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Lawyer Peter Althin, representing the Pirate Bay spokesperson Peter Sunde calls for retrial

There have been a series of interesting events surrounding the extended Pirate Bay process. It started with PRQ (the web hotel hosting TPB) being illegally raided, and to add the icing on that cake, the minister in charge acting in violation of the Swedish constitution by directly ordering law enforcement (see New Technology's "Was the Raid a Judicial Scandal?" [in Swedish]). Then the FRA and IPRED bills passed in direct defiance of election promises and popular opinion folding to foreign pressure, as was the trial itself. It is hardly surprising that it turned out that the judge was cherry picked. The judge, Thomas NorstrÃm, argued that "My view has been that these activities do not constitute a conflict of interest," and he was not swayed in his judgement by involvement with copyright protection groups.

There was great surprise over the April 17th ruling. Even the legal experts that expected a conviction were taken aback by the prison sentence and the size of the compensatory fine.

The current debate on Swedish technical boards is one of conspiracy theories. Swedes are generally relatively hesitant of suggesting conspiracies, but this one reeks of collusion.

The former Chief Prosecutor Sven-Erik Alhem says (in Swedish) that this will hurt the international renown of Swedish courts as well as damage domestic belief in judicial neutrality and safety.

Also interesting is the public statement from the Pirate Party which calls this "Corruption and miscarriage of justice" and "The copyright lobby has really managed to bring corruption to Sweden".

This may turn out to be a huge inconvenience for the copyright organisations and for the ruling coalition.

Or this one in The Local:
http://www.thelocal.se/19028/20090423/

Alternatively, from The Local, an English language Swedish paper:

Pirate Bay Lawyer calls for retrial

Though it might be worth pointing out that the "call" for a retrial isn't actually official yet, just what the lawyer has said to journalists.

There's a good chance that the Pirate Bay verdict will be overturned.

"The judge in the Pirate Bay case, Tomas NorstrÃm, has been a member of several of the same copyright protection organisations as several of the main entertainment industry representatives, Sveriges Radio's P3 news programme reports." http://www.thelocal.se/19028/20090423/

Wow. That's so far from a fair trial it blows my mind. He should lose his position over that.

There's a good chance that the Pirate Bay verdict will be overturned.

"The judge in the Pirate Bay case, Tomas NorstrÃm, has been a member of several of the same copyright protection organisations as several of the main entertainment industry representatives, Sveriges Radio's P3 news programme reports." http://www.thelocal.se/19028/20090423/

1. In Sweden you can buy your broadband from bahnhof, who says they won't be able to provide names of infringers since they don't keep the logs: http://www.thelocal.se/18882/20090416/

2. You can also vote against the bourgeoisie in the next elections. The biggest party, Moderaterna, promised something along the lines of that they would not "chase an entire generation of youth". The ipred law is imo an obvious breaking of that promise by the right alliance parties.

3. Share using usb sticks, mediaplayers, phones, whatever, whenever and wherever. What are they gonna do about the sneakernet?

"Broadband operator Bahnhof has begun destroying the IP address details of its customers in an open and fully legal bid to undermine Sweden's new anti-file sharing laws."

http://www.thelocal.se/18882/20090416/

Jeez, does anyone ever check their sources? MSNBC of all things? You know what the MS stands for do you?

Other than that:

There was not ONE server with 65TB but a "ring" of servers with "suspected" 65TB overall data. Police took down exactly one single server. All the other servers were shut down by the people running them so they could not be traced further.

[ENG] http://torrentfreak.com/large-pirate-topsite-raided-in-sweden-090306/
[SWE] http://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/article4582094.ab
[ENG] http://www.thelocal.se/18050/20090306/
Just the fact that they dub that "the biggest raid ever" is such a hilarious demonstration of how much they don't know.

"Ponten said the server ring had collapsed as a direct result of the raid." hahahaha
Did you mean, was redirected and pulled out of your sight? And even if it "collapsed" these are Gigabit sites, backup is easy and there is, well let me understate, definitely more than one of these.

Whoa, you think that the US has that much pull on the Swedish courts?

There are precedents.

The US has previosly interfered with the Swedish justice system, using political pressure on the Swedish Minister of Justice and other political officials.

Examples of such events are the Scientology trial against Zenon Panoussis when individual Congress members pressured Sweden and a second example is when Sweden's Minister of Justice after being pressured allowed CIA operatives to detain and deport Ahmed Agiza and Muhammad al-Zery to Egypt, where they were imprisoned, beaten, and tortured.

