Swedish Supreme Court Refuses Appeal In Pirate Bay Case

concertina226 writes with sad news for Swedish pirates. Quoting the article: "The Swedish Supreme Court will not hear an appeal from the founders of The Pirate Bay against prison sentences and fines imposed by the Swedish Court of Appeals, the court said on Wednesday. Over a year ago, the Court of Appeals sentenced Fredrik Neij, Peter Sunde, and Carl Lundström to 10 months, eight months, and four months of jail time, respectively. The court also said they must collectively pay a 46 million kronor (£4.3 million) fine." The Pirate Bay has issued a response: "With this said, we hear news from our old admins that they have received a verdict in Sweden. Our 3 friends and blood brothers have been sentenced to prison. This might sound worse than it is. Since no one of them no longer lives in Sweden, they won't go to jail. They are as free today as they were yesterday."
Update: 02/01 15:15 GMT by U L :Reader think_nix helpfully copied the Pirate Bay response in a comment for those who cannot access the site.

Comments

Or not?

[Anonymous Coward]

How are you as free today as yesterday if you can't enter a country or it's allies?

Staying out of Sweden maybe simple but that doesn't mean someone won't take you to Sweden.

Not living in Sweden

[bernywork]

Pretty shit not being able to go home though.

I guess they could probably go in and out fine (EU passport will mean that unless they are on a watch list in the country they are going to they probably won't get caught) but if they get stopped by Police when there and checked then they will have to serve their time.

Re:Not living in Sweden

[elrous0]

What's even worse is that there aren't many places they can go where they can ever be safe. U.S./Hollywood power pretty much owns every government and legal system in the world. There are only a few countries like Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, etc. that would stand up to that power, and they all have issues of their own.

Re:Not living in Sweden

[Anonymous Coward]

Within the EU you do not need to show a passport when flying, you do need an approved picture ID however. If you are on a watchlist you are likely to end up being caught on arrival since they cross-check passenger manifest.

Being caugt traveling by car, train or boat is unlikely, since customs only check vehicles randomly for restricted goods or if they know a certain vehicle will carry something illegal, like a sentenced man who has not checked in to his 3 star hotel.

Re:Not living in Sweden

[elrous0]

More like nightmares. And if you think that power isn't real, just ask the guys from Megaupload--or Julian Assange, or Gary McKinnon.

Re:Not living in Sweden

[Nidi62]

india?? they're the US's bitch, too!

No, they are not. Here is some evidence to counter your claims: The US's biggest ally in the region is Pakistan, who, coincidentally, is India's arch rival, and has been since the Partition in 1948(or was it 47, can't really remember); India either develops it's own weapon systems or purchases them from Russia, who happen to be the US's biggest rival in the geo-political and arms trade spheres; India went against the Non-proliferation Treaty and has nuclear weapons. Just because India doesn't openly antagonize the US like Iran, China, NK, or even Pakistan do, or that many US companies have call centers there does not mean that they are the US's "bitch".

Re:Not living in Sweden

[Xest]

I think his point was in the "every country" bit.

Those who have been extradited have made the mistake of going to nations that are either loyal to the US, or puppets of the US. The only Western nation where you might get away with it is Switzerland - it worked for Polanski just about, despite massive US pressure.

It's unlikely the US would get a succesful extradition from a few of the South American nations, Russia, or perhaps even China or India, and frankly if you have money, which it's likely the TPB guys do, then you can still live a pretty damn nice life in these places.

The key is to avoid North America, European nations, Commonwealth nations, and states that defend on US money and weapons for defence like Saudi Arabia and South Korea. As I say - that still leaves much of South America, some of Africa, and some of the biggest nations and ex-soviet states, where again, with a bit of Western money you can still live at least as comfortably as you would in the West.

What about Google and Youtube?

[Trracer]

This will basically be precedent for this type of case (in Sweden). So I guess Google, Youtube etc etc can fall under being an accessory to copyright violation?

Excuse any spelling/English errors, non-native here.

