Today, members of the prosecution and representatives for the music and movie industries presented their closing statements to the court. Prosecutor Håkan Roswall stepped up first, followed by Peter Danowsky of the IFPI, Henrik Pontén from Antipiratbyrån and Monique Wadsted for the movie companies.
Håkan Roswall
Roswall began his statement by saying that Swedish law covers the alleged offenses because The Pirate Bay’s servers were located in Sweden at the time. He also said that people accessing TPB from other countries were breaking the law in Sweden too. As for TPB being classed as a ‘service provider’ to get ‘common carrier’ status, Roswall doesn’t believe that it should and therefore there is no need to seek the opinion of the European Court of Justice on the matter. The defense disagreed.
Roswall said he is not asking the court to rule on the legality of BitTorrent itself, but rather what the defendants did with the technology. Turning to the TPB’s tracker, Roswall said that it was a vital part of the infrastructure. He said that the Supreme Court already previously ruled that someone running a BBS (Bulletin Board) could be found guilty of assisting copyright infringement and that TPB should be viewed in this light.
Turning to the defendants, Roswall said that Fredrik Neij and Gottfrid Svartholm already admitted their part in the running of TPB. He said Fredrik’s role was technical and he also registered the TPB domain name, while Gottfrid also handled technical issues including the programming of the tracker and some billing duties.
Roswall doesn’t believe Peter Sunde’s line that he is just the site’s spokesman. He said that Peter is deeply involved with the site, referring to claims Peter configured load balancers for the site and noted that advertiser Daniel Oded communicated with Fredrik and Gottfrid through Peter. Roswall said that this was a sign Peter was co-ordinating some operations. He also said that Peter helped to design and develop the site and had contact with some advertisers.
Roswall referred to Carl Lundström as the financier of the site and pointed to various emails where Lundström communicated with the others about the legality of the operation. While the defense said this was a good thing – that the site wanted to remain within the law – the prosecution are using this to say that Lundström was behind everything. Roswall also said that the claims that Fredrik worked for free in order to get services for TPB from Lundström was simply made up to help their case.
Next the site’s finances were discussed by Roswall. Damages are easy to calculate he said, by simply referring to the site’s own download statistics. In an attempt to quantify how much money TPB made, he used his own best guesses based on how much he thought the ads on the site cost multiplied by an estimated number of impressions. He came to the conclusion that TPB turned over some 11.6 million kroner. After a few more calculations, Roswall declared the site made at least 5 million kroner, and probably more like 10 million, to which Gottfrid responded, “Where is my ten million, please, I want it, where is it?”
Earlier in the case, the defense asked why the Prosecution did not try to track down the actual infringers/seeders of the works mentioned in the trial. Roswall notes that this was impossible since their identities were protected under Swedish law. However, now that IPRED has been passed, tracking people will be much easier in future.
Roswall called for a confiscation of TPB hardware, noting that the chances of the site infringing again are high. He based this on the fact that TPB was up and running just 3 days after the original police raids. He finished by demanding jail for all four defendants.
“I believe that the correct punishment is a year in prison and that is what I ask from the judge in this case,” he said.
Gottfrid Swartholm comments
During one of the cigarette breaks, defendant Gottfrid Swartholm didn’t seem to be impressed by the prosecutor’s claim. “I’m surprised that the crazy old man didn’t exaggerate more! I’d counted on him demanding two years in prison but it only was one!”
Peter Danowsky for the IFPI
Next up to make his closing statement was Peter Danowsky of the IFPI. He began by saying that the trial is not about file-sharing technology, but about how it is used to infringe copyright. The goal is to find out whether or not the defendants have broken the law, and if so, what their punishment should be. Danowsky said he knew that there are other sites that engage in similar practices, but said that these are irrelevant to this case.
Comparing TPB to Google doesn’t make any sense according to Danowsky, because Google is working with the rights holders to prevent piracy. TPB on the other hand constantly mocks rights holders. Danowsky further added that the number of [torrent files linking to] copyrighted works on TPB is much greater than the prosecutor decided to bring in as evidence.
Danowsky went on to state that TPB offers a service that is very similar to that offered by legal online music stores. However, TPB doesn’t charge for the music and keeps the advertizing revenue to themselves instead of compensating the rights holders. Neij, Svartholm, Sunde and Lundström have contributed to copyright infringement according to Danowsky, and the record labels have to be compensated for the losses they have caused – in sales and in goodwill.
The testimony of media Professor Roger Wallis, who stated that the entertainment industry doesn’t suffer any losses from piracy, is debatable Danowsky said. Instead, he puts more trust in the record company executives he consulted in the past. “Wallis’ 30 percent guest professorship at KTH provides about as much credibility as something on par with a newspaper editorial,” said Danowsky.
He further said that physical piracy is exactly the same as illicit file-sharing according to the music industry lawyer, it is simply utilizing newer technology.
Danowsky went on to note that TPB was founded by the Pirate Bureau, an organization that has only one purpose: “Not to respect copyright.” Next, Danowsky stressed that TPB is a commercial operation and he mentioned some previous court rulings related to file sharing, including the Finreactor case. After that the court took a lunch break.
Henrik Pontén from Antipiratbyrån
After the lunch break Henrik Pontén makes his final plea, which is short compared to Danowsky. Pontén claims that the defendants clearly knew that what they were doing was illegal, and that they could have expected prison sentences. He further said that TPB clearly operates as a business, making money from advertising revenue.
The damages claim should cover the loss in revenue for the entertainment industry, as well as the damage in goodwill that the site has caused, Pontén noted. He continued saying that imprisonment is needed in order to stop TPB from operating, and said that a conviction will deter others from infringing copyright.
The police can’t possibly go after all TPB’s users and the defendants are therefore responsible for the whole damage claim, he argued, adding that they are free to claim money from their users. “It’s easy to come in contact with the users by leaving a message in the comments field,” Pontén said ending his closing statement.
Monique Wadsted for the movie companies
Finally Monique Wadsted took the stand for her closing comments. She said that the defendants are not as innocent as they claim to be and said that what they do is even worse than individuals who share copyrighted material. The made money off their file sharing platform while ignoring the copyright holders, she said.
Wadsted also mentioned other filesharing related cases in Scandinavia, and according to prosecutor Håkan Roswall these cases are relevant because the copyright laws in the different countries are very similar.
Neij, Sunde and Swartholm play different roles, Wadsted acknowledged, but they were all aware that there were [links to] copyrighted material hosted on the site. Peter Sunde, who claims to be the spokesperson, nothing more, has intended to sell to statistics from The Pirate bay, and it is clear that he knew about the copyrighted material since he he proposed to introduce “TV shows” category, Wadsted added.
Wadsted called for a “very significant” prison sentence because the dependents were aware of their criminal acts and made money from it. She also feared that they will simply continue to operate the site if they’re not punished properly.
“They have made more than 10 million crowns in revenue during one year [during the period the charges relate to]. And they continue to run the operation in spite of being convicted in other countries. Furthermore, they spit on the rights holders and tell them to go to hell,” Wadsted said.
They should have a tangible prison sentence. There is no reason to make any difference between them in the sentence. They are all guilty of severe infringements,” she added. Wadsted ended by rationalizing the damages they request. She said that the entertainment industry representatives are not “bloodthirsty beasts” but that the compensation they ask for is only fair.
The trial will continue tomorrow with the closing statements of the defense.
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