Judge In Pirate Bay Trial Biased

maglo writes "The judge who handed down the harsh sentence to the four accused in the The Pirate Bay trial was biased, writes Sveriges Radio (Sweden Public Radio): sr.se (swedish). Google translation. The judge is member of two copyright lobby organizations, something he shares with several of the prosecutor attorneys (Monique Wadsted, Henrik Pontén and Peter Danowsky). The organizations in question are Svenska Föreningen för Upphovsrätt (SFU) and Svenska föreningen för industriellt rättsskydd (SFIR)."

Comments

English Language Article.

[telchine]

If Swedish isn't your native language, this article might prove more useful:

Pirate Bay Judge Accused of Bias

Re:English Language Article.

[Ornedan]

Additionally, the judge sits on the board of the Swedish Association for the Protection of Industrial Property (Svenska fÃreningen fÃr industriellt rÃttsskydd), which is lobbying for tougher copyright laws.

However, NorstrÃm insisted to the radio station that his membership of the various copyright protection groups did not constitute a conflict of interestâ.

It is indeed quite obvious that being a leading member of a copyright lobby organization can not in any way be seen as a conflict of interest.

And in other news, Slashdot still fails at UTF8.

Re:English Language Article.

[telchine]

Slashdot still fails at UTF8.

FÃIL!!!

Re:English Language Article.

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Creepy thing is, he might actually believe that. If you are a die-hard copyright maximalist then "strong copyright=justice" will simply seem axiomatic, so your involvement with a copyright lobbying group will just seem like professional experience.

The fact that he is so tone-deaf that he doesn't comprehend how that might create a raging appearance of impropriety is pretty shocking, though.

Re:English Language Article.

[reachinmark]

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.

Re:English Language Article.

[aliquis]

He's also dispute solver in the foundation .se where Monique to is a member.

Anyway he claim this won't affect anything, just keep him in the know of the subject ..

And for you who don't know all the names:
Henrik Pontén - Lawyer at Swedish anti-piracy organisation.
Monique Wadsted - Lawyer representing the movie industry.
Peter Danowsky - Lawyer representing the music industry.

Re:English Language Article.

[mindcorrosive]

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

Re:English Language Article.

[aliquis]

One of the jurymen had to leave to since he was a composer, but I guess a judge who are part of the council in an organisation working to improve the interest and knowledge of the industrial protection rights of patents, brands, designs, plant engineering, name and company rights and protection against inappropriate competition and member of the other organization which goals is to discuss copyright is just fine.

Re:English Language Article.

[hesaigo999ca]

Can they atleast prove this and move to motion for a mistrial?

Re:English Language Article.

[rhsanborn]

In some defense, if he is a member of the organization not in a capacity of financial beneficiary of copyright, then it isn't quite so clear cut. If he firmly believes in copyright as a matter of law and principle, I don't think it's much different than a judge being a member of an organization lobbying for tougher murder penalties, etc. We wouldn't exclude him from murder trials. His judgment should come from interpreting the law. If he has failed terribly at that, then there are issues such as legislating from the bench that need to be discussed, but otherwise, this "conflict of interest" isn't nearly so glaring.

Re:English Language Article.

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you hearing what you saying?
He is a member of a lobbying group.
Lobbying group gets MONEY from their interests - read financial benefit.

Re:English Language Article.

[Anonymous Coward]

What I don't get is why a judge would be allowed to be in *any* lobby organization, excepting perhaps something directly related to the functioning of the judiciary itself. Alternatively, if they are allowed to be members in such groups, why wouldn't they recuse themselves from a relevant case?

Re:English Language Article.

[dargaud]

Henrik Pont©n - Lawyer at Swedish anti-piracy organisation.

I find it funny that a copyright symbol shows up in his name when it fails the notorious great UTF support of slashdot...

Re:English Language Article.

[TheThiefMaster]

And in other news, Slashdot still fails at UTF8.

It's not just slashdot, it's also the fact that HTML/HTTP provides no way to know what charset a form was submitted in. Some browsers append a charset to the content-type http header they send, but most try to send in the same charset as the page, or utf-8 if that's not possible, but don't tell the server which...

I.E. is even better, as it ignores the charset the server sends in its HTTP content-type header and tries to guess instead, unless you put a content-type meta tag in the page.

Re:English Language Article.

[Yetihehe]

Poraka (should be porazka with dot over z, but doesn't really work)

Re:English Language Article.

[Yetihehe]

Have you checked content-type meta tag of any slashdot page? Hint: it isn't utf.

Re:English Language Article.

[LinuxDon]

I mostly agree with your post, but would like to add the following

Ultimately, in my opinion, it's the voice and opinion of the general public that is incorporated into laws about how heavy penalties for certain actions are. And since everyone is unanimously against murder, this is often quite a clear case.

But since the public opinion is so divided concerning copyright cases, a judge that has very strongly chosen one side can be called biased even regardless of his membership of a lobby group. The membership only proves it in my opinion.

Re:English Language Article.

[MikeBabcock]

A judge shouldn't be a member of any group promoting any specific type of justice, imho, as they're to be an impartial judge of the facts given them in court and not to be out for personal vendettas of any kind.

In practise this doesn't happen of course.

Re:English Language Article.

[Z00L00K]

Or the article at The Local.

Re:English Language Article.

[jbezorg]

That would be true if that was the only factor.

"Judge Norstrom acknowledged to Swedish Radio that he was a member of The Swedish Association for Copyright, as well as a board member of the Swedish Association for the Protection of Industrial Property. He also said he has worked alongside Monica Wadsted -- who represented the American movie industry in the trial -- to solve disputes related to Internet domain names. However, he rejected that there was any conflict of interests."

But it isn't.

There is a difference between just being member of an organization and being a board member of an organization who's goals would benefit the Plaintiff and having established a professional cooperative relationship with a Plaintiff's council previously.

Re:English Language Article.

[smaddox]

True, but it is the judges JOB to be unbiased. Dedicating himself to a lobby group is a huge conflict of interest. Either he has to disappoint the group, or he has to disappoint the people he is judging.

Re:English Language Article.

[Heddahenrik]

It's amazingly bad that a site can't handle UTF-8 in 2009. It easy as hell to fix, but apparently Slashdot is run by ignorant American bastards who don't give a shit about their international members or even comments on international news.

If I find a similar site that don't treat us like weeds, I'll ditch Slashdot.

Re:English Language Article.

[ASquare]

While I think you raise an interesting point, I'm not sure if your example really works. While a judge lobbying for tougher murder penalties might not be a conflict of interest, it could be evidence of bias in the sentencing of murder defendants. To put it another way, if a judge lobbied for more frequent use of the death penalty, a defendant sentenced to death might reasonably argue that the judge gave the sentence based on personal beliefs and not based on interpretation of the law.

Re:English Language Article.

[Z00L00K]

Only way around it seems to be to use HTML entities like Å for Å and so on.

Re:English Language Article.

[Anonymous Coward]

&goatse; ?

Re:English Language Article.

[TheThiefMaster]

I never said it was.
I said browsers submit forms (e.g. the comment form) in either the page's charset or in utf-8 if that isn't possible, but don't tell the server which. Which implies that the page's charset isn't already utf-8.

It's possible that the server is safely storing and handling utf-8 data, and it is just the charset being sent by the server in the content-type header which is causing the BROWSER to screw up the rendering. I'll check.

Re:English Language Article.

[plague3106]

So an American run site funded by American organizations shouldn't be focused on America?

Re:English Language Article.

[Anonymous Coward]

But Yes, if a judge is a member of an organization lobbying for tougher murder penalties, he or she would be excluded from murder trials under Swedish law, should the defense lawyers so request. There cannot be even the slightest suspicion of bias.b

Re:English Language Article.

[maxume]

Why not? Encouraging the judge to keep his opinions strictly private isn't going to discourage him from having opinions.

The current system, where contentious issues (hopefully) get escalated to courts where they get wider and wider attention, does far more to encourage impartiality than hoping that judges live in some happy impartial world.

Re:English Language Article.

[cbiltcliffe]

So an American run site funded by American organizations shouldn't be focused on America?

Says the commenter in an article about Sweden.... :)

Re:English Language Article.

[TheThiefMaster]

Forcing the browser to utf-8 doesn't fix the corrupted text, so Slashdot is obviously mangling it server-side.

Re:English Language Article.

[Lakitu]

It's pretty clear cut - if you're a member of an organization like that, there you should be the judge presiding.

That's what conflict of interest is. It doesn't mean someone is corrupt. It means there's a pretty obvious potential for corruption. If there's any doubt whatsoever, why not substitute someone else?

Re:English Language Article.

[Anonymous Coward]

His judgment should come from interpreting the law.

Or perhaps he should just apply the law as it stands and not interpret things? It seems to me he might be "interpreting" the law in this very case... for the prosecution. "Well, there's no law against what you're doing, but I'm interpreting it that other people are doing it with your servers so that makes you guilty!"

Legislators create the law. Cops enforce the law. Judges apply the law. "Interpretation" leads to corruption. If a law is so terribly written, it would be up to the judge to determine if the law applies or not to the case. If the law, itself, is illegal, then the supreme court determines if the case should be thrown out along with the law. Judges should not be legislating from the bench.

Re:English Language Article.

[Pervaricator General]

Isn't there some sort of automated, mobility-oriented analogy that could apply here instead?

Re:English Language Article.

[Anonymous Coward]

So, if this had been a case of trying a pedophile, and the judge a member of a group like NAMBLA, then how clear cut would the conflict of interest be?

Re:English Language Article.

[Heddahenrik]

Of course it should! If it's run by cave-trolls...

Re:English Language Article.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's his job to be unbiased about the facts of the case. He has to be "biased" in favor of the law, even if its a bad law. If he decides on his own to enhance or nullify a law, we would label it judicial activism.

Re:English Language Article.

[S7urm]

I completely disagree. It should have been noted from the start that any membership in any group that in anyway relates (positively or negatively to the defense) to the case should be immediate grounds for dismissal. I also think this is a blatant failure of the defendant's lawyers to not scream bloody murder in regards to his affiliation with any group having to do with copywrite.

Imagine if you will, facing a judge in a murder trial who is not only pro-death penalty but also part of a group that is trying to advance that idea. Imagine also that the judge's membership in that group is also tied into the thought that all accusation of murder is considered guilt upon conjecture of the defendant being tried for said murder (which could be construed as correlating if this judge found copyright to be soo horrible that he joined a group to fight pirates). I'm pretty sure that allowing an obviously biased judge in a case like this is a grave injustice to the defendants and they should be allowed a re-trial based solely on the judge's bias.

Re:English Language Article.

[Intron]

Sure. Imagine that there is a huge car company with a bad business model going bankrupt that appeals to the government to artificially support them at the expense of the taxpayers ... Oh wait, that's really happening.

Re:English Language Article.

[mini me]

The judge drives like this.
The plaintiff drives like this.
The defendant drives like this.

Re:English Language Article.

[Jurily]

If he firmly believes in copyright as a matter of law and principle, I don't think it's much different than a judge being a member of an organization lobbying for tougher murder penalties, etc. We wouldn't exclude him from murder trials.

If he demonstrate bias in one case, the only time I'd ever let him in a courtroom again is when he gets his sentence for it. The only time behavior like that I'd consider acceptable is with laws where jury nullification would do the same.

When we let the judges be corrupted with a political agenda, the whole system is really close to falling apart.

By the way, WHO LET A MEMBER OF A COPYRIGHT LOBBY GROUP JUDGE A COPYRIGHT CASE?

Re:English Language Article.

[KDR_11k]

Then again sentences are based a lot on the judge's gut feeling anyway, while the law may prescribe different ranges based on the facts it's still up to the judge to decide where to go inside that range.

Re:English Language Article.

[vux984]

If he decides on his own to enhance or nullify a law, we would label it judicial activism.

if he decides on his own to enahance or nullify a law _in the courtroom_ its a problem.

If he decides on his own to work to enhance or nullify a law by participating in a lobby group, that's ok... even if I disagree with him.

That said, judges generally have sentencing leeway, and a biased judge will probably issue lighter or harsher sentences based on that, and that is distasteful.

Re:English Language Article.

[plague3106]

If the American audience of this site didn't use pirate bay, I doubt we'd be hearing about it.

Re:English Language Article.

[guruevi]

Yes it is. This is similar to a judge in the USA that is a member of the RIAA and then goes in the courtroom to judge Virgin v. Thomas. It doesn't matter how high your involvement is. Apparently one of the lawyers IS his co-worker for certain things. That would be the same as you being a judge and in your off-time you work at a small company (which isn't illegal) and then you have to judge on a private matter between that company and somebody that has a beef with your company (for whatever reason) and the (hot) gal you go drinking coffee with once in a while is the lawyer representing the company you work at. IANAL but it seems that this would be grounds for a mistrial in the US.

Re:English Language Article.

[theIsovist]

I wish I had mod points to give to you here.

Re:English Language Article.

[KillerBob]

I know this will probably get modded down, but it's worth pointing out that his membership in the organization does not necessarily mean that it biased his decision.

If a situation like TPB were to happen in Canada, for example, it would have been illegal. While filesharing is perfectly legal in Canada, and there've been numerous cases where hosting a torrent site does not constitute actual filesharing, the fact that TPB was turning a massive profit off advertising revenues and other services would make it illegal. There's that ever-so-important clause in Canadian copyright law that says it's fine, as long as it's not for commercial purposes or profit.

I'm not an expert on Swedish copyright law. I'm not really an expert on Canadian copyright law, either, but I would be very surprised to find that Sweden's take on it is significantly different from Canada's on that point.

There've been many many cases in the past where judges have belonged to organizations or had practices that could have biased their opinion, and they were still able to pass a fair judgement based on what the law actually says. The judge who freed the slaves in England, for example, owned slaves himself.

His membership in the organization does not automatically mean that it biased his opinion.

Re:English Language Article.

[CodeBuster]

True, but it is the judges JOB to be unbiased.

That is absolutely correct. To be a judge is to be impartial and avoid appearance of conflict of interest and impropriety in both public and even private life. That is what it means to be a judge; with special powers, including possibly the power of life and death, comes special responsibility above and beyond what would be expected from the average citizen. If that is a problem then do not become a judge.

Re:English Language Article.

[CaptainOfSpray]

I'm a native English speaker, but fluent in Swedish, you insensitive clod!

Re:English Language Article.

[Hurricane78]

Problem is: He is in a lobby for tougher murder. ^^ (Metaphorically)
Or in other words: He is on the side of a group that is against nearly all of the population, and has a very fucked up mindset.
No matter how you call it, it is not good. Think of other people to whom this description fits.
(No, I will not end this treat "Occam" style. ;)

Re:English Language Article.

[sexconker]

Did you mean  ?
OMG FAILS ON PREVIEW.

Unicode A4
ALT+0164
Etc.

Re:English Language Article.

[sexconker]

What I don't get is why ANY lobbyists are allowed. Ever. Anywhere.

Re:English Language Article.

[bonch]

Man, Slashdot will post ANYTHING to defend its heroes at PirateBay. Face it, ripping people off because you just want shit for free is wrong. PirateBay runs a torrent tracker server for users to connect to other users and trade copyrighted materials, which means they're facilitating piracy.

I just really don't get how seemingly logical people will post pro-piracy comment after pro-piracy comment and then pretend it's not because they're selfish leeches who doesn't want to lose the free ride.

Re:English Language Article.

[jbezorg]

I'm a little lost in your wall of rant guruevi, but my post was in response to rhsanborn's "In some defense..." post.

I think we're on the same page. Your page just includes hot women and coffee so I think your's is better on just that alone.

Re:English Language Article.

[bonch]

Not any creepier than a website full of pro-piracy nerds who don't believe artists should ever get paid for anything, ever, and then will look for bad guys to post stories about so they feel like good guys instead of immoral pirates.

