Digital Media

File-sharing sites haven't had a great year, especially in court, but on Wednesday they received a smidgen of good news.

Ira Rothken, Isohunt's attorney

(Credit: Greg Sandoval/CNET News)

The Motion Picture Association of America asked a federal court to rule that Isohunt was liable for copyright violations committed by its users, but the judge in the case was unconvinced. In his order, U.S. District Court Judge Stephen Wilson said the studios had yet to prove that the Isohunt's users had broken U.S. law.

Lawyers for the MPAA, the trade group representing the six major Hollywood film studios, are trying to convince the judge that Isohunt encouraged and contributed to the infringing activity of users. Wilson gave the MPAA until Sept. 15 to file a brief that convinces him direct infringement at the site was committed by those in the U.S. Apparently, Wilson has questions about whether U.S. residents have pirated content using Isohunt.

"United States copyright laws do not reach acts of infringement that take place entirely abroad," Wilson, wrote in his order.

A spokeswoman for the MPAA did not immediately have a response.

The significance of the judge's order, at least from the point of view of Ira Rothken, Isohunt's attorney, is that MPAA's investigators have struggled to draw specific examples of infringement occurring in the U.S.

"Our view is that it would be difficult if not impossible," Rothken said, "to be able to trace any direct infringement to the users of the Isohunt's site in a manner that would hold Isohunt responsible for the infringing conduct. I think the judge's order will hopefully demonstrate to the court that Isohunt, besides lacking knowledge of direct infringement, can't possibly be held liable for users conduct, especially since any such conduct occurs after they leave the site."

Rothken is hoping to argue Isohunt's case before a jury, something that no other BitTorrent sites have managed to do.

"I believe there has not been a single case in U.S. law where there has been a decision on the merits of a Torrent search engine," Rothken said. "We're cautiously optimistic Judge Wilson will deny plaintiff's motion for summary judgment and ultimately there will be a trial on the merits."

Some of the cases that have gone against BitTorrent or file-sharing sites Sweden-based BitTorrent search engines, The Pirate Bay, was brought up on criminal misconduct charges and TorrentSpy's case was decided on a discovery sanction. Some of the issues in the Usenet.com case closely resemble Isohunt and TorrentSpy's, although the company is not a BitTorrent tracker or search engine.

Usenet.com is a company that enabled users to access the Usenet network and it too lost on a discovery sanction.

Most of these companies claim to do nothing more than help people locate files. One question often asked by readers is how is this different than what Google offers? One can find plenty of infringing content using the behemoth search engine.

"I believe the difference is that for one reason or another courts seem to place greater social importance on the Google search engine," Rothken said. "Courts also tend to frown on search engines created to find specific file types like .torrent files. And other than that there is no difference (Isohunt and Google)."

The Pirate Bay, a file-sharing site entangled in a court case over pirated music, will be bought by a Swedish software company.

Global Gaming Factory X (GGF) announced the deal Tuesday. The company, which provides digital distribution tools for Internet cafes, will buy The Pirate Bay for cash and shares amounting to $7.76 million. The acquisition is expected to be completed in August.

The Pirate Bay, a BitTorrent tracking site, is involved in a legal battle with major copyright holders, including Warner Brothers, MGM, and Columbia Pictures. In April, the Web site's founders were convicted by a Swedish court of copyright infringement, ordered to pay nearly $4 million, and sentenced to a year in jail. The defendants appealed the decision and were denied a retrial last week.

Hans Pandeya, chief executive of GGF, said in a statement that his company is looking for a business model that will pay copyright holders for content downloaded from The Pirate Bay.

"The Pirate Bay is a site that is among the top 100 most visited Internet sites in the world," said Pandeya. "However, in order to live on, The Pirate Bay requires a new business model, which satisfies the requirements and needs of all parties, content providers, broadband operators, end users, and the judiciary. Content creators and providers need to control their content and get paid for it. File sharers need faster downloads and better quality."

Also, GGF said Monday that it will acquire Peerialism, a peer-to-peer distribution and storage software company, for cash and shares equivalent to $12.9 million. Peerialism's technology will be incorporated into Pirate Bay's site.

"Peerialism has developed a new data-distribution technology which now can be introduced on the best known file-sharing site, The Pirate Bay," Peerialism Chief Executive Johan Ljungberg said in a statement. "Since the technology is compatible with the existing (technology), it will quickly allow for new values to be created for all key stakeholders and facilitate new business opportunities."

