Amount based on the number of albums included in a Swedish prosecutor’s case against the world’s largest BitTorrent tracker site back in January of this year.
Earlier this year Swedish public prosecutor Hakan Roswall charged The Pirate Bay with being an accessory and conspiracy to break that country’s copyright law, which could lead to fines or up to two years in prison. It was in that indictment that specific instances related to the charges were spelled out, in particular those of music albums made available on the site without permission of the copyright holder.
Pirated album details in hand, the IFPI, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, has now decided to seek compensation for their alleged lost sales in Sweden caused by The Pirate Bay in the country’s case against them.
"The damage to the record labels, artists and originators, caused by The Pirate Bay’s illegal activity is several times bigger," said the head of IFPI in Sweden, Lars Gustafsson.
Lawyer Peter Danowsky, who represents the record labels, added that "It is extremely difficult to calculate the real damage. Because of this we have chosen to work with a template."
Pirate Bay spokesman Peter Sunde, aka Brokep, who was among those charged, said he thought the claims suitable for a good April fools joke.
"It is completely unreasonable how they have counted. We should get paid by them. All research in this area shows that they actually profit by file-sharing," he said, pointing out the the free distribution and extra promotional services that The Pirate Bay provides for the music industry.
In a posting on his blog page Brokep muses on the $2.56 million USD sought in the lawsuit and what the IFPI must be thinking.
He writes:
- Research on the area of file sharing (especially music) shows that the economy thrives due to file sharing. Ifpi have decided not to quote any research for their claim. In a normal market environment they would actually have to pay us instead.
- Every download counted for (incorrectly I might add, which was one of the reasons that the number of downloads is not any more showing on TPB) equals a lost sale according to Ifpi’s claim. We all know that this is not the case, not even percentages of what is being downloaded would otherwise be bought. Rather, people both buy and download, or just ignore it if they don’t like it. Research can back this up as well.
- The claim also states that the publishing has been done without the consent of the artist. More then one of the albums in the lawsuit was actually uploaded onto TPB from the artists themselves.
- Many of the albums have apparently not been available for sale. So how can they lose money on sales when it’s not available?
- Why count in Euros when you’re in Sweden? There’s Swedish companies suing (mostly) Swedish citizens. It just proves that they’re going after the media attention. The whole press release is written like it’s decided that TPB has lost. It’s quite the opposite. It’s likely that this whole farce will end up proving that linking is still legal, that the laws made to protect freedom of speech and electronic bulletin board systems are still valid. Ifpi know they can’t win, so they try to make the opinion think that they’ll confident. And when they lose they’re gonna claim it’s due to “a loop hole”. Mark my words and refer to this blog entry in a couple of years when they do.
Usual The Pirate Bay theatrics aside, he does make a few good points. Primarily being that no study has ever proven that an illegal album download would have otherwise equated to a legal album purchase. It’s actually been proven to be the contrary, that in fact illegal file-sharing actually INCREASE legal music purchases.
Either way, my money’s on The Pirate Bay winning the case, just as they have every other of the countless lawsuits brought against them over the years.
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- Pirate Bay Co-Founder Demands a “Fair Trial”
- Day #1 of The Pirate Bay ‘Spectrial’ in Sweden
- “US government behind Pirate Bay raid”
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only 2.5 million? what happened to the typical million-bajillion sums that you see from the recording industry?
@Sign
It’s only to cover the alleged losses incurred by file-sharing in Sweden and per only the albums specifically listed in the indrictment by Swedish prosecutors earlier this year.
“work with a template”
Don’t they usually do that anyway when they file a lawsuit for copyright infringement? They speak as though this is a new phenomenon.