Re:English Language Article.

[Globe199]

I disagree. Everyone knows murder is illegal; that's been well-established. What's going on in this trial isn't so clear-cut. This is a conflict of interest, without question.

Re:English Language Article.

[BrokenHalo]

Slashdot is woefully selective about which of these entities it accepts. Your example works, but other common codes such as the &deg entity are totally ignored. You'll notice I left out the semicolon there - you understand why. [sigh]

It pisses me off sometimes that the developers put so much effort into useless bells and whistles without even glancing at such glaring omissions which have existed since day one.

Re:English Language Article.

[Locke2005]

No, "judgement" involves looking at the evidence without preconceived notions. A member of a lobbying organization has obviously already made up their mind about the laws that organization is trying to pass. If he has a previously existing belief that anyone making easier the unauthorized distribution of copyrighted material should be punished much more severely than current laws permit, shouldn't he at least be barred from the sentencing phase of the trial? His failure to recuse himself should be troubling to copyright lobbyists too, as it pretty much guarantees the defendants a right to appeal. He just wasted a great deal of taxpayer's money on a ruling that will be very quickly set aside due to his own improper behavior. Bad judge!

Re:English Language Article.

[BrokenHalo]

Encouraging the judge to keep his opinions strictly private isn't going to discourage him from having opinions.

This is inevitably true. But if he is a member of two lobby organizations on the prosecution's side, that should disqualify him from hearing the case. Simple common justice should demand that. Though of course I'm perfectly well aware that justice and the law can be mutually exclusive.

Re:English Language Article.

[CarpetShark]

judge being a member of an organization lobbying for tougher murder penalties, etc. We wouldn't exclude him from murder trials.

I'm pretty sure you'd like to exclude him, if you were the one on trial.

Re:English Language Article.

[Runaway1956]

Perhaps not "glaring". But, it is obvious that he is predisposed to judge certain types of cases in a certain manner. It is obvious that he will have prejudged all manner of arguments before hearing them. It is obvious that he has at least a working relation, if not a friendship, with the members of the prosecution.

If you are ever dragged before a court, will you be comforted to know that the judge and the prosecution are all members of the same country club that the complainant belongs to? You wouldn't suspect that your case had already been settled the night before, over dinner and martinis?

In my mind, the judge is corrupt. He should have recused himself from the case, and allowed an impartial judge to hear the case.

Re:English Language Article.

[Bigjeff5]

I can't believe I'm defending him, but judges are also citizens. He should have the right to be a member of most any organization he chooses. There is only a problem when the judge attempts to manipulate court procedings in order to encourage a certain outcome.

Note that this is a serious problem NO MATTER what organization a judge may be a member of. This is a problem even if the judge is a recluse and recieves no outside influence because he doesn't do anything but study law. If he manipulates the court proceedings (and judges have a lot of ability to do this) he should be toast. End of story.

That said, it doesn't mean he can't be suspect, and you should certainly want people looking into whether or not he judged based on law, or was attempting to make law fit his own agenda.

If Swedish copyright is anything like US copyright, he probably didn't need to twist the law to come down hard on TPB. Most of their activities are technically illegal, and technically illegal is what a judge should rule on. They usually have the ability to grant a little mercy, but there is no reason they must.

Re:English Language Article.

[damburger]

Loudmouth twat saying something is wrong != it being wrong.

The majority of people here (and in the real world) have enough intelligence to differentiate between file sharing and material stealing.

By the way, I am not being a 'selfish leech' - I am simply alarmed by the intrusion of freedom that is being demanded in the name of profits for a highly exploitative industry. Economic ambitions have warped into authoritarian political ambitions, and its an issue for everyone. You are too stupid to grasp the issues around piracy, and that means you are also too stupid to read my intentions. So shut the fuck up about them.

Re:English Language Article.

[CorporateSuit]

In some defense, if he is a member of the organization not in a capacity of financial beneficiary of copyright, then it isn't quite so clear cut. If he firmly believes in copyright as a matter of law and principle, I don't think it's much different than a judge being a member of an organization lobbying for tougher murder penalties, etc. Convicting all gun-owners of "assault with a deadly weapon" for owning a gun, because the judge belongs to an anti-gun lobby, would be a more accurate descriptor here. What the PirateBay owners were doing was not illegal under Swedish law until the judge warped it enough to appear to be illegal, as it met his own political (and financial) interests and agenda to see these men in shackles when they were law-abiders.

Re:English Language Article.

[QRDeNameland]

Conflict of Interest

A conflict of interest occurs when an individual or organization (such as a lawyer, insurance adjuster, politician, engineer, executive, director of a corporation, medical research scientist, physician, writer, editor, or an individual or organization cited as a source) has an interest that might compromise their reliability. A conflict of interest exists even if no improper act results from it, and can create an appearance of impropriety that can undermine confidence in the conflicted individual or organization.

Actual bias does not need to be demonstrated for there to be a conflict of interest.

There is certainly enough potential for bias here that the judge should have never been allowed to hear the case, period. In fact, even though I suspect the defendants may have known about this and waited until after the trial for strategic reasons, I think the prosecution were the ones who should have objected initially, as they will now be the ones with the egg on their faces.

Re:English Language Article.

[lbgator]

Punishing people for "facilitating" stuff is a slippery slope. Just saying.

Re:English Language Article.

[Anonymous Coward]

Right. Because no one ever downloaded anything from TPB that they had the legal rights to. That should just be ridiculous, people exercising their rights.

You want to know what's really immoral? The claim that I don't own any of the media I've purchased over the years, and that I should be forced to purchase it again and again through each and every format shift.

Parent is obvious troll. -1

Re:English Language Article.

[Dog-Cow]

I consider it immoral to follow copyright law, so I don't care what term is used to describe the practice of violating it.

If something I want to have a copy of is readily available through reasonable terms from a seller, I will pay. Otherwise, I will simply take it from where I can find it.

Re:English Language Article.

[Anonymous Coward]

There are tens of millions of Spanish speaking Americans (yes, as in living in the USA, legally even). ASCII is insufficient for their written language.

There are hundreds of thousands of French speaking Americans (again, living in the USA, legally). ASCII is insufficient for their written language too.

Tens of millions of English speaking Americans have at least one grandparent whose first language is not represented well by ASCII. This includes lots of white middle-class mid-Western corn-fed Americans.

Pretending that English only bigotry is American pride is mighty ignorant, especially since it's highly likely that your own family has non-English speaking members and ancestry.

Re:English Language Article.

[greenbird]

If he firmly believes in copyright as a matter of law and principle, I don't think it's much different than a judge being a member of an organization lobbying for tougher murder penalties, etc.

Well there's your problem. A judge's job is to impartially interpret the law not to enforce his principles from the bench. A law is not something you believe in. Subjective interpretation should not, ideally, be involved. And being a member of such an organization implies a strong bias towards changing the laws to support those principles (the purpose of a lobbing group). And you don't think those biases, strong enough that he spends his spare time enforcing them, are going to creep into any cases he presides over involving those principles? Yeah, it's glaring.

Re:English Language Article.

[greenbird]

I can't believe I'm defending him, but judges are also citizens. He should have the right to be a member of most any organization he chooses.

And they are also human. If they feel strongly enough about something that they spend their spare time lobbing to get laws passed supporting it there is almost certainly going to be bias in judgments they make involving those issues. It may not be conscious but it's only human that it'll be there. It's a judge's job to impartially interpret the law.

If Swedish copyright is anything like US copyright, he probably didn't need to twist the law to come down hard on TPB. Most of their activities are technically illegal, and technically illegal is what a judge should rule on. They usually have the ability to grant a little mercy, but there is no reason they must.

You need to point out what US law they were violating cause everything done by Pirate Bay is being done by Google and any other search engine out there. Plus in the US they'd have the DMCA safe harbor laws. They RIAA/MPAA haven't payed off quite enough people yet to make search engines illegal although the way the Obama administration is going it looks like they are getting close.

Re:English Language Article.

[somanyrobots]

Because there's just not enough ammunition to get rid of 'em all.

Re:English Language Article.

[Galactic Dominator]

I don't think it's much different than a judge being a member of an organization lobbying for tougher murder penalties, etc.

Agreed.

We wouldn't exclude him from murder trials.

Maybe we would, there's clearly a conflict there. No person should preside over a trial where they've got a horse in the race(personal feeling, time, money, revenge, or perhaps they're being altruistic). A judge should not be a activist in an area the trial touches...one way or the other. Unbiased is essentially being neutral. The unbiased argument fails in such a scenario.

Re:English Language Article.

[XaXXon]

Reminds me of a bash.org quote..
http://bash.org/?349135

Re:English Language Article.

[noidentity]

What I don't get is why ANY lobbyists are allowed. Ever. Anywhere.

It's because the laws allow it. We just need to get some lobbyists to help us change those laws!

Re:English Language Article.

[WebCowboy]

In some defense, if he is a member of the organization not in a capacity of financial beneficiary of copyright, then it isn't quite so clear cut.

Not clear cut, but certainly it is justification for scrutiny. In Canada and the US, when it is a trial by jury, the selection process certainly takes that into account. If a jury candidate is an active member of MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) and the trial involves DUI you can surely bet that defense lawyers would make a case about it. Even though that jury candidate would certainly NOT personally benefit from delivering a guilty sentence it would be seen by the defense as an indication of prejudice. If Jurors are scrutinised to that extent, why not judges?

Judges here are prohibited from performing a number of political activities such as running election campaigns for those running for parliament, or from running for parliament themselves (they are only allowed to do either if they take a leave of absence). This is to preserve independence between the legislature and the judiciary, not because it is always a conflict of interest.

If involvement in certain political activity is regulated for active judges already, shouldn't judges' memberships in lobby groups be regulated as well? The purpose of political lobby groups is to advise LEGISLATORS on the concerns of special interest groups IN THE CREATION OF NEW LAW. To me, this violates judicial independence just like it would if judge presided over trials whilst running for office or sitting in parliament.

I'm not sure about how Swedish judiciary works, ans I'm not a lawyer, but it sure seems to me that a judge being a member in good standing of a COPYRIGHT lobby group, hearing a COPYRIGHT LAW case, is a very serious compromise of judicial independence, even when it doesn't represent a personal conflict of interest, and such a situation should not be permitted.

Re:English Language Article.

[Attila Dimedici]

What I don't get is why ANY lobbyists are allowed. Ever. Anywhere.

Because sometimes groups of citizens have things that they would like their legislature do. You see when you write your legislator asking him to vote for (or against) a bill, you are lobbying him/her. Generally, we reserve the word lobbyist for someone who represents some group, for example the EFF. Let me guess, you didn't know that the EFF employs lobbyists?

Re:English Language Article.

[Anonymous Coward]

you're equating copyright law, which is a gray area, to murder!?

Re:English Language Article.

[PerlDudeXL]

The EFF, FSF and ACLU are some kind of lobby organizations.

Re:English Language Article.

[WebCowboy]

I can't believe I'm defending him, but judges are also citizens. He should have the right to be a member of most any organization he chooses.

Freedom of association doesn't mean freedom from consequences of that association. Judges are not prohibited from being a part of any group as citizens--but they certainly cannot sit as judges or preside over certain trials at the same time.

I'm sure the judge in this case worked properly within current law, though his interpretation of that law is likely done to the strictest limits. However legal it may be though, it seems to me that presiding over a copyright trial when also being an active member of a "copyright maximalist" lobby group that influences the legislative process compromises both impartiality (as a member of such a lobby group he would personally dismiss any notion of leniency) AND judicial independence (as a judge he is to interpret law, and as a member of a poilitical lobby group he is playing a role in CREATING the law he is supposed to interpret and is thus not truly capable of acting as an independent interpreter of law in this case).

Re:English Language Article.

[DMUTPeregrine]

They give money to people who make laws. They'll never get banned.

Re:English Language Article.

[Roger W Moore]

At least it is only lobbying - in the US they are members of political parties and sometimes get to decide elections.

Re:English Language Article.

[Alsee]

Sweden.... that's like out west near Utah, right?

-

Re:English Language Article.

[Nulifier]

There is also the part that says you are not allowed to profit from crime.

That would probably be more applicable in this situation as the pirate bay is not technically copying anything.

Re:English Language Article.

[b4dc0d3r]

A single citizen getting the attention of a legislator is a lobbyist. Most aren't that good at it and only get the form letter response. Sometimes they get corporate backing and do it for a living.

It's like campaign contributions - we'd rather companies not give money to legislators in exchange for favors. But if there is a candidate we believe in, we would like to be free to contribute time or money towards getting their message out.

Freedom sometimes helps the bad guys, because you can't write laws that say "...but if your intentions are honest, it's not illegal".

Re:English Language Article.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that it is called liberty of speech ;-)

Re:English Language Article.

[KillerBob]

As you well know, however, potential does not equate actual presence. As long as the conflict of interest is declared, it's still possible to carry on without replacing the players. As I said before, there've been cases in the past where judges had conflicts of interest and were still able to render a fair and appropriate judgement based on what the law actually says. Another case, one that's much more recent, that jumps immediately to mind is the one that was very well documented on Nova, in the episode "Intelligent Design on Trial". You can watch the episode here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/id/. Judge John Jones, who heard the case, had a history and background that suggested he may have unfairly ruled against the plaintiffs, but with the potential conflict of interest in the open, the case was still heard by him, and he still rendered a fair judgement based on the facts and the law, and not his personal bias.

And if the defendants were aware of the potential conflict and chose to go through with the trial without raising any questions, then it's tacit acceptance of the potential bias, and of the consequences.

Re:English Language Article.

[sexconker]

And they stir the shit and accomplish nothing.

And would be completely unnecessary if it weren't for the thousands of other lobbyists.

Re:English Language Article.

[sexconker]

When I write legislators, I don't include hookers, blow, and cold hard cash in my statement.

Re:English Language Article.

[sexconker]

Getting the attention how? With cash money?

Re:English Language Article.

[j79zlr]

When I write legislators, I don't include hookers, blow, and cold hard cash in my statement.

Well maybe you should. -Signed, your congressman.

Re:English Language Article.

[Penguinoflight]

Which arguably wouldn't be needed if it weren't for all the other lobby organizations.

Re:English Language Article.

[Anonymous Coward]

"In practise this doesn't happen of course."

You obviously never have been in The Netherlands.

Re:English Language Article.

[Alef]

If they feel strongly enough about something that they spend their spare time lobbing to get laws passed supporting it there is almost certainly going to be bias in judgments they make involving those issues.

Not to mention that in Sweden there just have to be circumstances that could cast doubt about a judge's impartiality for him/her to be regarded improper. He doesn't actually have to be biased. The fact that we are having this discussion is indication enough that he should not have taken this case. We could be looking at a mistrial.

Re:English Language Article.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, in some countries it's called "freedom of speech." Just because you don't see how lobbying relates to speech (perhaps because of their financial actions), the courts can.

And this, by the way, is a good thing -- unless you think that the rights of all should be negated for the reprehensible actions of some. It's kind of like those other civil liberties.

Re:English Language Article.

[skarphace]

When I write legislators, I don't include hookers, blow, and cold hard cash in my statement.

If you did, maybe they'd listen to your viewpoint!

Re:English Language Article.

[rtfa-troll]

...judges are also citizens. He should have the right to be a member of most any organization he chooses.

sure, that's why there are many different judges availble. If we have a lawsuit about destroying stamp collections then a judge who is a stamp collector would recuse himself. If we had one about stealing from IBM then an IBM shareholder would also recuse himself. Nobody is saying he doesn't have the right to be in such an organisation, just that if he is in one he shouldn't be the judge for this case.

