Torrent Site Admin Sentenced to Five Months Prison

Following an initial investigation and complaint filed by Rights Alliance in 2012, this week the admin of a Sweden-based torrent site learned of his fate. Dismissing claims that the site had been sold four years earlier, a court sentenced the 40-year-old to a five month jail sentence.

When it comes to file-sharing news arriving from Sweden, these days it’s rarely something positive. Week after week there’s news of a fresh prosecution, or historical cases being brought to a conclusion.

This Thursday a case running since 2012 came to an end, with a particularly miserable outcome for the man involved.

It began two years ago when anti-piracy outfit Rights Alliance filed a complaint against a man they believed to be the owner of torrent site Tankaner. Local police launched an investigation and the man was later arrested.

In April 2014 the man was prosecuted for copyright infringement related to the illegal distribution of 32 movies during 2012 and 2013. At the time prosecutor Fredrik Inglad said that since there were ads on the site he would be pushing for a prison sentence.

In his defense the 40-year-old claimed that he’d disposed of the site four years ago. But according to Rights Alliance lawyer Henrik Pontén, the court didn’t buy that version of events.

“There was extensive evidence against the man in the form of signed contracts for the piracy server, login information, book keeping, e-mails and a photo in which he is posing in a T-shirt with ‘Tankaner’ printed on it,” Pontén told TF.

“The man argued that he was innocent and that he had transferred the operation from him to unknown persons who had made alterations to his encrypted computer while he was asleep. The court did not accept this version of events.”

Pontén says that the Court applied principles from the Svensson case previously referred to the Court of Justice of the European Union by Sweden’s Court of Appeal.

“In the case the suspect argued similar stand points 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,” Pontén adds.

On Thursday the Uppsala District Court sentenced the man to five months in prison. Rights Alliance are now seeking damages for one of the movies made available to the public.