Due to him being hospitalized in Cambodia, Pirate Bay co-founder Gottfrid Svartholm was unable to travel to Sweden.

Such was her concern, Gottfrid’s mother said she would travel to Asia to support him. The Court decided that the hearing would continue without him.

In late November the Appeal Court found founders Fredrik Neij and Peter Sunde, and businessman Carl Lundström guilty, although it did decrease the lengths of their prison sentences. The damages they have to pay to the entertainment companies were increased.

Although the trio announced they would appeal to the Supreme Court, one of their team had been left behind. Gottfrid Svartholm’s appeal would have to be dealt with separately at a later date, throwing their processes out of sync.

However, setting a date for the hearing was proving difficult since Svartholm’s location could not be determined, not even by his lawyer Ola Salmonsson.

Nevertheless, a hearing was eventually scheduled for today at the Svea Court of Appeal. In common with the previous hearing, Svartholm failed to appear.

He now has just 3 weeks to apply for his appeal to be reopened or it seems that the District Court’s ruling of 2009 – a year in jail and his share of 30 million kronor ($4.48m) in damages – will stand.

Source: Pirate Bay Founder Fails To Appear At Court of Appeal Hearing

In February Google filed an amicus brief (third party testimony) at the Appeal Court, in the hope that the court would consider Google’s opinion on the case. The MPAA was against a Google contribution, but despite these concerns the Appeal Court has now allowed the search engine’s testimony to be added to the case.

Although Google did not dispute isoHunt’s liability in their testimony, the company stated that some of the reasoning in the District Court verdict went too far, and Google wants to see it scrapped in the appeal.

“While in agreement with the result reached in this case, Google is concerned that some of the reasoning offered by the district court goes too far and would upset the careful balance between copyright protection and technological innovation struck by the Supreme Court and Congress. Particularly because this case is not a hard one, it should be decided narrowly,” Google wrote.

The search giant addresses various issues they feel are not needed to arrive at the verdict, but can negatively impact other services on the Internet. Several of these conclusions are the result of suggestions made by the movie studios, which Google claims are misplaced and incorrect.

Google wants to address these issues because they fear it may otherwise lead to a negative outcome for themselves.

The Appeal Court agreed to accept and consider the amicus brief last month. This is the first time that Google have got involved in a BitTorrent case which is significant itself, but interestingly enough neither the MPAA nor isoHunt are happy with Google’s submission.

In a response to Google’s brief, isoHunt says it agrees with Google’s arguments that the District Court verdict is full of “fatal errors” and “omissions”. However, it doesn’t agree with Google’s conclusion that isoHunt is liable for copyright infringements by some of their users. isoHunt’s lawyer therefore asks the court to reject the latter arguments.

“Defendants submit that Google’s confusing arguments and fallacious reasoning should not obscure the importance of issues presented by this case. Defendants have proposed a practical way to deal with such issues; but Google, like plaintiffs, propose nothing other than affirmance of a factually flawed and legally ill-founded District Court Decision.”

The MPAA also responded to Google’s testimony, and was even less pleased to see the company chime in.

“Google is not a disinterested amicus. Google itself is a defendant in suits charging certain of its business units which intentionally promote infringement. Google’s arguments as amicus reflect its litigation interests in obtaining a legal ruling that facilitation of infringement, even if shown to be intentional, may still be immune from copyright liability.”

The MPAA’s legal team then goes on to refute nearly all arguments made by Google. The search engine wants to scrap all of the District Court’s conclusions regarding liability that could eventually be used against Google, but the movie companies clearly disagree.

“The Court should reject Google’s pleas for immunities for businesses that intentionally facilitate copyright infringement,” MPAA’s lawyers conclude.

Although Google weighed in on the isoHunt vs. MPAA case in self-interest, the mere fact that they got involved signifies the importance of the case. To some it may ‘just’ be a dispute between a BitTorrent site and the MPAA but if affirmed the District Court ruling may have far-reaching consequences for hundreds of other web-services.

After filing the amicus brief Google’s role in the case has likely ended, but isoHunt and the MPAA will continue their battle in court.