There is only a problem when the judge attempts to manipulate court procedings in order to encourage a certain outcome.

the fundamental principle that justice should not only be done, but should be seen to be done disagrees strongly with you. Even if we assume that he had correctly convicted the pirate bay people and with no bias whatsoever, his association taints his verdict. Now those who disagree with the verdict will believe that he reached it for the wrong reasons even if that isn't true. This is damaging for justice simply because it undermines people's belief in the courts whether rightly or wrongly.

By failing to declare his pre-existing interests (so that other judges could decide if he has a conflict if required), the judge has breached his duty of trust. He should resign and the pirate bay verdict should be voided.

Re:English Language Article.

[ZarathustraDK]

That is what it means to be a judge; with special powers, including possibly the power of life and death, comes special responsibility above and beyond what would be expected from the average citizen.

Spider-judge, spider-judge, does whatever Spider-judge can...

Re:English Language Article.

[tomkost]

Seems like the part everyone is not talking about is how this judge got assigned to the case at all. IF anyone thinks it was random chance this guy was assigned, well, I've got some interesting business propositions for you to consider. You can get rich quick, just meet me down by the pyramid.

Re:English Language Article.

[Dan541]

Corruption.

Re:English Language Article.

[Anonymous Coward]

Lobbying is needed to get some views that would otherwise get kicked aside by majority power seen. But $250,000 per year professional lobbyists who buy the candidates "interview" dinners for that same amount of money is not acceptable

Re:English Language Article.

[Anonymous Coward]

> What I don't get is why a judge would be allowed to be in *any* lobby organization

Everyone has biases. They can prohibit the judge from being part of an organization but it won't prevent him from agreeing with the organization's mission.

Re:English Language Article.

[Anonymous Coward]

This one too. And this isn't 2nd hand information like El Reg.

http://rixstep.com/1/20090423,00.shtml

Re:English Language Article.

[Elektroschock]

There is a difference between warriors and hired guns. Hired judges are of course something very special. I thought Sweden had high standards concerning internet governance?

Re:English Language Article.

[daveime]

I hate to be pedantic, but the ISO 8859-1 (latin) character set, that just about every browser can handle, does in fact cover all western european languages, and pretty much all eastern european languages, with the exception of a few Czech characters and other obscure accents on consonants.

Now I know you said ASCII, but that's a throwback to the TTY days, any modern character set can support 256 different characters, not just 128, hence the vast array of accented vowels and the Spanish ñ available without any problem using this charset.

Re:English Language Article.

[QRDeNameland]

As you well know, however, potential does not equate actual presence.

Agreed. However, there does not need to be any evidence of actual bias for conflict of interest to be grounds for appeal.

As long as the conflict of interest is declared, it's still possible to carry on without replacing the players.

And clearly in TPB case, the conflict of interest was not declared, so that point is essentially moot.

Re:English Language Article.

[Znork]

I don't think it's much different than a judge being a member of an organization lobbying for tougher murder penalties

More like a judge being a member of an organization lobbying for tougher murder penalties for amateurs presiding over a trial where the injured party is the hit man association who claims amateur murderers cost the hit man industry huge amounts of money...

His judgment should come from interpreting the law.

The same judge approved the wildly scandalous raid on an ISP a few years ago where it turned out the Swedish RIAA equivalent Antipiratbyran had infiltrated the ISP and placed their own server with 'pirated' material in the server room. (And yes, Henrik Ponten was involved in that case too).

Add to that the policeman leading the investigation getting a 6 month job at Warner before the investigation was even closed and he'd handed over the final papers to the prosecutor. The same policeman also failed to appear in court during the trial (Heh, cant have any appearance of impropriety that the defence might point out...)

The whole case has, without any doubt, been bought and paid for from the beginning to the end, and no surprise really. Had the MAFIAA not had the entire trial phase under control they wouldn't have tried to get it to trial; they really do not want to lose this one.

Re:English Language Article.

[sortius_nod]

Don't need ammunition...

Knives are a good idea. Big, fuck-off shiny ones. Ones that look like they could skin a crocodile. Knives are good, because they don't make any noise, and the less noise they make, the more likely we are to use them. Shit 'em right up. Makes it look like we're serious. Guns for show, knives for a pro.

Re:English Language Article.

[shark72]

"You need to point out what US law they were violating cause everything done by Pirate Bay is being done by Google and any other search engine out there."

Either contributory copyright infringement or vicarious copyright infringement (the approach used to shut down Aimster and TorrentSpy); if I were trying the case I'd also consider using the Betamax decision (the "substantial non-infringing uses" safe harbor), similar to how the Supreme Court nailed Grokster. There's plenty of precident here -- I know that lots of people like the "it's just like Google" defense, but it's not a good one. I grant that you may not understand why, but I'll leave it to somebody else to outline the differences in greater detail.

"Plus in the US they'd have the DMCA safe harbor laws."

There may be some confusion over DMCA Safe Harbor. Compliance requires responding to take-down requests. PirateBay was not doing this -- in fact, they were posing takedown requests and openly mocking them.

Re:English Language Article.

[Shark]

You know, you may be on to something. Maybe we need a grassroots effort to bribe every congressman out there, document it, then accuse them of taking bribes. That would 1- clean out the filthy ones willing to take bribes and 2- help make sure they don't try to take bribes again.

People could raise 6 millions in 24h for Ron Paul, they surely could manage something like this.

Re:English Language Article.

[k-macjapan]

By the way, who let a member of a copyright lobby group judge a copyright case?

His friends/co-workers.

Re:English Language Article.

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn those anti-gun lobbyists! They really knew what they were doing!

Re:English Language Article.

[Anonymous Coward]

Then you should be doubly astonished and have a look a the dutch system, where judges are allowed to sit on the board of directors of large companies and use 'self-regulation' to avoid conflicts of interest.

Re:English Language Article.

[Anonymous Coward]

By the way, I am not being a 'selfish leech' -

So you're not using BitTyrant then?

Re:English Language Article.

[Phoghat]

"It takes an idiot to bring a knife to a gunfight" The Untouchables

Re:English Language Article.

[Phoghat]

You've got hookers and blow? You don't need money

Re:English Language Article.

[iJusten]

I believe there is a lottery involved, so as to make bribery harder.

But keep in mind that in the Swedish system, there are four judges (three professional "everymen" and one trained lawyer) who handle the cases. The decision we ended up with was made in consensus; if the lay-judges were of different opinion than the copyright lobby sock puppet, they could have over-ruled him.

Of course, the sock puppet could have been really intimating, but it should have stopped platant abuse. To decide the case as he wanted, he would have needed support from at least one of the other judges (the lawyer gets two votes and the lay-judges one).

Re:English Language Article.

[Anonymous Coward]

Computerized Freudian slip?

Re:English Language Article.

[prjt]

Yeah I have no idea why they are allowed to. It sucks, the swedish justice is no justice at all FUCK THEM! Why can't we the swedes do like they did in iceland.. Revolution! But let's not stop there, jail every politician, throw away the key. Im sick and tired of this!

Re:English Language Article.

[erikdalen]

HTML provides a way to specify which charset it accepts in forms:

http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/interact/forms.html#adef-accept-charset

Re:English Language Article.

[TheThiefMaster]

Unfortunately IE seems to ignore that completely.

And in the case of the server specifying multiple accepted charsets (say ISO-8859-1 and UTF-8), there is no standard for how the client should inform the server which charset it used.

Re:English Language Article.

[strings42]

Note the difference between the title of the actual article and the title of this thread. No bias there ... oh, wait ... it's /.

Re:English Language Article.

[hanekhw]

I'm sure it's not lobbyist it's hobbyist. His hobby is copyright law. A judge would NEVER try a case with such a blatant conflict of interest. Do they elect or appoint judges there?

Re:English Language Article.

[commodore64_love]

Corporations shouldn't be allowed to hire lobbyists or any other way influence the lawmakers.

Re:English Language Article.

[alexo]

When I write legislators, I don't include hookers, blow, and cold hard cash in my statement.

And that, my friend, is what severely limits your success rate.

Can you say conflict of interest?

[PeKbM0]

Because I'm sure TPB's lawyers can.

Re:Can you say conflict of interest?

[Sun.Jedi]

Clearly, they could not, or did not.

The TPB lawyers didn't do their homework, which is a sentiment that rings very loudly in a lot of commentary about this trial.

It will hopefully come up in the appeal. This may have been a strategy all along -- i.e. let the music industry lawyers put all their cards on the table during the trial, and destroy them in the appeal.

Re:Can you say conflict of interest?

[Anonymous Coward]

Conflict of interest!

Re:Can you say conflict of interest?

[aliquis]

Seems like they will take it to the next juridical level asking to have the previous trial result dismissed and have a re-trial at the previous level again ...

Not that I believe it will change anyway, people want them judged, never mind they haven't committed any crime (imho) but rather just gets punished for 25 million other peoples crimes just because it's easier to catch these four than all of those.

Re:Can you say conflict of interest?

[TheRaven64]

They may have been unaware of this. More likely, they may have thought that they had compelling arguments and the worst case (i.e. they lost) would have meant that they could get a retrial (and therefore be paid for longer) if they lost. The judge may well not have been very biased. Someone with moderate leanings in one direction can still be persuaded in the other by well-reasoned arguments. If this were the case, they may have won anyway, but knowing that the judge had this bias gave them an additional strategy in case it was not.

Re:Can you say conflict of interest?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not a lawyer, I'm not a swedish lawyer, but I have a basic understanding of the US court system (which 95% of slashdot lacks).

In the US, you can't (succesfully) appeal because you didn't like the verdict. You need a reason the original trial was flawed, like prosecutorial misconduct, jury misconduct, or if the judge made a mistake *which you objected to at the time*.

The judge didn't find them guilty, the jury did. Even if the judge is biased (he probably is), they'll only get a new trial if he allowed (or disallowed) testimony or evidence that he shouldn't have or made incorrect rulings during the trial.

Re:Can you say conflict of interest?

[furby076]

Yea if a jury member is found to have any relation to the subject they are dismissed. So are judges. The only people who are allowed to have biased views/associations are the bailiffs, court recorders, and attorneys - the decision makers are "supposed" to be completely neutral. Obviously this is very difficult, if not impossible, to find but we can mitigate such risks by making sure the decision makers are not affiliated with organizations that have interest in the outcome of the case.

Re:Can you say conflict of interest?

[0100010001010011]

The TPB lawyers didn't do their homework

I've seen enough episodes of Law and Order to know that they probably did. It's why you don't lay down your left bower first round.

HAD they pulled it out earlier and still lost, they might not have any recourse for a retrial. They held onto it just in case they lost, then they could go "Oh, look at this conflict of interest."

The piece of knowledge wouldn't have been of use to the prosecution. "Oh the judge was biased towards us and we still lost, we want a retrial".

IANAL however.

Re:Can you say conflict of interest?

[miffo.swe]

Its fairly common in sweden that the first instance of the court system (Tingsrätten) is viewed upon as a bunch of clowns you have to pass to get to the real court. They consists of local politicians and if your local ones are anything like ours you know they suck on a professional level in every way possible when it comes to just about anything they do.

Im fairly sure the TPB lawyers has been set for going to the highest level court from the beginning and planned accordingly. This little gem with a clearly biased judge doesnt really help the TPB guys other than for PR since whatever a retrial will result in the trial will be taken higher up in the court system.

Its just a huge PR win for us in the PirateParty and the public opinion. It paints a very clear and vivid picture of us small ones against greedy, corrupt, self-loving, elite and above-the-law politicians.

Re:Can you say conflict of interest?

[Anonymous Coward]

The music industry was prosecuting. They held the burden of proof, and all of their cards should have been on the table before the trial.

This is the same judge who tossed a lay-judge (jurist) from the case last fall for an apparent conflict of interest. This jurist's conflict was due to his membership in a pro-copyright organization.

What amazes me is that the PROSECUTION allowed the judge to stay with the case - the mere appearance of impropriety is sufficient to demand an appeal and retrial. The prosecution knew (or should have known - they are all members of the same organization) that the judge was biased, and did nothing. They should have at least notified the defense, and/or requested the judge recuse himself specifically to avoid this situation.

This kind of prosecutorial misconduct should not go unpunished.

Re:Can you say conflict of interest?

[russotto]

HAD they pulled it out earlier and still lost, they might not have any recourse for a retrial. They held onto it just in case they lost, then they could go "Oh, look at this conflict of interest."

Law&Order aside, I don't think you could do this in the US system. You'd have to point out the conflict of interest before the trial, or you'd lose your chance to do it later on (unless it had been somehow concealed from you). But as others have pointed out, the Swedish system is quite different.

Re:Can you say conflict of interest?

[damona]

Parent may not be accurate in stating that this was a jury trial, but his general point still stands: you can't appeal just because you don't like the law. In common law, there would be a procedure where you have to convince a judge that the appeal is worth hearing by the superior court. You can't raise novel points of law, and appeals are generally slow to overturn convictions unless the judge obviously got the case wrong.

Nevertheless, this tactic of letting the highest court hear cases just because there are new and interesting points of law is stupid. Unless TPB has a lot of cash to burn.

Re:Can you say conflict of interest?

[lorenlal]

This is akin to charging Louisville Slugger for battery because someone used their bat to injure someone. If someone's going to get charged for infringement, charge the people who do the downloading.

I have a couple of follow up thoughts though:
1) Does this mean that if any of us make a product, and someone is able to use that product to break the law, are we now responsible for what that product does?
2) Also, are we now assuming that the masses are no longer responsible for their own actions? If I download a file or video from a site, and the material is copyrighted, does that mean that I'm not to blame anymore?

The persons running the site are the problem since it's been made available to me and "I can't help but download that?" Even better, where are the web browser makers in all this? I mean, I'm sure that Microsoft, Apple, Mozilla, Opera, et al. must have to shoulder some blame for providing a product that allows them to go to unsavory sites such as this! What about Bram! He created a protocol that allows millions of people to download stuff even faster!

Oh oh! What about the American Department of Defense! They created a "network" that has permitted piracy an a previously unimaginable level! They need to pay for their copyright infringment too!

OK... I've totally fallen off the tracks here... I'll check in tomorrow.

Re:Can you say conflict of interest?

[Will.Woodhull]

...they may have thought that they had compelling arguments...

Yes. Potential legal arguments are often somewhat mutually exclusive: if you attempt to use them all at once, aspects of one can weaken another. Not to mention that time and effort are finite resources, and there is much to be said for choosing to put all your resources into fighting one battle rather than starting several different battles simultaneously.

If TPB had won on the basis of the argument they had used, it would have been a good, solid win that would have forced the Defenders Of The Sacred Copyright to confront the changes of the 20th century. (And even begin to think about entering the 21st century where most of us internet users live.) Claiming the judge was tainted is a good follow-on but would not have been a good opening strategy.

Re:Can you say conflict of interest?

[cbiltcliffe]

Ok, so we know you can type it.
But can you say it?

I can't hear you!

Ok, I can hear you now!

(Geek points to anybody who gets the reference.)

Re:Can you say conflict of interest?

[Anonymous Coward]

*sigh*

Not American Judicial System!!!

Re:Can you say conflict of interest?

[Anonymous Coward]

Forcing a biased judge to recuse would have been a decent starting strategy. It might have resulted in them winning on arguments the first time around.
Of course, it is better to get a retrial in case of a tainted loss due to appearance of bias on the part of the judge. Normally it would only really be better in a PR sense, but the prosecution broke the rules by introducing new evidence mid-trial without letting the defense examine it first, so getting a retrial is strictly better in this case.

Re:Can you say conflict of interest?

[citizenr]

just gets punished for 25 million other peoples crimes

I didn't realist downloading movies was a CRIME in Sweden.

Re:Can you say conflict of interest?

[KDR_11k]

2) Also, are we now assuming that the masses are no longer responsible for their own actions? If I download a file or video from a site, and the material is copyrighted, does that mean that I'm not to blame anymore?

