Pirate Bay founders back in court to try to avoid jail

The Pirate Bay founders Peter Sunde and Fredrik Neij arrive at court

Founders of the file sharing website, The Pirate Bay, have appeared in court in Stockholm to appeal against multi million pound damages and a year long jail sentence.

In April 2009, Fredrik Neij, 32, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, 25, Peter Sunde, 32, and Carl Lundstroem, 50, were found guilty of promoting copyright infringement.

All four have yet to serve their year behind bars. The trial is expected to last until 15 October.

Last year's court case was seen as an important symbolic victory for the movie and music industry.

The entertainment companies which benefited from the damages payment included Warner Bros, Sony Music Entertainment, EMI, and Columbia Pictures.

The four had vowed to wage a lengthy legal battle against their sentence.

Only two of the the four were present, Neij and Sunde, in the Svea Court of Appeal in Stockholm (September 28).

"23 million users"

Svartholm Warg's lawyer was told to get a doctor's certificate for his client, who claimed he was ill and remained in Cambodia, his country of residence.

The Pirate Bay was founded back in 2003. Its owners claim the site has more than 23 million users.

No copyright content is hosted on The Pirate Bay's web servers, instead the site hosts "torrent" links to TV, film and music files held on its users' computers.

The appeal continues.