Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

News for nerds, stuff that matters

Slashdot Log In

Log In

Create Account  |  Retrieve Password

Pirate Bay Trial Ends In Jail Sentences

Posted by timothy on Fri Apr 17, 2009 06:10 AM
from the even-non-commercial-use dept.
myvirtualid writes "The Globe and Mail reports that the Pirate Bay defendants were each sentenced Friday to one year in jail. According to the article, 'Judge Tomas Norstrom told reporters that the court took into account that the site was "commercially driven" when it made the ruling. The defendants have denied any commercial motives behind the site.' The defendants said before the verdict that they would appeal if they were found guilty. 'Stay calm — Nothing will happen to TPB, us personally or file sharing whatsoever. This is just a theater for the media,' Mr. Sunde said Friday in a posting on social networking site Twitter." Update: 04/17 12:16 GMT by T : Several updates, below.
Thanks to all the readers who have sent in various other links related to this news, including the dozens who noted the BBC's version of the story. Reader a_n_d_e_r_s submits a link to the verdict itself (large PDF, in Swedish), and writes "The sentencing is not unexpected (max verdict is 2 years in prison) and the damages is about 1/3 of what the companies that has requested damages had requested. Notice that no punitive damages is applicable." Reader yendor writes, "More details are coming and The Pirate Bay will be holding a press conference at 15.00 CET.

HakanRoswallGoatse points out that besides the jail term imposed (and barring the results of planned appeals), "the four men will have to pay $3,6 million in compensation for lost sales to 17 media companies. Among them are: Warner Bros. Entertainment, MGM Pictures, Columbia Pictures Industries, Twentieth Century Fox Film, Sony BMG, Universal, EMI, Blizzard Entertainment, Sierra Entertainment, and Activision."
+ -
story

Related Stories

[+] Politics: Swedish Pirate Party Gains 3000 Members In 7 Hours 410 comments
An anonymous reader writes "Due to outrage over the verdict in The Pirate Bay trial, the Swedish Pirate Party has gained 3000 members in less than 7 hours. It is now bigger than 3 of the 7 parties represented in the Swedish parliament. 'Ruling means that our political work must now be stepped up. We want to ensure that the Pirate Bay activities — to link people and information — is clearly lawful. And we want to do it for all people in Sweden, Europe and the world, continues Rick Falk Vinge. We want it to be open for ordinary people to disseminate and receive information without fear of imprisonment or astronomical damages.'"
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
 Full
 Abbreviated
 Hidden
More
Loading... please wait.
  • Theatre? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MosesJones (55544) on Friday April 17 2009, @06:16AM (#27609313) Homepage

    Are they getting a bit delusional? Calling it theatre after being sent to prison for a year doesn't sound like theatre it sounds like hard time and the $2.4m fine doesn't look too much like theatre.

    Whether you agree or not with the judgement its very hard to describe imprisonment and multi-million dollar fines as theatre for the media. I worry that they've drunk a little too much of the Kool-Aid.

    • Re:Theatre? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by dedioste (797427) on Friday April 17 2009, @06:26AM (#27609433) Homepage

      Ok, everybody was dreaming thet they were going to be considered "innocent" and such.
      But i personally see this outcome as a *big* win.
      If the so colled four "bosses" of the Internet file sharing, accused by the industry of Billion dollars of losses and working as a team, can get away with first verdict of a year in jail and a fine of 750k $ each, this means that the court perfectly recognized the extreme differences between the Industry concept of damages due to not buying the records and the real thing ("Not every downloaded copy is a copy non sold")

      From this verdict, we should think that a single individual, with a normal downloading activity, will be never hold responsible for any damage to the music/video industry.

  • Disgraceful (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Crookdotter (1297179) on Friday April 17 2009, @06:17AM (#27609327)
    but expected. A good question is - will this stop anyone from filesharing at all?
  • by arkhan_jg (618674) on Friday April 17 2009, @06:18AM (#27609345)

    Frederik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Carl Lundstrom and Peter Sunde were sentenced to a year in jail each. They were also ordered to pay 30m kronor total ($3.6m) in damages. The damages were awarded to a number of entertainment companies, including Warner Bros, Sony Music Entertainment, EMI, and Columbia Pictures. The news was broken early by Peter Sunde aka brokep [twitter.com] via twitter, from a "trustworthy source".

