The founders of The Pirate Bay were found guilty today, with a sentence of a year in prison and $3.6 million in damages. "Pirate Bay administrators Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg and Peter Sunde were found guilty in the case, along with Carl Lundström, who was accused of funding the five-year-old operation," writes Wired's Oscar Swartz.

"Representatives of movie and music companies in Sweden were pleased by the verdict," writes Computerworld's Mikael Ricknäs. "It spells the beginning of the end for The Pirate Bay, according to Jonas Sjöström, chairman of the Swedish Independent Music Producers trade group. He added that sites such as The Pirate Bay typify an old operating model that is quickly losing its attraction and being replaced by legitimate services such as Spotify, a site that streams music."

"The verdict represents a step change in the law's attitude to copyright infringement as the men were found guilty of providing a conduit for others to break the law, rather than breaching copyright themselves," warns the Telegraph's Rupert Neate. "Until yesterday prosecutors had only acted against sites, such as Napster, which hosted copyrighted material."

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