Sweden jails Pirate Bay four over internet file-sharing

In a landmark case on the rights and wrongs of downloading material from the internet, four of the Swedish men behind the Pirate Bay, the world's highest-profile file-sharing website, have been sentenced to a year in jail.

A Stockholm court has ruled that Frederik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Carl Lundstrom and Peter Sunde were guilty of breach of copyright. Along with their prison sentence, they have been ordered to pay £2.4m in damages to firms including Warner Bros, Sony Music Entertainment, EMI, and Columbia Pictures.

Responding to the jury's decision, Sunde wrote that, "Nothing will happen to TPB (the Pirate Bay), this is just theatre for the media."

John Kennedy, chairman of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, thought the ruling was a positive step. "These guys weren't making a principled stand, they were out to line their own pockets. There was nothing meritorious about their behaviour, it was reprehensible," he said. "There has been a perception that piracy is OK and that the music industry should just have to accept it. This verdict will change that."

WHAT THEY'RE SAYING

Darren Waters, BBC: Certainly, the conviction of The Pirate Bay founders is the biggest scalp since Napster was brought to heel in July 2001. Eight years ago Napster was successfully pursued and shut down but it is very unlikely that the same thing will happen to The Pirate Bay. It is almost certain that The Pirate Bay will keep on sailing, long after today's court judgement. The fact the Pirate Bay's servers are outside Sweden and the fact it has enough support to keep it afloat financially will ensure it remains one of the most popular sources of copyright material on the internet. And given that The Pirate Bay's founders will appeal, the authorities in Sweden have no power to force the four men to switch off the power at the data centre.

Jack Schofield, the Guardian: Following the verdict, it will be interesting to see whether the organisations behind the case - the International Federation of the Phonographic Industries and the Motion Picture Association of America - will now try to get Google and YouTube into court. There is no shortage of links to copyright information on Google. There is a difference, in that linking to torrent files is a byproduct of Google's ubiquitous search strategy, rather than its purpose. Still, it would be interesting to see Larry Page, Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt jailed as well.