There can be little doubt that The Pirate Bay is the most infamous torrent site of all time. Its attitude towards copyright and related laws has landed the site and its operators in endless legal trouble for more than a decade, conflict that continues today.
Following the convictions of The Pirate Bay Four – co-founders Gottfrid Svartholm and Fredrik Neij, former site spokesman Peter Sunde, and site financier Carl Lundström – most legal matters involving the site have been connected to local ISP blocking injunctions. Nevertheless, a separate legal process against the men themselves has persisted in Belgium.
Unusually, the case was based in criminal law, with Svartholm, Neij, Sunde and Lundström all standing accused of a range of crimes including criminal copyright infringement and abuse of electronic communications. However, the case itself has always experienced problems.
All four defendants deny having had anything to do with the site since its reported sale to a Seychelles-based company called Reservella in 2006. That has proven problematic, since the period in which the four allegedly committed the crimes detailed in the Belgian case spans September 2011 and November 2013.
Having failed to connect the quartet with the site’s operations during that period, the case has now fallen apart. Yesterday a judge at the Mechelse Court ruled that it could not be proven that the four were involved in the site during the period in question.
Indeed, for at least a year of that period, Svartholm was in jail in Sweden while connecting Lundström to the site a decade after his last involvement (which was purely financial) has always been somewhat ridiculous.
In the end, even the site’s anti-piracy adversaries in the case agreed with the decision.
“Technically speaking, we agree with the court,” said Olivier Maeterlinck, director of the Belgian Entertainment Association (BEA).
