Copyright Law

Copyright Industry Lawyer Demands Additional Fines, Gag Order Against The Pirate Bay Admins

By DrewWilson

Is it bad publicity for plaintiff lawyers when the judge presiding of the case against The Pirate Bay admins is accused of being biased? What about demanding a fair trial? Whether related or not, it seems that the copyright industry lawyers are demanding a gag order and wanting additional fines for however long The Pirate Bay stays online.

It’s a trial that keeps grabbing headlines and today is no exception. A new report published on The Local says that lawyers representing members from the copyright industry are demanding additional fines against the admins of the infamous BitTorrent site for however long the site stays operational. Added to that, they are demanding that the admins of the website be gagged.

Given the distributed nature of The Pirate Bay, the likelihood, if one were to take the admins by their word that the website will never be shut down, is slim at this point. Already, there have been reports that the accounts of the admins of The Pirate Bay would be frozen during roughly the same time the admins were demanding a fair trial.

From The Local:

Last week, the Danowsky Partners law firm filed documents with the Stockholm District Court on behalf of the Swedish affiliates of the Universal, EMI, Sony and Warner record companies urging the court to start fining Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg and Peter Sunde if The Pirate Bay site isn?t taken offline.

Also named in the motion was Black Internet AB, the website hosting company cited in the document as providing The Pirate Bay?s internet services.

The filing also requests that the fines apply even before the District Court rules on the request and that Neij, Svartholm Warg, and Sunde be barred from speaking out on the matter until the case has had a final verdict in the Swedish court system.

When contacted by The Local for further comment, Olof Roos, an attorney with Danowsky Partners handling the case, refused to elaborate on the filing.

The article notes that expert IT-security expert André Rickardsson views this latest move as something that won’t generate much sympathy for the copyright industry members involved.

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Full post as published by ZeroPaid on May 19, 2009 (boomark / email).