A blog post on the Pirate Bay site said that the organization was being sold for a "great bit underneath its value" to ensure it went to "the right people with the right attitude." The four Pirate Bay founders will be kept on as staff in different capacities. They said that they will still have some input into running the site and that users should not expect radical changes.

"If the new owners will screw around with the site, nobody will keep using it," the founders said the blog post. "That's the biggest insurance one can have that the site will be run in the way that we all want to."

Despite the apparent influx of cash, Pirate Bay co-founder and spokesman Peter Sunde told Swedish Radio, SR, that it won't be used to pay their fine.

"We are not getting the money, so we cannot pay any fine," he said.

Tom Espiner of ZDNet UK reported from London. CNET News intern Erik Palm contributed to this report.

Correction at 8:45 a.m. PDT: The purchase price for Peerialism has been fixed.

Last December, the music industry's message to song writers, publishers, and musicians was that antipiracy help was on the way. Hopes soared after the major labels announced that they had convinced a group of telecoms to work with them.

Filing lawsuits against individuals accused of illegal file sharing was, for the most part, a thing of the past, said the Recording Industry Association of America, the trade group representing the top music companies. The new strategy was to enlist Internet service providers, the gatekeepers of the Web, to issue a series of warnings meant to increase pressure on alleged pirates in what the RIAA called a "graduated response." Under the plan, those subscribers who refused to heed warnings could eventually see their Web connection suspended.

Six months later, the music industry is still waiting to hear from the RIAA which ISPs have explicitly agreed to work with the association. When the RIAA first announced its new antipiracy project, it didn't name partners. Behind the scenes, industry insiders assured the media that the group would disclose the names of partner ISPs "within weeks." Six months later, however, not one ISP has publicly acknowledged working with the RIAA on a "graduated response."

RIAA CEO Mitch Bainwol

(Credit: Declan McCullagh)

That there are still no announced deals--and there's no guarantee the RIAA can sign any of the major broadband companies--indicates that at best the big recording companies may have spoken too soon when they said broadband providers would help, says one ISP executive. Ironically, at a time when many figured the RIAA had finally hit upon a compelling way to go after music piracy, the association's copyright protection efforts may be more toothless than ever.

"(The RIAA) has tried various ways to turn ISPs and other intermediaries into their own Internet cops," said Cindy Cohn, legal director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an advocacy group for Internet users. "What the ISPs appear to be saying is that this isn't our job."

To be sure, the RIAA continues to pitch its plan to ISPs, numerous sources have told CNET News. AT&T has launched tests of a graduated response--everything, that is, but service interruption. The telecom said it would never shut off a customer's service without a court order. The recording companies may soon announce some kind of agreement with one of the ISP trade groups. But this won't bind the group's members and the RIAA will still need to strike deals with individual companies.

"We have been working slowly but surely, directly and through the offices of (New York Attorney General Andrew) Cuomo, with virtually every major ISP on common approaches," said Jonathan Lamy, an RIAA spokesman in an e-mail. "During the past six months, a number of different ISPs have forwarded nearly half a million RIAA notices to P2P infringers. They had not done that before last winter. A number of individual ISPs now argue that notices alone are proving to have a sufficient deterrent impact."

What the RIAA seems to be suggesting here is that it doesn't need a threat of service termination for a graduated response to be effective. This, however, conflicts with what music executives say in private. They want a carrot and stick approach. They know they have to offer the public inexpensive and easy-to-use alternatives to illegal peer-to-peer sites. They also believe chronic abusers won't stop without the threat of a serious punitive consequence.

So, why did the RIAA announce the ISP-based program without any ISPs on board so many months ago?

Some RIAA critics have speculated that the December announcement was a smokescreen to cover the music industry's retreat from the 5-year-old and highly controversial strategy of filing copyright lawsuits against individuals accused of copyright violations. The theory goes something like this: the RIAA needed a face-saving way to walk away from the litigation, which resulted in more than 30,000 people being sued, a fortune in legal fees, a huge public relations black eye, and didn't do all that much to stop piracy.

Ernesto, founder of the blog TorrentFreak, which focuses on file sharing, was always skeptical of the RIAA's announcement. He noted that some telecoms have voluntarily sent warning notices to subscribers accused of illegally downloading songs for years, while other companies refused. He says he sees nothing new.