Unless you're in one of the countries that added special rules for it you weren't in first place. Copyright only applies to the distribution, not the receipt of copies. On P2P systems downloading often implies uploading but many defenses rested on the fact that only uploading is against the law and that could often not be proven.

Re:Can you say conflict of interest?

[CarpetShark]

Its fairly common in sweden that the first instance of the court system (Tingsrätten) is viewed upon as a bunch of clowns you have to pass to get to the real court.

That's pretty universal, I'm afraid.

Re:Can you say conflict of interest?

[damburger]

People want them judged? Not generally, no. Corporate interests want them judged. The vast majority of people simply can't equate the act of sharing something you like with the level of criminality a small minority of society is claiming it represents.

Re:Can you say conflict of interest?

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone else has already pointed out, the Swedish tradition follows the civil law system of justice rather than the common law system found in the U.S. and many other former British colonies.

In Sweden you get a de novo review of the first instance trial at the appeals level in lawyer-speak.

Re:Can you say conflict of interest?

[Bigjeff5]

Er, you realise that in order to download something, someone had to upload it, right?

If there are a million downloads, the material was distributed a million times. By definition, that's a million crimes. What makes it difficult to find and try the person commiting the crime, is that instead of one person commiting the crime a million times, it's more like a million people committing one crime each. To be even more accurate, it's more like one hundred million people working together to commit one million crimes.

The ones who are easy to track are the folks at TPB. Even if they didn't commit the crimes themselves, it would be hard to argue that they were not accomplices, facilitating those crimes, and doing so on purpose to make a lot of money. If you want to argue otherwise, you are either incredibly naive or are being intellectually dishonest.

They are dozens of ways they could have mitigated this from the get go, without changing any of the actual functionality. It could have been easy to argue that they were not attempting to assist copyright infringers, had they done simple things like posted blurbs about copyright law in their FAQ, or put up warnings at the bottom of the page when submitting a torrent saying copyright infringement is illegal, etc. Just fluff really, but intent is very important in law and it goes a long way to proving they didn't intend to assist infringers. That in turn would make it difficult to prove they were willing accomplices in the infringement.

Re:Can you say conflict of interest?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's why you don't lay down your left bower first round.

That's bauer. Sheesh, you americans.

Re:Can you say conflict of interest?

[skrolle2]

I'm not a lawyer, I'm not a swedish lawyer

The judge didn't find them guilty, the jury did.

No shit, Sherlock? Sweden doesn't have jury trials. Instead, the members of the court, led by the judge, judges each case. They discuss and vote among themselves, but since the judge in that group is the one with the most legal training, what he says carries a lot of weight, and if the judge is biased, the verdict will be biased.

Additionally, one original court member assigned to this case got replaced because of bias (he also works as a composer and was part of an organization of composers), but for some weird reason the judge neglected to inform the parties of the trial of his own bias.

Appeals also don't work like in the US system, municipal courts are good at handling small-time crimes and civil matters, but when it comes to controversial cases, not so. Cases where there's no legal precedent like this one are also almost guaranteed to get tried at a higher level and may even reach the supreme court.

For extra fun you can also appeal to the EU court if you think the verdict is in breach of a EU treaty or directive, such as the EU declaration of human rights, and if your case gets accepted there, it'll drag on and on and on.

This first verdict in the TPB trial was just a little bump in a long, long road.

Re:Can you say conflict of interest?

[skrolle2]

you can't appeal just because you don't like the law. In common law,

...Sweden is not a common law country.

Nevertheless, this tactic of letting the highest court hear cases just because there are new and interesting points of law is stupid.

No, that's the way the Swedish legal system works, if the legal precedent is unclear, the case is appealed as far as it needs to go for a precedent to be set so that everyone knows how to apply the law in following cases.

Unless TPB has a lot of cash to burn.

Uh, they have no money, but again, Sweden is not the US. It's a criminal trial, so they have defense attorneys that are (for the time being) paid for by the public. The loser pays all attorney's fees, but only when you get to the final verdict. It won't cost them anything to appeal, so they'd be stupid not to try it.

If the appeal is successful and the case gets to be tried at a higher court, there will be more fees added to the final bill, but it's the final loser who gets that, not the intermediate loser.

Re:Can you say conflict of interest?

[KDR_11k]

Er, you realise that in order to download something, someone had to upload it, right?

Yes but the point is that the person who uploaded it is the copyright infringer, not the one who downloaded it (in part because the downloader can't know whether the uploader had a license for that material/the download contains infringing material though some countries have added laws that punish the downloader when it's reasonably obvious that the uploader didn't).

Also I don't think you get one count of infringement for ever copy you make, only for every work you make copies of.

The ones who are easy to track are the folks at TPB. Even if they didn't commit the crimes themselves, it would be hard to argue that they were not accomplices, facilitating those crimes, and doing so on purpose to make a lot of money. If you want to argue otherwise, you are either incredibly naive or are being intellectually dishonest.

I got my share of downmods for having that oppinion already, I'm not arguing that the TPB guys are in any way innocent. Geeks tend to focus on the tech approach but like the "make your cat accept the EULA" nonsense the law isn't easily tricked (and even if, I'm of the oppinion that it's completely within the rights of a judge to punish a tech-dodger as the law would have punished such a person anyway had it been written with the necessary tech knowledge/at a time when that tech existed and would prefer to see some anti-loophole laws, this applies in both directions though, the companies try to deny the customer rights granted by the law by using technical measures to circumvent legal protections and I'd like to see that made punishable).

No-Brainer: Appeal!

[blcamp]

If the allegations are true, they should easily win an appeal... assuming the rest of the judicial system is not so corrupt... allegedly, of course.

Re:No-Brainer: Appeal!

[L4t3r4lu5]

This is not an ideal solution.

TPB want a win on merit, not technicality. Unless BitTorrent / P2P is vindicated in trial, the case will just return with new people involved.

[tinfoilhat]Consider that this case may have been designed to fail on this technicality, so the prosecution now have all of the plays the defence counsel will make in retrial. They can then research ways to combat them, come back, and win.[/tinfoilhat]

Think that way of thinking is beyond a media conglomorate?

Re:No-Brainer: Appeal!

[barzok]

TPB want a win on merit, not technicality. Unless BitTorrent / P2P is vindicated in trial, the case will just return with new people involved.

Which is the whole point of the appeal. If the judge had a conflict of interest, then they quite possibly didn't lose on merit. Go back, redo the trial with new people who will actually handle the trial properly based upon its merits, and see what happens.

Re:No-Brainer: Appeal!

[Kjella]

TPB want a win on merit, not technicality.

In any case it won't end the case, it'll be a retrial at the lowest court level. And you can bet the "spectrial" tag will stick much harder to the next one.

Re:No-Brainer: Appeal!

[CarpetShark]

Unless BitTorrent / P2P is vindicated in trial, the case will just return with new people involved.

A lot of damage has already been done. BT have blocked TPB since the verdict, and are unlikely to take it back without a fight, given that they've pretended it wasn't a decision related to the trial. Even just here on slashdot, some people have been noticably more anti-piracy since the verdict, it seems to me.

Oh well, it does all make for interesting times, I guess.

ohhhhh

[Pvt_Ryan]

Things just got a lot more interesting...

I Wonder...

[ganjadude]

If they knew about the judge before hand. If they did perhaps (in typical TPB fashion) they went through the trial knowing damn well they were going to use this to get out of it

Re:I Wonder...

[TheP4st]

It is not like they are getting out of it. What will happen is that HovrÃtten (the Court of Appeal) will decide if there were bias or not. Depending on the decision it will either be a retrial or their appeals will go to HovrÃtten in due time. Not much of a change judicially, although PR wise it certainly benefits TPB.

Re:I Wonder...

[Drakkenmensch]

If their lawyers are good and sneaky (and I expect they are) they simply kept that fact like an ace up their sleeve to use if they lost and easily get an appeal. If they had won and got acquitted, you probably never would have heard of this little fact. It would have been pretty hard for the prosecution to try the same trick, as it would have been tantamount to admitting that they made sure to have the first trial in front of a judge biased in their favor, talk about embarassing...

Re:I Wonder...

[Anonymous Coward]

They didn't. They found out that one of the lay-judges was biased and had him excluded. They explicitly say in TFA (I think, it could also be one of the other articles I read) that they didn't know...

Re:I Wonder...

[Anonymous Coward]

At some point the specifics will be lost. The only thing that will be remembered, and what will be heralded by politicians and media types is the a download site was convicted of piracy. People don't remember details, they remember sound bytes; and even then they usually get the sound bytes wrong.

If TPB knew and they were planning to use it as a strategy then it would could only be seen as self serving, since it would be detrimental to the rest of the community.

Re:I Wonder...

[TheP4st]

I forgot to point out that IANAL and that the above is a simplification of the procedure ahead.

Re:I Wonder...

[Demonantis]

Free advertising curtousy of the swedish judicial system. But seriously, this trial falls into the gray area of having no previous trials to apply to this one. The judge having any sort of bias is dangerous cause he can't argue that his interpretation is not biased by using previous cases. A murder trial could easily get the material. This makes the people unfaithful of his judgement even if the judge acted purely as a "server" of the law.

In the words of Lionell Hutz

[Opportunist]

I move for a bad court thingie!

Re:In the words of Lionell Hutz

[Drakkenmensch]

"You mean a mistrial?" "That's why you're the judge, and I'm the law... talking... guy."

Re:In the words of Lionell Hutz

[ndavis]

Well he's had it in for me ever since I kinda ran over his dog... Well, replace the word "kinda" with "repeatedly" and the word "dog" with "son,".

Re:In the words of Lionell Hutz

[Drakkenmensch]

"The defense rests, your honor." "Mister Hutz, why aren't you wearing any pants?!?"

Re:In the words of Lionell Hutz

[dogeatery]

I move for a 15-minute recess. I have to go to the bathroom

Re:In the words of Lionell Hutz

[Anonymous Coward]

"I've argued in front of every judge in this state. Often as a lawyer."

Shouldn't Judges remove themselves?

[rotide]

IANAL/IANAJ..

Aren't Judges supposed to remove themselves from a case if there is a known conflict of interest or an arguable bias? Don't they get in trouble for presiding over cases with this bias?

Maybe someone with a background in law can answer this? Google didn't seem to want to give any definitive answers. Then again, maybe the laws in Sweden are different?

Re:Shouldn't Judges remove themselves?

[Shrike82]

As much as it pains me to use Wikipedia for a meaningful discussion of facts:

Those with a conflict of interests are expected to recuse themselves from (i.e., abstain from) decisions where such a conflict exists. The imperative for recusal varies depending upon the circumstance and profession, either as common sense ethics, codified ethics, or by statute. For example, if the governing board of a government agency is considering hiring a consulting firm for some task, and one firm being considered has, as a partner, a close relative of one of the board's members, then that board member should not vote on which firm is to be selected. In fact, to minimize any conflict, the board member should not participate in any way in the decision, including discussions. Judges are supposed to recuse themselves from cases when personal conflicts of interest may arise. For example, if a judge has participated in a case previously as some other judicial role he/she is not allowed to try that case. Recusal is also expected when one of the lawyers in a case might be a close personal friend, or when the outcome of the case might affect the judge directly, such as whether a car maker is obliged to recall a model that a judge drives. This is required by law under Continental civil law systems and by the Rome Statute, organic law of the International Criminal Court.

Emphasis mine. Background reading and links for anyone interested here. If this description is accurate (and I remind you again it's from Wikipedia so that's a real concern) then it would appear that any affiliation with copyright organisations would present a potential bias.

Re:Shouldn't Judges remove themselves?

[bumby]

Yes, yes they should, and the article mentioned this. The judge did however not consider himself biased. Go figure...

Re:Shouldn't Judges remove themselves?

[kenp2002]

Last I check (IANALBMWIAPL) Judges only have to excuse themselves if they a personal bias or personal involvement in the case. Professional involvement isn't necessarily a "conflict of interest" if they feel that their professional involvement isn't going to factor in.

NYCL WHERE ARE YOU?

Re:Shouldn't Judges remove themselves?

[aunt edna]

IANAL/IANAJ..

Aren't Judges supposed to remove themselves from a case if there is a known conflict of interest or an arguable bias? Don't they get in trouble for presiding over cases with this bias?

Maybe someone with a background in law can answer this? Google didn't seem to want to give any definitive answers. Then again, maybe the laws in Sweden are different?

Congratulations on scoring 5 with this.

Re:Shouldn't Judges remove themselves?

[Anonymous Coward]

The judge decides if he's biased or not, in this case he says he's not biased . Of course, it would have been good judgement on his behalf to mention his affiliations to the defense and prosecution and let THEM decide, seeing how anyone with a brain can see how this not only would surface, but also that it at the very least gives the impression of bias, which in itself is enough that the judge should excuse himself. Yes, bias isn't needed, the perception of bias is enough ("delikatessjÃv").

The European Convention shares this view about perception.

Note that one of the organizations explicitly state that they work FOR copyrights (it's in their name) and they're supported by IFPI, etc.

Re:Shouldn't Judges remove themselves?

[Jugalator]

Aren't Judges supposed to remove themselves from a case if there is a known conflict of interest or an arguable bias? Don't they get in trouble for presiding over cases with this bias?

Yes and yes. So comments here on Slashdot on that the TPB lawyers didn't do their job to find this out in advance, and conspiratory comments on that they may have planned for this, is in my opinion not holding much water.

The idea is that this responsibility is on the judge, and the lawyers shouldn't need to act like detectives here.

Re:Shouldn't Judges remove themselves?

[aliquis]

He's not allowed to judge the case if there is any chance he may be biased, but then once again he didn't considering himself as being that, just well-informed in the area ...

Re:Shouldn't Judges remove themselves?

[aliquis]

I guess he's the one who should be sentenced and pay a fee but good luck with that ..

Re:Shouldn't Judges remove themselves?

[TheP4st]

No, the Swedish laws are not very different in that aspect. If a Judge find himself in a situation where there is a risk of bias or conflict of interest then he should inform the involved parties. At which time he voluntarily can choose to step down. If the judge do not remove himself then the involved parties can request his removal.

Re:Shouldn't Judges remove themselves?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the same judge who asked the jurists whether they were members of pro-copyright organizations. The same judge who dismissed a jurist for belonging to a pro-copyright organization.

The mere appearance of impropriety should have been sufficient for this judge to recuse himself.

I do know one thing: if the judge had been a member of the Pirate Party, TPB would have been acquitted, and would not be able to be retried (double jeopardy). The judge would be sacked, and possibly face criminal charges.

Re:Shouldn't Judges remove themselves?

[Kratisto]

Come on now! How often is Wikipedia really inacPENIS PENIS PENIS PENIS PENIS

Re:Shouldn't Judges remove themselves?

[Jugalator]

... then it would appear that any affiliation with copyright organisations would present a potential bias.

And the story doesn't stop there, because both Monique Wadsted and Henrik Pontén was also members of this organization, and he had seen Monique in other circumstances too. So it's not far fetched that he's even acquainted to Monique to some extent. And he still didn't remove himself in advance, or even informed of this.

Re:Shouldn't Judges remove themselves?

[gtirloni]

Looks like this judge could be facing a trial himself.

Re:Shouldn't Judges remove themselves?

[clickclickdrone]

>Then again, maybe the laws in Sweden are different?
Surely not? I thought US law was global?

Re:Shouldn't Judges remove themselves?

[rhsanborn]

Personal conflict of interest, which would be true if he had some personal or financial incentive. But simply having a position on an issue such as copyright doesn't indicate a conflict of interest in the same way that a murder suspect couldn't argue to have a mistrial because he knows that this judge has said before that murder is wrong. I don't know the full implications of this judges membership, but if he is a member of this organization as a matter of principle or belief in copyright, it doesn't necessarily indicate a conflict of interest.

Re:Shouldn't Judges remove themselves?

