Some charges dropped in Pirate Bay case
Content Agenda
By Paul Sweeting -- Video Business, 2/17/2009 6:01:00 AM
Prosecutors stunned the court in the Pirate Bay case in Sweden Tuesday by dropping half the charges against the four defendants just two days into the trial, according to Swedish media reports.English-language Web site The Local reports that prosecutor Håkan Roswall dropped all charges related to "complicity in the production of copyrighted material," against the defendants, Hans Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Peter Sunde and Carl Lundström.
The remaining charges concern >"complicity to make (copyrighted material) available," according to The Local report.
According to Radio Sweden's English-language Web site, SR International, the surprise move by prosecutors came after defense attorneys showed that none of the .torrent files referred to in the charges could be definitively linked to Pirate Bay's tracker.
"This is a misunderstanding over the technology from the prosecutor's side. None of the downloads presented in the court can be proved to have been made from The Pirate Bay's tracker," Fredrik Neij, one of the four defendants told The Local.
It was unclear from the Swedish reports whether dropping some of the charges would also reduce the potential penalties facing the defendants.
The defendants were facing up to two years in prison as well as $14 million in damages sought by the studios and record companies.
UPDATE: The International Federation of Phonographic Industry (IFPI) issued a statement Tuesday downplaying the significance of the dropped charges.
According to Peter Danowsky, legal counsel for the music companies in the case:
It’s a largely technical issue that changes nothing in terms of our compensation claims and has no bearing whatsoever on the main case against The Pirate Bay. In fact it simplifies the prosecutor’s case by allowing him to focus on the main issue, which is the making available of copyrighted works.
