The defense had argued that not Fredrik, Gottfrid and Peter were not the owners of the site, but a Seychelles based company named Reservella. The Court rejected this defense as the defendants could not name the current owners or provide any documents proving that the site was sold. It concluded that the three defendants are responsible for the site.
That strikes me as really the first time any court has properly, legally, seriously made that distinction and then rules on it. Precedent?
Quite possibly. I think the are playing games and that either they are still owners or they have a deal with someone they do not want to name to 'hold' it for them until the heat is of (as if that would ever happen).
Not very savvy of them, judges are not as stupid as most techies assume they are.
AMSTERDAM - The controversial Swedish torrentsite the Pirate bay does not have to be switched off. The mainainters will have to take care of removing torrentlinks which in turn point to illegal copies of files such as movies or music will have to be removed and should no longer be accessible for Dutch users.
This is what the court in Amsterdam has decided on Thursday.
If the maintainers do not obey this court order then up to three million in punitive damages can be awarded.
In Juli the judge also found in favour of the foundation 'Brein', which demanded successfully the the site would be made inaccessible for Dutch users. The case was done over because the maintainers of the Pirate Bay were not present.
The summons had not reached them in time.
Damages
The judge found that the Pirate Bay is acting in conflict with the law by allowing its users to structurally infringe copyright, and that it is 'very likely' that the members of the foundation 'Brein' are experiencing damage.
Contrary to the first verdict this one does not force the maintainers of the Pirate Bay to close the site off in its entirety.
Responsible
The lawyers for 'Brein' argued that the Pirate Bay is offering millions of illegal files, computergames, movies and software packages without permission of the rights holders.
Solicitor Ernst-Jan Louwers of the Swedish defendants Lennart Neij, Sunde Kolmisoppi and Gottfrid Warg, said that the founders are no longer owners or maintainers of the Pirate Bay. The site is deemed to be the property of the shady company 'Reservella' on the Seychelles.
However, the judge found that Brein argued successfully that the three still are maintainers of the site, especially since they could not say who sold it to, nor could they produce a bill of sale.
You are right about the original source, but it isn't 'blogspam'. It's just where I ran in to it. If I would be the owner of the blog then it would be blogspam.
Also, unfortunately it's too late for me to edit the link.
The defense had argued that not Fredrik, Gottfrid and Peter were not the owners of the site, but a Seychelles based company named Reservella. The Court rejected this defense as the defendants could not name the current owners or provide any documents proving that the site was sold. It concluded that the three defendants are responsible for the site.
That strikes me as really the first time any court has properly, legally, seriously made that distinction and then rules on it. Precedent?