Re:What about Google and Youtube?

[CrimsonAvenger]

Excuse any spelling/English errors, non-native here.

Didn't see any spelling/English errors, actually.

That particular problem seems to be more common for Americans than for non-native speakers...

Re:What about Google and Youtube?

[ScentCone]

So I guess Google, Youtube etc etc can fall under being an accessory to copyright violation?

Other than for the sake of trolling and FUD-spreading, why would you conclude that? The two cases couldn't be more distinct. TPB flagrantly promotes the ripping off of people's works, and operations like YouTube have entire staffs dedicated to rapidly investigating and dealing with reports of abuse.

Re:What about Google and Youtube?

[Anonymous Coward]

they used the legal loophole which made the court invent the crime of "assisting copyright infringement". Before this case the general understandning was that if any infringement occured it was because someone made something (which they had no rights to) avaible to others. eg, me hosting an ftp server with "Captain America the first avenger" on my computer and telling you how to log in - that would have been illegal. However, me telling you of a server not operated by me (essentially what a .torrent file does, execpt it doesn't use ftp etc.) or even giving you a http link would not have constituted criminal copyright infringment *against me*. Only ones who'd be investigated would be the person(s) uploading the infringing material and the persons downloading it.

The piratebay case changed that to make it possible to prosecute me under the second scenario for assissting in the infringement. Which is why some of us are worried that when rights holders turn out to be unable to identify downloaders they'll turn to have ISP:s held accountable - after all, they are assisting by providing the bandwith (which to my understanding is exactly the reason why one of the "piratebay guys" was implicated for).

WTF ?

[BlueParrot]

The supreme court in Sweden is supposed to hear important test cases and cases where there is presently ambiguity in law. As encouraging copyright infringement has never before been tested in court, refusing to hear this case just shows how little spine our justice system has.

I can't see the blog. It's blacklisted!

[ciaran_o_riordan]

I've never been affected first-hand by government censorship of websites, but when I clicked on the piratebay.se link to read his blog entry, I just got:

The access to this website is blocked in conformity with a decision of the Antwerp Court of Appeal dated 26 September 2011.

For any additional information, you can contact the Belgian Anti-piracy Federation (BAF), at Almaplein 3 P.O. Box 10, 1200 Sint-Lambrechts-Woluwe - http://www.anti-piracy.be/en/.

I'm currently in Belgium.

Re:Very dissapointing

[Skarecrow77]

yes, it does suck, but the alternative could also be like our friends north of the border, where there's something like 4 liberal parties and 1 conservative party so the 1 conservative party gets all the conservative votes, which puts them in power even though they're technically a minority, and they then proceed to enact a bunch of shit legislation like banning mp3s and dvrs.

or at least, that's what the facebook status of my canadian friends tell me.

I've long been a proponent of just abolishing the two political parties we've got here, and having a 7-way draft. we can separate along more logical distinctions.

We can have:
The tree-hugging hippie party
The financial, corporate, and industry party
The religious extremist (pardon me, I mean evangelical) party
The backwoods-montana survival-oriented libertarian party
The inner-city violence and drugs party
The suburbia party
The illuminati

Every one of those hates every other, and nothing would ever get done since any coalition would dissolve within days. From where I sit, that'd be a better situation than the one we're in now.

Re:I can't see the blog. It's blacklisted!

[think_nix]

I've never been affected first-hand by government censorship of websites, but when I clicked on the piratebay.se link to read his blog entry, I just got:

For those who are behind censored networks, here is original blos post from this taken from http://thepiratebay.se/blog/204

Year of the storm

2012 is the year of the storm.

The Pirate Bay will reach an age of 9 years. Experiencing raids, espionage and death threats, we're still here. We've been through hell and back and it has made us tougher than ever.

The people running the site has changed during the years. No sane human being would put up with this kind of pressure for 8 years in a row. An insane hobby that takes time from our families, our work (sorry boss) and our studies.