[KendyForTheState]

Isn't "paralegal" one word? It should be I Am Not A Lawyer But My Wife Is A Paralegal (IANALBMWIAP).

Re:Shouldn't Judges remove themselves?

[Uberbah]

Maybe he's friends with Anton Scalia:

Besides Thomas, Scalia also took part in the decision while a close relative had a substantial interest in the outcome. Scalia's son Eugene is a partner in the Washington office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, where one of the senior partners is Theodore B. Olson, who argued Bush's case before the Supreme Court.

Scalia refused to recuse himself from Bush v. Gore, although the lead lawyer for the plaintiff was, in effect, his son's boss. He took the same position in the various legal proceedings that accompanied the impeachment of Bill Clinton, beginning with the Supreme Court's decision to permit Paula Jones to proceed with her lawsuit against Clinton for sexual harassment, in which Olson provided legal assistance.

and

WASHINGTON - U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia refused on Thursday to remove himself from a case about Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force, even though their recent duck-hunting trip raised questions about his impartiality.

But then, hackery has never been much of a problem

But Scalia's liberal critics have a point: His moral views have a habit of grafting themselves onto his constitutional philosophy. No one expects him to be a libertarian; he has stressed that his opposition to expanded federal power applies only to instances in which it is explicitly limited by the Constitution. But you might at least expect him to be oppose federal intervention within the parameters of his originalist vision. Or rather, you might have expected that until Gonzales v. Raich, this year's medical marijuana case.

Scalia voted to uphold the federal government's prerogative to go after medical consumers of homegrown pot, on the grounds that this activity supposedly affects interstate commerce. This ruling prompted Thomas to note in a caustic dissent, "If Congress can regulate this under the Commerce Clause, then it can regulate virtually anything--and the Federal Government is no longer one of limited and enumerated powers."

...for Scalia

The 11th Amendment says federal courts cannot hear lawsuits against a state brought by "Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State." But it's been interpreted to block suits by a state's own citizens - something it clearly does not say. How to get around the Constitution's express words? In a 1991 decision, Justice Scalia wrote that "despite the narrowness of its terms," the 11th Amendment has been understood by the court "to stand not so much for what it says, but for the presupposition of our constitutional structure which it confirms." If another judge used that rationale to find rights in the Constitution, Justice Scalia's reaction would be withering. He went on, in that 1991 decision, to throw out a suit by Indian tribes who said they had been cheated by the State of Alaska.

Re:Shouldn't Judges remove themselves?

[Shrike82]

Dammit man, I'm trying to pretend to work here and this sort of thing, making me giggle like a 7 year old schoolboy, is alerting my colleagues to my laziness!

Re:Shouldn't Judges remove themselves?

[Shrike82]

Good point, but wouldn't it be better (read fairer) to have a judge presiding over a case of this magnitude that has no affiliation to any organisations with a distinct interest - political and financial - in the outcome?

Re:Shouldn't Judges remove themselves?

[rhsanborn]

I agree, there are elements that definitely look improprietous, but I don't believe they are nearly so damning as some are making them out to be.

Re:Shouldn't Judges remove themselves?

[CrimsonAvenger]

Scalia voted to uphold the federal government's prerogative to go after medical consumers of homegrown pot, on the grounds that this activity supposedly affects interstate commerce. This ruling prompted Thomas to note in a caustic dissent, "If Congress can regulate this under the Commerce Clause, then it can regulate virtually anything--and the Federal Government is no longer one of limited and enumerated powers."

Note, for the record, that the government gave itself this power in FDR's administration, when it successfully prosecuted a farmer for growing feed for his own livestock.

In other words, be careful about wishing that the government had the power to do something you want them to do, because they may later come back and use the same excuse to do something you don't want them to do.

Re:Shouldn't Judges remove themselves?

[multisync]

As much as it pains me to use Wikipedia for a meaningful discussion of facts ... If this description is accurate (and I remind you again it's from Wikipedia so that's a real concern)

No more of a concern than trusting the facts as reported by any dead-tree format encyclopedia, news organization, or any other non-expert in the subject at hand. Wikipedia is a resource, just like your local news paper. But unlike your local newspaper, Wikipedia articles provide attribution that makes it easy to check out the validity of what they say.

Look at the top of the article you linked to about Conflict of interest. It states in clear english:

This article includes a list of references or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations where appropriate. (April 2009)

That doesn't sound to me like an unreliable source in information. In fact, it sounds like the exact opposite. They are saying in effect "the author of this article has not provided the sources necessary to support what it is saying. That doesn't mean it isn't true, just that you should use it in conjunction with other sources. Oh, and if you can provide further supporting documentation or corrections, that would be great."

Does your dead-tree encyclopedia let you do that? How about your local newspaper?

If you rely on any one source of information to get definitive answers - whether that source is Wikipedia or CNN - you're going to get a lot of misinformation. If you use resources like Wikipedia as a starting point, and take the time follow the links in the References section of the article, you will be better informed than you would have been just blindly trusting more traditional sources.

Re:Shouldn't Judges remove themselves?

[Anonymous Coward]

IANAL (for another 3 months)
I don't think this is the kind of personal affiliation that would warrant an appeal. Here in the States all judges are members of their state bar association, and are therefore colleagues with every practicing attorney in the state. They may know each other personally from law school, bar association events, or just working together in the courthouse over and over again. In my experience (I'm a graduating law student who has worked for a judge and state's attorney's office), judges rarely recuse themselves due to social connections with the attorneys.

Generally recusal is done when the judge has been business partners with an attorney, has had disciplinary/contempt issues with an attorney, or is financially interested in the outcome of a case. As far as a bias in favor of copywright law... well it's the law, precisely what judges are supposed to be basing decisions on...

Re:Shouldn't Judges remove themselves?

[linzeal]

Sounds like conspiracy.

Re:Shouldn't Judges remove themselves?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know the full implications of this judges membership, but if he is a member of this organization as a matter of principle or belief in copyright, it doesn't necessarily indicate a conflict of interest.

Member in the generic copyright lobby organization, member of board of lobby for tougher copyright laws organization. I'd say the latter is especially bad in the conflict of interest sense.
Also, it seems several prosecution lawyers were also members of those organization. Indeed, one of those lawyers commented on the judge's 100+ page ruling minutes after it was published.

Re:Shouldn't Judges remove themselves?

[Anonymous Coward]

They are saying in effect "the author of this article has not provided the sources necessary to support what it is saying. That doesn't mean it isn't true, just that you should use it in conjunction with other sources. Oh, and if you can provide further supporting documentation or corrections, that would be great."

Does your dead-tree encyclopedia let you do that? How about your local newspaper?

Yes it does, I can take a pen to it anytime

Re:Shouldn't Judges remove themselves?

[Anonymous Coward]

>Then again, maybe the laws in Sweden are different?

Surely not? I thought US law was global?

As is true with any law, he who wields the biggest stick makes the rules.

And we have the biggest stick, so yes, in effect, US law is global.

I'm not saying that's a good thing.

Re:Shouldn't Judges remove themselves?

[cbiltcliffe]

A guy on slashdot has a wife, and you're going off on a spelling technicality?

What's with you man?!

Re:Shouldn't Judges remove themselves?

[drinkypoo]

I'm sure it's alerting your colleagues to some tendency of yours, but I don't think it's laziness.

Seriously though, your lazy-fu is weak. If you can't hold a poker face while surfing porn while the boss is in your office, you're an amateur.

Re:Shouldn't Judges remove themselves?

[JasterBobaMereel]

Personally I prefer Wikipedia where I know it might be wrong, to another single source that might be wrong but most people assume is correct ....

It means I do what everyone should, check the facts with at least one other independent source ...

Re:Shouldn't Judges remove themselves?

[mtempsch]

> if the judge had been a member of the Pirate Party, TPB would have been acquitted, and would not be able to be retried (double jeopardy)

The case would have gone to the next level (Hovrätten) anyway as the prosecution may appeal the lower court's (Tingsrätten) verdict, just the same as the defence can.

Re:Shouldn't Judges remove themselves?

[Opportunist]

I bow to you if you can keep a straight face if you do so and your boss is in the porn.

Re:Shouldn't Judges remove themselves?

[Opportunist]

Sure, but do you think they were interested in a fair trial? Has anyone ever been interested in one? Would you mind being in a trial that is rigged in your favor?

Re:Shouldn't Judges remove themselves?

[Opportunist]

Judging from the take-down notices TPB publishes that are sent to them, a lot of people around the globe think that way...

Re:Shouldn't Judges remove themselves?

[Uberbah]

Note, for the record, that the government gave itself this power in FDR's administration, when it successfully prosecuted a farmer for growing feed for his own livestock.

Sure, sure. I wish the framers had stuck the word "directly" in the Constitution in a couple of places - like the parts on regulating interstate commerce and taking lands for public use. So we'd have none of this BS about home grown pot affecting interstate commerce and using eminent domain to clear residential areas to make room for shopping malls.

But that's beside the point, which is the gross hackery of selective strict constitutionalists. Scalia is one. Ron Paul is another. He voted against a (totally non-binding) resolution condemning the genocide in Darfur, because the Constitution doesn't explicitly grant Congress the power to make such non-binding resolutions. Yet he has no problem sponsoring legislation that would define life as beginning at conception, nevermind that's not a defined power in Article I.

For another example, there's our own resident dumb fat fuck, Pudge. He rails against the unconstitutionality of Social Security. I point out that supporting the General Welfare is in the Constitution. Twice. He responds that Article I, Section 8 is a strict definition of Congressional powers. I point out that by that logic, a strict interpretation of Section 8 would apply just as much to Common Defense as General Welfare, as they are in the same sentence of Article I and both are detailed in Section 8. So if Social Security is unconstitutional, so is the Air Force, the CIA, NORAD, and all our spy satellites as Congress only has the power to fund an army and a navy. To which his rationalization is that all those things are A-OK under expansive court readings of the Forgoing Powers Doctrine. A selectively strict constitutionalist, because obviously Social Security is perfectly constitutional under equally expansive interpretations of General Welfare and the Commerce Clause.

But that's the problem with wingnut arguments: consistently inconsistent logic, so they implode if given the slightest scruitiny.

Re:Shouldn't Judges remove themselves?

[multisync]

I can take a pen to it anytime

And I can see that you did that, and check the edits you've made against other sources to determine their validity. If you alter the article on the President of the United States to say that Ross Perot won the election, I can check that fact against other sources, see that you've provided no credible citation for that claim and either report the abuse or correct the article myself, providing references for the changes I've made.

I can also review the history of the article to see if it has been the subject of abuse by Anonymous Cowards like yourself. In fact, it's unlikely that you could even edit an article like that one, as articles that are the subject of frequent vandalism are generally not editable by anonymous users. Freedom is a great thing, but not everyone can handle the responsibility.

Does your dead-tree encyclopedia let you do that? How about your local newspaper?

Yes it does

Since you've provided no evidence to support your claim that your local newspaper gives you the ability to provide citations and make correction to their articles, I don't believe you've made a factual statement. If you want us to believe you, you will have to provide evidence to back up your claims.

See how easy that is?

Re:Shouldn't Judges remove themselves?

[multisync]

Sorry, I read your comment too quickly and missed your point. Yes, you can take a pen to your copy of your local newspaper and change it as you see fit.

Re:Shouldn't Judges remove themselves?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, well.. what about when the judge in question is not only a member of not only one but two lobbying organisations with the stated goal of pushing the law to where it currently is not? And a member of the board in one of them, non the less?

To me this stinks as bad as if the judge had been a card carrying member of the nazi party, presiding over a case with jews as defendants.

Re:Shouldn't Judges remove themselves?

[Shrike82]

Not relevant. A fair trial should be measured from an objective viewpoint by people totally removed from any significant emotional, financial, political (etc.) links to the case or the people involved.

Re:Shouldn't Judges remove themselves?

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently so did the prosecutors...

Re:suck it up

[Jaysyn]

Occam's Razor says that they probably do have at least a little bit of bias if they are interested enough to join a group that lobbies the government.

Re:English Language Article -Wall Street Journal

[pallmall1]

Here's a link to the story in the Wall Street Journal.

Damn. Just who are the pirates in this case?

Re:suck it up

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll take an apple fanboy over a lawyer or judge anyday.
The fanboys at least don't prostitute their ideals to whoever pays them money.

Mistrial?

[fallen1]

IANAL but would this not be grounds for a mistrial and sanctions against the judge in question? I am pretty sure that in America, if you have a bias due to affiliation then you should recuse yourself from the case as a judge. I am not sure about Sweden, but this would only make sense since a judge is _supposed_ to be fair and impartial.

Kinda hard to be impartial when you belong to the same organization as three of the prosecutors...

I call bullshit!

Re:Mistrial?

[Zironic]

Being the member of the same organization is probably not very uncommon, I bet most judges and prosecutors are members of the Swedish bar association and other legal organizations.

The problem is that the judge is part of several organizations that are clearly against the accused.

Re:Mistrial?

[ScentCone]

The problem is that the judge is part of several organizations that are clearly against the accused.

So? If the judge was a member of Swedish Citizens Against Drunk Driving, and he was presiding over the trial of a guy that killed somebody while driving drunk, would that make his personal interest in reducing the crime of drunk driving somehow wrong, or prejudicial? I mean, driving drunk is naughty. Being a member of a group that says, "Driving drunk is naughty" doesn't prevent you from being objective about the facts in a trial that's determining if someone was doing the naughty thing. Likewise, being a member of an organization that says, "Ripping off artists is naughty, and setting up web sites specifically to help do that on a massive scale is also naughty," doesn't mean you can't be objective about the finding of facts in a given case about whether or not a particular person/people were actually doing so or not.

Should every judge who supports an organization aimed at reducing heroin use through prevention and the punishment of pushers and traffickers be considered incapable of weighing in on whether or not a given person is a heroin dealer? Should a judge who - among many, many other professional affiliations - considers it important to cut down on fraud in the judicial system and thus supports a bar association sub-group aimed at integrity in the practice of law recuse himself from the trial of a lawyer that's been defrauding his clients? Why? It's rational to support such interests if you're in that profession, but you only want judges that don't support it to judge such cases?

It's likewise rational to support copyrights, and to discourage the wholesale ripping off of artists. Why would you want a judge who doesn't get that to be involved in such a trial?

More importantly, do you consider yourself rational enough to be a member of a jury in such a case? Do you know anyone who supports the EFF? Should they be considered too corrupt and biased to be a juror on such a case? Why?

Re:Mistrial?

[Anonymous Coward]

Under Swedish law the judge does not need to have an actual bias to be forced to recluse himself. He must recluse himself if there can be a mere suspicion that he is biased. A suspicion itself may harm the public's faith in the legal system, and is therefore considered harmful to the legal system itself.

Re:Mistrial?

[williamhb]

IANAL but would this not be grounds for a mistrial and sanctions against the judge in question? I am pretty sure that in America, if you have a bias due to affiliation then you should recuse yourself from the case as a judge. I am not sure about Sweden, but this would only make sense since a judge is _supposed_ to be fair and impartial.

Maybe Jack Thompson should try that argument to get his license back: "I'm sorry but your decision to refuse my attempted appeal is invalid because you're biased by having been members of a Bar Association like the one that made the original decision. I demand my case be heard by someone who's never been a lawyer!"

Re:Mistrial?

[bit01]

So? If the judge was a member of Swedish Citizens Against Drunk Driving, and he was presiding over the trial of a guy that killed somebody while driving drunk, would that make his personal interest in reducing the crime of drunk driving somehow wrong, or prejudicial?

That's it, try to compare pirating, of which the vast majority of citizens do in one form or another, with drunk driving, the vast majority of which are against. They are not comparable. Marketing 101: Try to make an emotional association when you can't make a real argument. Ditto heroin.

