After a number of days in court, and plenty of heated testimony, the trial of Swedish file-sharing site The Pirate Bay has ended, with lawyers for both sides delivering their closing arguments. Now it’s up to the judge to deliver a verdict, which is expected to take several weeks.
The four men behind The Pirate Bay – Frederik Neij, Carl Lundstom, Peter Sunde and Gottfrid Warg – stand accused of promoting copyright infringement. Other charges were dropped early in the trial.
Prosecutor Haakan Roswall told the court:
"I believe that the correct punishment should be one year in prison and that is what I am requesting that the district court hand down in this case."
By contrast, defense lawyers spent their final day explaining how bit torrents work to show the innocence of their clients, and challenged prosecution estimates on how much their clients had made from the site.
The film, music and video games industries, which brought the prosecution, are demanding around $13 million in damages and interest from Pirate Bay.
