Pirate Bay defendants vow to fight on

By Mats Lewan on 20 April 2009, 11:00am

The verdict has been handed down in the Pirate Bay file-sharing case, but the legal actions are far from done.

"The prosecutor leads 1-0 after the first round, but this will of course be appealed," said Per E Samuelsson, defence lawyer for Carl Lundström, one of the four individuals sentenced in the Pirate Bay trial, according to the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter.

Samuelsson calls the verdict a scandal. He also claims that his client will have to pay the damages ruled by the court -- a total of 30m krona (£2.4m) -- because the other three lack economic resources.

Lundström has been financing a great part of Pirate Bay's operations.

In the verdict, the court regards Lundström as one member of a team. Peter Sunde, spokesman for the Pirate Bay and another of the four sentenced, found this odd.

"We barely know Lundström," he said in an interview broadcast live on the Internet shortly after the verdict on Friday morning. (The interview starts in Swedish, but continues in English at about 5 minutes in.)

"We cannot pay and we wouldn't pay," Sunde said, then wrote on a piece of paper and showed it to the camera: "I owe u 31,000,000 SEK -- just kidding." That's 30m Swedish krona, or £2.4m.

Sunde continued: "Even if I had the money, I would rather burn everything I own."

Defence lawyer Jonas Nilsson, who represents Pirate Bay's Fredrik Neij, expressed surprised over the verdict -- which he, like Samuelsson, called "just the first round".

"I had expected them to be cleared. 30m Swedish krona is an enormous amount. It's obvious that the court has followed the policy of the prosecutor. I think this is a clear case for the Supreme Court."

Another critic of the verdict is Christian Engström, vice president in the Pirate Party political group that has a close connection to Pirate Bay.

"I recall what copyright organisations such as IFPI have said. That in case of a conviction, the verdict would be used as an argument to claim blocking of Web sites that deal with file sharing. That would correspond to banning books and newspapers," he said, according to the Swedish newspaper SvD.

The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry and other film and music industry groups saw the verdict as a victory for copyright holders.

Sunde seems to be the one who worries least about the court's ruling.

"You can look upon it as a movie, at the point when the heroes just have had the first real setback. But thanks Hollywood! You have taught us that in the end the good will win. And it will be a really big victory," he said.