    A round-up of the arguments in court has already been discussed [slashdot.org] on slashdot, and the BBC has some thoughts [bbc.co.uk] on what happens next.

    The site itself is on servers outside Sweden, and has sufficient funds to remain operational for some time. In combination with the appeal against the verdict already pledged by the men, the site itself should remain operational for now.

  • by VShael (62735) on Friday April 17 2009, @06:19AM (#27609361)

    Search in google "filetype:torrent Wolverine" and see what it gets you.

    From the article, the guys don't seem worried. Appeals are forthcoming.

  • Google (Score:5, Funny)

    by Thanshin (1188877) on Friday April 17 2009, @06:20AM (#27609365)

    Damn! Now all TPB users will have to use Google to find their torrents.

    And then Google will fall too and...

  • Snrk... (Score:5, Funny)

    by 800DeadCCs (996359) on Friday April 17 2009, @06:21AM (#27609383)

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8003799.stm [bbc.co.uk]

    Laughed hard at this:
    "Speaking to the BBC, the chairman of industry body the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) John Kennedy said the verdict sent out a clear message.
    "These guys weren't making a principled stand, they were out to line their own pockets."

    Oh yeah, and he isn't?

  • by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 17 2009, @06:22AM (#27609391)

    So, let's say I run a website on which users could provide a link [theglobeandmail.com] to copyrighted material [theglobeandmail.com], and then a user goes ahead and copies that material in a way that violates that copyright. Furthermore, I make it easy for users to search for those links or associated information describing them, and I make some money from the site by having advertisements on it. At that point I could be charged and face potential jail time?

    Wow. Will there be any websites hosted in Sweden after this?

  • by noddyxoi (1001532) on Friday April 17 2009, @06:22AM (#27609401)
    Anybody wanting to start a petition to the european parliement to revert the decision/(make linking legal) ?

    http://www.europarl.europa.eu/parliament/public/staticDisplay.do?id=49 [europa.eu]

    "One of the fundamental rights of European citizens: Any citizen, acting individually or jointly with others, may at any time exercise his right of petition to the European Parliament under Article 194 of the EC Treaty."
  • by Xest (935314) on Friday April 17 2009, @06:25AM (#27609417)

    During the trial it was pretty clear the prosecution had no idea about what they were actually accusing the defendants of because they simply didn't understand the technology. Effectively throughout the trial they were unable to prove their case at all. What I'm interested to know is why - despite the prosecution failing to really prove their case, only to speculate on various things - this decision was reached.

    In a way I kind of expected them to lose before the trial began because I presumed big media had spent the time and effort to find countless valid legal arguments, evidence and technicalities to get them on, but once the trial started it seemed much less likely as the prosecution was clueless and provided neither of these three things which is again why I'm baffled about the outcome. The decision doesn't appear to have been made based upon the court case at all hence why I'm interested to know if there is any further information from the court to explain how they came to this conclusion based on the court case.

    I think I know what the answer probably is, that it really was about political pressure or bribery, but I'd like to give Swedish courts the benefit of the doubt first and see the reasoning behind the decision. Does the Swedish legal system make this sort of thing available?

  • commercially driven (Score:5, Interesting)

    by roman_mir (125474) on Friday April 17 2009, @06:28AM (#27609461) Homepage

    You know, it's great that those people, who commit illegal acts because they are commercially driven, are always brought to justice, no matter what their country of origin is.

    Of-course there is a small matter of agreeing what exactly it means for something to be 'illegal'. There also should be an exact description of what 'commercially driven' is, after all, if you download something instead of buying a paid version, you are commercially driven - you want to avoid paying money. There is also this small matter that a corporation based in one country, can force changes upon the law of that country, which seems to propagate itself almost magically to all these other countries, this seems odd.

    It's great to see that politicians are not commercially driven at all, when they pass laws that somehow seem to benefit commercial entities much more than private individuals. Citizens they used to call them, now they are all consumers, not citizens. Term 'citizen' has an implication that you have obligations and rights at least within your country. Consumers have 'rights' but really it's mostly obligations, and it has nothing to do with countries. The obligations are to the commercial entities - large firms.

