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A Swedish court on Monday handed down a suspended
sentence and a 10,000-kronor ($1,655) fine to a man found guilty of
sharing some 4,500 music files and 30 films on the Internet.
The court in Linkoeping, west of
Stockholm, found Andreas Karlsson, 31, guilty of "making
copyrighted films and music available" to others when he
downloaded them onto the Internet in March 2006, it said in its
ruling.
Karlsson had denied the charges.
The plaintiffs included the
Swedish members of the International Federation of the Phonographic
Industry, as well as the film studios Buena Vista, Warner, SF and
Nordisk Film.
The court also ordered Karlsson
to pay the plaintiffs' court costs of 44,670 kronor, as well as
15,000 kronor of the public defender's court fees.
Anti-piracy agency Svenska
Antipiratbyraan said the case against Karlsson was the biggest tried
by a Swedish court so far and was therefore of fundamental
importance.
"It is clear that the court
considers as serious the extensive (copyright) infringement the man
has been found guilty of. The widespread illegal file sharing taking
place in Sweden is inflicting a lot of damage on creators," a
lawyer at the agency, Sara Lindbaeck, said in a statement.
Sweden, a country of nine million
people, recently began cracking down on illegal file sharing amid
charges that it had become a centre for Internet piracy.
At the end of January, Swedish
prosecutors filed charges against four people suspected of running
Sweden-based The Pirate Bay, one of the world's most popular
websites for illegal downloading of films, music and computer games.
And the Swedish government is
planning to present a proposal that would require Internet providers
to hand over information identifying people involved in illegal file
sharing.
-- AFP
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