law, and the prison time and damage compensation high by Swedish standards. While most legal experts expected the court to find the defendants guilty, they were surprised at the harsh verdict. Sociology of law professor Håkan Hyden criticised the exceptionally harsh sentence on both the prison time and large amount of compensation awarded, and some legal analysts expect the punishments to be radically lowered in higher courts. The international public following the trial received the verdict with varying opinions. Some high-profile copyright holders publicly defended the verdict, with former Beatles member Paul McCartney commenting to the BBC that "if you get on a bus, you've got to pay. And I think it's fair, you should pay for your ticket." Mark Mulligan from Forrester Research considered the verdict very important for music industry PR, and copyright holder organisations indeed praised it as a landmark verdict. Likewise, The European Association of Internet Service Providers welcomed the verdict, commending judicial resolution to copyright infringement issues over internet filtering or three strikes policies. The Economist went further by criticising that the sentence might not have been strong enough to act as a deterrent for setting up similar services in the future. Some copyright holders took a different view however: Snow Patrol vocalist Gary Lightbody commented in interview that "they shouldn't have been jailed... the punishment doesn't fit the crime." In a column in Dagens Nyheter, composer and professor Roger Wallis, who was involved in the trial, condemned the verdict and its effects as paralyzing Swedish IT innovation on new ways of doing business. At the end of May 2009, Swedish Minister for Culture Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth made a speech to The Swedish Society of Popular Music Composers, expressing her opinion that "I was among those pleased about the Pirate Bay verdict." In accordance with the ministerstyre in the Constitution of Sweden, it is unconstitutional for ministers to influence ongoing cases, and many political commentators criticised the minister's statement. Max Andersson, member of the Committee on the Constitution in the Parliament of Sweden, requested the committee to review the incident. The committee pointed out the independence of judicial bodies and the government, and reminded ministers to exercise caution in their statements, but saw no need for further action or comment. Subsequent events Over 25,000 people joined the Swedish Pirate Party in the ten days following the guilty verdict, raising its membership to over 40,000 members