bjoernvold.com

Two of the PirateBay guys had appealed to the Human Rights Court in Strassbourg and got their appeal turned down.
The court does acknowledge that file sharing does fall in under the free speech umbrella in the EU article no 10
So far the PirateBay founders and the court do agree.

TPB claim that they only have provided the technology and the site to make file sharing possible, and never have shared anything illegal directly - so in fact they have only aided in providing free communication on the internet.
The court simply states that this right has limitations - and that the copyrighted material also is protected by the EU conventions.
So aiding in distributing illegal material is not protected.

This appeal was "clearly unfounded" so the court did not see the need to take it on.

This means that two of TPB founders must go to jail and pay 74 million SEK (about 10 million $).

The site is alive and does in fact distribute more illegal material today than when the process started.
That part makes this a bit less understandable to the average Joe.

viking60 wrote:The site is alive and does in fact distribute more illegal material today than when the process started.

I'd clicked up the site to see what all it was doing and saying there, and had forgotten...

And that is the disturbing side effect of this case. Taking the site down because it is illegal would be a proportioned reaction. Monitoring surf habits and blocking access; has some drawbacks that clearly could violate human rights.
Saving those data behaviors is in violation of Human rights in Germany where the Constitutional court overruled the politicians by declaring the EU data retention for unconstitutional and in violation of human rights. But it seems to be all right in Scandinavia (It will be tried in a Norwegian court though) and in the UK.
You can use a proxy - to see the site anyway