Founders of Swedish file-sharing site The Pirate Bay found guilty, sentenced to prison

The Pirate Bay's four Swedish founders were sentenced to jail for helping consumers illegally download online music and films, handing the entertainment industry a victory in the battle to protect copyrighted material.

Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi and Carl Lundstroem were given jail sentences of one year each by a Stockholm district court today. The court ordered the defendants to pay compensation and damages of 30 million kronor ($3.6 million), below the more than 100 million kronor claimed by prosecutors. The defendants said they plan to appeal.

The Pirate Bay provides a forum for its estimated 22 million users to download content through so-called torrent files. The site has become the entertainment industry's enemy No. 1 after successful court actions against file-swapping sites such as Napster, Grokster and Kazaa. Lundstrom helped finance the site while the three other defendants administered it. (See: Trial on Swedish file-sharing site Pirate Bay begins with small victory for defendants)

Napster began in 1999 as a free music-swapping Web site. Roxio Inc. purchased the company out of bankruptcy to start a paid download service and adopted its name in 2004. Sharman Networks Ltd., the owner of the Kazaa file-sharing network, agreed to pay more than $100 million to settle music- industry lawsuits over the illegal downloading of songs in July 2006. In November 2005, Grokster shut down its file-sharing service and agreed to pay $50 million to settle a music-industry case in Los Angeles.

Defence lawyers had argued the Pirate Bay quartet should be acquitted because The Pirate Bay doesn't host any copyright-protected material. Instead, it provides a forum for its users to download content through so-called torrent files. The technology allows users to transfer parts of a large file from several different users, increasing download speeds.

The court found the defendants guilty of helping users commit copyright violations "by providing a Web site with ... sophisticated search functions, simple download and storage capabilities, and through the tracker linked to the Web site." 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 verdict comes as Europe debates stricter rules to crack down on those who share content illegally on the Internet. Last week French legislators rejected a plan to cut off the Internet connections of people who illegally download music and films, but the government plans to resurrect the bill for another vote this month.

Opponents said the legislation would represent a Big Brother intrusion on civil liberties, while the European Parliament last month adopted a nonbinding resolution that defines Internet access as an untouchable "fundamental freedom."

Sweden earlier this month introduced a new law that makes it easier to prosecute file-sharers because it requires Internet Service Providers to disclose the Internet Protocol-addresses of suspected violators to copyright owners.