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Swedish prosecutors are charging owners of The Pirate Bay, a peer-to-peer Web site, with "promoting other people's infringements of copyright laws." Hans Fredrik Neij, Per Svartholm Warg, Peter Kolmisoppi and Carl Lundstroem operate what is reportedly the world's largest BitTorrent tracker, connecting users to music, movies and other content on each others' PCs.
The lawsuit seeks damages in the amount of 1.2 million Kronor, or US$188,383 -- a sum that has been calculated as the site's profits from the illegal trading. The owners have countered that they do not profit from the site, as revenues are reinvested to offset operational costs.
Civil Disobedience?
Not surprisingly, The Pirate Bay has been in industry association crosshairs for some time. What is different about this particular fight is that unlike Kazaa, Grokster and Napster -- other popular P2P Web sites brought down by the law -- The Pirate Bay has done all but wave a red cape in front of authorities.
The Pirate Bay is one of many sites that offer directories of links to P2P file-sharing sessions, in which users directly share files with each other, usually through tools such as BitTorrent or eDonkey, noted Trevor C. Hill, an attorney at Sughrue Mion.
"Although many users argue that not all files shared in this way are copyrighted, The Pirate Bay is at the head of an ideological movement to actually promote copyright infringement as a form of civil disobedience, and to reject the current copyright law as unfair and harmful," Hill told the E-Commerce Times.
"Supporters of The Pirate Bay argue that the site itself does not provide the infringing content, but members have openly stated that they support sharing of copyrighted content, and appear to have profited from advertising revenue while knowingly linking to mostly illegal content," he pointed out.
For this reason, successful prosecution of the Web site has greater import for the industry than the mere cessation of illegal content-trading.
"This case is important, because a take-down would send the message that the promotion of piracy is not a legitimate political movement -- even in Europe -- and that European countries will continue to enforce copyright law," Jeffrey D. Neuburger, a partner with Thelen Reid Brown Raysman & Steiner, told the E-Commerce Times.
This case is also significant because it represents further coordinated international efforts to deal 
with P2P infringement, he said.
Successful Prosecution?
Of course, there is always the possibility that The Pirate Bay will remain standing, despite the fact that copyright holders have been making significant progress internationally, racking up wins in Asia and much of Europe.
"There are still countries that continue to be problematic," Neuburger said.
In Sweden, specifically, some political parties appear sympathetic to the views espoused by The Pirate Bay. Resolutions have been introduced in an effort to legalize file-sharing and prohibit digital rights management, for example.
"Even if The Pirate Bay is taken down, many other sites already offer the same functionality, and they can spring up at any time. The core conflict between present copyright law and illegal file-sharing will not be resolved through this sort of litigation," Hill observed.
"In similar cases, the revenue that a site earns due to the draw of illegal content has often been key to their loss in court, and will likely be a key factor here as well," he concluded.
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