"Yes, the RIAA, MPAA and other outfits do plan to send copyright infringement warnings to ISPs," Ernesto wrote in March, "but they've been doing so for at least half a decade. Every other month these Hollywood lobbyists pitch their antipiracy efforts to the public...this doesn't mean, however, that something is about to change."

According to the ISP executive who asked for anonymity because he's involved in negotiations with the music sector, the RIAA's tactics in dealing with the ISPs have been too heavy handed.

The executive complained that the RIAA has tried to use Andrew Cuomo to push the ISPs into helping. But Cuomo doesn't have the kind of political muscle to sway the major ISPs when they are acting well within the law, the executive said. There's nothing in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that requires ISPs to send their own warning letters to subscribers.

And some ISPs say the DMCA is unclear about when they must terminate service of repeat offenders. AT&T executives say they won't cut off someone's Web access based solely on evidence supplied by the recording industry and will only do so after receiving a court order.

"We keeping hearing about how (Cuomo) is supposed to make this happen," said the executive. "You don't see much changing, do you?

So if Cuomo isn't enough, why don't the music labels appeal to Congress to legislate the ISPs into submission? That's easy. The ISPs have much more influence in Washington than the music sector. There's also little public sympathy for recording stars, who are often perceived to be rolling in money--even if this is a reality for a tiny fraction of working musicians.

In an interview with CNET last week, Paul McGuinness, manager of the rock band U2, says that ISPs have for a long time profited from selling broadband to file sharers and have little interest in taking action without seeing financial reward. But he sees some progress around the globe.

"Perhaps broadband subscription sales are saturated in many territories and the ISPs are belatedly but realistically now turning to building revenue collection businesses with the content owners," McGuinness said. "I just hope it's not too late."

Cohn, from EFF, sees it differently. To her, cutting off someone's Internet connection for file sharing is like refusing to sell shoes to someone accused of jaywalking.

"Every day that passes we realize how important Internet connectivity is to people's lives," Cohn said. "The RIAA looks so out of step with what most people think is a reasonable response to (copyright) infringing behavior. Even to the people that believe we're locked into this 19th century view of copyright law, the RIAA looks hysterical."

Having just made it through a high-profile trial in their native Sweden, four men closely associated with The Pirate Bay may now have to face justice in Italy.

IDG is reporting that that country is now considering initiating its own prosecution of Peter Sunde, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Fredrik Neij, and Carl Lundström for alleged violations of Italy's copyright law. This would be the first criminal prosecution against the four Pirate Bay players outside their home nation.

On April 17, the four defendants were found guilty of having made copyright-protected files accessible for illegal file sharing via the Piratebay.org Web site, one of the most visited BitTorrent destinations in the world. All four were sentenced to a year in prison, and the group was fined the equivalent of $3.6 million.

The news stirred outrage and disbelief among fans, while those at big entertainment companies rejoiced. The defendants says they have filed an appeal.

In August of last year, as part of a crackdown of BitTorrent sites in Italy, Internet service providers there were ordered to block access to the Pirate Bay site. The Pirate Bay appealed the block and eventually won the court case.

But following the Swedish trial, according to IDG, at least one group representing Italian copyright holders is already expressing optimism that the outcome of the landmark Swedish case could benefit prosecutors in subsequent litigation.

"An acquittal in Sweden could have created difficulties for the Italian prosecution," Enzo Mazza, president of the Italian Music Industry Federation (FIMI), told IDG." The guilty verdict will strengthen the hand of the prosecutor in Italy."

But lawyers for Pirate Bay spokesman Sunde told the site TorrentFreak that Mazza might be expressing optimism prematurely.

"The Italian case has many different peculiarities, starting with jurisdiction issues, which make the Swedish decision much less relevant than it could seem at first glance," Francesco Paolo Micozzi and Giovanni Battista Gallus said. In addition, they added, "every decision is based on its own evidence, and in the Italian case the trial is yet to start."

Italian prosecutors will reportedly decide within the next few months whether they will proceed with legal action against the Pirate Bay four. We will of course keep you posted.

Charting number of times Wolverine was illegally downloaded on file-sharing sites.

(Credit: BigChampagne)

Outfitted with a skeleton forged from a super alloy, the comic book hero Wolverine is supposed to be indestructible.

After a raw version of the movie "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" leaked to the Web last month, 20th Century Fox is hoping the action pic, which debuts Friday, is nearly as durable.

