Pirates Walk The Plank
A couple of minutes ago the verdict in the case of The Pirate Bay Four was announced: all four defendants (Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm, Carl Lundström) were found guilty in ‘assisting in making copyright content available’ and received a 1 year jail term each as well as a shared fine of $3.6M.
The verdict is not final, both sides are allowed to appeal to the high court. It is important to mention that the verdict applies to these four individuals, The Pirate Bay website and organisation is not affected. Even though the judge also stated, that:
"the usage of BitTorrent at The Pirate Bay is illegal"
Which in itself quite shocking. And so are the possibilities if this verdict becomes a precedent for future trials.
Apparently the copyright holder lobby is still going strong and their ambiguous reasoning to enforce copyrights seemingly holds up even in a court of law. If anything this decision slows down the evolution of alternative rights management models and preserves the industry of dinosaurs a while longer.
Source: Torrentfreak.