

Gottfried Svartholm Warg, one of four founders of The Pirate Bay, said Monday that "record companies can go screw themselves" in response to a music-industry demand for $2.5 million in damages.

The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry made the compensation claim Monday in a Swedish court, where the torrent-tracking site's developers have been indicted for copyright violations related to the sharing of 24 music albums, nine films and four videogames using the service.

The head of the Swedish chapter of IFPI described the $2.5 million sum as representational of greater damage, according to The Local:

This damages now being demanded are based on the albums which the prosecutor has included in his indictment. The injury to the record companies, the artists and the copyright holders caused by The Pirate Bay’s illegal activity is many times greater.

However, Svartholm Warg (pictured) claims that the $2.5 million figure, which the labels most likely reached by multiplying the number of times the albums were traded by their retail price, is too high. He said that when presented with the claim, he and Pirate Bay's three other developers "mostly laughed at it."

"As usual, we're not too concerned," he said.

"[The IFPI's] numbers are pure fantasy," he explained, probably because most downloaders would not have paid full price for what they were downloading.

Photo courtesy Steal This Film

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