Pirate Bay founders get a year in jail

The founders of The Pirate Bay, the infamous BitTorrent tracker, were found guilty by a Swedish court in assisting in making copyrighted material available and sentenced to a year in jail.

"Criminal sites like Pirate Bay seriously undermine investment in music and in legal online services and do nothing to reward artists or creators," said Geoff Taylor, chief executive of U.K. trade body the BPI. "We hope that this decision will encourage British music fans to steer clear of these parasitic illegal download services and support the future of British music by downloading legally."

"It will not be the final decision," the website responded in a statement. "It will have no real effect on anything besides setting the tone for the debate."

One of the founders’ lawyers is planning on appealing.