It all depends on the organization. If it is a self-help organization, education, professional improvement, social get-togethers etc., then no problem.

However, if it is an organization that lobbies in any way for stronger copyright and more copyright law, and this is likely given that a large percentage of it's members are lawyers and lawyers are known for lobbying for more law to give themselves more work, then big problem.

It appears that the judge is a copyright maximalist and biased. Since that was not revealed before the trial and the judge appears to have made an extreme interpretation not in keeping with Swedish law (cf. assisting piracy and not actually doing it) then big problem.

It's likewise rational to support copyrights,

No it isn't. See? I can make meaningless, content-free statements also.

and to discourage the wholesale ripping off of artists.

An opinion that has little to do with the previous statement despite your "and". Trying to create an association perhaps? The artists aren't being ripped off, they've already been ripped off by the middlemen.

Why would you want a judge who doesn't get that to be involved in such a trial?

Because the judge isn't capable of distinguishing copyright fanaticism from balance and reasonable interpretation of the law perhaps?

---

Copyrights and patents are privileges, not rights.

Re:Mistrial?

[Anonymous Coward]

The artists aren't being ripped off, they've already been ripped off by the middlemen.

Ah, of course - the lamest, most juvenile excuse for ripping off your entertainment. So, when an artist - who has many options, including self-publishing, working with a small indy label, or going with a larger company to handle everything for them - chooses to work with a recording company, you consider that being ripped off, and thus an excuse to actually rip off their work? So, you've got two explanations for ripping of creative works:

1) Everyone else does it (not that everyone does, but I can see how thinking that's true might make you feel better, sort of like being only one of a lot of people that are smashing store windows in a peace protest - gee, everyone else was doing it!).

2) The artist is too dumb and helpless, despite having thousands of music industry blogs, magazine articles, and peers to talk to everyday, and was bamboozled by sheer magic and trickery into establishing a business relationship with a publisher that is turning it into a one-way relationship that rips them off. Oh wait, that's you, doing that part.

So: you think so little of the artist's personal business decisions that you consider them fools. And yet, despite having no respect for them, still want their creative works. What's it like, having no intellectual integrity? Does it make doing your day job awkward, ever, or your personal relationships?

Re:suck it up

[rbarreira]

Not just a group that lobbies, a group that lobbies together with the prosecution!

The Swedish court system is flawed

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Looks like the Swedish court system is rotten. Next thing you know, couple of judges will open a private juvenile detention facility, rule the government detention facility to be inadequate, harshly punish all juveniles appearing before them to long detentions, send them to their own private detention facility, bill the government for millions of dollars, and whoop it up in some Caribbean island. Nah. The Swedes better look up at the American Judicial System (TM), The Best Justice Money Can Buy.

Re:The Swedish court system is flawed

[GauteL]

Yes. This could never happen in any other country were judges are expected to whether they are biased or not.

Re:The Swedish court system is flawed

[Jaysyn]

Yeah, but what kind of punishments are said judges now looking at for abusing their power? Those motherfuckers are in *deep* shit & the civil cases haven't even started yet.

Do you know what they do to judges in prison? At the very best these guys are looking at 5 years in solitary since they won't be able to go into general population without getting shivved.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/13/us/13judge.html?_r=1

Re:The Swedish court system is flawed

[Burnhard]

ext thing you know, couple of judges will open a private juvenile detention facility, rule the government detention facility to be inadequate, harshly punish all juveniles appearing before them to long detentions, send them to their own private detention facility

It's called Scout Camp.

Re:The Swedish court system is flawed

[Anonymous Coward]

If this had been in sweden, there wouldn't have been any punishment. Basically, officials committing criminal errors are protected by the system, so the best outcome is that the error is fixed. Getting someone held accountable is virtually impossible.

Re:The Swedish court system is flawed

[Jaysyn]

Well how about that. Score .0001 for the US judicial system.

Pfft....

[Anonymous Coward]

Ask that of the other side instead, they at least had reason to know about the bias, yet they said nothing, continue to say nothing. Maybe THEY thought a 'redo from start' card would be nice to have?

Seems like a CONSTANT conflict of interest

[drinkypoo]

How is a judge even allowed to belong to such an organization? A judge who does, and who believes what he is doing, will be the definition of activist judge. Judges aren't supposed to have their own agendas. They're there to execute the law and therefore ostensibly the will of the people.

Re:Seems like a CONSTANT conflict of interest

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, and in fantasyland, we all ride unicorns and wipe our asses with rainbows.

Every time a republican or democratic is elected president, one of the topics is the fact that they can nominate supreme court and federal justices that are sympathetic to their views.

It would be nice to have impartial judges, but it is essentially not possible. The more intelligent a person, the more they investigate and make opinions about the world around them. The best we can hope for is that the judge is aware of their own bias, and could step aside when they recognize a conflict of interest.

I would really like to see this judge removed from the bench and disbarred for misconduct. Deliberately keeping quiet about being on the board of one of the copyright organizations involved speaks to me of judicial misconduct.

Perhaps The Pirate Bay should sue the judge for abuse of power. If they can do that in Sweden.

Re:Seems like a CONSTANT conflict of interest

[furby076]

You can belong to any organization that you want. YOu can belong to a biker gang, err biker club. You can belong to the KKK. You can belong to the suzie pie makers club. A judge can also be in those associations. Judges belong to many organizations - this is OK. Many judges are known to have specific views on cases (think supreme court justices and abortion). That does not mean they are not allowed or qualified to preside. You think there aren't judges who are in the "anti-abortion group"? Do you think they can't preside fairly? Maybe they cant and maybe they can. For example - I would not be for standard abortion (e.g. "OMG you're pregnant?!?!?, Wasn't me!!!") but that doesn't mean I am against someone else having an abortion for that reason. So my personal belief/choices would not dictate how I would mandate others to live. If I were a judge I would be qualified to preside over such a case even though I am against abortion for those reasons.

This judge could have made a fair ruling even if he is associated with these attorneys. BTW attorneys/judges are a small niche group that join as many organizations as possible (connections, job opportunities, resume, etc). It's not uncommon for judges to personally know the attorneys outside of the court room. It's not uncommon for attorneys to know each other personally either. A prosecutor and defender may have beers after hours - and that is OK. In fact it may be advantages since they may be more civil with each other and more willing to work towards an understanding that can help both sides.

What I am trying to say - this judge being involved with these guys does not make him or his ruling bad. It is up to the defense attorneys to prove, in the appellete courts, that the judge was inappropriate. If he was then it will be a mistrial, otherwise the ruling will stand.

Re:Seems like a CONSTANT conflict of interest

[drinkypoo]

What I am trying to say - this judge being involved with these guys does not make him or his ruling bad.

It does however prove a conflict of interest, and to my mind that means he never should have been permitted to be involved with the case to begin with. And I maintain that for a judge to be a member of any group formed specifically for legal activism is a red flag at best.

Re:Seems like a CONSTANT conflict of interest

[Jeff DeMaagd]

This looks more like bias than conflict of interest. A conflict of interest is when someone benefits by dealing a decision in a particular way.

Re:Seems like a CONSTANT conflict of interest

[Anonymous Coward]

They aren't there to execute the "will of the people." Judges ought to be apolitical, or at least not subject to the whims of the political tide. And it was so in most places in the US until we started "democratizing" everything. Now we elect Senators, Judges and many other positions that were not meant to be subject to the political process like they now are.

Judges are there, not to execute (that's the job of the executive branch), but to try and adjudicate disputes of law. The judges are there to look at the context of specific claims and to make rulings on the basis of law concerning those specific claims. Anything more or less and you aren't dealing with a judge, but something else entirely.

Re:Seems like a CONSTANT conflict of interest

[drinkypoo]

This looks more like bias than conflict of interest. A conflict of interest is when someone benefits by dealing a decision in a particular way.

Not really.

There often is confusion over these two situations. Someone accused of a conflict of interest may deny that a conflict exists because he/she did not act improperly. In fact, a conflict of interests can exist even if there are no improper acts as a result of it. (One way to understand this is to use the term "conflict of roles". A person with two roles--an individual who owns stock and is also a government official, for example--may experience situations where those two roles conflict. The conflict can be mitigated--see below--but it still exists. In and of itself, having two roles is not illegal, but the differing roles will certainly provide an incentive for improper acts in some circumstances.)

There is definitely a conflict of interest here. The only question is whether there has been wrongdoing.

>

Re:Seems like a CONSTANT conflict of interest

[furby076]

It does however prove a conflict of interest, and to my mind that means he never should have been permitted to be involved with the case to begin with.

No it does not. You didn't understand a word that I said. Being associated with a group of people/organizations does not make someone biased and does not automatically create a conflict of interest. If he worked for these groups, and would stand to make a profit based on this ruling there would be a conflict of interest. Being associated does not equal conflict of interest.

And I maintain that for a judge to be a member of any group formed specifically for legal activism is a red flag at best.

And I maintain that for a judge to be a member of any group formed specifically for legal activism is a red flag, not at best and not at worst. You then keep tabs on the judge - but being a member of a group does not mean the judge can't/won't rule fairly. If anything it may mean the judge is more informed about the subject...something that we at /. always complain about. We always bitch and moan that judges have no idea what they are talking about because they are not involved with the industry they preside in. Here is a judge who is involved with the industry he presides in and we cry foul because we didn't like the ruling?

Re:Seems like a CONSTANT conflict of interest

[furby076]

Wiki"There often is confusion over these two situations. Someone accused of a conflict of interest may deny that a conflict exists because he/she did not act improperly. In fact, a conflict of interests can exist even if there are no improper acts as a result of it. (One way to understand this is to use the term "conflict of roles". A person with two roles--an individual who owns stock and is also a government official, for example--may experience situations where those two roles conflict. The conflict can be mitigated--see below--but it still exists. In and of itself, having two roles is not illegal, but the differing roles will certainly provide an incentive for improper acts in some circumstances.)" There is definitely a conflict of interest here. The only question is whether there has been wrongdoing.

You just proved the GF posters arguement. He said "A conflict of interest is when someone benefits by dealing a decision in a particular way." Your wiki post says "A person with two roles--an individual who owns stock and is also a government official" Did you miss the stock portion? Getting paid.

You may argue bias (though you still have to prove it), but unless you can prove the judge was getting some kickback (money, favors, a daughter-in-law getting a job due to this, etc) "conflict of interest" does not apply.

Either way - EVEN if you were right about "conflict of interest" you would need to prove it before saying "definitely proves conflict of interest". Which btw, unless you can prove this you are making liable statements.

Re:Seems like a CONSTANT conflict of interest

[drinkypoo]

You just proved the GF posters arguement. He said "A conflict of interest is when someone benefits by dealing a decision in a particular way." Your wiki post says "A person with two roles--an individual who owns stock and is also a government official" Did you miss the stock portion? Getting paid.

Did you miss the for example part? Using optional examples.

See sig.

You may argue bias (though you still have to prove it), but unless you can prove the judge was getting some kickback (money, favors, a daughter-in-law getting a job due to this, etc) "conflict of interest" does not apply.

Monetary is not the only type of gain.

The only way to get smarter is to play a smarter opponent. You should be gaining brilliance at a previously unseen rate here on slashdot. And that's pathetic.

Re:Seems like a CONSTANT conflict of interest

[blahplusplus]

Judges are people too. History is filled with corruption in the legal system, this is nothing new.

Re:suck it up

[sjames]

lawyers/judges are often memebers of many many organisations, it doesn't mean they have the same rabid bias of an apple fanboy of /.

Membership is one thing. The judge is on the board of directors! That's just a wee bit stronger connection than fanboy.

That would be like allowing Steve Jobs preside over MS's trial.

A Little Simplistic?

[Anonymous Coward]

Much as I was disappointed by the PB verdict (though not surprised) this seems kind of silly.

Is the suggestion that no-one noticed prior to the trial?

To be a judge in most (civilised) countries you tend to have be very serious about due process, public confidence in the legal system, perception of fairness, and so on.

So even if this guy is a complete bastard and a former drinking buddy of Satan himself, I'd be very surprised if this issue hadn't been raised (i.e. declared) with whomever his bosses are well in advance of the case. I'd also expect a signed certificate from his bosses/peers confirming this.

If not, then the issue isn't that the guy was biased or not, it's that his legal and ethical judgement is seriously wide of the mark.

Sweden, Sweden, Sweden

[elrous0]

Well, there goes that reputation for neutrality.

Re:Sweden, Sweden, Sweden

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, there goes that reputation for neutrality.

Are you sure you're not thinking of Switzerland there?

Re:Sweden, Sweden, Sweden

[elrous0]

Nope

Re:Sweden, Sweden, Sweden

[boombaard]

Perhaps the most important aspect of Sweden's concessions to Germany during the Second World War was the extensive export of iron ore to be used in the German weapons industry, reaching ten million tons per year. The Swedish neutrality policy meant that the government could not interfere with the trade. As Germany's preparations for war became more apparent and the risk of another war became obvious, international interest in Swedish ore increased. At the time, British intelligence estimated that German industry relied heavily on Swedish iron ore and a decrease or halt in Swedish ore exports could have been disastrous for German military efforts. This is a contentious view that has been debated in the aftermath of the war.

Hardly a run of the mill notion of neutrality, wouldn't you say (although, I seem to recall reading in a source I can't remember that the US also kept up trades with germany until PH)

Re:Sweden, Sweden, Sweden

[Anonymous Coward]

If government chooses to say "We don't interfere with trade that private companies have with either side of the conflict", I don't think that it is any less neutral than saying that they interfere with trade towards both sides. (Quite the opposite, IMHO.)

Re:Sweden, Sweden, Sweden

[Anonymous Coward]

Still not as bad as Dubya's grandafteher Prescott Bush bankrolling the Nazis.

Re:suck it up

[timmarhy]

Occam's Razor is that the simplest answer is true, to me that's simply he's like every other professional - he joins lots of organisations so he has another piece of paper to hang on the wall. if he activly partisipates that's a different matter.

Not over yet

[Dan667]

Rocky did not kick the Russian's ass until the last round.

Re:Not over yet

[larry bagina]

torrent?

Re:Not over yet

[Anonymous Coward]

No boxer ever kicked another boxers ass until the last round

Re:Not over yet

[twmcneil]

Yeah, but the moose was pretty hard on that skinny, dark haired chick.

Re:Not over yet

[larry bagina]

Back in the day, Mike Tyson did. Of course, the last round was also the first round.

Re:Not over yet

[Anonymous Coward]

Rocky did not kick the Russian's ass until the last round.

Actually Dolph Lundgren who played the Russian is Swedish.

So Rocky would be the RIAA MPAA conglomerate and TPB is the Russian.

They will go down.

Re:suck it up

[BuR4N]

bias or not, I think its interesting that he, possible the only judge in Sweden that is a member of both these organizations got to be the judge in this case.

And I would have gotten away with it...

[Obama$$$RIAA$$$]

...if it weren't for you meddling pirates!

Re-trial

[castrox]

Several experts in Sweden are calling for a re-trial with another judge.

It's somewhat embarrassing. The judge says that he made the call that his participation in "intellectual property groups" (upphovsrättsföreningar) did not bias him.

When the trial started a nämndeman (assistant to the judge) was dismissed because he was considered biased due to his profession as a composer.

It sure will be interesting to see how this one plays out. One might assert that the judge made a huge mistake by taking the case and thus wasting a tremendous amount of time and energy for both sides. Rather moronic for a judge, who should be able to see this type of conflicts.

Re:Re-trial

[ndavis]

It sure will be interesting to see how this one plays out. One might assert that the judge made a huge mistake by taking the case and thus wasting a tremendous amount of time and energy for both sides. Rather moronic for a judge, who should be able to see this type of conflicts.

Maybe the judge did it on purpose as he wants the case to go to mistrial and fail in the courts? Either that or he is so full of himself he thinks he can seperate his wants and desires to make a non biased decision. In that case he is full of crap!

