Terminator
04-17-2009, 11:48 AM
Sweden plans this week to charge the people running Pirate Bay, one of the world's most visited Web sites, with being accessories in breaking copyright law.:(:(
Pirate Bay helps Web surfers share copyrighted music and film files, which is illegal in many countries, including Sweden.
Public prosecutor Hakan Roswall said last week he will charge the Swedish site's organizers with accessory and conspiracy to break copyright law, which could lead to fines or up to two years in prison.
The charges will be filed in a district court on January 31.
The Motion Picture Association of America and the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) are among those who have called for action to shut down the site.
No copyright material is stored on Pirate Bay's servers and no swapping of files actually takes place there. Rather, Pirate Bay locates file sharers on the Internet and acts as a directory of so-called torrent files.
BitTorrent is a protocol that enables big file transfers. The torrent files, downloadable from Pirate Bay, contain the information needed to download film or music files from others.
"It's not merely a search engine. It's an active part of an action that aims at, and also leads to, making copyright protected material available," Roswall told Reuters.
"It's a classic example of accessory -- to act as intermediary between people who commit crimes, whether it's in the physical or the virtual world," he said.
NO LEGAL GROUNDS
But the people behind the site say they cannot be held responsible for material that is being spread.
"It's idiotic. There is no legal ground (for the charges)," Pirate Bay spokesman Peter Sunde told Reuters.
The case is partly based on evidence collected in a 2006 raid against Pirate Bay's servers, located then in Stockholm.
Pirate Bay was started by a Swedish anti-copyright group in 2003. Later the site was run by Sunde and two others, Gottfrid Svartholm and Fredrik Neij. Neij owns the domain.
It does not charge users and earns money from advertisers.
Pirate Bay helps Web surfers share copyrighted music and film files, which is illegal in many countries, including Sweden.
Public prosecutor Hakan Roswall said last week he will charge the Swedish site's organizers with accessory and conspiracy to break copyright law, which could lead to fines or up to two years in prison.
The charges will be filed in a district court on January 31.
The Motion Picture Association of America and the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) are among those who have called for action to shut down the site.
No copyright material is stored on Pirate Bay's servers and no swapping of files actually takes place there. Rather, Pirate Bay locates file sharers on the Internet and acts as a directory of so-called torrent files.
BitTorrent is a protocol that enables big file transfers. The torrent files, downloadable from Pirate Bay, contain the information needed to download film or music files from others.
"It's not merely a search engine. It's an active part of an action that aims at, and also leads to, making copyright protected material available," Roswall told Reuters.
"It's a classic example of accessory -- to act as intermediary between people who commit crimes, whether it's in the physical or the virtual world," he said.
NO LEGAL GROUNDS
But the people behind the site say they cannot be held responsible for material that is being spread.
"It's idiotic. There is no legal ground (for the charges)," Pirate Bay spokesman Peter Sunde told Reuters.
The case is partly based on evidence collected in a 2006 raid against Pirate Bay's servers, located then in Stockholm.
Pirate Bay was started by a Swedish anti-copyright group in 2003. Later the site was run by Sunde and two others, Gottfrid Svartholm and Fredrik Neij. Neij owns the domain.
It does not charge users and earns money from advertisers.