A 29-year-old man from Västerås in central Sweden suspected of sharing files from his computer was today acquitted by Svea Court of Appeal. Last year the man was the first person in Sweden to be convicted of file-sharing, having been charged with making the Swedish film Hip Hip Hora available for download from the internet.
The Court of Appeal decided that it does not have sufficient proof that the film was uploaded from the man’s computer. The lack of technical evidence has led the court to acquit the defendant of the charge of breach of copyright.
Västmanland District Court had initially fined the defendant 16,000 kronor. The original court ruling noted the serious consequences that file-sharing has on the film industry. The court eventually elected to fine the man rather than imprison him since the case surrounded a single film and the defendant did not obtain any financial gain by making it available on the internet.
“It is difficult to predict the consequences of this ruling,” district prosecutor Chatrine Rudström told news agency TT.
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