The reason for dropping the charges can be found between the lines of this article. Basically, TPB nicely informed the prosecution that there way no way in hell that they could prove which copyright infringements originated from the trackers provided by TPB (as opposed to, say, mininova or slotorrent).

While I love this outcome (and the fact that it took TPB less than 24 hours to uproot the more serious charges brought against them), I'm not too happy about this approach. They're winning on technicalities, while I would have liked for them to win on principle.

Anyway, I'll keep dreaming.

Yuo should see some of their other quotes like this:

"The record companies can go screw themselves," said Pirate Bay founder Gottfrid Svartholm Warg to The Local on learning of the claims in March 2008.

Plus their page of legal threats is always good for laughs.

Where is the beef? Broadband is as much a delivery 'pipe' as these strategically important networks:

Electric Grid.
Interstate Freeways.
Railways.
Air Traffic Control.
Rivers and Canals.

The $10 billion investment will *not* bring about the degree of change possible if broadband networks do not get treated as a strategic asset with equal access. A government/private-sector non-profit consortium should be given the money and tasked to bring this about. There are many ways of achieving a policy objective. Now that there is money to do something, it should be put to use defining what will bring about the biggest bang for the buck, and then putting the investment there. It has to be a deliberate and coordinated effort, and not some relatively vague destination this $10 billion has taken.

The policy can direct the implementation of 1gbps connections, as Japan has set out to do, with the consortium tasked to determine how to bring it about. At an extreme, what can be achieved today is demonstrated by the world's fastest Internet connection. http://www.thelocal.se/7869/20070712. At 40gbps it blows away my puny 10mbps fiber connection. I'll be satisfied with 1gbps to match my wired home network.

The broadband private sector will likely 'rant and rave', to the degree this effort will be labelled 'socialism', ignoring the fact that it is quite the opposite - a 'capitalist' investment designed to bring about much bigger and better markets. Socialism tends to restrict free and open markets, which at times is the private sector's indulgence and delight. Philosophically, companies resistant to the idea are, by this definition, the 'socialists'. They do not see the bigger profit and are therefore of disservice to their shareholders.

As an example, Comcast has become the free marketer's laughing stock by deciding to 'close the runway to certain kinds of aircraft' http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-9800629-38.html - instead of taking the more sensible approach of promoting and lobbying for the coordinated research, development, and adoption of higher bandwidth technologies in order to eliminate the bandwidth issue. A broadband network outside Comcast control eliminates this kind of inevitable private sector 'gaming'. Your SUV cannot be blocked from the freeway because Comcast objects to it carrying Firefox T-Shirts.

truth. From TFA:

"It was hardly their intention. But since the article was withdrawn, I have received lots of mail and requests for copies of the article. The article would not have been read to this extent if the company had simply ignored it in silence," says Francisco Lacerda to the Dagens Nyheter.

I also find it funny, and sad, that a Swedish entity caved so easily to a legal threat from outside the country (and from outside the country's legal system).

Actually, from an english version of the article:http://www.thelocal.se/17188/20090127/

When Nemesysco Limited, an Israeli company which produces lie detecting equipment, caught wind of the story, the firm contacted Equinox, the journal's British publisher, and demanded the article be withdrawn.

Its the British Publisher who caved, not the Swedish entity.

http://www.thelocal.se/17188/20090127/

Sweden regarded free? You must be joking.

All emails and phone calls are monitored in the name of national security
Sweden is second from bottom in the EU when it comes to protecting its citizens' private integrity

This is what happens when a government realises it's large imported religious fundamentalist population has ideas that run counter to their modern progressive ones. See also: the UK

Sweden regarded free? You must be joking.

All emails and phone calls are monitored in the name of national security
Sweden is second from bottom in the EU when it comes to protecting its citizens' private integrity

This is what happens when a government realises it's large imported religious fundamentalist population has ideas that run counter to their modern progressive ones. See also: the UK

The real "data-over-time" eye opener is the bandwidth he'd need to download it in the firstplace.

Either he's had a 10 gigabit/second pipe stuffed continuously for the last 2 years, or somebody took the "bandwidth of a station wagon full of disks" saying past the jumbo jet level.

Or perhaps he lives in this granny's basement and she's finished doing his laundry.

Since HP built the super cluster that's gonna be used to wiretap all of Sweden's internet and phones (and everyone who has any dealings with anyone in Sweden, or has any traffic that happens to pass through Sweden), one wonders if this is the FS that drives the beast? If so, it should be pretty gosh darn impressive.

The Pirate Bay seems to have the right idea. Take the governemt to court, start legal procedings.

If this is anything like the other PirateBay cases i can't wait to see the legal corrispondance.

