Sweden Blames Web Designer for Copyright Violations by Site Users

And you think the U.S. government doesn't understand the Internet

In a case lasting more than three years, a web designer who admitted that he had been contracted to work on the now-defunct StudentBay torrent site was cleared after the court found there was no evidence to suggest he had actually run the site. But in a turnaround the Court of Appeal ruled yesterday that the designer must've known the site would be put to infringing use and found him guilty of copyright infringement offenses.

After its launch in 2008, the StudentBay e-learning torrent site quickly became associated with The Pirate Bay due to its familiar logo, Swedish roots and other alleged links to the site.