    It is nice to see that those politicians, who are violating the trust of citizens to act in their best interest, those politicians that are really just fronts for commercial enterprise end up paying dearly for their transgressions. You know - jail sentences, fines...

    It is nice to see that commercial enterprise and their leaders are always brought to justice when they are found in breach of any laws, especially when the breach is 'commercially driven'.

    It is nice that governments don't start commercially driven wars and that if they do, they end up in jail.

    It is nice that governments don't take bribes and don't change the rules, so that large commercial structures benefit and private citizens suffer. Like the US federal reserve that was created by government officials so that private commercial enterprises would benefit so much (the JP Morgan, the John D Rockefeller, who then can take cheap loans at lowered interest rates and which eventually lead to the current economic disaster after the monopolies built with these cheap money destroyed the small business and moved to the cheaper manufacturing lands), it is nice that Nelson Aldrich was found guilty of conspiring against the citizens of the US and was sent to jail for his role in devaluing the US currency.

    It is nice that people responsible for profitable wars in Vietnam, African countries, Middle East, Asia, South and Central America, that all those people paid heavy prices for their crimes. .......

    Wait, wait, are you telling me that all these things didn't really happen? So what is happening here then?

  • by Civil_Disobedient (261825) on Friday April 17 2009, @06:29AM (#27609465)

    From Letters from a Birmingham Jail, by Martin Luther King, Jr:

    "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly."

    "Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law."

    "One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law."

    Stay strong, guys.

  • by bigberk (547360) <bigberk@users.pc9.org> on Friday April 17 2009, @06:33AM (#27609503)

    Yeah so we've known for some time that running a file sharing site for illegally redistributed content is bad news from a legal liability standpoint ... but I am still surprised by what kinds of activities in our modern age get you jail time.

    Is the fundamental issue "loss of money"? Well, the executives of the big banks in the world -- men like Charles Prince (Citigroup), Angelo Mozilo (Countrywide - collapsed), Alan Schwartz (Bear Stearns - collapsed) -- have lost far more money. They have lost money for investors, customers, and more recently taxpayers and even your children and your children's children. The damage caused by the systems they were responsible for is far greater han any of these file sharing misdemeanors. This is like comparing an out of control leaf fire in someone's backyard to the carpet bombing of a city.

    But what happens to investment bank executives who lost ridiculous sums (we're talking trillions) and ruined the lives of many? Probably nothing... hell, the previous Goldman Sachs CEO was put in charge of the US Treasury Department (Paulson) where he proceeded to redistribute public money to colleagues. Some may argue that men like Paulson, Greenspan, and Bernanke are committing acts of treason by taking money out of the national treasury and diverting it into the hands of the wealthiest elite, the top 1% of society.

    But don't expect to see any of these men in jail any time soon. Because in this world, the people who commit the grandest acts of financial theft and destruction are rewarded with lavish salaries and pensions, while the jails are filled with pot smokers, shoplifters, and guys who run file sharing web sites.

  • Press conference (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Yuioup (452151) on Friday April 17 2009, @06:44AM (#27609607)

    They've just released a press conference:
    http://thepiratebay.org/special/2009epicwinanyhow.php [thepiratebay.org]
    You have to click on the "archive" button.
    Y

    • by Rou7_beh (1528491) on Friday April 17 2009, @06:16AM (#27609305)

      Well it was pretty predictable. This is what judicial systems are made for! Putting people the state does not like in jail.

      • One could imagine a trial in New York, 90 years ago that would probably find a similar crew guilty of directing tourists to speakeasy clubs, i.e. assisting in the sale of liquor.

        Prohibition was abolished 14 years later.

        Not long now...

          • by commodore64_love (1445365) on Friday April 17 2009, @07:14AM (#27609937)

            I'm sorry. Where do we have a right to copy others' work? Although I download a lot of stuff, I don't try to delude myself into thinking what I'm doing is acceptable. If I had spent 2-3 years creating a novel, I certainly don't want somebody taking my labor without pay... it can go into the public domain after I'm dead, but not before.

