Torrent Site Admin Sentenced to Five Months Prison

The case started two years ago when Rights Alliance filed a complaint against Tankaner, a Swedish torrent site. The alleged owner has now been sentenced to five months of jail in the somewhat bizarre trial.

The 40-year old man was prosecuted for copyright infringement related to the illegal distribution of 32 movies during 2012 and 2013. Since there were ads on the page and the owner tried to make money that way, the prosecutor was pushing for a prison sentence.

The man however claimed that he had “disposed of the site four years ago,” but the court didn’t buy that. There was extensive evidence against the man in form of signed contracts for the piracy server, login information, bookkeeping, e-mails and photos working against the 40-year old site-owner.

“In the case the suspect argued similar standpoints to the ones argued by the suspects in the Pirate Bay case and they were dismissed on the same merits. However a difference from the Pirate Bay case is that the man was convicted as a direct infringer and not for contributory infringement,”  said Rights Alliance lawyer Henrik Pontén to TF.

So while the torrent site was the reason for his arrest, and the site is still is online, it seems that he was prosecuted very lightly and for direct offenses. To me it looks like a small win for the anti-piracy lobby on a minor fish in a sea full of large whales.

Thanks to TorrentFreak for providing us with this information