There’s a hearing planned in early May where we will find out more about where the case is heading. Interestingly, this hearing is scheduled on the same day and in the same court as Veoh’s appeal hearing. Another DMCA case, but one where the service provider was not held liable.

Source: Google, MPAA and isoHunt Clash in Court

Last month, businessman Carl Lundström – along with Peter Sunde and Fredrik Neij – was found guilty of contributory copyright infringement by the Appeal Court and sentenced to 4 months in prison and a share of a $6.5 million damages order.

“We do not accept the Appeal Court’s ruling,” Lundström’s lawyer Per E. Samuelsson told Swedish radio when confirming his client would take his case to the Supreme Court.

It is claimed that Lundström, who is the millionaire heir to the Wasabröd crispbread empire, provided computers, bandwidth and server rackspace for The Pirate Bay in its early days through his company Rix Telecom. He rejects the decision of the Appeal Court on a number of grounds.

Firstly, Lundström questions why The Pirate Bay should be held liable for promoting infringements when other Internet services, such as Google, can be viewed as doing the same.

Lundström also writes that the prosecutor has failed to prove that he operated “jointly and in concert” with others in respect of any crimes potentially carried out via The Pirate Bay.

According to Realtid, Lundström says the Court of Appeal’s conclusion, that he must’ve known that his company had provided equipment free of charge to The Pirate Bay, is wrong. He insists he had no knowledge of any such arrangement.

But above all, Lundström insists that since he was a provider of bandwidth to The Pirate Bay, he must therefore have been their Internet service provider.

“Assessing the criminal responsibility of ISPs should be the target key precedent in this case,” he explains.

Lundström wants the Supreme Court to consider if an ISP should be held liable for assisting in crimes committed by their customers. His lawyer, Per E Samuelson, says that to his knowledge no one has ever been found guilty on this basis before.

The appeal lodged by Lundström also questions the huge damages awarded by the Appeal Court against him. As an ISP with no knowledge of the alleged infringements, he feels a share of $6.5 million in damages is excessive.

It is believed that Fredrik Neij and Peter Sunde will also file appeals with the Supreme Court in due course.

The fourth defendant, Gottfrid Svartholm, is behind in the process due to illness. His case will be handled by the Appeal Court at a later date.

Article from: TorrentFreak.

In April last year the Stockholm Court sentenced the ‘The Pirate Bay Four’ to one year in prison and a fine of $905,000 each. The defendants immediately announced that they would appeal the decision and the case went before the Appeal Court two months ago.

Today, Friday November 26, the Swedish Appeal Court announced its decision. Compared to the District Court ruling, the court has decreased the prison sentences for the three defendants, but increased the damages that have to be paid to the entertainment industries.

“The Pirate Bay has facilitated illegal file-sharing in a way that results in criminal liability for those who run the service. For the three defendants the court of appeal believes it is proven that they participated in these activities in different ways and to varying degrees,” the court stated.

The court did consider the individual input of all three, which resulted in varying prison sentences ranging from 4 to 10 months . The total damages of 46 million kroner ($6.5 million) will be equally shared among Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij and Carl Lundström.

Peter Sunde (born September 13, 1978) alias ‘brokep’

Fredrik Neij (born April 27, 1978) alias ‘TiAMO’:

Carl Lundström (born April 13, 1960)

The total damages are higher than in the District Court ruling. “This is because the court of appeal, to a greater extent than the district court, accepted the plaintiff companies’ evidence of its losses as a result of file-sharing,” the court noted.

All Nordic entertainment industry companies get the entire amount they asked for, and the remaining companies get about half of what they requested.

The fourth defendant, Gottfrid Svartholm, is not included in the verdict because he was absent at the court hearings due to medical circumstances. His case will be reviewed later.

“This was a political trial from the start and it must be resolved politically,” Rick Falkvinge, leader of the Pirate Party said in a response to the verdict. “The public has lost all confidence in the justice system in these matters, and it is beyond sad that the courts still persist in running special-interest justice.”

Entertainment industry insiders, on the other hand, applauded the verdict. “It’s a relief that the court of appeal finally affirmed that you’ll be sent to prison if you carry out this type of activity,” movie industry lawyer Monique Wadsted said.