          • I was trying to come up with a similar situation in which those who abet crimes by the public are found guilty of those crimes, whilst the public continue to commit them in ever larger numbers and find nothing reprehensible in their behaviour.

            Slavery, segregation, prohibition and copyright are all laws that derogate from people's natural right to liberty, whether in the interests of commerce, racism, or religion.

            Copyright of 1790 was as unconstitutional then as it is now. It's just that it's only when its privileging of publishers to constrain culture actually starts affecting people directly that they realise something's gone terribly wrong. A reproduction monopoly for the owners of printing presses may be tolerated by printers and the authors that seek their patronage, but woe betide them if they seek to enforce it against the population at large.

            Today we are all printers. The market for copies has ended.

          • by rjhubs (929158) on Friday April 17 2009, @07:16AM (#27609973)
            I'm going to go out on a limb here and say racism is a bit bigger of a cause than the 'right' to make copies of things you own...
      • by PopeRatzo (965947) * on Friday April 17 2009, @06:52AM (#27609699) Homepage Journal

        This is what judicial systems are made for! Putting people the state does not like in jail.

        Almost. It's really for the state putting the people corporations don't like in jail.

      • This has nothing to do with the state. States are irrelevant nowadays. It is for enforcing power to those who have and invest the most money in it. The problem is:
        - The good side acts too fair.
        - The bad side tries every trick in the book, every trick not in the book, every half-legal trick, every illegal trick, and then some.
        Of course the bad side is going to win. They just are more ballsy/gutsy. (Dunno the correct English word for "dreist" in German.)

    • by rbarreira (836272) on Friday April 17 2009, @06:20AM (#27609371) Homepage

      The questions that come to mind:

      1- Will Google be sued next (filetype:torrent anyone?)
      2- Where can we donate to help pay the fine?

      • by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 17 2009, @06:43AM (#27609593)

        So, what are all the users of TPB considering doing to support
        the folks behind TPB, who have supported them, in some way, in
        past?

        I don't think it's enough to celebrate the continuation of TPB
        while forgetting the hassle, that its makers & operators have
        to go through, now that they've been taken to task for TBP.

        What? Consider them just happy martyrs, as you go on using the
        legacy they've left you (as if they were dead)?

        Well...? :-/

        • by umeboshi (196301) on Friday April 17 2009, @07:17AM (#27609981)

          I certainly feel free in redistributing many of the files that I have obtained from others who felt like sharing them in the first place. Fortunately, I haven't yet experienced any limitations to that freedom, at least from any government. I've been taught how to copy records, tapes, and software from a very early age, and have grown up in an environment where this was encouraged. It saddens me to hear about people who are jailed for such activity, as it goes against the values that I was raised on.

          Perhaps drinking coffee isn't worth going to jail for. It's not like fighting for freedom or anything. What happens if it's outlawed tomorrow? Does that make it worth going to jail for. Is the fact that it's likely that it won't be outlawed due to the fact that a large number of people drink it? Maybe instead of using coffee as an example, I could try using tea from dandelion leaves. What if it was outlawed tomorrow? Outlawing that would be a lot less likely to cause the same sort of disruption. Would that be worth going to jail over? It's not like drinking it is like fighting for freedom or anything.

          How many insignificant freedoms have to be whittled away until they break the skin and strike a nerve?

      • by AlterRNow (1215236) on Friday April 17 2009, @06:57AM (#27609761)

        You said it yourself:

        "I wanted to find and beat the crap out of the guy who made it available."

        The guy who made it available != TPB

        • by IWasNotMe (598895) on Friday April 17 2009, @07:11AM (#27609895)

          But I'm talking about the ethics of intentionally helping the person who made it available. I mean, TPB obviously knows the site facilitates the copying of copyrighted materials. It is called The PIRATE Bay.

          It seems like that argument is ducking the ethical question.

