[A2k] Founders of Pirate Bay charged with conspiracy to break copyright law

[Michelle Childs]

BBC:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7219802.stm

Pirate Bay hit with legal action

Four men who run one of the most popular file-sharing sites in the
world have been charged with conspiracy to break copyright law in
Sweden.

The Pirate Bay's servers do not store copyrighted material but offer
links to the download location of films, TV programmes, albums and
software.

The website is said to have between 10 and 15 million users around the
world and is supported by online advertising.

Police seized computers in May 2006, temporarily shutting down the
website.

According to the Pirate Bay website, its users are currently
downloading close to a million files.

"The operation of The Pirate Bay is financed through advertising
revenues. In that way it commercially exploits copywrite-protected
work and performances," prosecutor Hakan Roswall said in a statement.

In an interview with the BBC's technology programme Click last year
Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde said: "I think it's okay to copy.
They get their money from so many places that the sales is just one
small part."

The other three men facing charges are Carl Lundstrom, Frederik Neij
and Gottfrid Svartholm Warg.

If convicted, the four men could face a maximum of two years in prison.

The Swedish prosecutor listed dozens of works that had been downloaded
through The Pirate Bay site, including The Beatles' Let It Be, Robbie
Williams' Intensive Care and the movie Harry Potter & The Goblet of
Fire.

Plaintiffs in the case include Warner, MGM, Columbia Pictures, 20th
Century Fox Films, Sony BMG, Universal and EMI.

John Kennedy, chairman and chief executive of global music body, the
International Federation of the Phonographic Industries, said: "The
operators of The Pirate Bay have always been interested in making
money, not music.

"The Pirate Bay has managed to make Sweden, normally the most law
abiding of EU countries, look like a piracy haven with intellectual
property laws on a par with Russia."


Michelle Childs
Head of European Affairs
Knowledge Ecology International
michelle.childs@cptech.org