Hollywood has been in a near frenzy since April 1, when someone--who has yet to be identified--leaked a copy of "Wolverine" to the Web. The fear was that the unauthorized copy would hurt ticket sales. "Wolverine" cost more than $100 million to make.

Some people won't bother to spend money at the theater when they can watch it for free online, goes one argument. Since it hit the Internet, the pirated copy has been downloaded more than 4.1 million times, according to BigChampagne, which does market research that focuses on file-sharing networks.

Another of Hollywood's concerns is that people who download work prints of movies, as was the case with "Wolverine," are seeing incomplete versions. The studios say they're worried some people will be turned off by the unfinished works and that they'll spread word that the movie is a stinker. So far, none of that appears to have happened.

Fandango, the online movie-ticketing services, is reporting hundreds of sold out shows across the country (not all of them sold through Fandango). The Los Angeles Times wrote Friday the film appears headed "toward a solid but not spectacular opening around $85 million."

(Credit: 20th Century Fox)

It's still too early to tell how "Wolverine" will fare in the long run, but the film's early success could be seen as evidence of a claim many in the torrent community make: that a film appearance on the Web can actually help create anticipation around a movie. Certainly, no one so far has attempted to blame an Internet leak for a film that bombed.

"Torrents won't have one iota of impact on the financial results of the film," said Justin Bunnell, founder of TorrentSpy, a formerly popular BitTorrent search engine that shut down after being sued by the film industry. "The torrenting only increased awareness of the film."

Who can argue that the controversy surrounding the leak didn't generate scores of headlines about Wolverine?

"The news cycle was strong (as a result of the leak)," said Eric Garland, BigChampagne's CEO. "This is a big tent-pole movie that would have received a lot of publicity anyway, but it saw a lot of extra headlines and the word-of-mouth wasn't bad. I don't think this movie was badly hurt by this leak."

Bunnell argues that previous films or TV shows that were shared illegally online, such as the "The Hulk" or "Sicko" succeeded or failed in theaters based on their quality.

"The Hulk" (the version starring Eric Bana) leaked to the Web in 2003, shortly before the theatrical release. After a respectable opening weekend, sales went into a nosedive and the movie is considered a financial disappointment. But the film also suffered from critical reviews, so its dismal performance can't be blamed on the leak. (Critics are mixed about "Wolverine.") "Sicko," director Michael Moore's documentary on the health care industry, appeared on the Web a week before being screened in theaters and fared well, relative to other documentaries, at the box office.

"It can be catastrophic to any media company if advanced word is poor," Garland said. "Ultimately, a bad product will always lose out. What's changed is that you always used to get a chance to get that first wave of paying customers through the door. You lose that group if word gets out that the movie isn't any good."

What it comes down to is that most people prefer watching a film on a huge theater screen than watching on a PC or TV, says Bunnell.

"Watching in a theater is a very empowering experience," Bunnell said. "You're watching with your friends, eating popcorn, seeing all the action up close. Even full screen on a computer can't produce that... I think the theater is a great experience and much more fun than watching alone on a computer screen."

In the aftermath of the Pirate Bay trial, many Swedish law experts say they consider Friday's high-profile guilty verdict severe but fair. Very few had predicted the verdict before it was handed out.

Complicating the case in many observers' eyes was the fact that no copyright-protected files were stored or distributed on the Pirate Bay Web site. But reading the 107-page sentence from Stockholm's Tingsratt district court offers a clearer picture of the grounds on which the court found all four defendants guilty of having assisted in making 33 copyright-protected files accessible for illegal file sharing via Piratebay.org.

The reasoning makes clear that the principal crime was committed by individual file sharers. This was established via technical evidence that came from content on servers confiscated by the police, as well as by testimony from witnesses who actually downloaded files using torrents on the Web site.

Pictured, from left, are Pirate Bay defendants Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij, and Gottfrid Svartholm Warg. Carl Lundström is not pictured.

(Credit: Pontus Alexander/Fabian Landgren)

The four defendants--Peter Sunde, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Fredrik Neij, and Carl Lundström--were accused of having assisted in this crime, and according to Swedish law, it's not necessary to know who committed the infraction in such a case, only that it was committed.

During the trial, prosecutor Håkan Roswall also pointed out that very little is needed to be sentenced for assistance. He referred, as precedent, to a case several decades ago when a person was sentenced for assisting in a case of mayhem, only for having held the culprit's coat.

