It is obviously nothing good in being fined for sharing an illegal movie torrent, but one of the Swedish pirates somehow found himself fined extra for sharing a copy of poor quality! Swebits’ moderator and uploader was hit with a huge damages award for uploading a single pre-release film. The 28-year-old is required to pay the studio $652,000 – the equivalent amount the latter would have charged for a license to distribute the film for free. Moreover, the pirate also got a suspended jail sentence and 160 hours of community service.

Local anti-piracy group Antipiratbyran claimed that the file-sharer was Sweden’s “worst ever” pirate – this title can be a bit of an insult to a netizen! The prosecution demanded at least 12 months in jail. The damage award was inflated by the fact that the pirate uploaded a poor quality copy of the movie, which the moviemakers claimed lowered the standard of the brand.

In the meantime, the Pirate Party was outraged by the court decision, because it exceeded the $150,000 per title statutory damages possible in the US, where courts roll over to entertainment industry and give silly infringement penalties. Industry observers admit that it was wrong to have such a harsh penalty for doing something millions of Swedes do every day for breakfast. It just demonstrates how outdated Swedish law is and the only way forward remains to introduce a radical reform of copyright legislation which would allow for the sharing of culture.