Intellectual Property Law

Special correspondent Oscar Swartz reports.

STOCKHOLM ? Pirate Bay co-founder Gottfrid Svartholm Warg took the witness stand Thursday afternoon, defiantly defending the BitTorrent tracking site he helped found five years ago.

He and the three other defendants are accused by Swedish authorities and the entertainment industry of facilitating copyright infringement by operating the world's most notorious BitTorrent tracker. Warg testified that no copyrighted works touch its servers that are scattered worldwide.

"The site is a blank space, created by its users. It is a technical service where users can communicate the material they want to communicate," the defendant, who goes by the moniker "anakata," said on the fourth day of trial.

He testified that the growth in popularity of the site went beyond what could be supported by donations and use of personal resources. Selling ads for the site, he said, made it possible to keep pace with that growth ? now estimated at 22 million users.

Monique Danowsky, a Motion Picture Association lawyer, asked of him: "But why did you want to meet that demand? Why not just shut down instead?"

The defendant replied: "Because it is technically interesting. The site is about uploading torrent files."

Warg also testified about how he had to write code, because existing software simply could not handle the site's enormous traffic.

"I am particularly skilled in writing optimized code," he confessed when a lawyer wondered if he agreed that he was a "computer genius."

While on the stand, he was also asked about his habit of publicly ridiculing copyright owners who complained by sending Pirate Bay takedown notices.

"They still don't understand that they have to write to the persons who share the material, not us," he testified.

Earlier in the day, defendant Fred Neij took the stand, leaving a Swedish prosecutor baffled over who is in charge of the BitTorrent site.

Also charged are Peter Sunde and Carl Lundström.

Prosecutor Hakan Roswall has summarized the charges as "promoting other people's infringements of copyright laws."

Photo courtesy of Emil Oldenberg

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