The founders of torrent site The Pirate Bay may finally be walking the plank in Sweden. According to TorrentFreak, the Swedish Supreme Court has declined to hear arguments for three of the founders, meaning that the prison sentences set by a Court of Appeals are now final. Peter Sunde, or Brokep, faces eight months in prison, while Fredrik Neij will see 10 months and Carl Lundström, who backed the site financially, was sentenced to four. Co-founder Gottfrid Svartholm will still face the full year in prison that was decided in 2011. The four will also pay a combined 46 million kronor ($6.8 million US) in damages.

This decision looks to mark the end of one of the most prominent online copyright infringement cases with a decisive victory for rightsholders — prosecuting attorney Monique Wadsted said that the verdict meant that "those who continued to provide small or large illegal file-sharing services or Internet access to such will voluntarily cease today." However, it's not clear when and if the defendants will be going to jail. TorrentFreak has said that Swedish law allows for 12 months to be deducted from a prison term if a case is over five years old, and a post on The Pirate Bay's blog claims that "since no one of them no longer [sic] lives in Sweden, they won't go to jail." Sunde, however, expressed regret over the verdict, but said that "I’ll live with whatever sentence I’ll get in the end." Meanwhile, the site will continue to operate, but has begun redirecting users to a Swedish domain and is replacing its torrent files with lower-bandwidth (and potentially less incriminating) magnet links.