Co-founder of Pirate Bay unmasks record-labels; relieved of €1 million fine

• Co-founder of Pirate Bay, Peter Sunde, has been relieved of a million Euro fine as ruled by District court of Helsinki, Finland.
• Sunde has been still charged with a part of the entire fine to cover the legal charges by record labels.
• Sunde calls these accusations another attempt my recorded labels to censor the internet.

The king of BitTorrent site, The Pirate Bay was reportedly offline at the moment for at least last 48 hours. When we inquired about the issue, we learned that the site has been flashing a CloudFlare error message which means that the reason behind the downtime is a bad gateway.

Inquiring further, we found through one of the recent articles on TorrentFreak that this downtime is a result of a running case on its co-founder Peter Sunde. This case has announced its verdict in the district court of Helsinki, Finland, and Sunde has been relieved of €1 million fine. Adding to this, the record labels which earlier sued Sunde with €350,000, have also withdrawn the damages. This has left Sunde with only a few thousand euros on his head.

Peter Sunde, who is reportedly busy with his projects ranging from flattr to a TV series, has been charged for his past involvement with The Pirate Bay (TPB). He was also imprisoned for the same association with the mentioned notorious website. Sunde claims that he hasn’t been involved in anything related to TPB for more than a decade now. Although these claims haven’t stopped the companies around the world to charge Sunde against their damages.

But the good news lurked around for weeks, and the wait ended when the Helsinki District Court decided to drop a million-euro threat off Sunde’s head. This doesn’t mean that Sunde can walk out without opening his wallet. The court ordered him to pay the legal fees of the record labels which amounts to €7,769. Well, that is still a huge chunk of money but far better than the last deal.

Sunde is accused by the courts for his denial to different companies between 2010 and 2014 to trademark the TPB’s name and logo. Also, while speaking on different platforms, accusers claim that he referred to TPB in many occasions as ‘we’ and ‘us.’

Sunde has a plan to appeal against these charges with his lawyer. He believes that these allegations are baseless. He justifies his behavior as a member of the public and says that he used those terms for his association with the site in the past.

Sunde informed Torrent Freak, a torrent related publishing media, that the trademark of TBP belongs to the public and limiting this fact by any individual or commercial entity is morally wrong. Sunde tried to explain his stand by saying – “It’s like being a part of a rock band and still caring about it after leaving it years ago. It’s absurd to expect not to use pronouns like ‘us’ and ‘we’ when talking about the rock group. Same applies to my association with The Pirate Bay."

Sunde reveals that these accusations against him are another attempt by record labels to censor the internet. He also says that record labels do not care about the repercussions of these allegations on individuals as long as they could partially control the internet. And, this case is no different.

What do you think about these allegations on Peter Sunde? Do you agree with him? Let us know in the comments.