The question posed to the public was: "Should members of parliament vote in favour of the surveillance law even if they don't believe it is right for Sweden?".

Resluts:
* Yes, they have a duty to respect party policy : 2%
* No, they should have the courage of their convictions: 98%

You may think the poll question is very biased, but... it is a very common argument from swedish members of parliaments: "I dont like it but I have to follow the party opinion"

Poll can be found at TheLocal.se (swedish news in english): http://www.thelocal.se/12476/20080617/

A English Source From Sweden

http://www.thelocal.se/12252/20080605/

Looks like its gonna spread like wild fire. See this article about pirate bay. http://www.thelocal.se/11614.html/ Is this the end of public torrent sites.

Why not, you can use it to dry laundry.

The people who abuse copyright are not the modest income types. The modest income types keep working just like the rest of us. Hell, a lot of the modest income types that do creative content LOVE that their stuff hits bittorrent sites, because it makes them more popular. They aren't the people that are causing the problems.

Things are happening in the case against The Pirate Bay. One of the police officers involved in the investigation now works for Warner Brothers in Sweden. See here for more info.

Meanwhile, Swedish police stands by watching an outbreak of gang shootings in the city of Gothenburg, in which even police stations and police helicopter hangars have been destroyed by drive by shootings. The chief of police is quoted as saying "We know who they are but we can't arrest them because we have no proof".

Isn't it amazing that it's easier in Sweden to raid and arrest a white collar hacker than a hard-core gang of criminals with machine guns?

In other news, Swedish feminists were heard crying out for the right to display their breasts in public - "we too [want to] pull off our shirts at football matches".

God, what a country.

The Swedish Navy has trained with the US Navy for several years now using a diesel sub trying to avoid detection. From what I've heard the swedish crew have been very succesful. http://www.thelocal.se/article.php?ID=3574&date=20060418

As a Swedish citizen, you should stop being so stuck up and realize that your government too wants to snoop your email. Which is, I presume, a government you can influence through voting. Reinfeldt sure loves to kiss Bush's ass. Vote right (left that is) next time.

Hehe:)

Either you were trying to decipher the original Swedish-language article, or you have serious cognitive difficulties. Here is another link to clear up the issue: this Swedish news site states that Dan Egerstad is an IT security researcher and according to them, he published his findings more as a CYA procedure (that's "cover your ass").

The same news website published an unrelated story in December 2006 where Egerstad is also mentioned as IT consultant: http://www.thelocal.se/5749/20061209/

Hehe:)

Either you were trying to decipher the original Swedish-language article, or you have serious cognitive difficulties. Here is another link to clear up the issue: this Swedish news site states that Dan Egerstad is an IT security researcher and according to them, he published his findings more as a CYA procedure (that's "cover your ass").

The same news website published an unrelated story in December 2006 where Egerstad is also mentioned as IT consultant: http://www.thelocal.se/5749/20061209/

Here's a more detailed article on the subject, ending with a highly amusing quote from Dan Egerstad about his real reason for releasing the log-in info.

"London being the great example does not apply to ANY other city in Europe. But then again ignorant Americans with no knowledge of the world is just a stereotype, huh?"

Right! No other EU country does either. It's just the US

1. Thomas Bodström, who was minister of justice until the election in september 2006, was accused of putting pressure on police and attorneys to act against The Pirate Bay (which is illegal under the Swedish Constitution) after high-ranking employees at his Ministry of Justice had met with representatives for MPAA and the US Department of State. Bodström is now, among other things, the chairman of ECPAT Sweden who together with the IT crime section of the Swedish police compile the list of websites to put in the DNS blacklist discussed in this article. Thomas Bodström is not a fan of The Pirate Bay.
http://www.thelocal.se/article.php?ID=3969&date=20 060602

2.An anti-copyright website run by some of the same people as the ones who run The Pirate Bay was placed on this list a few weeks ago because the front page had an animation of a naked kid doing the "Copy Me" dance. There was absolutely nothing pornographic about this animation (see for yourself: http://kopimi.se/ ), which the attorney told Stefan Kronqvist, head of the IT crime section of the Swedish police, while they told him to remove the website from the blacklist after the people behind the website had made a formal complaint. They also sent a mail to Kronqvist requesting financial compensation for the time their website had been blocked but received no reply. Rumours say that Stefan Kronqvist is not a fan of The Pirate Bay.
http://swartz.typepad.com/texplorer/2007/07/polise ns-hmnd-m.html

3. The US Chamber of Commerce recently arranged a seminar for pro-copyright lobbyists in Sweden with the title "Sweden - a safe haven for pirates?". In this seminar a guy from a Danish anti-piracy organisation explained how great it was to use child pornography as an argument to establish the principle that information carriers like websites and ISPs must be responsible for the information they distribute. Once that principle was established it could easily be extended to cover things like copyright infringement as well. He higly recommended lobbyists in other countries to use the same technique.
http://forum.piratpartiet.se/Topic79221-15-5.aspx# bm79282

Most of the links are in Swedish, sorry about that.

