Darned pirates!

Frederik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg and Peter Sunde

A rejig: The four men behind the high-profile torrent site Pirate Bay, Frederik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Carl Lundstrom and Peter Sunde, were found guilty a while back of breaking copyright law, which got them a year in jail and a massive fine.

The large entertainment companies hurt by the actions of the four men–including Warner Bros, Sony Music Entertainment, EMI and Columbia Pictures–wanted a lot more (US$17.5m) in damages than the US$4.5m that the court wanted the pirates to pay. However, Sunde said that the team will patently not pay up: “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.”

After launching an appeal, the Swedish court has decided to investigate allegations that the district court judge in charge of the case, Tomas Norström, may have been biased in his ruling due to his membership in pro-copyright organisations. But it gets even more confusing. Anders Eka, the judge overseeing the appeal, may have a conflict of interest as well.

Sunde points to a document about the Stockholm Centre for Commercial Law, of which Eka, Monique Wadsted and Peter Danowsky are members. Wadsted and Danowsky were (egad!) the very lawyers prosecuting Pirate Bay in the first trial. Conspiracy afoot?

Obviously, whether or not the conviction is overturned, the Pirate Bay  case has far-reaching implications for the entire file-sharing industry. Technically, Pirate Bay and other torrent sites, as opposed to something like Rapidshare, do not actually host any of the bootleg music or movie files in question.

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