In its verdict, the Stockholm court states that "responsibility for assistance can strike someone who has only insignificantly assisted in the principal crime," then goes on to show how the defendants participated to a sufficient extent to be considered guilty.

First, the court establishes--through the defendants' statements and e-mail correspondence, and through letters from copyright owners published on the Web site--that the defendants all knew about copyright-protected files being shared by Pirate Bay users.

Second, the court demonstrates that through the Piratebay.org site, they offered both a search function for torrents (small files pointing to the desired file), means for easily uploading and downloading the torrents, and a tracker--the server that keeps file sharers linked while they swap.

But two further criteria have to be met to be held responsible for assisting: holding a position of responsibility and having intent.

Relying on the defendants' statements, e-mail correspondence, and accounting records, the court shows that they have collective responsibility--all having been in the position to act, and all having known about the others' actions. This is also why all four received the same verdict, though they clearly held different roles. Warg and Neij are the co-founders of The Pirate Bay. Sunde is a programmer and a spokesman there, and Lundstr öm offered technical services to the site in 2005.

Intent to swap
The court then finds that the four men had intent, as they knew about torrents pointing to copyright-protected files, and still allegedly did not act to cancel them from the Web site.

For the same reason, the court finally dismisses the defendants' last objection: a European law that doesn't hold e-merchants and service providers responsible for hosting clients' illegal material if they don't know about it.

Eventually, having shown the defendants guilty of assisting in copyright infringement, the court finds that one year of prison is fair, given the extent of the file sharing, and that The Pirate Bay's activities were "managed as a commercial project" and "managed in organized forms."

Though the verdict probably will be appealed twice, all the way up to the Swedish Supreme Court, Swedish legal experts don't expect it to be altered in any major way.

"I would be surprised if the verdict were overthrown in higher courts," said lawyer Kristoffer Nordman of the Swedish law firm Vinge, according to Swedish business weekly Affarsvarlden.

Lawyer Agne Lindberg of the law firm Delphi & Co. agreed, but told the paper the sanctions might be adjusted. Neither lawyer was directly connected with the Pirate Bay case.

Days after four defendants in the high-profile Pirate Bay case were found guilty of violating copyright law, the Web site implored fans to stay calm, not to send donations, and to stay united.

In a blog posted to Thepiratebay.org, the controversial BitTorrent tracker said the "verdict has already been appealed by us and will be taken to the next level of court."

Administrators of the court in Sweden did not immediately respond to requests to confirm the filing of the appeal. On Friday, the court convicted Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij, and Carl Lundström of charges related to copyright infringement and sentenced each to a year in jail and fined the group the equivalent of $3.6 million.

The news stirred outrage and disbelief among fans, while those at big entertainment companies rejoiced. Based in Sweden, the Pirate Bay has been accused of encouraging and aiding massive illegal file sharing by media and entertainment companies. The site's founders say they do not host any illegal content and are just a search engine. They have always argued there is little difference between the Pirate Bay and Google.

In the blog post, the Pirate Bay remained defiant.

"The site will live on," the group said in the post. "We are more determined than ever that what we do is right. Millions of users are a good proof of that."

Addressing efforts of some fans to raise money to help the defendants pay the fines, the Pirate Bay asked that such efforts cease. "We do not want (the money) since we will not pay any fines."

Pictured, from left, are Pirate Bay defendants Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij, and Gottfrid Svartholm Warg. Carl Lundström is not pictured.

(Credit: Pontus Alexander/Fabian Landgren)

This story has been updated. See below for details.

A Swedish court on Friday found the four defendants in the high-profile Pirate Bay case guilty, sentencing each to a year in jail. The defendants were also ordered to pay a total of 30 million Swedish kronor ($3.6 million) in damages to copyright holders, among them a number of American media giants.

The four men--Peter Sunde, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Fredrik Neij, and Carl Lundström--were found guilty of having made 33 copyright-protected files accessible for illegal file sharing via the Piratebay.org Web site.

"The crime has been committed in a commercial and organized form," Judge Tomas Norström said in a Web broadcast from a press conference in Stockholm.

Warg and Neij are the founders of The Pirate Bay. Sunde is a programmer and a spokesman there, and Lundström offered technical services to the site in 2005.

The Web site--one of the most visited BitTorrent destinations in the world--offers a search engine for torrents that can be used for file sharing. It also offers a tracker, which is a server that keeps file swappers linked.

