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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."
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?
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.
The secret is journalism.
If the Pirate Bay wrote a quick op-ed piece about every torrent they linked to, then they would be journalists and thus, protected. Next thing you know, they will be named thepiratebaytimes.org.
Sorry to piggyback on the FP, but for those of us at work with TFA blocked, here's the BBC's take: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7895026.stm
If I have nothing to hide, you have no reason to search me
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.
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.
It's a prosecutor.
The record labels do not choose their prosecutors, the state does. Keep in mind, attorneys tend to be type A personalities that seek challenges and glory in inordinate amounts.
I am sure there was some jockeying for the person who will handle this case, someone won, and he is doing it because he knew how to handle the politics moreso than because of his technology background.
It was mentioned yesterday that the prosecutor claimed to be a computer crimes expert, but that he could not get a powerpoint presentation to operate on his laptop.
M
....It's just incredible that the companies that are bringing TPB to court, with all their money and power couldn't find a more technical prepared lawyer (if there is such a thing)
Of course there are technically prepared lawyers! Ye gods man! See my sig
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
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.
If the Pirate Bay wrote a quick op-ed piece about every torrent they linked to, then they would be journalists and thus, protected.
But who's going to have the time to write reviews of so many feature films and their respective encode jobs?
If only they could harness some sort of free labor pool...
One man's -1 Flamebait is another man's +5 Funny.
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)
Strange. At the end of the article, the BBC actually presented information that made it seem as if they actually understood what The Pirate Bay does. Either the author of the article asked his IT guys to explain it to him or he knows what it does because he uses it to download copyrighted material. Either scenario is amusing I suppose.
Here's an excerpt from the BBC article for the benefit of the cynics among us who know the media never gets technical matters right:
BitTorrent is a legal application used by many file-shares to swap content because of the fast and efficient manner it distributes files.
No copyright content is hosted on The Pirate Bay's web servers; instead the site hosts "torrent" links to TV, film and music files held on its users computers.
There may be hope for the world yet :-)
sigs are hazardous to your health
Strange. At the end of the article, the BBC actually presented information that made it seem as if they actually understood what The Pirate Bay does. Either the author of the article asked his IT guys to explain it to him or he knows what it does because he uses it to download copyrighted material. Either scenario is amusing I suppose.
Quite the dichotomy you've presented. But is it outside the realm of possibility that the reporter actually already knew how bit torrent worked or otherwise decided to look it up in order to compose an informed article?
I only post comments when someone on the internet is wrong.
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.
It was mentioned yesterday that the prosecutor claimed to be a computer crimes expert, but that he could not get a powerpoint presentation to operate on his laptop.
That's because using a Powerpoint presentation on someone isn't a computer crime, it's a common assault.
I currently have mod points. I could've just mod you down for "stupid", or "clueless". Both options aren't available, and "overrated" is not satisfying enough.
So I figured I'd just post to point out what the above posts were trying to say is that..
(oh screw it you can't be helped)
You know, it's kind of funny. At this point they are trying to make a moral case for this: Giving people the tools to infringe copyright is wrong.
But in countries like the USA their are companies that sell guns (locally and abroad, even sold them to the evil taliban). People will stand up and shout "guns don't kill people, people kill people." Well I say selling guns is more morally objectionable than providing a tool to allow copyright infringement. Torrents don't infringe, people infringe! Err, something like that.
Surely you jest. Bittorrent has a huge number of legit uses - there may be a few pirates about giving it a bad name, but I for one use TPB exclusively for HD documentaries.
Yours truly,
aXXo
So it would go like this:
"This just in, user anonymous coward just posted a torrent [ ref: http://www.thepiratebaytimes.org/AdobeCS4-Windows/.torrent ] of Adobe Creative Suite 4. They were so bold they included a serial generator and an activation crack.
Now, while we at thepiratebaytimes.org do not condone nor encourage piracy, in the interest of investigative journalism we have downloaded the torrent and wish to report that not only are the crack and serial generator fully functional, they do not install any malware on your system.
It is the opinion of the editors at this media outlet that anonymous coward ought to be ashamed for himself by engaging in such willful promotion of copyright infringement. Shame on them, again, for posting the torrent at [ ref: http://www.thepiratebaytimes.org/AdobeCS4-Windows/.torrent ]. If you doubt our integrity and honesty we heartily encourage you to view the source [read: download the evidence] and test it for yourself.
As always, we thank you for reading our news site and will be bringing you the latest news on alleged copyright infringement shortly."
disclaimer for stupid sue-happy ambulance chasers: the links above are totally made up. If by freak chance they happen to link to infringing material, it is by sheer coincidence or the will of the LORD. I made the URL up based on the fake(?) domain referenced in the parent post.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
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.