      • by darkstar949 (697933) on Friday April 17 2009, @07:03AM (#27609827)
        I'm not sure where I saw/heard/read this, but I seem to recall an article awhile back that was talking about Adobes perspective on the unlicensed use of Adobe Photoshop. In a nutshell the article said that even though they didn't approve of it, they didn't want to take all possible means to clamp down on it due to the fact that the majority of unlicensed copies were being used by amateurs who either didn't use the software that much, or would eventually learn the ins and outs and would get any company they worked for to buy a legitimate version for them for use at the office. Also, the article noted that most people who used Photoshop on a serious basis (e.g. artists) tended to get the money together to buy it as well even if they had an unlicensed version at some point. However, don't quote me on any of that as I can't recall where I saw it.

        One thing that I do know for a fact though is that Adobe tends to have some pretty nice clauses in their license agreements that work well with the end users. For example, in the Lightroom 2.0 license there is a clause that allows you to have it installed on two different machines as long as you didn't use both copies at the same time. For a photographer this works out well because it means you can have it installed on your main workstation as well as a laptop that you use on site.
      • by bug1 (96678) <glenn,l,mcgrath&gmail,com> on Friday April 17 2009, @07:12AM (#27609913)

        Firstly a nitpick, copyright infringement is not stealing in a legal sense, "stealing" is theft, copyright infringement is just that.

        There are lots of examples in law where providers of a service arent held responsible for how their customers us that service.

        e.g. Car markers arent responsible for people speeding, but they still make cars with engines capable of doing twice the speed limit.

        Telephone companies arent responsible for what is said over the phone, or images sent via fax, they have a legal exemption as a common carrier.

        Computer hardware manufacturers arent help accountable for computers being used to perform copyright infingment.

        An argument is that such services providers arent reasonably capable of policing their services, and i think thats a reasonable argument for most torrent sites, they just dont have the bandwidth and manpower to download, view and investigate the legality of the torrent.

        TPB is in a more difficult situation as they refused to follow through and take down torrents even when they have been reasonably shown to be violating copyright. One issue is that they if they censor one torrent, then it can be claimed that they are acting as an editor, and as such can be help liable for all the torrents on the site.

        Also, we should be a little bit object and consider that "everyone is doin it, so it cant be that bad".

        International law is out of sync with societies views on copyright protection, something has to give, and it wont be the masses.

        My own view is that as a society we should be encouraging people "to work", rather than "have worked", copyright protections encourages people to stop working and live of their past actions. Look at some of the old rock bands going around, they make money of "Performance" (the present) rather than "recordings" (the past)

    • Re: Usenet (Score:5, Funny)

      by badfish99 (826052) on Friday April 17 2009, @06:18AM (#27609343)
      The first rule of Usenet is: you do not talk about Usenet.
      • Re: Usenet (Score:5, Informative)

        by Xest (935314) on Friday April 17 2009, @06:36AM (#27609539)

        And that achieves what exactly?

        The MPAA/RIAA/Police can still join the filesharing swarm you're connected to and see that you're sharing the copyrighted materials.

        At best encrypting it just stops your ISP from easily seeing what exactly you're transferring.

        SSL USENET allows you to connect to a trusted source and no one else (and that's the key difference, P2P software means you're connecting to untrusted sources) whilst allowing your connection to be encrypted and hence the contents invisible to your ISP too.

        The only weakness with USENET is whether the MPAA/RIAA are successful in going after long established USENET providers like Giganews too like they have The Pirate Bay but at least whilst they don't you're safe as an individual whereas with P2P on public swarms you are not safe as an individual.

    • Re:appeal? (Score:5, Informative)

      by boaworm (180781) <boaworm@gmail.com> on Friday April 17 2009, @06:21AM (#27609377) Homepage Journal

      Both parties have already made statements that they will appeal if lost, even before the verdict came. This was the first level of Swedish legal system, now it will progress upp to "HovrÃtten", and from that very likely to the Supreme Court.

      This case really has to go all the way given that it is the first case of its type, and that a prejudicating ruling must be available for the future.

    • Re:appeal? (Score:5, Informative)

      by skulgnome (1114401) on Friday April 17 2009, @06:23AM (#27609403)

      Doesn't work that way. Even if they didn't appeal, the Swedish prisons are full -- you actually have to queue to serve your sentence, and violent criminals always skip ahead of the queue.

      Besides, they're going to appeal. During that time the sentence cannot be implemented as this wasn't something like murder or treason where immediate implementation would be appropriate. And as you say yourself: putting someone in jail severely hinders their chances of appealing.