Although none of the defendants has officially commented on how to proceed, it is very likely that this will not be the end of the case. It is expected that it eventually will go all the way to the Supreme Court.

Whatever happens next, not much will change for the users of the popular BitTorrent indexer. The Pirate Bay website will remain online and operating as usual. None of the defendants are involved in the site anymore, and all assets are reportedly owned by the Seychelles based company Reservella.

Breaking story, updates will follow later.

Article from: TorrentFreak.

Despite this unfavorable verdict the site remains online, as it adapts to become a torrent portal that is less likely to be shut down.

In yet another attempt to close the site, two of the site’s founders were ordered by the Stockholm District Court to stop operating the site in October, facing fines of $71,000 each if they choose not to comply.

The two founders, Gottfrid Svartholm and Fredrik Neij, both decided to appeal the verdict, and the Appeal Court has now announced that it will take on the case.

Gottfrid argued that the district court lacks the technical skills that are required, “…which is devastating to a case which is so technically complicated.” Fredrik further said that both he and Gottfrid have been living outside Sweden for a long time, adding that The Pirate Bay is no longer hosted in Sweden either.

Aside from the technical difficulties, the legal authorities may also find that it is pretty much impossible to prove that the two are actually working on the site, which is required to impose the fines. The Appeal Court will review these and other issues in the upcoming appeal.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

Taking the responsibility for ensuring this happens in Sweden is the Data Inspection Board, a public authority which can audit companies and organizations holding personal information.

The Board’s connections to file-sharing go back notably to 2005, when it ruled that the activities of the Swedish anti-piracy bureau (Antipiratbyrån) went against the Personal Data Act. It decided that since IP addresses can be tied to a specific person, only the government were allowed to store that type of information in criminal cases.

Since then Antipiratbyrån has appealed the decision twice and lost, but fortunately for them, an exception was made in the IPRED legislation which now allows organizations to collect data when it precedes a legal claim, i.e suing file-sharers.

However, while anti-piracy groups are allowed to collect data, they have to comply with a set of standards enforced by the Data Inspection Board. To this end, two lawyers and an IT security expert will today head to Antipiratbyrån’s offices in Stockholm to conduct an audit.

“We want to see how the records of suspected file sharers are being handled,” said Jonas Agnvall, a lawyer at the Data Inspection Board.

Part of the reason for the inspections is to check if the anti-piracy group has changed the way it handles information following the introduction of IPRED in April this year. The legislation was widely feared by Swedish file-sharers but thus far has only led to a single case, which was thrown out by the Appeal Court.

IFPI chief executive Lars Gustafsson offered assurances in September that law suits against suspected file-sharers were very close, but noted that his group were biding their time to see how the first IPRED case panned out. As you’ve just read, that case collapsed.

Although it has taken no action against file-sharers thus far, on Monday IFPI will get a similar Data Inspection Board audit, but according to comments made to SvD, the group says it holds no data, since it outsources the task to other organizations, most probably companies like Denmark’s DtecNet.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

While awaiting the appeal that was announced immediately after the verdict, The Pirate Bay continued to operate as if nothing had happened. In the background, however, both the defense and prosecution teams were preparing for the appeal which was scheduled to take place next month.

The timing of the appeal was not ideal for several of the defendants and their lawyers. They consequently tried to postpone it to a later date but this request was initially denied. However, thanks to concerns about the objectivity of some of the judges involved, the appeal has been rescheduled after all.

“I just came out of a meeting where we decided to postpone,” Appeal Court Council Ulrika Ihrfelt said this morning.

The reason for the delay are the bias accusations against two of the main judges appointed to the appeal. Both judges have ties to pro-copyright groups and last week defense lawyer Samuelsson announced that he will take the bias question to the Supreme Court. This, after his initial request failed at the Appeal Court.

Samuelsson now has to file his complaints at the Supreme Court within four weeks, and because the appeal is supposed to start close to the end of this deadline the Appeal Court decided that it was best to postpone the case.

No official date has been set for the delayed appeal but according to Ulrika Ihrfelt it will take till at least summer 2010 before the Court has time to handle the case. Until then it will be business as usual for The Pirate Bay, providing that the operators can solve all the technical problems they’ve run into during the past days.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.