Lawyers for three Swedish men denied in a Dutch civil court that the men are the owners of the Pirate Bay Web site.
The site, one of the largest on the Web, provides an index to BitTorrent files, which are commonly used for trading movies, music and computer games.
The three men were protesting an earlier decision by the court to fine them €30,000 ($42,000) per day for failing to block all traffic between the Web site and the Netherlands.
Lawyer Ernst-Jan Louwers said on Thursday (Oct. 9) that one of the men, Peter Sunde, had never owned the site. He said the two others, Frederik Neij and Gottfrid Warg, had once owned it but sold it in 2006. However, under questioning from Judge Wil Tonkens, he conceded he could not say to whom they had sold it or produce any evidence of the sale.
In April, a Swedish court found that the three men and another Swedish national connected with the site had helped millions of people download copyright-protected material. They were given one-year prison terms and ordered to pay a fine of 30 million kronor ($3.9 million) - a decision under appeal.
Stichting Brein, an organization which represents copyright holders, said those arguments were not credible.
"Playtime is over," said lawyer Joris van Manen. "It's time to stop this."
Separately, Stichting Brein sought a summary judgment against Seychelles-registered company Reservella Ltd., the Pirate Bay's registered owner, also seeking to halt traffic between the site and the Netherlands. But no one for Reservella showed up in court.
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