The defendants in the Pirate Bay trial, who were appealing their custodial sentences to Sweden's Supreme Court, have now exhausted their options in Sweden after the Court refused to hear the final appeal. Two of the founders and the funder of The Pirate Bay, Peter Sunde and Fredrik Neij and Carl Lundström, were found guilty of copyright infringement for their former roles at the Pirate Bay in 2009. A third founder, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, had already been refused future appeals for failing to attend his first appeal hearing on the ground of somewhat unspecified illness. Whilst their custodial sentences had been reduced on appeal (see here) that seems to be as far as the Swedish courts will go. Lundstrom's legal team said "This ruling is absurd. I am disappointed that the court is so uninterested to dissect and look through all the legal comings and goings in one of the world's most watched court cases of all time".
CMU Daily reports that the current operators of The Pirate Bay, presumably in response to MegaUpload's recent enforced demise, and fearing the US authorities might use this week's Supreme Court ruling in Sweden to justify taking action against its .org domain, which is administered by the US-based Public Interest Registry, yesterday officially made a Swedish domain, thepiratebay.se, their principle URL.
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