Swedish court confirms jail for Pirate Bay cofounder
Now all they have to do is find him
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Cofounder of the Pirate Bay Gottfrid Svartholm has had his court sentence confirmed after he failed to show up for a court hearing. Now all the court has to do is find him.
Svartholm had a limited time to appeal his 2009 sentence of a year in prison and $4.4 million in damages. The other founders - Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij and Carl Lundström – all appealed their sentences and received reduced jail time and increased damages, but still much less than their recording industry foes had asked for.
The only problem now facing the court is how to find Svartholm and enforce the punishment. He has been missing for much of the appeals process, and according to his mother was last heard of in Cambodia, and was too sick to attend a legal proceeding. Even his lawyer doesn’t know where he is.
“This is actually a really bizarre step from the Swedish court – he’s found guilty because he can’t defend himself,” Sunde told TorrentFreak. “Way to go, democracy. It will be interesting to see how they will actually try to find him and put him into jail. If he’s not alive – will they put his gravestone into a jail cell for a year?”
The other three defendants are still waiting for their appeal to be heard by the Swedish Supreme court, and are reasonably confident that they can still beat the prison sentences imposed or have the charges dismissed.
“In the end, we’ll win. I’m certain of that,” Sunde said. “It’s just that we don’t have the same lobby power as these groups we’re fighting. But the law is on our side, however what we’ve learned is that having the legal right is not the same as winning in court. It all depends on who’s paying the judges.” ®
COMMENTS
"It all depends on who’s paying the judges.”
Yea verily. The Swedish legal establishment is rotten to the core. No yacht-hosted dinners required.
This is what annoys me about the Pirate Bay
and Sunde in particular. "He's in jail because he can't defend himself. Way to go, democracy."
No, he's in jail for what in Britain we'd call contempt of court and, basically, evading the trial. If he's ill, he can contact his lawyer and have the appropriate procedures followed. What did he think he was doing going to Cambodia when the trial was on in the first place? Their arrogance totally astounds me.
Law is optionally enforced.
The real issue here is not whether they have broken the law or not, but the haphazard enforcement of the law. In the UK, it has been illegal to copy music or films for ANY reason for a long time. Copying music onto an iPod was illegal. Unfortunately, because this would have got in the way of the music industry, everybody declined to enforce this law. It didn't matter if you'd purchased the music or not, just changing it from how you purchased it was the offence. Copying under any guise. So, what's the difference between copying music you've purchased onto an iPod and 'copying' music from the internet? Morally, a whole lot. However, as far as the laws concerned, it's just the same and both are illegal.
How then, can one be prosecuted, whilst the other isn't? You either enforce the law or you don't. You can't pick and choose when to enforce and when not to. That simply means the law is up for purchase, whether due to someones power, wealth or whatever; normally both.
Also, there are various laws in this country about running cartels, closed business practices etc.etc. IBM was a very famous company that fell foul of just this sort of law in the States some decades ago now. Don't try telling me the music and film industry aren't guilty in exactly the same way, so why aren't they being taken to task? They change medium from record and tape to CD and the price goes up, even though the production cost is less!! They change from VHS to DVD, the same!! It's blatant profiteering and there are laws against that. So, yet again, the powerful and wealthy buy the laws they want and when they want them enforced.
Now, a very powerful medium (computers) has been put in the hands of the victims and it would be unrealistic to expect them not to use it. Not matter what happens, the film and music industries can never put the genie back in the bottle, not matter how hard they try. They will loose......eventually. It's just how much pain and suffering that occurs in the meantime.
I don't concur with what TPB did, but when the law is so blatantly enforced in a one way manner, what else are people to do? Ernest Saunders even managed to perform what medical science believes is a miracle and yet they didn't seek to reimprison him. Why not? The justice system (stupid name given how it works) hounds people forever for a purely financial loss and yet people who have caused untold deaths through lies (step forward Tony Blair) get clean away with it...........
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