February 01, 2008	Friday	Muharram 22, 1429

STOCKHOLM, Jan 31: A Swedish prosecutor filed charges on Thursday against four people suspected of running one of the world’s most popular websites for illegal downloading of films, music and computer games.

Hans Fredrik Neij, Per Svartholm Warg, Peter Kolmisoppi and Carl Lundstroem, are suspected of organising and running The Pirate Bay, and thus “promoting other people’s infringements of copyright laws,” according to charges filed by senior public prosecutor Haakan Roswall.

The charges related to 20 music files, including the Cardigans’ record “Don’t blame your daughter” and The Beatles’ “Let It Be”; nine film files, including “Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire” and the Jonny Cash biography “Walk The Line”; and four computer game files, including “World of Warcraft – Invasion”.In the indictment, Roswall said the four should pay damages of $189,000 the minimum amount the men profited from the illegal activity, according to the prosecution. They should also have their computers confiscated, he said. Swedish media reported that the four also risked up to a year behind bars.

“It is very satisfactory that the prosecutor shares our opinion that Pirate Bay’s activities are illegal,” said Ludvig Werner, head of Ifpi, which represents the Swedish recording industry, in a statement.

“Sweden has received a reputation as a sanctuary for Internet pirates and that is not flattering.” The Pirate Bay offices have been raided several times and shut down at least once by Swedish police, but the raids only seemed to have increased its popularity.

The company provides instructions on how to skirt copyright fees and share music, film and computer game files using links offered on the site.

The site no longer provides numbers on how many illegal downloads go through the site. But Henrik Ponten at Sweden’s anti-piracy agency said that between 15 and 24 million movies were illegally downloaded each year in the Scandinavian country alone.“But music is the most popular thing to download,” he said.—AFP