Copyright Law

Entertainment Industry Says Pirate Bay Fine Not Enough

By soulxtc

Says $3.6 million fine ordered by court doesn’t cover the damages it caused them, and also wants court to reconsider charge that the BitTorrent tracker site admins violated Sweden’s Copyright Act rather than merely facilitating the ability of others to do so.

Entertainment industry lawyers are pressing back hard against efforts by the Pirate Bay and others to fight it’s recent conviction for copyright infringement.

As if it already wasn’t bad enough that the judge in the trial, Judge Tomas Norström, is an active member of several pro-copyright groups that lobby for more stringent copyright protection and enforcement laws and that Jim Keyzer, the lead Chief Swedish police investigator in the preliminary investigation against the Pirate Bay, was hired by two of the entertainment industry plaintiffs after the investigation, the entertainment industry is arguing that the damages awarded, 30 million kronor ($3.6 million USD) is to low.

It doesn’t like the fact that

The entertainment filed an appeal with the Svea Court of Appeal May 8th also asking that the judge reconsider the charge of actual copyright infringement that was dismissed.

The entertainment industry had originally asked for 100 million kronor ($13.3 million USD) in damages.

?The District Court is seen to hold that the fact that illegal file sharing in and of itself caused all the plaintiffs significant harm from a variety of different actors is reason to proceed with caution when it comes to estimating compensation for other losses in this case,? writes Monique Wadsted, one of the lawyers, in the appeal. ?The film companies don?t share this view, but rather believe that a sum equivalent to the reasonable compensation for use constitutes an appropriate and reasonable estimate of the damages.?

Though it doesn’t expect to win the second appeal, which is to reinstate the charge of copyright infringement, it wants to “leave all possibilities open and establishment the judgments at all levels.”

This is the latest effort by the entertainment to fight back against the Pirate Bay, which has caused an uproar in Sweden by pointing out how they were denied a “fair trial.” Pirate Party membership has surged since its conviction, and has even led to predictions it could pick up 2 seats in the EU Parliament.

Just yesterday it asked that the site be shutdown immediately, which is odd being the site’s servers aren’t located in Sweden, regardless of pending appeals by the Pirate Bay, and that the site’s admins be barred from speaking about the case until its reached a final verdict in the Swedish court system.

Sadly enough, it’s was also revealed yesterday that the judge scheduled to hear their appeal, Judge Ulrika Ihrfelt, had previously been a member of the Swedish Copyright Association, same as Judge Norstrom and several of the entertainment industry’s lawyers.

Who knew getting a fair trial in Sweden could be so tough?

Luckily for the Pirate Bay and file-sharers around the world however, is that the more the entertainment industry acts like a “bull in a china shop” and tries to stomp out anything that it believes hurts its bottom line, the more it stomps on the sensibilities of those whom may have agreed that it was important to protect it, and who now realize that it’s instead a battle against society and technology itself.

Stay tuned.

jared@zeropaid.com

Full post as published by ZeroPaid on May 20, 2009 (boomark / email).