[FrankenTan]

One of them (Peter Sunde) made flattr, the micro-payment service, unless I'm mistaken. http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/FlattrBlog/~3/Uxur-7Ouz0M/

Their involvement with the pirate bay were well known, and I suspect known by their respective employers. They are also rather well-known within the Swedish Pirate movement.

I suspect the people who won't hire them after the verdict wouldn't have hired them even before it since their involvement with the pirate bay was no secret.

The pirate movement in Sweden is one of the most vocal movements about civil rights and against host of laws that are considered to be in dispute with civil rights, so for this movement they're more or less martyrs rather than just some nerds who built a tracker and a trademark.

Recent laws (mass-surveillance, corporations being given more investigative rights than the police, etc) and events in Sweden have in a way bridged current civil rights and rule-of-law issues with the pirate movement.

It'll be interesting to see wheter this connection remains now that Sweden has a new liberal party which tackle many of the same issues the pirate party does, or wheter they'll become more separated with time.

[Edit: Rephrased section into 'considered to be in dispute with civil rights']