After a 13-day trial, judge Tomas Norström, plus his assistant and three namndeman (essentially a jury with extended powers), found ample evidence for a guilty verdict, though no actual files are stored on the Web site.

As a result of a civil claim filed alongside the criminal case, the four men will have to pay $3.6 million in compensation for lost sales to 17 media companies. Among them are Warner Bros. Entertainment, MGM Pictures, Columbia Pictures Industries, Twentieth Century Fox Film, Sony BMG, Universal, EMI, Blizzard Entertainment, Sierra Entertainment, and Activision.

The largest portion of that total is allotted to Twentieth Century Fox ($1.3 million), followed by Columbia Pictures ($504,000) and Warner Bros. ($300,000).

The four defendants have already vowed to appeal the verdict, and it could take years before the case reaches Sweden's Supreme Court.

"This is a victory for the prosecutor so far, but this is just the first round," said Jonas Nilsson, the defense attorney for Fredrik Neij, according to Swedish News Agency TT. The $3.6 million in damages is extreme in a Swedish case, Nilsson told TT.

Update 3:40 a.m. PDT: Added comment from the judge and a defense attorney, plus a breakdown of the largest portions of the $3.6 million in damages.

Update 6:48 a.m. PDT: Lundström's attorney, Per E. Samuelsson, has sent his appeal to a higher court, Svea hovrätt, according to Swedish Public Radio SR.

See also:
• Copyright holders cheer verdict
• Pirate Bay defendants to fight on

The four defendants in the high-profile Pirate Bay trial face year-long jail terms if found guilty when the verdict gets announced in Stockholm, Sweden, on Friday. But even if prosecutors get their way, it's less evident whether a legal victory would also translate to a broader deterrent against illegal file sharing.

Clearly, this case is being viewed on both sides of the Atlantic as a potentially landmark decision in the heated controversy surrounding unauthorized Internet file sharing. The prosecution accuses the four men standing trial--Peter Sunde, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Fredrik Neij, and Carl Lundstrom--of making copyright-protected material available through the Web site thepiratebay.org, one of the most visited BitTorrent destinations in the world.

The challenge for prosecutor Hakan Roswall has been to prove that the site actually can be legally linked to copyright infringement. He got off to a bumpy start. On the second day of the 13-day trial, which began in February, Roswall was forced to drop accusations that the defendants facilitated making illegal copies. Now the prosecution's case hinges on whether it can prove that the four men were guilty of making the files accessible.

No actual material is stored on the Web site that features a search function for torrent files used for file sharing with the BitTorrent technology--which is legal in itself, but commonly used for illegal file sharing.

It also offers a "tracker," which is a server linking users who swap specific files. The defendants insist Piratebay.org is no different from ordinary search engines, whereas copyright holders accuse it of being the most popular font of copyright infringement around.

Along with the criminal case, a civil claim was filed by media giants Warner Bros. Entertainment, MGM Pictures, Columbia Pictures Industries, Twentieth Century Fox Film, Sony BMG, Universal, and EMI. They demand 120 million kronor ($15 million) in compensation for lost revenue from allegedly illegal file sharing of 20 songs, 9 movies, and 4 computer games.

The judge, Tomas Norstrom, his assistant, and a three-person jury will have to decide whether the defendants could have had knowledge of the files being illegally shared, and whether that is a sufficient basis for sending them to jail.

If the defendants go free, the decision would deal a major blow to the music and movie industry's fight against piracy and its struggle to preserve current copyright legislation protections. If the verdict involves a prison sentence, Piratebay.org is still unlikely to go down.

After a search and seizure of servers by Swedish police at The Pirate Bay's offices in May 2006, which eventually led to the trial, the site was up and running after a few hours. Indeed, sending the four men to jail could also turn them into heroes or martyrs, inspiring others to find new ways to develop piracy.

This much is clear: the technology is already developing to let people share files without fear of being spotted by police or copyright holders.

Services hiding a computer's IP numbers have already been offered for some years, but even easier is a recent kind of second-generation peer-to-peer tool called OneSwarm, developed at the University of Washington in Seattle with the aim of letting file swappers preserve their privacy.

Even after Friday's decision, the case might last for years on appeal. If convicted, the defendants have already promised to fight the decision. And by the time any final verdict gets handed down, the court's opinion may be rendered obsolete by changes in the technology landscape.

CNET News will be covering the verdict, which is expected to be handed down around 2 a.m. PDT Friday, so check back for updates.