Re:Re-trial

[martin-boundary]

Or maybe he wanted to see what kind of defense TPB were going to argue, so that the next time the prosecutors can better attack the weak points?

Right...

[denzacar]

he joins lots of organisations so he has another piece of paper to hang on the wall.

I bet THAT was heard a lot in Nuremberg 60 years ago.

Re:Right...

[shutdown -p now]

"Your Honour, I did not in any way support or condone the activities of the organization! I merely desired to get the human skin lampshade they present to all new members, as a uniquely valuable collector's item"?

Re:Right...

[Anonymous Coward]

Nürnberg (:-

You are thinking as an American or Brit

[WED Fan]

Aren't Judges supposed to remove themselves from a case if there is a known conflict of interest or an arguable bias? Don't they get in trouble for presiding over cases with this bias?

I would like to think all the civilized world would think like that, but don't count on it.

If the trial were held in the UK, USA, Canada, and a few others I have experience with, then the answer would be that the judge would recuse his/her self.

Hell, in some jurisdictions, if a prosecutor has a conflict, they'd do the same.

But, there are countries where this does not happen.

Re:You are thinking as an American or Brit

[GauteL]

"If the trial were held in the UK, USA, Canada, and a few others I have experience with, then the answer would be that the judge would recuse his/her self."

Your post is in my opinion very, very patronising towards Sweden (one of the least corrupt and most transparent countries in the world).

It seems just like in the US, the judge is supposed to make the call himself. For some reason he decided that he wasn't biased in this case, and that is why this is causing such a stir in Sweden.

To be equally patronising; most swedes will probably say they expected this from countries such as the US, but not in their own country.

Re:You are thinking as an American or Brit

[gtirloni]

China ? I would expect Finland to be a much more educated country on these matters.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=judge+finland+bias+dismiss+-pirate+-bay

Like someone already said, I think TPB's lawyers were playing dumb in the first trial.

Re:You are thinking as an American or Brit

[WED Fan]

Not at all. I was pointing out to the poster that he cannot assume that the legal system in any other country works the same as in the one he is in. Since I don't have experience with Swedish law, I wasn't going to make the same mistake he did. And, when dealing with legal systems in other countries, it is folly to make optimistic assumptions. In fact, between U.S. and British laws there are a number of key differences that travelers should be aware of before venturing into the others legal system for criminal or civil matters.

Re:You are thinking as an American or Brit

[an unsound mind]

Wait, what?

Is this an elaborate confusion troll or something, or are you just skipping the summary and making wild assumptions based on the title?

How do YOU spell Corruption?

[geekmux]

bias or not, I think its interesting that he, possible the only judge in Sweden that is a member of both these organizations got to be the judge in this case.

i-n-t-e-r-e-s-t-i-n-g....Hrm, you have a funny way of spelling "corruption"...

Re:How do YOU spell Corruption?

[Z00L00K]

And even more interesting is the sentence compared to many other crimes that you can get convicted for in Sweden.

As for a case where a driver killed someone while DUI at 0.15% - Five months in prison. So it seems like it's a lot better to drive drunk and kill people than to run a search engine for torrent downloads.

Re:How do YOU spell Corruption?

[BlueStrat]

And even more interesting is the sentence compared to many other crimes that you can get convicted for in Sweden.

As for a case where a driver killed someone while DUI at 0.15% - Five months in prison. So it seems like it's a lot better to drive drunk and kill people than to run a search engine for torrent downloads.

Well, of course!

Killing some average person doesn't hurt the media cartels in any meaningful way, now does it? The average person doesn't have boatloads of money to give to politicians' (re)election campaigns and control of media to either promote or attack politicians.

To the politicians' way of thinking, what's one, or a hundred, or a thousand lousy nobodies' life/lives compared to something that directly affects their climb to, and length of time in, power? Unless it suddenly is both publicized and widespread outrage ensues, of course.

Politicians are the most amoral creatures known to exist. Their only imperative is gaining and remaining in power. They will lie, cheat, steal, bribe, drown kittens, and happily contribute to the death of millions if they think it would help them in their ambitions.

That's one big reason (of many) why career politicians are a very, very bad idea.

Strat

Re:How do YOU spell Corruption?

[CarpetShark]

Hrm, you have a funny way of spelling "corruption"...

Don't you know? Corruption doesn't exist in the west. Only dictorships and other backward countries we want to invade have problems like that.

Re:How do YOU spell Corruption?

[damburger]

Killing people is actually beneficial for media cartels - finger wagging human interest stories about drunk drivers are ratings winners.

Re:How do YOU spell Corruption?

[bark76]

Score: -1 Corruption

Re:How do YOU spell Corruption?

[Kjella]

It's quite clear to me what they were convicted for. Not for running a torrent search engine or tracker. Not for "accessory to copyright infringement". There's no doubt in my mind that the court saw them as some sort of pirate mafia bosses, that never did any of the dirty work but was running the ad racket and cashing in the profits. The more they proved they had nothing to do with actual copyright violations, the more premeditated and sophisticated the racket seemed. And like most sorts of organized crime they wanted to hit them hard, slash through all the layers of protections and hit those at the top of the pyramid. It's got extremely little to do with reality and even less with what was proven which was basically nothing, but it seems to me the court spun their own story regardless of the evidence. The court must decide on the charges and evidence in court, not think "and we also think you're a mass murderer" and slam you wildly out of proportion to what's actually the case.

Re:How do YOU spell Corruption?

[Anonymous Coward]

are judges in sweeden appointed or elected?

The judge has absolutely no excuse

[Anonymous Coward]

... seeing as he seemingly excluded a lay judge based on similar associations.

So a lay judge is dismissed as biased for being a member of a pro-copyright lobby group, but the judge deems himself not to be biased for the same thing? This stinks really bad, no matter what you think of the trial outcome. Everyone deserves a fair trial.

Re:suck it up

[Burkin]

Occam's Razor is that the simplest answer is true,

Sorry, but no. Occam's Razor says that the explanation of a phenomena should make as few assumptions as possible. In no way does this translate to "the simplest answer is true" because in many cases the simplest answer isn't true.

appeal

[r1n530uT]

great they're gonna appeal now and gonna win, cos it wasn't really a fair trial.

Re:suck it up

[Lord Pillage]

That would be like allowing Steve Jobs preside over MS's trial.

I would be more worried about one of his chairmembers presiding over my trial.

Swedish TLD arbitrators

[Zibri]

Monique Wadsted and the judge are both arbitrators for the swedish ccTLD (.se) Registry IIS/.SE's Alternative Dispute Resolution program.

Re:suck it up

[Anonymous Coward]

if he activly partisipates that's a different matter.

Occam's razor of simplicity tells me ENGLISH MOTHERFUCKER DO YOU SPEAK IT?

Re:English Language Article -Wall Street Journal

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

The ones with shallower pockets and fewer friends in high places. Obviously.

Re:suck it up

[jedidiah]

> lawyers/judges are often memebers of many many organisations, it doesn't mean they have the same rabid bias of an apple fanboy of /.

No. However it does mean that they are judged by a particular standard of conduct.

While lawyers can get away with a lot of crap because their notion of ethics might
be a little peculiar, a conflict of interest is not one of them.

So, yes this little conflict of interest matters (if true).

Close...

[denzacar]

That would be like allowing Steve Jobs preside over MS's trial.

More like Steve BALLMER presiding over a Linux trial.

With the added bonus of Ballmer being the chairmen in such a case.

Re:Close...

[cbiltcliffe]

Is that "chairmen", or "chairsman"?

Re:Close...

[Arthur Grumbine]

With the added bonus of Ballmer being the chairmen in such a case.

Just throwing this out there, but - Isn't Ballmer the chair-man in any situation he's involved in?

Re:suck it up

[Kratisto]

That doesn't explain everything, though. If he just wanted pieces of paper on the wall, there are plenty of organizations he could have joined. He supports the organizations at least from the perspective that he shares their views enough to display a piece of paper saying as much, and with that much email spam, he's going to be exposed to a worse bias than a FNC viewer. Whether this can actually be legally construed as conflict of interest is beyond my ability to nitpick Occam's Razor.

Re:suck it up

[pjt33]

lawyers/judges are often memebers of many many organisations, it doesn't mean they have the same rabid bias of an apple fanboy of /.

Even so, they should avoid even the impression of impropriety.

See the opening.

[senorpoco]

If only I could think of a witty and ironic net NEUTRALITY joke right now, then everyone would like me.

Same judge that...

[Anonymous Coward]

...cleared the search warrant towards TPB +3 years ago, I wonder if that was properly handled, from the articles here in sweden it seems he took the warrant-request from APB and just signed it and added "take anything you find interesting" and let them have at it.

Summary of current debate

[MaulerOfEmotards]

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.

Re:Summary of current debate

[Anonymous Coward]

Also the police in charge of the investigation (Jim Keyser) got a well paid job at Warner Brothers the day after the investigation was finished.

Re:Summary of current debate

[xbytor]

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

Yet another successful American export.

Theoretical Issue, Not Practical

[lacoronus]

Of the two organizations, only one appears to be problematic.

SFU is basically an organization for people who want to keep up to date with IP law. Of course you'll find judges here, and RIAA/etc. will of course get their lawyers from here - after all, if you go into an IP-related trial, you want someone with knowledge in IP to represent you.

SFIR is more problematic, as they state as one of their purposes is to "contribute" to the evolution of IP rights in Sweden and world wide. What kind of evolution is unsaid - it need not be copyright extensions, and I think a lot of the final decision in regards to the bias will depend on just what SFIR does.

So much for the bias of the judge. What will happen with TPB, then? Well, they may (or may not) get a new trial. But so far there has been no argument as to that the verdict shows signs of bias in finding them guilty. That is, biased as the judge may be, the verdict is unlikely to change. Maybe the fine will be reduced, but I doubt that, given that Carl (the old guy) is a multimillionaire and can pay the 30 megaSEK. (As a side note, the younger TPB guys were probably right in saying that they wouldn't pay the fine: The old guy will.)

Re:Theoretical Issue, Not Practical

[TheP4st]

Of the two organizations, only one appears to be problematic.

SFU is basically an organization for people who want to keep up to date with IP law.

SFU is a bit more than that when you look at the supporting members" where you find AB Svensk Filmindustri (Swedish Filmindustry inc.), IFPI, STIM" and several other organisations who have direct interest in a the case going against TPB

Re:Theoretical Issue, Not Practical

[lacoronus]

SFU is basically an organization for people who want to keep up to date with IP law.

SFU is a bit more than that when you look at the supporting members" where you find AB Svensk Filmindustri (Swedish Filmindustry inc.), IFPI, STIM" and several other organisations who have direct interest in a the case going against TPB

Yet, the SFU may not be biased. First of all, there are no organized anti-copyright organizations besides Piratpartiet, and they have so far not joined any professional interest groups. Second, participating in an organization vital to their business need not mean that they use that organization as a lobbying group. Third, there has not been any evidence of the judge having any personal connections to anyone with self-interest in seeing TPB fall.

So far, the defense has called it "delikatessjäv", or "delicate bias" - which is a "catch all" bias clause stating that even if no real connection can be proven, the trial should be re-done if there are circumstances that would make a suspicion of bias reasonable.

Of course, this needs to be understood in context - a judge having a bias against murder does not mean they're banned from judging murder trials because of delikatessjäv.

Of all cases of bias, the "delikatessjäv" is the weakest claim. You can't prove obvious bias, so you go for the catch-all.

We'll see. There's definitely something here that needs to be examined, but so far I haven't read anything that would cause me to scream "corruption!"

Re:Theoretical Issue, Not Practical

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

so far I haven't read anything that would cause me to scream "corruption!"

I have. Unless this were (a) disclosed to the defense counsel and (b) consented to by them, it would clearly constitute grounds for disqualification.

Re:Theoretical Issue, Not Practical

[lacoronus]

Would the purpose of the organizations (SFU and SFIR) factor in, or is it the fact that organizations with a vested interest in tough-on-copyright are members?

Re:Theoretical Issue, Not Practical

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

Would the purpose of the organizations (SFU and SFIR) factor in, or is it the fact that organizations with a vested interest in tough-on-copyright are members?

If I were the one investigating this, I would be more interested in the membership and the activities than in the expressed purposes, since crooks like to disguise what they do and their expressed purposes are always benign. Like I'm sure the RIAA's expressed purposes do not include 'extortion, using illegal investigators, making false statements of fact in legal documents, collusion, price fixing, suing children and dead people, using economic might and unscrupulous lawyers to attempt to rewrite copyright law by confusing judges, etc.'. If, e.g., this organization has ever lobbied on behalf of copyright owners, the judges' membership -- if not disclosed and consented to -- ought to result in his being disqualified.

Re:Theoretical Issue, Not Practical

[lacoronus]

Would the purpose of the organizations (SFU and SFIR) factor in, or is it the fact that organizations with a vested interest in tough-on-copyright are members?

If I were the one investigating this, I would be more interested in the membership and the activities than in the expressed purposes

Certainly. But this is the thing - while there have been accusations of it, so far there hasn't been any evidence linking either organization to lobbying or being anything but what they claim.

I agree that should such information exist, that would and should disqualify the judge.

Re:Theoretical Issue, Not Practical

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

while there have been accusations of it, so far there hasn't been any evidence linking either organization to lobbying or being anything but what they claim. I agree that should such information exist, that would and should disqualify the judge.

I read somewhere that they do lobbying, but I don't have the time to research it.

Re:Theoretical Issue, Not Practical

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet, the SFU may not be biased.

Yes, and monkeys may fly out of my ass.

All of this is beside the point though.

If there is a *potential* for conflict, the Judge should recuse himself. Just saying "oh, I won't fall into that trap" is not enough.

Re:Theoretical Issue, Not Practical

[Anonymous Coward]

That would be the express purpose of SFIR.

Re:Theoretical Issue, Not Practical

[Anonymous Coward]

Acquiescence rules are slightly different in Swedish procedures, however a neat reading of this is complicated by the fused civil/criminal trial.

However, no party should be expected to dig into the background of the members of the magistracy panel, and the panel members -- especially the professional magistrate -- are required to be aware of their duty to disclose potential conflicts to all the parties.

The magistrate in question should also have disclosed his participation in related cases in which questions about his private associations were raised in Tingsraetten, notably the effort to resist the seizure order against Bahnhof AB in 2005.

Although it is probable that one or more of the defendants knew this (it received a lot of coverage -- http://www.nyteknik.se/nyheter/it_telekom/allmant/article34986.ece -- and there are not nearly as many legal professionals per capita in Sweden as in the USA), there is no presumption of knowledge nor presumption of acquiescence unless this information was disclosed to counsel.

Although representation and advice roles of Swedish attorneys are somewhat different than in the USA (or even than in England and Wales) and they may be just as prone to being hard of hearing at inconvenient times as their counterparts there, there is an obligation to the reputation of the system of law that would require counsel to act on such information in a prompt manner. This is similar to a U.S. lawyer's duties as an officer of the court.

Hearing the first instance of this case while holding active membership in SFIR is so obviously questionable that Hr Norström's colleagues will be hoping he has come down with senile dementia and will quickly retire on health grounds.

A judge who has been mentally deranged for a few years without anyone intervening will be damaging enough to the repute of the Swedish system of justice; one that is outrageously and serially corrupt will have people worrying about its devastation.

Re:Theoretical Issue, Not Practical

[Anonymous Coward]

since crooks like to disguise what they do

Considering who was found guilty, I guess that Pirate Bay are the ones that disguise what they do.

