A 15-year-old boy in Sweden is facing up to two years in jail because the head teacher at his school reported him to police for illegal file downloading.
The piracy came to light when a technician at a Gothenberg school traced the introduction of a virus on the school network back to the boy’s computer. On scanning the drive he located 24 movies including The Mechanic, The Social Network, and The Fighter. He proceeded to report the finding to the head teacher.
Rather than call the boy in for a chat and discuss punishment for both introducing the virus and downloading illegal files, the head teacher instead called the police and had the kid arrested. Apparently, the policy of the school is to call the police if a crime is committed.
Now the boy is facing a rather severe punishment of up to 2 years in jail, although if he’s lucky his parents will just have to find the cash to pay a large fine.
The case is unique because no one this young has ever been targeted for prosecution before, but that doesn’t mean it will be thrown out. The Swedish Pirate Party obviously disagrees and believes it should never have got as far as the courts in the first place.
