Pirate Bay defendants demand retrial

Swedish judge denies conflict of interest

By ED MEZA

BERLIN – A defense lawyer in Sweden's Pirate Bay copyright case has called for a retrial following reports that the judge in the case is a member of the same copyright protection organizations as several of the main entertainment industry reps.

Earlier this month Judge Tomas Norstroem convicted the four operators of the file-sharing site, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij and Carl Lundstrom, of accessory to copyright infringement, and sentenced each to one year in prison.

According to Swedish news reports, Norstroem is a member of the Swedish Copyright Association, which repped the entertainment industry in the Pirate Bay trial, and also sits on the board of the Swedish Association for the Protection of Industrial Property, an advocate group seeking more stringent copyright laws.

Attorney Peter Althin, who represents Sunde, Pirate Bay's spokesman, is now demanding a retrial.

The defendants are already appealing the ruling but Althin said Thursday that he would ask Sweden's Court of Appeal to dismiss the lower court's ruling and revisit the case, according to Swedish newspaper The Local.

Norstroem has said his involvement in the copyright protection groups did not influence his judgment and stressed that they did not constitute a conflict of interest.

Leading the lawsuit against the website founders were Warner Bros., MGM, Columbia Pictures, Fox, Sony BMG, Universal and EMI, which had sought damages of some $14 million to cover lost revenues from users downloading content via Pirate Bay, one of the biggest file-sharing websites worldwide with an estimated 25 million active users.

In addition to the prison sentences, the court ordered the four defendants to pay 30 million kronor ($3.56 million) in damages.