It’s a sad day for what are arguably some of the most influential people in the peer-to-peer file sharing industry. The BBC reported on the story with this:
Frederik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Carl Lundstrom and Peter Sunde were found guilty of breaking copyright law and were sentenced to a year in jail. They were also ordered to pay $4.5m (~£3m) in damages.
Despite the bad news, it’s the sign of a true hero to give a response like this (Peter Sunde):
“It’s so bizarre that we were convicted at all and it’s even more bizarre that we were [convicted] as a team. The court said we were organised. I can’t get Gottfrid out of bed in the morning. If you’re going to convict us, convict us of disorganised crime.
We can’t pay and we wouldn’t pay. Even if I had the money I would rather burn everything I owned, and I wouldn’t even give them the ashes.”
Legends of our times. Not that we endorse what they are responsible for.
We wish them the best of the luck in the future, once they’re out.