Music Ally

Music industry body IFPI has welcomed today’s Guilty verdict in the trial of The Pirate Bay’s founders and financer, saying its effects will be felt far beyond Sweden.

“The trial of the operators of The Pirate Bay was about defending the rights of creators, confirming the illegality of the service and creating a fair environment for legal music services that respect the rights of the creative community,” says IFPI chairman and CEO John Kennedy.

“Today’s verdict is the right outcome on all three counts. The court has also handed down a strong deterrent sentence that reflects the seriousness of the crimes committed. This is good news for everyone, in Sweden and internationally, who is making a living or a business from creative activity and who needs to know their rights will protected by law.”

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There’s no doubt that the just-concluded (apart from the verdict) trial of The Pirate Bay’s founders is a big, big deal for everyone concerned. With a verdict due in mid-April, both sides of the file-sharing debate are on tenterhooks.

However, the trial was also notable for its sheer newmedianess, particularly with the defendants blogging and Twittering from the court itself. The Pirate Bay’s Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi was clearly born for this kind of ’spectrial’, as his side labelled it.

Having followed his comments on Twitter throughout the trial, here’s our ten favourites (in chronological order):

How the hell did they think this was going to be something else than EPIC FAIL for the prosecution? We’re winning so hard. #spectrial
5:30 AM Feb 16th from web

EPIC WINNING LOL #spectrial
1:24 AM Feb 17th from web

If I have all this money they claim, someone has apparantly stolen it from me #spectrial
12:50 AM Feb 18th from web

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So, the criminal trial of The Pirate Bay is all over bar the verdict – which is currently due on 17 April. Yesterday saw the defence team make its final arguments.

They were the same as those made during the trial – mainly that The Pirate Bay is a legal search engine and that all illegal file-transfers are taking place between users’ PCs, and not on its own servers. TPB co-founder Peter Sunde claimed that a guilty verdict would be “a huge mistake for the future of the Internet”, while defence lawyer Jonas Nilsson said the site’s reputation shouldn’t affect the verdict.

“That someone at The Pirate Bay has a cocky attitude or certain political standpoint is not sufficient to issue a guilty verdict,” he said.