Ever since the the Pirate Bay verdict was announced, the poor record labels have been waiting to collect their share of the damages. The law firm representing several record labels has now filed a request at the Swedish Enforcement Authority, to claim anything of value from the Pirate Bay defendants. However, their involvement in the case might backfire.

On Friday April 17, the court announced its verdict in the Pirate Bay Trial. All four defendants were sentenced to one year in prison and each ordered to pay $905,000 in damages to compensate the entertainment industries. In an attempt to get as much from the defendants as possible, law firm Danowsky & Partner has requested the Swedish Enforcement Authority (Kronofogde) to go after the money.

Although the case is under appeal, the claims are legitimate since they apply to the civil part of the verdict. If you don’t pay your bill, or if you have a sentence against you that requires you to pay damages, the Swedish Enforcement Authority has the authority to take what you have in order to settle the debt. They can claim salary, real estate, and other valuable property in order to collect the money.

The Enforcement Authority has reviewed the request and notified the defendants on the demands from each of the various clients represented by the Danowsky firm. The damages have to be paid in Euros and on the notification (pdf) different amounts are listed for each of the record labels, including Sony Music, Warner, EMI and Universal Music.

The Pirate Bay’s Peter Sunde told TorrentFreak that the defendants have issued a counterclaim, arguing that the labels shouldn’t be allowed to request damages via The Enforcement Authority at this stage. Whether or not this counterclaim will prove successful, it is unlikely that they will get much from Peter. “If I would have money I would rather burn everything I owned,” he said earlier.

Interestingly, the law firm that sent out these notices may soon have its very own cash flow problem. Someone started a website asking people to send really small amounts of money to Danowsky & Partners, and then request a refund citing a wrong payment.

The law firm will be obliged to file these transfers, and all the accounting will be a costly process, especially when thousands of requests come in at the same time. Then, if the law firm refuses to pay, they can simply inform the The Enforcement Authority and have them go after the money instead. Oh the irony.