I talked to Kalle Vedin, member of the Gothenburg section of the Swedish Pirate Party--which people who are not Swedes may dismiss since they’ve got “Pirate” in the name and pirates are fucking annoying, but this is a legitimate political movement with 40,000 members and the largest youth contingent of any political party in Sweden. He thinks the Pirate Bay verdict is an attempt to convict the faces of file sharing culture, in order to scare off other file sharing sites. He also points out the disproportionate sentence. “They were sentenced for helping file sharing. People who commit other crimes, such as car theft or assault, don’t get such severe sentences,” he says. “According to this court it is more important to help big companies save money than it is to prevent ‘ordinary’ crimes.”
Even the raid itself was considered unlawful acting, as the police didn’t have proper authority to carry it through. And don’t forget good old Jim Keyzer, a police officer who worked on the preliminary investigation. Shortly after the “successful” raid, he took a leave of absence from the beat and magically stumbled on a movie job at Warner Brothers (this article is in Swedish, but it was a big news story).
“I was really angry when this happened,” says Vedin. “This cop was bribed by Hollywood, and no one cared.” All this time Hollywood’s been showing us how the mafia has the judges in their pockets, when really it’s been Hollywood themselves.