It was a rough week for pirates, both on the high seas and the electronic frontier. On Friday, the people behind the online piracy enabler site, The Pirate Bay, were found guilty of violating copyright laws by a Swedish court. The four men, Frederik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Carl Lundstrom and Peter Sunde, were sentenced to a year in jail and fined over 3.6 million dollars. The Pirate Bay is the most popular file-sharing site on the web, with an estimated 22 million users.

While the site doesn’t actually host any illegal material, it provides links to “torrents,” where music, games, software, movies, television shows and more can be downloaded illicitly.

Though this seems like a victory for anti-piracy forces, the entertainment industry and software companies, it remains to be seen what the actual impact of the verdict will be. Lawyers for TPB have already said that they’ll appeal. Peter Sunde has also stated that they won’t pay the levied fine.

“We can’t pay and we wouldn’t pay. Even if I had the money I would rather burn everything I owned, and I wouldn’t even give them the ashes.”

Ironically, membership in Sweden’s Pirate Party is surging in response to the crackdown on TPB. The group has become one of the largest political parties in the country. The Jolly Roger continues to fly high for now. The site remains operational, complete with the message “Don’t worry - we’re from the internets. It’s going to be alright. :-)”
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