The Pirate Bay's Fredrik Neij and Peter Sunde / Photo courtesy of Kopimi

European Court of Human Rights doesn't get their appeal

On Wednesday, the Pirate Bay co-founders Fredrik Neij and Peter Sunde lost an appeal to reverse charges that they violated Sweden's Copyright Act by giving Internet users a (still quite active) forum for illegally sharing files. In late 2010, the pair were sentenced to a year in prison and hit with a fine of over $4 million. On a later appeal, the time behind bars was reduced, but the amount increased to around $6.5 million.

The latest appeal was made in June to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, says the Hollywood Reporter. The TPR creators argued that the previous court's ruling represented an attack on their freedom of expression that the site's users violated copyright law, and that Neij and Sunde shouldn't be punished for receiving and providing information about those crimes. But the court wasn't having it.

The ECtHR upheld the original ruling, explaining that the protection given to Neij and Sunde "cannot reach the same level as that afforded to political expression and debate ... Since the Swedish authorities were under an obligation to protect the plaintiffs property rights in accordance with the Copyright Act ... the Court finds that there were weighty reasons for the restriction of the applicants freedom of expression."

In related news, according to TorrentFreak, the Pirate Bay have officially filed charges of copyright infringement against the copyright-enforcing organization that ripped off their logo last month. Also, following threats of legal action in Sweden, TPR has moved its now bifurcated home base to Norway and Spain plus the cloud, as previously reported. Catch up on their story via the recently released The Pirate Bay: Away From Keyboarddocumentary.

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Freedom -Loving Pirate Bay Founders Not Protected by Free Speech After All