In other words, the prison sentences and fines that had been handed out to the four offenders in the case (Peter Sunde, Gottfrid Svartholm, Fredrik Neij, and Carl Lundström) will stand. More than a year ago, the Swedish Court of Appeal decided that the three are guilty of criminal copyright violation offenses, but decreased their prison sentences from the levels ordered at their initial 2009 trial. The Pirate Bay founders were demanded to pay millions of dollars to the music and movie company plaintiffs.
Peter Sunde is sentenced to 8 months in jail, Fredrik Neij received 10 months, and Carl Lundström will get 4 months. All of them were ordered to pay $6.8 million in damages. Meanwhile, a 4th defendant, Gottfrid Svartholm, was absent from the appeal hearings because of medical circumstances. Therefore, he missed the appeal hearing and was sentenced to 1 year in prison.
Lundström's lawyer explained that he was really disappointed that the Supreme Court appeared so uninterested in dissecting and analyzing the legal twists and turns of this high-profile lawsuit. Meanwhile, one of the defendants is going to appeal the case in the European Court of Justice, but experts don’t think this will prevent the sentences from being carried out.
Nevertheless, it doesn’t mean that The Pirate Bay operators will be required to spend up to a year in prison. The matter is that the Swedish justice system implies deducting a year from any prison sentence on cases over 5 years old. So, The Pirate Bay case meets that criteria and the offenders could qualify – it’s all up to the court. Ironically enough, The Pirate Bay is still operating, as if it wasn’t a part of the legal proceedings. It turned out that just a few hours after the Supreme Court decision being made public, the online tracker started redirecting to a .se domain, due to the fears of a possible seizure from American authorities.
So, what do we get in the end? The entertainment industry is unlikely to get any money, The Pirate Bay founders are unlikely to be jailed, and the torrent tracker still runs. It looks like no-one is a winner in this case.
