Snow Patrol blast Pirate Bay sentences

24/04/2009

Gary Lightbody says jail for filesharing is "way over the top"

Snow Patrol singer Gary Lightbody has hit out at the jail sentences given to the bosses of filesharing site Pirate Bay.

Lightbody, whose own music is freely available on the site, said that the year-long terms were “way over the top”.

“They shouldn’t have been jailed,” he said. “A year in jail for someone doing that is crazy. The punishment doesn’t fit the crime.”

Lightbody added that he wasn’t even against people illegally downloading music for free online. “I’m not anti-filesharing at all. This is the modern way,” he added.

“This is what we’ve brought on ourselves and you have to live in the society you created. Music is available to everyone if they know how to get and I say f**king go for it. I don’t, I buy all my music but then I don’t spend money on anything else except going to the pub. I love getting an album back and looking through the booklet and the artwork, and that’s lost when you download it.”

Four founders of Pirate Bay were convicted of copyright violation in the Swedish courts last week, in a victory for the entertainment and computer gaming industries which see the site as one of their greatest enemies.

Frederik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Carl Lundstrom and Peter Sunde were sentenced to a year in jail and were also ordered to pay £3m in damages. They are refusing to pay the fine and are now seeking a retrial after it emerged that the judge in the case is a member of the Swedish Copyright Association, alongside members of the entertainment industry.