See: http://www.thelocal.se/7650/20070619/

The link to the Wordpress blogg confirms it (albeit in Swedish) "...nås jag nu av informationen om att detta har lett till att en åklagare inlett förundersökning om brott." which translates to "... now I've been reached by the information that a prosecutor has begun a preliminary investigation if there has been a breech of the law".

An english language site of swedish news is thelocal.se also has it at http://www.thelocal.se/7674/20070621/.

And no, politicians do not have immunity while in office here in Sweden (thank god). I belive the King has some limited immunity but that's about it.

It's already happened in Sweden. Around a year ago Laila Freivalds (minister of foreign affairs from The Social Democrats) used the Mohammad cartoons as a pretext to have a rival party's website (the Sweden Democrats) shutdown, but luckily she was found out and forced to resign.

As an atheist, I hope this declaration will not make it impossible to be critical of religion...

Hardly a guarantee of safety. The RIAA and WIPO have already shown their ability to flex muscle in even the most liberal countries.

In fact please have a look here for how many European nations are run today.

The people of Kiruna are not only space exploration experts, they are also good at moving houses.

Oh, and here's a link just to give some substance to what I'm saying. :-)
http://www.thelocal.se/article.php?ID=2571&date=20 051125

According to the SVT (Swedish Public Service), MPAA was behind yesterday's raid against The Pirate Bay. This corresponds well with the MPAA public statement after the raid; ""the film industry has worked vigorously with Swedish and U.S. government officials in Sweden to shut the illegal (sic) site down".

In April representatives for the Swedish Department of Justice and Swedish police met American authorities who, on request from the MPAA, brought up the filesharing issue. Three problems with Sweden were listed:

* The Pirate Bay.
* Many filesharing sites are based in Sweden.
* A big share of filesharing material has its origins in Sweden.

The Department then asked the police and prosecutors to act against the Pirate Bay. When they responded that the legality of the situation was unclear, the Minister of Justice's state secretary contacted the Prosecutor-General and the national Chief of police who gave the orders for the raid.

According to SVT's Rapport, the MPAA contacted the White House. Then the American Ministry for Foreign Affairs contacted its Swedish counterpart and demanded a solution to the Pirate Bay issue.

The fact that they did this is quite serious as these actions implicate minister rule, which is illegal according to the Swedish constitution.

One might go so far as to consider Sweden's sovereignity violated. Add to this that it wasn't very long ago American CIA captured two people in Sweden (later to be transfered to Egypt), many are now upset over the Swedish government's submission.

Not only the Pirate Bay, but Piratbyrån (Pirate bureau), a site trying to influence public opinion - against copyright - was raided at the same time. Henrik Pontén at Antipiratbyrån (Anti pirate bureau) claims they (APB) mainly acted against this obviously not illegal organisation, quite pleased that they got shut down as well.

If you read this article here, http://www.thelocal.se/article.php?ID=3969&date=20 060602 , you will see that the Department of State, which is indeed part of the US Government has been at least accused of participating in this debacle.

Ewww, talk about a misleading headline by luddites, Matt Drudge is a hypocrite and should be banned for continually misleading the public with these types of technically incompetent news headlines. This guy is famous for bias and this just proves the mentality or lack there of. I wish people would see through these blattering mouthpieces.

http://www.drudgereport.com/

"Swedish Police Shut Down worlds largest file sharing company..."

http://www.thelocal.se/article.php?ID=3955&date=20 060531

I just relized by writing about this, I've provided free advertising to his site. OOPS

Full article in English here with recent quotes direct from the Swedish police and the leader of the Pirate Party. Apparently it's a very early stage in the investigation - so maybe more arrests to come?

Police have been monitoring the website and the men behind it for some time. Computers were taken during raids on the men's homes and offices to secure evidence.

Please see: The Local in English. Aftonbladet in b0rk b0rk.

On a more serious note, Antipiratbyrån has been under some fire (very lame fire, since Swedish media generally don't understand the whole copyright issue) recently for planting copyrighed material as an excuse to raid the ISP Bahnhof. More on that here and (in Swedish) here.

http://www.thelocal.se/article.php?ID=1157 Ooops.

http://www.thelocal.se/article.php?ID=1157/