A bad week for Pirates

PirateBay is facing a new wave of legal actions, both civil and criminal.

Prince is launching lawsuits against the organisation in America, France and Sweden, claiming he's being ripped off by the torrent service. Hypebot suggests this is a fine example of a DIY artist taking his copyright into his own hands, but it's not quite that simple, as CNET reports:

Prince has hired Giacobbi and Web Sheriff, a service that protects copyright materials from Internet piracy, to coordinate the legal challenges against The Pirate Bay and others who the singer believes has violated his copyright.

[...]
Prince, who Giacobbi said has the backing of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, or IFPI, the group that represents the recording industry worldwide, is only adding to The Pirate Bay's legal troubles.

So, not so much the little guy against the world, then. Were we given to bouts of cynicism, we might wonder if the music industry isn't using Prince as a proxy - after all, nobody has so far sided with large, corporate copyright holders in the battle for hearts and minds. Perhaps a still-fairly-popular popstar might be a more attractive face for the battle?

Meanwhile, and perhaps more worryingly for PirateBay, is a report on TorrentFreak that a Swedish prosecutor is looking to bring criminal charges:

Håkan Roswall announced that he plans to press charges against 5 people involved with The Pirate Bay before January 31, 2008. The 5 are suspected of facilitating copyright infringement.

Clearly, with its famously low rate of incarcerations, the people to fill Sweden's prisons need to come from somewhere.