Pirate Bay Founder Begs For Hacker Ceasefire

Barence writes "Pirate Bay's co-founder has pleaded for hackers to stop attacking the sites of those organizations lined up against him. Peter Sunde is on trial with Pirate Bay's three other founders for allegedly distributing copyrighted material. The trial is about to enter its fourth day, and in a gesture of support for the four men hackers have begun assaulting plaintiff websites, beginning with that of the The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. The campaign has caused concern in the Pirate Bay camp, prompting Sunde to write a post titled 'We're winning, stop hacking, please' on his blog."

Comments

With friends like these...

[Arancaytar]

Who needs enemies, eh? :P

Re:With friends like these...

[Moryath]

The unfortunate reality is that, depending on what happens, this could conceivably be construed as either (a) evidence of bad faith (which courts really don't like) or (b) an attempt to intimidate plaintiffs or plaintiff witnesses, which would be a MAJOR problem for the defense (who would then be under the gun to prove total noninvolvement).

Remember: all it takes is one trumped-up charge to slip past the court/jury to make things go down the shitter.

Re:With friends like these...

[Moryath]

And this is why you are not a lawyer.

Merely raising the accusation colors perceptions of the defendants. That's why (whenever possible) the defense tries to get their client dressed up in a nice suit and tie, rather than his dailywear, and tries to get him in with a shave/trim to the beard and hair rather than having it look wild and crazy.

All it takes is one lawyer standing up in front of the jury and saying "and we believe Mr. X's co-conspirators are responsible for attacking our business website..." and it doesn't matter what comes after. People tend to remember the first thing they are told and assign it higher value than any counterargument, as shown by many, many psychological studies. That biases the jury and judge and makes the case harder to win.

Re:With friends like these...

[Anonymous Coward]

Merely raising the accusation colors perceptions

Way back when I was in law school, my criminal law prof used this example to demonstrate the power of accusation (this in the "innocent until proven guilty" category of things):

How many of you, when you see a cop car go by with someone in the backseat, think "hmmm ... I wonder why that innocent person is in the backseat of a police car?" How many of you think "I wonder what he did?"

Re:With friends like these...

[russotto]

ROFLMAO, if you think that a jury actually DOES disregard things like that, you're a loon.

Which is why the judge should make up some stuff to balance things out.

"Jury will disregard that remark, and also the allegation that witness for the prosecution was seen fucking a goat."

Cease fire

[jetsci]

"Cease fire boys, we got 'em where we want 'em!" Reminds me of my old Staff. Sergeant. Even if TPB wins, I imagine this will change the front of file-sharing once again and new technology will emerge. I'm just curious what it will be...

Re:Cease fire

[tacarat]

What's "Staff." short for?

In the military, like most jobs, the staff is always short for funding or recruiting reasons.

Re:Cease fire

[edittard]

What's a Nepalese Bull Terrier like?

Same as any other dog - biscuits, slow cats and the taste of its own genitals.

Boo, This is Court! More Theatrics!

[Anonymous Coward]

"We're winning, stop hacking, please"

I would prefer something more theatrical such as:

Does it please the court to know that my hand has stayed the executioner's sword from the neck of the prosecution?

Stop hacking please, nudge nudge wink wink

[MisterSquirrel]

Of course, as any decent hacker knows, "Stop hacking please" is just a l33t-speak code message for, "Keep up the good work"!

Suspicious

[Eudial]

One should be open to the possibility of IFPI "hacking" themselves to gain popular support. It is, after all, instant sympathy. It wouldn't be the first time something like this has happened.

Hacked by themselves?

[tigre]

Comments towards the end of TFA suggest the hackings may be sponsored by the IFPI/MPAA so as to make the Pirate Bay look bad. It would be amusingly absurd to see counter-hacking by TPB supporters keeping the "enemy" sites up.

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised....

[Phoenixhawk]

It will however be available as a torrent :)

makes me wonder

[castironpigeon]

Why would hackers be targeting those sites now instead of hitting them 24/7/365? It's not like these organizations were good and then all of a sudden became evil when they brought TPB to court.

Besides, who really cares about their websites? If the hackers really wanted to get the job done then every employee of every one of those organizations would have nothing but goatse in their inbox from now until the day they resign.

Re:Its like Lafayette's plea to the french people

[Culture20]

i dont need to remind you what happened after 1792.

1793?

Re:Boo, This is Court! More Theatrics!

[tacarat]

I'd mod you up strictly for my love of flowery bullshit phrasing.

trail of innocent people

[fermion]

What I found most interesting was the report that one defacement included a complaint that innocent people were on trail. I though the idea that only guilty people are tried was an United States philosophy, along with idea that defense lawyers sole purpose was to get the guilty off on technicalities.

In fact, as annoying as the trial is, this is how a court system should work. There is an ambiguity in law. The copyright owners believe that one is true, the Pirate Bay believes another thing is true. Rather than complaining that the process of justice is moving along, we should be thankful that we live in a world where somewhere such a process is available, and the Pirate Bay was not just summarily destroyed and the people involved were not just summarily fined to oblivion, which is what happens in America.

I hope that the rest of the world is not being infected with the meme of the court system as a tool of the criminal, because it is sure nice to have an place where a relatively impartial educated person can hear and adjudicate on legitimate differences of opinion.

Re:trail of innocent people

[QuantumG]

The copyright holders I keep hearing about continue to believe shit that has been struck down again and again. Apparently this case opened with a speech by the prosecution saying that the purpose of copyright was to ensure artists get paid and can control the use of their work. This has never been true and has been made abundantly clear by every court in the world that this is *not* the purpose of copyright. It exists solely to benefit the public in ways that a lack of copyright supposedly would not. As soon as the prosecution got up saying that shit the judge should have found him in contempt and thrown out the case. He's misleading the court and that shit should not be tolerated.