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THE CO-FOUNDER of file-sharing website The Pirate Bay, Peter Sunde, was arrested in southern Sweden after two years on the run, Swedish police said today.
“He was arrested and has to serve an eight-month prison sentence,” police spokeswoman Carolina Ekeus told AFP.
The 35-year-old was arrested yesterday in the southern region of Skaane and must now serve the sentence for violating copyright laws he received from an appeal court in Sweden in 2010.
Sunde and three other men linked to The Pirate Bay – Carl Lundstroem, Fredrik Neij and Gottfrid Svartholm Warg – were handed prison sentences ranging from four to ten months and a joint fine of 46 million kronor (5.36 million euros) in damages to the music and movie industry.
Sunde had been wanted by Interpol for almost two years and was reportedly hiding out in Germany.
The Swedish Supreme Court rejected an appeal from him in late May.
“Peter fought for file-sharing and in ten years, I believe it will go without saying that file-sharing for one’s own needs will be permitted,” Sunde’s lawyer Peter Althin told Swedish news agency TT.
“I still think the judgement was wrong.”
Fellow co-founder Warg was arrested in Cambodia in 2012 at Sweden’s request and handed over last year to Denmark, where he was wanted for alleged hacking charges.
Neij is believed to be hiding out in Laos.
The key financier of the site, Carl Lundstroem, served out his sentence with electronic tagging and now lives in Switzerland.
During their trial in 2009, the Pirate Bay defendants claimed that file-sharing services can be used both legally and illegally, insisting their activities were within the law.
In 2012, Neij and Lundstroem failed in their bid to appeal their sentences to Sweden’s Supreme Court.
According to Amazon-owned company Alexa, The Pirate Bay is one of the top 100 most-visited sites in the world, a position it already held in 2010.
It claims to have more than 6.6 million registered users and over 65 million peers uploading and downloading files through the site, compared to 23 million in 2010, defying the idea that legal prosecution could put an end to file-sharing.
As early as 2006, Swedish police tried to shut down the site, raiding the company’s offices several times and seizing nearly 200 servers in 2006. But the site resurfaced a few days later with servers spread over different countries.
Founded in 2003, The Pirate Bay allows users to skirt copyright fees and share music, films and other files using bit torrent technology, or peer-to-peer links offered on the site.
None of the material can thus be found on The Pirate Bay server itself.
The famous file-sharing service still exists and is now registered in the Seychelles, according to a statement on its website.
- © AFP 2014.
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Putting a man in prison over file shareing disgraceful the laws an ass!
Especially when criminals who actually hurt people get a smack on the wrist. They say theres no such thing as victimless crime but file sharing comes very close to it, only victims are the pockets of billion dollar corporations.
Perhaps, unless of course you spent 18 hours a day for 6 months working on and recording an album and borrowed heavily to fund it – only for it to be stolen afterwards on a massive scale.
My sympathy lies with the smaller artist/musicia. The one that doesn’t gig in particular. That’s where it gets complicated.
Some people can’t or won’t play live, yet record their own music and sell it to make a living. With the advent of torrent sites and file sharing in particular – they can no longer do that. Therefore we lose a lot of talented people. That’s not right.
The artist get a very small sum anyway compared to what the producers and distributors get. Its not really stealing anyway if its file sharing, if I but the latest Miley ‘skinny hole’ Cirus album and give it away to one of my friends then surely its not a crime, it would mine to give wouldnt it. I know the scale is different in terms of the online sharing but surely the principle is the same.
I’m talking about the new wave of people that record their own work and bypass the producer and distributor altogether.
As we speak I’m in a studio, passing the time. Right now my laptop is working away in the background transferring files – other people’s work to external hard drives.
Let me give you an example of what I’m getting at. A local songwriter nearby (he’s well known) wrote a Christmas carol and decided to get the local choir and conductor involved. He slaved over this song Jamesy. He spent months and months writing out the melody, lyrics, and then harmony and orchestration. This is a major job in itself, but it’s huge for one person to do all that themselves – and hold down a day job.
He decided any proceeds should go to a local charity he had in mind. As he’s a good friend, I also worked on it pro bono. It was selling well in the local music shops and garnering some interest too, lyric fm and other stations were playing it, and thing were picking up.
Soon after, it appeared on a torrent site and that was the end of that.
It didn’t cost me anything financially except my own time, but it cost other people that invested in cd duplication and printing etc – and of course, the charity.
If it’s an independent artist people will buy it if it’s worth it. If the track failed when released, maybe consider other reasons why people wouldn’t buy it rather than fall back to the filesharing excuse.
Lars Ulrich must be delighted.
I spent 3 years working on an album. We never preformed live. Because of free downloading we got on to radio play, loads of reviews and loads of fans. Asking someone for a few euro for an album that takes a massive amount of work and time doesn’t make sense to me. People download it all the time and email us and say hi and well done. And more importantly the album makes sense to them, they identify with it.
