STOCKHOLM, Sweden, Dec. 18 (UPI) -- A court in Sweden has ruled a 28-year-old man must pay a $650,000 fine for uploading one film to a torrent-sharing piracy website.
The man, who was not named in the media -- as is normal Swedish practice -- was given a suspended jail sentence and ordered to perform 160 hours of community service for uploading 517 other titles, the BBC reported Wednesday.
Film studio Nordisk Film AS, owner of the rights to the title the man uploaded, calculating what it said was the financial loss of it being shared illegally online, had asked for double the awarded amount.
"The biggest part refers to compensation and should equalize what the man would have paid if he had bought a license to distribute the movie for free downloads," Swedish anti-piracy group Rights Alliance said in a statement.
Groups lobbying for copyright reform criticized the ruling, calling the legislation under which it was rendered "outdated."
"The only way forward is a radical reform of copyright law that allows for the sharing of culture," the Swedish Pirate Party told news website TorrentFreak.
