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Half the Charges Against Pirate Bay Dropped
eldavojohn writes "Half the charges have been dropped in the second day of the trial against the Pirate Bay. The charges dropped are those relating to 'assisting copyright infringement,' so the remaining charges are simply 'assisting making available.' No information on how this affects the size of the lawsuit or a settlement."
Arguably, I make copyright infingement available by providing my daughter with a computer that can access the Internet.
If the argument is that putting a site up that points at known torrents is a crime, doesn't every media outlet in the world carrying this story run the risk of some culpability by promoting it?
M
....especially when millions of people world-wide are waiting scream "Bullsh!t" (in all forms of media) the moment the prosecution tries to submit some in court.
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, START
Yea, ye' scruvy IFPI may have girded themselves to face yourn dreaded pirates alone. But pirates and ninjas be allied now!
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Good to hear this news.
.torrent files he is using as evidence actually used The Pirate Bay's tracker. Many of the screenshots being used clearly state there is no connection to the tracker. Additionally, prosecutor HÃ¥kan Roswall didn't adequately explain the function of DHT which allows for so called "trackerless" torrents."
But From TFA: "What has been shown in court today is that the prosecutor cannot prove that the
So, it is only matter of time they are back later with stronger evidences?
It somehow just makes me feel better about the world when the "bully" gets a face-full of 'take that' from the underdog. I hope that the rest are dropped or mitigated to a wrist slap size judgment that allows TPB to continue operations as normal.
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
So now instead of the "making available" theory, we get to see the "assisting making available" theory.
I love how these lawyers think. If I gave a random guy in a wheelchair a push up a steep incline, and he had robbed a store sometime in the past, I would be an accessory to a crime.
Seriously, can't we just round up all of the lawyers, executives, and directors and just fucking kill them already?
That's not vague or anything.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
"It's a largely technical issue that changes nothing in terms of our compensation claims and has no bearing whatsoever on the main case against The Pirate Bay. In fact it simplifies the prosecutor's case by allowing him to focus on the main issue, which is the making available of copyrighted works," IFPI's legal counsel said.
Here's to having the case simplified to the point it allows the prosecutor to focus on other cases...
Nope, they only support half the theft.
From this point on, everybody needs to stop their illegal torrents when they reach 50%. Thank you.
Libraries provide all sorts of assistance. Why, they even have a professionals devoted to "assisting making available" -- librarians. I ask them where I can find a (copyrighted) book, and they not only tell me, but they let me borrow that (copyrighted) work!!! After that, I could either be following the law or not. How do they know I don't have a photocopier or scanner set up at home to "steal" the whole thing? What's worse, governments provide all sorts of financial assistance for libraries on the premise it is a "public good" to make these (copyrighted) materials available. They're obviously complicit in any copyright infringement that occurs.
Do the math! Next up: print publishers sue librarians and government for "assisting making available" copyrighted works.
Effectively, any search engine and the whole internet itself assists in 'making available'.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
The accual .torrent-files where not even submitted as evidence, only screenshots from the client. The prosecutor assumed that the only source of peers is a single tracker when it in reality can be multiple trackers, DHT, Peer Exchange, Local Peer Discovery and adding them manually.
Note that the defence haven't even started to make it's case yet, this is just from the prosecutors own mistakes.
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.
A classic tactic in self-serving prosecutions is to charge a person with rape, pillage, robbery and illegal parking. Then, when the defendant is found guilty of illegal parking, the prosecutor can announce conviction, with most listeners thinking that the defendant was convicted of all the charges.
--dave
davecb@spamcop.net
Why are people so happy? The linked article merely states that the prosecution didn't demonstrate that they had the evidence that they said that they have. I thought that slashdot wanted a verdict of "They are doing everything that is claimed and that is okay because it is legal". Why would slashdot be interested in the competency of the prosecution?
Weird how they are giving up so quickly. I get the feeling that the prosecution doesn't actually want to win this. Could they be going through to motions to satisfy the demands made by MPAA/RIAA/**AA as relayed through the U.S. government to the government of the prosecution to make them just shut up? "Hey! We did what you asked and it failed! What would you like us to do now?"
But even if there were some success in this, won't the result just be the development of technologies that make it even harder to prosecute?
The prosecutor dropped half of the charges because he had misunderstood the behaviour of the BitTorrent. The half of the charges were about making pirated copies.
This however still leaves, as the TFA states, the charges about 'assisting in making available'. This also does not affect the claims of the stakeholders, they are still "valid". Also the maximum possible sentence is still the same.
