14 DAY TRIAL // After a 3-year trial, during which he was accused of running Student Bay, a site that specialized in providing free books to Internet users, a 23-year-old was acquitted because the court considered that the prosecution didn’t have enough evidence to prove that he was the service’s mastermind, or that he had anything to do with piracy.
According to TorrentFreak, because of the many similarities to The Pirate Bay, Student Bay was considered to be somehow connected to the popular torrent site. However, it turned out that the Pirate Bay didn’t agree with the activities performed by Student Bay, mainly because it took subscriptions via premium SMS.
Launched in 2008, by May 2009 the site had already met its end, after the Swedish Association for Educational Writers (SLFF) filed a complaint against it.
Three years of legal proceedings went by, during which the prosecution tried to demonstrate that the alleged admin was not only running illegal activities, but also that he had some connection to The Pirate Bay.
However, on April 13, 2012, a Södertörn District Court decided that the prosecutors had failed to show “that [the defendant] alone or in concert with others had started the website StudentBay.se, whose domain was registered by another person during the fall of 2007.”
The accused individual admitted doing some design work for the site’s owners, but permanently denied being the one that administered it.
While it’s expected that the prosecution will appeal the decision, Young Pirates representatives welcome the judge’s ruling.
“It’s excellent that there was an acquittal. We believe that it’s obvious that no one should be found guilty for only having designed a website and created a logo. It feels good that the District Court shares our view,” a spokesperson for the organization revealed.
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