Why should a record label decide what people should listen to. Sure, look at the state of Irish music today – clearly labels have no taste.
Lisa hannigan hiding sweets and buttons in her pockets – her albums like a weather’s original add. Shocking stuff.
Well, as Bob Dylan said, – to paraphrase – “why should people pay for music thee days, there ain’t nothing out there worth buying anyway”. He’s dead right.
However. The only way for musicians to make a living these days is by playing live very often. Pubs, clubs, stadiums – it’s all the same really.
But radio play means nothing babs. If you can’t play live to capitalise on it, then radio play means nothing.
@ Niall O
I feel your pain brother… The thing that makes me sick to my stomach is the fact that musicians are working harder for less [spotify is a prime example] 96 million plays for $15,000.
It’s obscene!
In comparison to this, footballers for example, where more than a few are bad role models for our kids are also getting obscene deals. Except on the opposite end of the scale.
For what contribution to society, I’d love to know.
@Barry – that’s not true. Many bands go and record an album so they can sell it at gigs. The profit is then reinvested in new speakers, mixers. instruments etc.
If a band don’t have a contract and they play in a busty spot and sell say, 40 cd’s. That’s an extra e300 on the night minus cd recording and duplication costs (original investment) leaves them with about e190 extra on the night .
They may only get paid e600 between 4 of them by the venue. That’s an extra e300that then goes to pay for the band van, diesel, perhaps a a new album down the line. It’s reinvested.
Get real lad. That’s how business and reality works. If you think bands are any different you’re an idiot.
However, if pirate bay have that same album on their site – then the band loses money via THEFT of their work.
I’ve bought plenty of CD’s at gigs, and then ripped them the next day. I’ve no idea where those CD’s are now though! But I went to the gigs because either I’d heard the band on YouTube or was given a copies by friends. If it wasn’t for “copyright infringement” they wouldn’t have made any money at all from me!
Im afraid you’ve missed my point. I’m not looking to “capitalise” on music – the very notion in this day and age is completely foolish. We were looking to make high quality music and give it up for free; to spread ideas and share our work.
I know you have to gig to make money and I believe thats the way it should be. We chose not to. The radio play was class because we were dealing with heavy issues and people wanted to listen. It was an passionate experiment and it worked. You sound like maybe you are in it for all the wrong reasons…
In it for the wrong reasons???
To do what you love most and make a living out of it?? Is that the ‘wrong reason’.
Don’t be silly. I’m one of the lucky ones. I get to make a living (just about) by doing what I love most. Do you?
I don’t think it matters what kind of money I make. But you do the maths sure – if a band we give away their albums for free and don’t gig, how many oranges do they have left?? … hmmmm.
By the way, you are so adamant about it being THEFT from you or those you work with but further down this thread you get so excited about how you do it to other bands. Only idiot here is you mate.
sorry i mean:
I don’t think it matters what kind of money I make. But you do the maths sure – if a band gives away their albums for free and don’t gig, how many oranges do they have left?? … hmmmm.
Actually Barry – I’ve made the distinction over and over again – mate – between people that are trying to carve out a living and major artists. You, though, seem intent on being an idiot. It’s home territory for you – I get that.
Deal with the points I made.
@Babs
“I don’t think it matters what kind of money I make”
You didn’t make any money. It was a vanity press project. Get over it,
It may not matter to you whether you made money or not. However, I have mouths to feed and bills to pay.
I didn’t do it for the money because I knew going in to the project that we weren’t going to make any money.
Also not vanity press no – we kept ourselves anonymous! You’re quite aggressive in your responses.
Ah ok. I see. It’s only theft if the person you’re stealing from isn’t rich. So you agree with a thought that someone who robs a struggling shop should get reprimanded while a bank robber should get away scot free? After all, the bank can afford it…
If pirating will deter the likes of Ronan Keating and Louis Walsh from entering the music “business”. Then thats a good thing. Real artists and musicians will do it because they love it, and people will appreciate them for it.
I’m not aggressive babs – and if I come across as so to you then I apologise. I certainly didn’t mean to be with you.
Barry, on the other hand – is a total plonker.
babs, if you knew you weren’t going to make any money and you were going to stay anonymous – then is it too much of a stretch to say you did it for fun and a hobby then? Nothing wrong with that at all if so, or of not.
On the other hand, it’s far more serious for me personally.
@Ronan – YES!!
Niall the business model you are trying to make money with is dead. Move with the times or go under.
it was totally serious for us, it was not a hobby. It was a massive amount of work. Anyway best of luck with your music.
But it isn’t, Jimbo. The way to make money is by playing live and selling cds at the gig. The key, is selling to an older audience, and not a younger one.
Are you actually going to and try to defend your position or just act like a child and call names? I can see its a touchy subject for you but come on, you must be able to see how badly you appear when you gleefully boast of pirating music from bands yet freak out about it being done to you.
Yes that is the way to make money in music, so why do you care about pirating? It has no impact on your bottom line. In fact pirating is more likely to increase your revenue as it allows more people to access your music, if its any good then people will go to your gigs.
