pirate Bay is not going to be down for a single minute. The Pirate Bay is now established in a number of countries, so there’s no one place in which to push the off button.”
Definitely stay tuned.
Also See:
p2pnet - Sweden, Hollywood, the Big 4 v The Pirate Bay, January 28, 2008
TorrentFreak – Pirate Bay Admins Charged with Assisting Copyright Infringement, January 31, 2008
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January 31st, 2008 at 9:07 am
It’s not on their legal threats page yet.
January 31st, 2008 at 11:08 am
The traitor Gottfrid Svartholm is now the public enemy number two after Ben Laden in Sweden to be neutralized by any mean by any Swedish Citizen.
The question is howmuch this parasite got from the four majors to do this?
January 31st, 2008 at 11:14 am
The pirate bay can run anywhere from virtually any server and can be spread across the world many time.
So it is not going to bring down the pirate Bay.
Also it is not going to make us go and buy music and movies because we are boycotting.
On the contrary It will help us recruit more boycotter!
January 31st, 2008 at 12:26 pm
In the unlikely event that they do loose, I say we all do as much as possible to support them.
Maybe donate to pay their fees, showing that we don’t mind paying if we think we are paying decent people, with societies best interests at heart.
There would be a global uproar if they do loose, but enough of that, they will win, and will expose the capitalists for what they are… greedy!
January 31st, 2008 at 7:07 pm
I say we all do as much as possible to support them.
Agree!
January 31st, 2008 at 8:21 pm
“. . .and will expose the capitalists for what they are… greedy!”
Capitalism is like communism, a system like any other with advantages and drawbacks.
What is wrong is not with these systems themselves but with what some individuals do with it.
It seems that there is always some parasites messing up societies for personal profit. These pests can be found in companies such as Vivendi/Universal, Sony/BMG EMI Time Warner, Fox. . . RIAA/MPAA. This is where we have to spray.
Let’s take every thing from them! Their homes their cars their assets. . .
EVERYTHING!
BOYCOTT THE RIAA/MPAA!
February 1st, 2008 at 3:49 am
TPB won’t win. Once they’re gone, all the other torrent indexers will begin dropping like flies, as they didn’t have the kind of protection that TPB had. TPB are the big site currently propping up all the others.
The media corps have zillions in cash and are able to manipulate their government, as you know. In turn, the American government, being the big bully superpower that they are, are able to strongarm/extort/whatever foreign governments into doing their bidding, eventually.
The TPB *openly* flouts copyright and its founders have gone on TV to say they don’t give a shit about it. TPB links to thousands of copyright torrents, dwarfing the links to Linux distributions, Little Jonny’s Bath Song etc which don’t have this copyright problem.
Like Jammie Thomas, they aren’t gonna actually prove any losses from this activity. They will simply pass a sentence to shut them down. It is then only a matter of time before the rest of the torrent sites fold. Corrupton at its best.
Another front being faught, is of course getting ISPs such as Comcast to block bittorrent traffic. This has already been happening and will continue to grow and will become a major problem for p2p users in 2008.
Lastly, DRM has not gone away, no way. Not on music and certainly not off video. When the big media corporations have achieved their goals of successfully demonizing p2p, shutting TPB etc, chucking people in jail for circumvention and the like *worldwide* we will then see the re-emergence of even more draconian DRM on everything. A truly horrible parasite will be born.
And the sheeple will buy it. In droves. Given nowhere to go for ‘unauthorised’ content, the sheeple will simply turn to the only sources available and eagerly lap up the shit that is spoon-fed them and will happily have their rights extorted back to them for money.
It’s happening all around you right now. If you can’t see this, then you have your head stuck in the sand, my friends.
February 1st, 2008 at 3:51 am
I forgot to say about DRM: the fact that it’s crackable won’t matter too much when the infrastructure to support it and force it on users is in place.
February 1st, 2008 at 5:18 am
I dont use TPB at all, or any torrent sites for that matter, but i believe in TPB, sure, they are openly flouting laws, and, if every artist did like radiohead/nin, i think tpb would still exist and still wouldnt give a fuck. what i’m saying is, their morals may be questionable, but, supporting them is the biggest way to make a point known to the big 4 & Mpaa/Riaa, which is why i will happily donate to them should they be found guilty
February 2nd, 2008 at 1:31 am
http://thepiratebay.org/tor/3878830/Fedora-8-dvd-i386
Here’s Fedora 8.
This is a hint.