The four Pirate Bay co-founders were convicted of copyright infringement by an unbiased judge, the Stockholm District Court told an appeals court Monday.

The district court made the statement to the Svea Court of Appeal in Sweden. It was in response to accusations by the defendants that they should get a retrial because the judge, Tomas Norstrom, was a member of pro-copyright groups.

"The memberships are simply a means to gain increased knowledge of copyright legislation issues and are not therefore grounds to establish bias, the Stockholm court told the court of appeals," according to Swedish media. "On the contrary, the court argued, it is imperative that judges remain abreast of the issues."

Days after the April convictions, attorneys for the four charged that Norstrom was hostile to the defense because of his affiliations with the Swedish Copyright Association and the Swedish Association for the Protection of Industrial Property.

The court's comments came a day after Sweden's Pirate Party won a seat in the European Parliament – in part as a backlash against the convictions

Pirate Bay administrators Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg and Peter Sunde were found guilty in the case, along with Carl Lundström, who was convicted of funding the five-year-old operation. Pending the outcome of their appeals, they each face a year in prison and $3.8 million in fines.

The defendants also charged that the Stockholm trial court secretly steered the case to Norstrom, an assertion the Stockholm court flatly rejected Monday.

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