If the fraction of money lost is enough to break your will – then I don’t want to hear your songs, watch your films or play your games. You lack the passion to create anything worth supporting.
If you want to make a living selling digital media – then you just have to be better.
Pirating is a hoop to be jumped through for media creators – it just serves to increase the quality of media over time, by getting rid of some of the financially centric “artists”.
If someone wants to pirate an artists work, then they don’t really care that much for the artists living situation.
If money is just plain required for the artists work, then donations are the modern answer. Asking people to be patrons of their work makes sense and it’s better than selling product for a living, in terms of psychology.
Artists can understand how much people enjoy their material and how much they are appreciated – as opposed to feeling removed from their fans, due to the cold capitalistic method of selling large numbers of product to simple consumers.
Thanks to The Pirate Bay, I’ve now stolen more of The Beatles’ music than Noel Gallagher.
Lol – me too. There’s a cracking Russian music torrent site where all of the torrents to the music (mainly 40′s, 50′s, and 60′s) are in flac format – original cd quality, not that mp3 nonsense. It’s superb, it’s like a music collectors dream.
Jeez Niall. Hypocrite much?
When you are old and the younger generations make fun of you, remind them that your generation had complete access to every piece of information and media, because it will surely end in the next decade or 2.
Not if we have anything to say about it
Most Hackers know more about technology than those writing encryption and those trying to stop it, they will never stop it!
It doesn’t hurt the smaller band as their stuff is usually put on YouTube free to see and play for publicity reasons-Artists make their huge invomes from playing on tour and advertising deals-I don’t see any big artists living in tin shacks!
Small musical artists have the tax free scenario the same as other artists in Ireland!
A lot of money can be made tax free by small artists and some do exceptionally well financially! !
I saw “We are legion” recently. It was awesome. Keep fighting the good fight.
This came into my head reading anonymous’s comment http://youtu.be/pVY1-v97Mic
@sargon. Check out afk too,it’s about these guys. They’ll never shut us down.
@sargon
And will we have learnt anything from having such access to such information at that time?
Most likely not!
Thank god this dangerous criminal in behind bars. He should have gone into an honest precession like banking.
Why are pirates called pirates?
Because they arrggghh!
And yet not one Banker or corrupt politician has gone to jail for destroying our economy from pure greed.
Seems like sharing a few songs on piratebay is much more important.
Can never beat the thrill of going to a record store and looking for and finding your favourite band on disc or vinyl. That little jump ya did when ya find something you had been looking for. For ages.
You my friend are what’s called a fossil. With way to much time on your hands.
I can look up everything I want online and either download it or order and get it delivered in a fraction of the time you waste in the store.
Life’s short and worlds moving fast my man…….>>>>
If you consider that time spent in record stores is ‘wasted’ time then you can’t consider yourself a true fan of music surely. I am not saying I have never downloaded music. Of course I have. And plenty of it believe me. Part of the buzz about buying music was getting the complete package: the artwork, the sleeve, the lyrics and/or photos, and having the actual thing in your hand. Only then can you claim it is actually YOURS!!!
yea you know i used to love that thrill too but now its exploited materliasm full on. i recall in the mid-90s finding vinyl in bargain bins, nobody wanted them anymore and vinyl was cheap, often a release would be cd only and these were full whack £15-£20. Now we see the greed turn around with even vinyl eps at €17! colours, swirls, all sorts for anything between €25-€30, fancy this and that and the cd has reversed into the bargain bin!!!
Its too much materialism and pricey. I dont blame the artists but… some of these artists especially newcomers seem to have a hard time understanding that photographers and designers of their posters and packaging with rights too, dont work for free but are the first to throw a tantrum when they see their music rights given away for free. Welcome to the same side of the fence. Its a tought old world for all artists but please don’t act the hypocrite.
Can’t wait to get my pirate DVD copy of this when they make it into a film….
The best site on the web.
On the one hand I love, and on the other hand I curse torrent sites, They’ve saved and cost me a lot of money over the years, as some of my own work 7 or 8 years ago was put up and leeched.
The biggest kick I get from torrents is being able to have a song pop into my head I hadn’t heard in years, and a short few minutes later being able to kick back and listen to it. That, to me, is heaven.
Hypocrite
Make your mind up Niall O!
“You may stop me…. But you can’t stop us all”. “signal can’t be stopped”.
The irony of him being arrested on a Sunday!
I need to get my computer wiped Everytime I log onto pirate bay,download more viruses than anything
Malware can be embedded into any type of file, but the people who get virii, are usually people who pirate cracked software and games with cracked executables
Maybe try tor, and why are you not reading the comments ? Why are you not scanning the torrent before hand ? And if you want access to non mainstream free to download and share music, visit us for a wealth of nu music .
I use kickass torrents much better site
Switch to mac Chris.
Interesting documentary on them. They were rightly screwed over.
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