What binds us all together is a strong belief that what we do is good. That it is something we one day can tell our grandchildren about with pride. People from all over the world confirm this. We read testimonials from people in Syria longing for freedom, thanking us for what we provide. We receive more than 100 visits daily from North Korea and we sure know that they need it. If there's something that will bring peace to this world it is the understanding and appreciation of your fellow man. What better way to do that than with this vast library of culture?

With this said, we hear news from our old admins that they have received a verdict in Sweden. Our 3 friends and blood brothers have been sentenced to prison. This might sound worse than it is. Since no one of them no longer lives in Sweden, they won't go to jail. They are as free today as they were yesterday.

But what enrages us to our inner core is that the system, the empire, the governments, are still allowed to try to boss you and us around with one law crazier than the other. Do you think they will stop with SOPA/ACTA/PIPA? They will not. Because you won't stop sharing those files. Because we will not stay down. Because no one can turn back time. Together, we are the iron that hardens with each strike.

In this year of the storm, the winners will build windmills and the losers will raise shelters. So flex your muscles, fellow pirates, and give power to us all! Build more sites! More nets! More protocols! Scream louder than ever and take it to the next level!

Posted Today 09:11 by The Pirate Bay

Best regards,

The 'free' internet

Re:Hilarious, in a sad way.

[lightknight]

*shrugs*

They could just do something similar to what the movie industry pulled a long time ago (in order to nerf Edison's patents): move someplace where their actions are not illegal. Let's be honest, whichever country ends up with that many pirates (programmers, etc.) is going to bank. And not just a little, as these people tend to be some of the more skilled in the industry (they will make it rain). Fortunately, the vast majority of countries are not joining in (just yet) on this global witch-hunt, so such measures are (for now) unnecessary. However, if and when it should happen, I project that the countries involved in said persecutions will experience a brain drain that will set them back only a century or so.

Re:Very dissapointing

[Nadaka]

And while Obama is not campaigning for the role of anti-Christ nearly as hard as any of the republican contenders, he isn't exactly a friend of liberty and sane copyright law either.

Re:Hilarious, in a sad way.

[dave420]

You: Overreacting greatly.

Canadian party system (was:Very dissapointing)

[Anonymous Coward]

We used to have four parties, equally spaced:

• New Democrats on the left
• Liberals in the left center (roughly equivalent to the Democrats)
• Progressive Conservatives in the right center (ditto the Republicans)
• Reform on the right

Reform did an "unfriendly takeover" of the PCs (full disclosure: I was a PC at the time), with the slogan "unite the right"
They then renamed the party to just "Conservative" and retained enough members to be able to defeat the NDP and Liberals, who were still splitting the center and left between themselves.

Now it's skewed, and the parties don't line up with the U.S. parties, even approximately... Liberals seem to be the centrists, NDP has become the left-moving-towards-the-center and Conservatives are moving back right to align with the old Reform position.

I seem to be living in exciting times (;-))

--dave

Re:Hilarious, in a sad way.

[MadTinfoilHatter]

They could just do something similar to what the movie industry pulled a long time ago (in order to nerf Edison's patents): move someplace where their actions are not illegal.

They did. They performed all their actions in Sweden where their actions were not illegal. This is also why there for a long time were no action taken against TPB, despite the site being far from unknown to the prosecutors of that country. Then after a few years the MAFIAA started pressing for US politicians to do something about this. They in turn put pressure on Swedish politicians (behind the scenes, since in Swden it's illegal for the politicians to tell the prosecutors what to do). Suddenly their servers are confiscated and they're put into a courtroom before a judge who conveniently happens to have close ties to the Swedish MAFIAA-equivalent...

Re:That wont stop an arrest warrent going out...

[Yaotzin]

Swede here. It's a matter of perspective I guess. The chaplain's largest complaint seems to be isolation, which is pretty bad. On the other side, the cells are pretty comfortable, looking almost like a small hotel room. You get your own bed, tv, desk. Computers are allowed and in some cases video games. Also, prison rape is virtually unheard of.