Peer2Peer technologies and file sharing has been controversial since the day it was created.  Adoption has been fairly speedy, but only in circles where the law has not been a driving concern.  Since the creation of Kazaa, Bit Torrent, and various other software programs, Peer2Peer technologies have been skirting on the very fringe of copyright violations, and potentially considered downright theft.

Up for debate for an extremely long time has been whether under Swedish law, the distribution of files or linking to files that are not technically copyrighted, torrents, but allow users to locate and download copyrighted materials is also considered a copyright violation.  The Pirate Bay was one of the most popular torrent search engines located on the internet.

Today, April 17, 2009, the courts in Sweden found four members linked to the Pirate Bay, Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm, and Carl Lundström guilty of violating copyright law, and sentenced the "team" to one year in prison, and are required to pay back roughly $905,000.00 USD...each.  This decision has much larger effects than the current case at hand.  Copyright holders will rejoice in the fact that it attacks facilitation of illegal transference of copyrighted materials, and gives credence to the removal of not just copyrighted files, but any files or sites which allow others to violate copyright laws.

An appeal is expected from all four defendants, and it is anticipated to finally end up in Sweden's Supreme Court.

*UPDATE*

Tomas Norström, the judge who sentenced the Pirate Bay Four, was recently outed as a member of two copyright advocacy organizations, prompting rumblings about a mistrial.  Expect this one to be overturned.