A Short Summary Following the Pirate Bay Trial

Dan B. writes "The Guardian has a nice piece wrapping up the trial in Sweden for the co-defendants in the P2P trial-of-the-decade, that of The Pirate Bay. 'Today, the defense lawyers summed up. It was a short trial and not a particularly merry one, but it could have far-reaching effects.' Surprisingly, when the defendants hit the stand they didn't bash copyright or take a libertarian approach; it all came back to the tried and tested formula for criminal defense, 'I am not responsible.'"

Comments

It's truly not black and white

[Max Romantschuk]

While I'm not sure where to stand, here are some of the things I've "pirated":

* Last nights survivor episode.
* Anime fansubs I can't buy anyway.
* Professional software I've been curious to try at home for fun and/or education. (Ended up saying Photoshop indeed is worth the money at work...)
* The entire Friends series. After concluding it's worth it I ended up buying the DVD's.
* Ditto with Sex and the City.

So who lost money? I'm not saying what I did was right, but I don't think I should be put in jail for it either. These are not simple matters.

Disclaimer: The wife mostly watches Sex and the City and Friends.

Failed Prosecution?

[jomiolto]

The really interesting thing about this trial is that the record companies seem not to have done their homework at all (although part of that could be bias from TorrentFreak, which seems to be the major English news source about this trial). They seem to have failed in pretty much every front: they failed to show any real statistics on the effects of file sharing or the amount of copyright infringing material on the Pirate Bay, their "evidence" of illegally downloading things from the Pirate Bay didn't hold water (because they could not show that the Pirate Bay tracker was actually used in their downloads), and they couldn't even show that what the Pirate Bay is doing is illegal in Sweden.

I can't really understand why they failed so hard. They had time to do their homework and I'm sure that they are not lacking in funds or other resources either. They could have collected some actual statistics on the amount of copyright infringing torrents or they could have done much better research on downloading copyright infringing stuff through the Pirate Bay -- disable DHT and all the other trackers beside the Pirate Bay, and you can be sure that the Pirate Bay tracker is used for the download.

Are the record companies really this inept at grasping the Internet (and hiring people that do understand it) or did they just think that they would win by default? Either one seems unlikely to me, but who knows?

Re:Failed Prosecution?

[PrescriptionWarning]

Are the record companies really this inept at grasping the Internet (and hiring people that do understand it) or did they just think that they would win by default? Either one seems unlikely to me, but who knows?

Both are likely more true than you know. Obviously they believe themselves in the right since its easy to see these torrent do point to copyrighted material. But they also obviously don't realize that a torrent itself is no different than a hyperlink really, and I think there has already been plenty of cases shot down where people tried to get a hyperlink removed.

Re:Failed Prosecution?

[KeX3]

It is not due to TorrentFreak-bias, they were exactly that inept in swedish as well.

Three years of investigation, and they understand less about bittorrent than 10 minutes on wikipedia teaches you.

They had no statistics, no _actual_ evidence (messed up downloads, screenshots of cut urls to torrents, vague and repeated accusations of child pronography, a few random looks at top 100-lists with nothing to back it except "i looked at it, you should trust me", ridiculous claims "99% of the files on pirate bay are copyright protected" and "100% of the people downloading from pirate bay would have bought the album if tpb wasn't there"), the witnesses they called were all media-moguls with absolutely no grasp of internet or technology, and generally a case built on "we sell less CDs, therefore the pirate bay is to blame" instead of realizing that "people don't want CDs anymore, that's why the sales are declining".

Add to this the COMPLETE inability to understand the "cluster mentality" that the internet has brought to a more visible level, where there are no leaders, no decision-makers, no controlling people. People do what needs to be done, and that's the end of that. They spent half the trial trying to pinpoint someone as "the leader", something that in the case of TPB simply doesn't exist. There is a core group, but what makes them more important than the people outside that is simply server-access. Remove that from the equation and no matter who you are, you can do things without asking for permission.

Not to mention that after these 3 years, half of the charge is dropped during the 2nd day because they completely misunderstood the nature of bittorrent, and HOW the file-sharing actually happened.

"Botched", is the word that comes to mind.

But I think this is because of who's behind them. The media-companies, who have never had any problems going forward brute force, waving money and ludicrous demands for more money, who are used to the other party bowing their heads and going "yes massa". When actually faced with _opposition_, their lack of preparation and knowledge shines through like the headlights of an 18-wheeler at 2 am (see, a car-analogy).

And that's the end of this rant.

Re:Failed Prosecution?

[KeX3]

Oh, and I completely forgot:

Spending most of the time trying to discredit the personal and political opinions of the prosecuted and the witnesses they called, instead of trying to prove that crimes had been committed.

This "trial" was very strange

[d-r0ck]

"Samuelson opened by saying that during the case the Prosecution missed the main key point - Is The Pirate Bay legal or not? He said that all four defendants should be acquitted since the Prosecution failed to issue individual charges as is required in a criminal case." Tt appears that throughout the whole "trial" that there was very little if any reference to any laws that may have been broken. Not sure how Sweden has their court system setup, but this whole thing just seemed very unprofessional from both sides.

Re:No swaggering...

[clone53421]

Isn't this a criminal case? Do you not have the right to a jury trial in Sweden?

We both obviously live in the U.S. Remember, though, that jurors here have it firmly drilled into their heads that they must select guilty/not guilty based on the letter of the law – which is patently false. A juror is, in fact, obliged to vote his or her conscience when they believe the law is wrong, although I hear that mentioning this fact is a quick way to get passed over in the juror selection process.

I'd be more concerned by the hypocrisy

[Wain13001]

if torrent files were used (and often times specifically designed) to murder other people.

The whole point of a legal system/justice dept. is to handle exceptional cases of law...where a set of rules cannot cover every potential circumstance and instance in a way that provides safety and productivity to society.

That being said, I have no stance whatsoever on Bloomberg and I am not anti-gun...just making a point. If there are people out there who want stricter gun control, the legal system has a variety of avenues to pursue this. If those people succeed where the the RIAA/MPAA has failed, it does not mean the government is now somehow in contradiction with itself or flawed.

It means that society saw fit to make an exception...exceptions are in fact what laws and lawsuits and judges and governmental rulings are often about.

Re:No swaggering...

[Aladrin]

It's a little different when you're sitting in a jury box and judge turns to you and reads out the jury instructions, which include things like:

"You must find him guilty if he has broken law X."

There's no mention of voting your conscience or that the law might be wrong. You are specifically ordered to follow the law in your verdict.

Yes, I served in Jury duty. Luckily (or unluckily, maybe?) there were no questionable laws on the case I sat. It also helped that there was no evidence at all, though. -sigh-

Why so long for a verdict?

[Kabuthunk]

I was just checking Wikipedia (I know, I know, just roll with it, I'm sure it's at least partially correct for this part) on this trial, and saw the following:

The hearings ended on March 3 and the verdict will be announced at 11:00 AM on Friday 17 April.

Why in the world is it taking them over a month to announce the verdict? The fact that they're give it a specific time, down to the minute, would imply that all things are already decided. Why not just... say the results, instead of waiting a month and a half?

Re:No swaggering...

[StikyPad]

Only people on juries are those too stupid to get out of jury duty (or actually want to do it ... as in do gooders anxious to lock you away).

Yeah, fulfilling your civic responsibility by serving on a jury is soooo stupid!! Stupid stupidheads!