The Pirate Bay: 'We'll Keep Operating Even If We Lose Copyright Case'

New blog posting on the site says that no matter what "We've been here for years and will be here many more."

Today Swedish public prosecutor Hakan Roswall formally charged four people responsible for operating The Pirate Bay, the world's largest BitTorrent tracker site, for accessory and conspiracy to break that country's copyright law, which could lead to fines or up to 2 years in prison.

Hans Fredrik Neij, Per Svartholm Warg, Peter Kolmisoppi and Carl Lundström, are accused of "promoting other people's infringements of copyright laws."

Charges include some 33 cases of alleged copyright infringement: 20 albums, 9 movies, and 4 computer games. Considering the tens, if not hundreds, of millions of different selections of each of these made available vis a vis torrent trackers on the site over the years I'd give anything to see what specific content the Swedish prosecutor decided to single out in the case.

Roswall is seeking damages of 1.2 million kronor ($185,000 USD ) and wants the confiscation of the 4 the suspects' computers.

Evidence gathered by the prosecutor includes information provided by the suspects as well as interviews with staff at the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) and Sweden's Anti-Piracy Agency (APB), a non-governmental organization representing the entertainment industry.

One of the arguments in the case against them seems to be the fact that they sell advertising on the site.

"The company’s claimed business model is based on selling advertising to brands that wanted to reach its 10 million users in more than 30 countries, while paying nothing for the content that it uses to attract those users," reads a statement by the IFPI.

John Kennedy, chairman and chief executive of IFPI, which represents the recording industry worldwide, says: “The operators of The Pirate Bay have always been interested in making money, not music. The Pirate Bay has managed to make Sweden, normally the most law abiding of EU countries, look like a piracy haven with intellectual property laws on a par with Russia.

“We welcome the filing of these charges in Sweden. The evidence presented by the prosecutor shows that The Pirate Bay, which claims to be motivated by idealism, is really motivated by making money.”

Ludvig Werner, chairman of IFPI Sweden, says: “The Pirate Bay operation has caused massive financial damage to rightsholders. The profiteers behind The Pirate Bay have no interest in free speech, and they are not running The Pirate Bay because they love music and films. They are totally mercenary and are driven by the desire for personal wealth.”

But, as several people have pointed out, no matter the outcome of the case The Pirate Bay site will continue to exist.

"The Pirate Bay is not going to be down for a single minute. The Pirate Bay is now established in a number of countries, so there's no one place in which to push the off button," said Magnus Eriksson, a spokesman for pro-file sharing lobby group Piratbyrån.

As for them actually being convicted, he said that "It's not very likely."

"In the course of the investigation there have been attempts to bring up various things that The Pirate Bay has supposedly been guilty of. Before it was financial crime, and now this accessory thing seems to be the last straw for the prosecutor," Eriksson pointed out.

To those that think piracy hurts music artists and filmmakers he says to them that "Artists have a lot of ways to earn money, and in that respect they are actually helped by file-sharing."



"These charges will not help artists. Instead they are part of a wider campaign from the anti-piracy side to stop people downloading," said Eriksson.

For its part a blog post on The Pirate Bay comments on the charges and repeats the same message about how no matter what the trial's outcome The Pirate Bay will live on.

"In case we lose the pending trial (yeah right) there will still not be any changes to the site," it reads. "The Pirate Bay will keep operating just as always. We've been here for years and we will be here many more."

After having scattered their servers throughout several countries following the raid back in 2006, my bet is it will indeed continue to operate no matter the verdict in the case.