The hackers, calling themselves “The New Generation,” left a message for prosecutor Håkan Roswall, asking him to stop lying. Here is the text in English, as provided by Billboard, and here is the original text, as it appears on a Swedish blog.

 

The hackers warned that the ruthless hunt conducted against The Pirate Bay is targeting four innocent men, who are now standing trial for copyright infringement. This is a declaration of war against anti-piracy outfits and the industry players behind them, and this was just the beginning, the hackers continued.

 

But the move doesn’t seem to help Pirate Bay’s cause, as Peter Sunde, one of the defendants, wrote on his blog. Our case is going quite well, he wrote. In the light of that it feels very bad that people are hacking web sites which actually puts us in a worse light than we need to be in, he continued. If anyone involved in the acts going on is reading this – please stop, for our sake. We don’t need that kind of support.

 

Hacking websites in not going to help Pirate Bay representatives in court, and as Sunder put it, it’s going to reflect on them in a negative way. In the meantime, the site has been restored to normality, as the defendants continue to respond to questions in court.

 

Things started well for the defendants, after the prosecution failed to present relevant evidence that they assisted copyright infringement. The four now face charges of making available copyrighted works. The plaintiffs are seeking $13 million in compensatory damages, and time in jail for the defendants.

 

Peter Danowskym legal counsel for the music companies involved in the case, said in a recent statement that dropping one charge doesn’t change the terms of their compensation claims, and has no bear on the case itself. On the contrary, he said, it will help prosecution focus on the main issue here, which is the making available of copyrighted works.

 

The Pirate Bay torrent tracker has always been controversial for its practices, but that didn’t stop it from becoming one of the most popular websites of the kind in the world. Furthermore, it still remains unclear how the trial will end, especially since the European justice system might act in a different manner than the American one. But as The Pirate Bay representatives once wrote, Sweden is not a country in the United States, and US law doesn’t apply here.