14 DAY TRIAL // A torrent site uploader was ordered to pay $652,000 (€472,226) for sharing one movie, while for the other several hundred films, he got a suspended jail sentence and ordered to complete community service.
The sum is the equivalent amount that the studio would have charged for a license to distribute the movie for free, TorrentFreak reports.
The Swede was a moderator and uploader for one of the oldest torrent sites in the country, Swebits. Back in 2011, the site shut down and one of its users was arrested and accused of uploading 518 movies and TV shows.
The case came to an end recently and despite the fact that rightsholders were hoping to get him in jail for at least a year after dubbing him the worst individual movie pirate in Sweden, the judge had another opinion.
The court ordered him to pay the huge sum in damages for the distribution of one of the movies. For the other 517 movies, the man was handed a suspended jail sentence and ordered to complete 160 hours of community service.
The Pirate Party has already reacted to the decision taken by the court and claims that the copyright legislation is outdated and needs to be reformed. “To received such a harsh penalty for doing something carried out by millions of Swedes shows how outdated our legislation is. The only way forward is a radical reform of copyright law that allows for the sharing of culture,” said Gustav Nipe, chairman of the Young Pirates.
This past summer, the party sought to point out that it was not just regular citizens that could get involved in copyright issues and accused the country’s IT Minister, Anna-Karin Hatt, of copyright infringement.
The reason for the accusation was the fact that she shared images from Calvin and Hobbes and artwork from several motion pictures on her Instagram account.