Swedish prosecutor has been really careful with this case and propably doesn't want to risk the case with false charges. All the tracker files provided by stakeholders as the files downloaded are carefully selected. They even have listed every IP met using those .torrent files and made sure that every one of those has a Swedish IP among them. The prosecutor is also careful in using any previous cases against torrent tracker (for example Finnreactor case in Finland).
A Finnish lawyer Mikko Välimäki has made a blog post about the case (Google translation, original is here)
...I can't wait for my lawsuit for linking to assisting making available.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Just a reminder to myself not to post when I can't think straight. Imagine a better topic for the previous post, other than my nick. :)
Yes, your honor, I didn't download all of that software. I specifically avoided downloading the trojan that the packager slipped in.
Case dismissed!
"Your Honor, The Engulf and Devour Media Conglomerate, er, I mean, The PEOPLE'S exhibit A:
A Google Screenshot , illustrating how Google facilitates the infringement of copyright and assists in making available these copyrighted files to immoral and unconscionable thieves like THEM!"
(Prosecutor inadvertently points towards jury box. Hilarity Ensues!)
Guaranteed! This comment 100% Anthrax free!
That's not how the Swedish/Scandinavian/German legal system works.
It's a different legal philosophy. The Anglo-American system works essentially by contrasting two alternate realities,
the prosecutor's version of events versus the defendant's version of events, and the trial is a decision between the two.
In this legal system, the prosecution and defendants work towards a sort of common reality. Along the way, arguments and evidence gets dropped until they're left with essentially the minimum of differences. *Then*, at the end, the prosecutor formally demands they be sentenced for whatever they think they can reasonably get.
It's common and completely normal in that way for charges to be changed, dropped or added during the trial. It's what remains at the end that matters, not what they were demanding at the start.
Also, district attorneys in Sweden are not elected officials, and a D.A. career is not viewed as a stepping-stone into a political one. So Swedish prosecutors aren't anywhere near as interested in media attention as American ones are.
Except that "making available" was thrown out in U.S. court. If they're convicted of "assisting making available" in Sweden it'll mean that the U.S. is the more liberal country and I don't think Sweden can live with that. No one in the E.U. would talk to them anymore.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Maybe the prosecution is just a show to keep the RIAA et al happy that "something" is being done.
Buckle your ROFL belt, we're in for some LOLs.
Ok, it would be nicer for this to work on ideals than technicalities. But the fact that the half the prosecutions case is based on them not understanding what is going on makes it likely that their understanding of the rest of the case may be a bit shaky as well.
If that is the case they are going to screw up nicely in the next few days, which is what I feel is most likely.
In Iceland the opposite happened (well, not really. The prosecution didn't know anything but the torrentsite operator didn't defend himself well enough) and now Iceland is one of those places where no search engine or data collection system wants a home base.
These people really don't think of the consequences. Studies show that piracy does not cut into profit margins in any significant way (Canadian government study being notable), which correlates with entertainment industry growth following economic trends and not increase in piracy efficiency.
We support the theft of intellectual property here, right?
Actually, I support changing the law so that copyright law only governs commercial use. But simplify that to any way that makes me evil if you like.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
The prosecutor in this case (Hakan Roswall) is Sweden's most experienced and knowledgeable prosecutor when it comes to cases involving Intellectual property rights. It looks like he didn't do his homework before entering the court house. He has been working on this case for more than three years and after one day in court he realized that TPB does not copy any files at all.
I think he felt a little embarrassed after this.
If the artists are represented by RIAA, movies by MPAA and writers by Author's Guild, I have no moral problem with piracy. But at the same time, all the files I have on my computers are from legal source - CDs (older) and amazon.com (newer).
I believe its good news because TPB prosecution stinks of corporate thuggery. And at the same time, RIAA and their ilk are going after innocent people with countless cases filed every year. They do not deserve anything out of this.
The RIAAs' heroes, congress, are going to get away with it! The RIAA deserves to deny software and electronics developers their rights to manufacture and sell their own IP, deny individuals their fair use and due process rights, and to strangle our tech sector to death to defend their obsolete business model.
I join the RIAA in cheering the DMCA, and hope acta will add the right for the RIAA's government stooges to steal my computer or ipod, and kick me off the internet for a year on a mere accusation.
Corporate execs who can't adapt destroying the economy and the fundamental principles of the free world. What's not to love?
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Funnily enough, one of the most technically competent lawyers the BBC has in this field is a hot blonde!
Seriouspost.
"There is nothing nice about Steve Jobs and nothing evil about Bill Gates." - Chuck Peddle