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10 Jul, 2015 20:58

​Pirate Bay co-founders acquitted in Belgian criminal copyright case

​Pirate Bay co-founders acquitted in Belgian criminal copyright case

The court in the Belgian town of Mechelse has ruled that the four co-founders of the Pirate Bay file sharing website are not guilty of copyright infringement and electronic communications abuse

Pirate Bay founders Gottfrid Svartholm and Fredrik Neij, former website representative Peter Sunde and website investor Carl Lundström were acquitted on Thursday, reports De Standaard. The court said that the prosecution failed to prove that they were related to the file sharing site in September 2011 and November 2013 – the period under the court’s review.

All of the defendants denied any participation in the activities of the website after its reported sale to Reservella, a Seychelles-based company, in 2006. As the prosecutor could not do anything counter this argument, the case fell apart.

The complainants agreed with the decision of the court. “Technically speaking, we agree with the court,” said Olivier Maeterlinck, director of the Belgian Entertainment Association (BEA) as cited by the Pirate Bay website.

READ MORE: Last of Pirate Bay founders arrested on Laos-Thailand border

It is not the first legal action against four Pirate Bay personalities. The most resounding one took place in Stockholm in 2009 when all of them were found guilty and sentenced to one year behind bars. On top of that they were obliged to pay $4.8 million to the entertainment industry as a compensation for lost revenue.

Two years later an appeal court reduced the sentences but increased the compensation – up to $6.9 million.

It took several years to arrest all the convicted – the last one, Fredrik Neij was detained on the Laos-Thailand border in November, 2014.

The court decision caused a public outcry in Sweden. During the next 10 days after the court’s decision the number of Swedish Pirate Party had more than doubled – from almost 15,000 to over 40,000.

The Pirate Bay was founded in 2003 is one of the most popular sharing services in the world where users upload and download torrent files

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