      Come down from your stupid-ass trip. It makes you look silly.

    • by Xest (935314) on Friday April 17 2009, @06:44AM (#27609609)

      "As for the file sharing community, this whole idea that changes in technology makes laws obsolete needs to go."

      Why when the laws are wrong and need to be defied?

      The UK's official statistic body, the Office of National Statistics released their latest report on the UK population just this week. It stated that 12% of the population file share, and that's only those who admit to it in surveys or don't hide their activities well not to mention not including those who give physical copies to friends and use say, USENET rather than P2P so the real figure is almost certainly far, far higher than 12%. Even taking the original estimate though, you cannot reasonably continue to persist with laws that criminalise 12% of your population. That's 7.2million people out of 60million, having the activities of that much of the population illegal is clearly wrong.

      I'm not justifying the idea that copyright needs to go completely, I don't think it does, I think it's valid in some circumstances, but I do think there needs to be much more of a balance between citizens and the industry as to how the problem is dealt with, currently the solutions are repeatedly skewed 100% in favour of the industry's interests and in that scenario it is only right that citizens defy and ignore the solutions when their opinions aren't taken into account whatsoever in the development of solutions.

    • by ledow (319597) on Friday April 17 2009, @06:49AM (#27609655) Homepage

      You miss the point.

      It was a generally held belief (and may well still turn out to be so) that what Pirate Bay did was NOT illegal in their country. It's yet to be (convincingly) proved otherwise, because the "evidence" was sparse and technically-incorrect at best. It was that unsure that it took a court to decide it, even after police raids that couldn't find anything "illegal". And it has yet to be appealed against.

      What you name a place has NOTHING to do with the law behind it. You can't be convicted based on what you called something, unless the name itself is somehow illegal.

      And as for "hitting the supply chain", maybe the best analogy then would be to stop camera-recording and/or screener leaks rather than chase down people who downloaded it? In actual fact if you want to eliminate something then you have to take out ALL forms of contact with it - drug dealers, drug pushers, drug takers, etc. This is the equivalent of suing not just the site owners, but the people who leaked your DVD and the people downloading it. By extension of the intentions of this case, that would also imply suing anyone who ever links to those torrents, anywhere, and anyone who carries the links to those torrents (e.g. Google) - it's like arresting people because they had a discussion about drugs, or told someone not to go to a particularly drug-ridden part of town late at night - you're trying to convict people who had only incidental connection with the crime but have performed no criminal act.

      Remember - it's still not established law that what the Pirate Bay did was illegal. That's not true until all Swedish court appeals are finished and no more are allowed to be brought (and even after that, there's the possibility of an EU appeal/intervention).

      • Re:sigh (Score:5, Insightful)

        by berend botje (1401731) on Friday April 17 2009, @06:54AM (#27609721)

        No the real bummer is that so many people like you think that they are not criminals. Last time I checked, its illegal to take something that is not yours and you didn't pay for.

        You make a copy. You don't take something.

        And it has been that way for thousands of years.

        No, it isn't. You could copy the Mona Lisa until you're green in the face, no problem.

        You fully well know what they are trying to accomplish with their site. Don't pretend like its something its not.

        They are providing torrent files. Plain text files. On which no copyright lies, or at least nobody minds that they copy those.

        It is for encouraging piracy plain and simple.

        Piracy happens in the coastal waters of Somalia. What you mean is called "copyright infringement".

      • by Xest (935314) on Friday April 17 2009, @07:00AM (#27609785)

        Bullshit.

        There is nothing Swedish about the companies pushing this case both through money and political pressure. This is very much a decision that has been forced upon the defendants through foreign commercial influence and as soon as foreign commercial influence has pushed it's influence we are equally within our rights to push our views too.

        By showing our distaste and by acting against those foreign companies in boycotting their products in our own countries, by pressuring our governments to also stop catering to these companies there is still a lot we can do.

        The court may be Swedish, the defendants may be Swedish, the site may even be Swedish, but the companies and groups pushing the prosecution as well as the result of the prosecution most certainly are not purely Swedish and it is against these that we can act.