Re:Theoretical Issue, Not Practical

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not even a theoretical issue, it is quite the opposite to what this tabloid furor is about. The judge's membership in these organisations is not a bias nor conflict of interest of any kind; it is an indication that the judge at least has specific interest in these areas of law. This gives at least some hope that he also knows something about them, which is not guaranteed in such a narrow field of law. His membership in the board indicates that he probably knows these particular areas rather well, which is something any participant in this or any trial would hope for.

TPB's lawyer is apparently doing his job, using any and all arguments he can find, whether the arguments are strong, weak, or without merit. Which is good, as that's what lawyers must do. The fact that he presents his argument does not say anything about the merit of the argument - that is reviewed if he uses it in court. Tabloids are just tabloids shouting. This is just a publicity game.

One of the major problems in court cases related to any sort of IP is that in most countries the number of IP-related cases is very low, at least when compared to other types of cases. This is the case at least in the Nordic countries. For this reason, it is hard in practice to find litigators and judges who are experienced with IP laws and their application. Any activity and interest in this area is commendable from the point of view of any participant of a court case. I would not want a divorce litigator or a judge most experienced with petty crime in a case where I am a party. Remember, it is these exact same litigators who represent the little guy, or judges who preside over cases where the little guy is the one doing the pushing. This time it is this way, the next time it may be the opposite.

SFIR has all sorts of legal professionals as members - the full spectrum of those, not just folks usually representing one specific industry. One of the activities of SFIR is to provide a forum for discussion and development of laws in this area. This is good and necessary. Would you want only politicians to develop laws, without the participation of users most experienced with those particular laws - who have seen the effects of the laws to society and the full spectrum of parties, both small and large? I would not.

And yes, IAAPA. In Finland, though.

Re:Theoretical Issue, Not Practical

[lacoronus]

And yes, IAAPA. In Finland, though.

No way. No Finn would write that many words.

Agree with the rest, though. We'll see what the courts decide.

Interestingly

[Anonymous Coward]

During the trial the judge accepted issues raised by the defence and seemed to be fairly impartial.

However, the judgement did seem harsh bearing in mind that all previous precedents set by TPB have been in their favour. I did question whether the standard of judges in Swedish "first line" courts is that high, as it appears TPB has successfully overturned judgements on appeal on more than one occassion.

Re:suck it up

[timmarhy]

i will pay that he should have removed himself to avoid suspicion.

Several English Language Articles

[Anonymous Coward]

The Pirate Party was quick to write a spicy retort in the form of a pressrelease: Pirate Party: "Corruption and miscarriage of justice"

Also, more versions in english:
Pirate Bay lawyer calls for retrial
Pirate Bay judge and pro-copyright lobbyist accused of bias

Is it a suprise?

[Xest]

The prosecution got a guilty verdict without actually managing to prove any wrongdoing due to severe incompetence and lack of knowledge.

It was pretty clear something was odd about the decision, whether the TPB guys were right or wrong is irrelevant when the prosecution are unable to actually prove any wrongdoing.

You can't legitimately get a guilty verdict if you haven't proven that they're guilty of doing something illegal, accusations alone aren't enough.

The interesting thing now will be to see what happens as a result of this revelation. It's probably worth pointing out that this conspiracy almost certainly goes deeper - the first judge due to judge their trial was removed due to conflict of interest IIRC and this is his replacement, so the real question has to be who is responsible for repeatedly ensuring the judges presiding over this case have strong music industry/pro-copyright lobby links? Who in Sweden determines which judge should oversee a particular case?

Re:Is it a suprise?

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't need to get a conviction for the primary crime to convict someone of being an accessory to something. In this case the judge (TingrÃtten) said in the verdict that it was proven that they knew of general copyright infringement being committed through the pirate bay. He also stated that the prosecution had failed to show that they knew anything of the specific torrents in the case but that this was enough to rob them of protection from a law that offers protection similar to common carrier status.

Re:Is it a suprise?

[CodeBuster]

so the real question has to be who is responsible for repeatedly ensuring the judges presiding over this case have strong music industry/pro-copyright lobby links? Who in Sweden determines which judge should oversee a particular case?

As an American, I would advise them to do what we do here in the United States, follow the money, friendships, and favors and see where that leads, but be careful, you might not like what you find...

Re:Is it a suprise?

[init100]

the first judge due to judge their trial was removed due to conflict of interest IIRC and this is his replacement

No, that is not correct. The judging group consisted of one professional judge and three laymen judges appointed by the city council. Before the trial, the professional judge decided to replace one of the layman judges for fear of conflict of interest because he was a composer. The allegedly biased judge this time is the professional judge that headed the judging group.

Re:suck it up

[Uberbah]

it doesn't mean they have the same rabid bias of an apple fanboy of /.

Name one, or you're firing a cannon in a glass house.

Look! It's the same judge!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, look what I found... it's the same judge that ordered the Pirate Bay servers to be raided some two years ago!
Razzian mot Bahnhof (swedish)

Doesn't that strike you as sortof... odd?

Re:Look! It's the same judge!

[init100]

it's the same judge that ordered the Pirate Bay servers to be raided some two years ago!

The Bahnhof case is totally separate from The Pirate Bay case.

Re:Look! It's the same judge!

[stjobe]

It is, but it sure casts doubts about the Judges impartiality when he was the one granting the search warrant in the Bahnhof raid (which was widely commented on as being unconstitutional) and now is the one who presided over this case.

Re:Look! It's the same judge!

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't it nice to be disappointed by the reality of the "least corrupt country" in these matters?

How do you avoid judges with opinions?

[jonaskoelker]

How is a judge even allowed to belong to such an organization? [...] Judges aren't supposed to have their own agendas.

We all have things we want. We all have opinions on matters, or are able to form them quite easily. How do you find a completely neutral judge?

Of course, being a member of an organization whose stated goal implies "we think this side should win" is beyond just having an opinion...

But consider this: if you were the judge, would you be unbiased?

Re:How do you avoid judges with opinions?

[Anonymous Coward]

But consider this: if you were the judge, would you be unbiased?

I sidestep this issue by not being the judge in this case.

Re:English Language Article -Wall Street Journal

[internerdj]

The official term for the others are privateers...

So, Swedish doesn't have

[Anonymous Coward]

a native equivalent to the English word "recuse"?

Re:So, Swedish doesn't have

[Hinhule]

Not specificly no, I suppose inkompetensfÃrklara would do.
Swedish allows you to put two words together to form a new word, for example cheese sandwich would become cheesesandwich since it's one thing. Same with this, declare incompetent -> declareincompetent.

US rules do not apply

[Ibn al-Hazardous]

But since Sweden is not a part of the same judicial tradition as the US, this has no bearing on the TPB trial. In Sweden, you are pretty much guaranteed a second trial at a higher level, unless it is a question of a small-time crime (or the case is very simple). This being a high profile trial, making an appeal to the second level was a given, even before the trial started.

If the second level court decides the judge was biased, they will order a re-trial at the first level - which will then be followed be an appeals process. The reason the lawyers may not go through with a re-trial, is that it will only mean another trial that won't add anything of interest. Since this is a very special trial, the Supreme Court may take the case too - or order a re-trial at the second level. So a re-trial at the first level may not be worth it, we were probably looking at 3 or 4 trials anyway.

IANAL, but my cousin is a judge here in Sweden.

Re:US rules do not apply

[horza]

If you have your cousin's telephone number, I'm sure Slashdot would appreciate a submission from you on your cousin's view on:
* the bias of the judge and what is likely to happen next
* why assisting making available affects TPB and not Google
* did he find the sentence and compensation excessive

Get dialling!

Phillip.

Re:US rules do not apply

[Rakshasa Taisab]

Or pass us her phone number and we'.... err wait.

I moved to Japan to get away from skandinavian girls. Forget it.

Re:US rules do not apply

[owlstead]

"I moved to Japan to get away from skandinavian girls. Forget it."

Seriously, ?????

Re:US rules do not apply

[Anonymous Coward]

Why, were the scandanavian girls too hot for you??

Re:US rules do not apply

[Ibn al-Hazardous]

There have been answers to those questions from much more prominent Swedish legal experts, so I'm not going to bother my cousin. The answers in the media have been:

1) The chairman of the Swedish organization of judges was very surprised that the judge in the TPB trial did not mention the memberships in question. (It is the judge's duty, in Sweden, to mention everything that might bias him/her.)
2) Google is general purpose, TPB is not - at least that is the motivation in the conviction documents.
3) This is the question where everybody has their own answer. The view of a 34 year old judge in the lowest circle of courts doesn't carry any special weight. We do generally have much lower compensations in Sweden, than in the US. You can only sue for actual losses.

Oh, and he is a she.

Rage

[Anonymous Coward]

Rage!

Lynch he judge!

They allegedly only come out...

[jonaskoelker]

allegedly, of course.

They allegedly come out at night. Allegedly.

Judge Gladys Dykes

[Visual Echo]

Bailiff! Whack his pee pee!

Re:suck it up

[canuck08]

Thank you. Came here to say that.

Re:suck it up

[Burkin]

lawyers/judges are often memebers of many many organisations, it doesn't mean they have the same rabid bias of an apple fanboy of /.

While they may be members of many organizations, they are not usually members of the board of directors of these groups. The fact that you can't see anything wrong with a judge who is on the board of directors of a pro-copyright lobby group that represents the interests of those who brought the lawsuit is amazing.

As do many lawyers...

[jonaskoelker]

So did the prosecution! :p

If there's one thing I've learned from Politicans

[Weeksauce]

...it's that lobbying organizations have no effect whatsoever on politicans/judges impartial decision making!

Represented by Bob Loblaw

[Anonymous Coward]

"Actually, I was going to stay and work on my law blog. The Bob Loblaw Law Blog." -Courtesy of Arrested Development (the TV show, not the horrible musical group)

Re:suck it up

[4D6963]

Occam's Razor is that the simplest answer is true,

Occam's Razor says that the explanation of a phenomena should make as few assumptions as possible.

Yadda yadda, Occam's Toothbrush says that the simplest definition is true.

Re: Sound What?

[TaoPhoenix]

Byte hmm?

You meant "bite" like "small topic chunk to mentally chew on."

But you said "Byte", so here goes 7 characters (+1 coding)

TPBlost

The Geek's "Get Out Of Jail Free Card"

[westlake]

If they knew about the judge before hand. If they did perhaps (in typical TPB fashion) they went through the trial knowing damn well they were going to use this to get out of it

Your plan is to ask an appellate court to reverse a decision based on an issue that you know should have raised before trial.

Something you kept quiet. The card up your sleeve.

You are an idiot.

In the American legal system - and surely in most others - it is enormously difficult to introduce new issues on appeal.

Re:The Geek's "Get Out Of Jail Free Card"

[AK Marc]

In the American legal system - and surely in most others - it is enormously difficult to introduce new issues on appeal.

Generally, the only way to get new facts considered is to prove that the side that benefitted from knowing it knew and purposefully acted against proper proceedure to keep it hidden. However, the proceedural things, like a conflict of interest by the judge, isn't a matter of "fact" in the trial, but is a matter of proceedure. As such, it isn't a piece of new information dealing with the findings of facts, but a separate issue that the judge himself should have revealed, and that he didn't is the problem. And if there is any actual bias, it is by the judge, the one that was required by proceedure to reveal conflicts and recuse himself if even the appearance of impropriety could be reasonably asserted.

That he believes that his operations in those organizations couldn't reasonably be seen as a conflict indicates that his judgement is bad. Or that he purposefully hid it because he wanted to stick it to TPB. Either way, not only should he not have heard that case, but he shouldn't be a judge.

Like a judge belonging to an antiabortion group ..

[BayaWeaver]

.. reviewing Roe vs Wade? I don't think that would be allowed to happen.

Re:Public Opinion

[twmcneil]

Generally, the public you refer to doesn't care one bit about copyright cases or law. Only the corporations and people like Paul McCartney or Elton John (who have a vested interest in keeping new artists out) support stronger copyright laws. There is little division in the public's opinion.

Agreed, this judge should never have been on this case.

Re:suck it up

[Anonymous Coward]

Or, perhaps:

English, motherfucker, do you speak it?

Re:English Language Article -Wall Street Journal

[PMuse]

Those companies are not "pirates".

When you receive letters of marque from a government authorizing you to extract compensation from people, you are called "privateers^H^H^H industry".

Re: Sound What?

[Anonymous Coward]

What odd bytes you have in your world... in mine, it's 8 bits, not 7/8 characters...

Intentional.

[_KiTA_]

There's no way TPB's lawyers were in the dark about this.

But now, they get to turn this into a(n even bigger) circus and it will be thrown out due to the judge being extremely biased and having worked with the plaintiff before.

Meanwhile, they just managed to get the support of the entire country against the corrupt Judge and local version of the RIAA, and the next Judge will be on best behavior -- and since they haven't done anything illegal, that means they'll get off scott free.

Brilliantly played, Pirates. Brilliantly played.

Re:Intentional.

[QRDeNameland]

There's no way TPB's lawyers were in the dark about this.

This was my thinking as well; that this was a defense strategy.

However, I also think there is also no way that the prosecution didn't know about this before the fact, either. That they would allow such a conflict of interest knowing it could be grounds for appeal is the real epic fail, IMHO.

Re:Intentional.

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering the conflict of interest arose from the judge working with the prosecution lawyers in the same copyright-maximalist lobby organization, there really is no way the prosecution couldn't have known about the circumstances beforehand. Whether they are sane enough to spot the conflict of interest is another matter.

Re:suck it up

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, well, what Occam's Razor says to me is that I should stop talking so much to inanimate objects.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

and given that he's on the actual board

[boombaard]

and knows the prosecutor (**AA lady) personally, and has worked with her quite a bit on that same board?

More details

[TorKlingberg]

The judge was found to be a member of SFU, whose list of supporting members is full of Swedish and European versions of MPAA and RIAA, as well as Microsoft.

He is also on the board of SFIR, the Swedish branch of AIPPI, an "intellectual property" lobby organization that for example has a resolution saying

It is recommended that all jurisdictions adopt rules in their IP law concerning contributory
infringement of IPRs and that the basic principles be harmonised.

and

The IPR owner should be able to hold the contributory infringer liable in damages for any
loss that is incurred as a result of the contributory infringement and is not otherwise
recovered.

Which is exactly that the Pirate Bay trial was about.

the obvious

[Anonymous Coward]

... surprise?

Re:suck it up

[Anonymous Coward]

Yadda yadda, Occam's Toothbrush says that the simplest definition is true.

Yuck, who wants to use someone else's toothbrush?

Re:Murder bias

[Spad]

No, but a judge who is a member of a group that lobbies for tougher penalties for murder would be biased when overseeing a murder trial, as would one who was a member of a group that lobbies for more lenient penalties for murder.

It's not about the "subject" of the organisation, but their aims and objectives.

Re:suck it up

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you don't use it, you just listen to its sage advise.

Re:English Language Article -Wall Street Journal

[GermanG]

St. Augustine tells the story of a priate captured by Aexander the Great, who asked him "how he dares molest the sea." "How dare you molest the whole world!" the pirate replied: "Becaus I do it with a little ship only I am called a thief; you, doing it with a great navy, are called an Emperor"

Noam Chomsky - Pirates and Emperors.

Stuff like that shouldn't be allowed

[C_Kode]

If you have a direct relation to a side of a subject, you should not be able to rule upon something related to that subject.

What the Pirate Bay isn't telling you...

[Anonymous Coward]

is that all the other judges in Sweden used Pirate Bay to download the latest American movies, so they had to excuse themselves because otherwise they'd potentially be legal targets!

This judge is actually the least biased in the whole country!

So much fuss for what exactly?

[Seth Kriticos]

Not there is all this fuss about the pirate bay, but what did the IP interest group win? The site is still up and there are countless others, even if it would not be.

My guess is that they want to systematically forbid any kind of uncontrolled information exchange in the so called civilized world.

But even if they succeed, what for? There is still the so called developing world, and if free speech is outlawed in the western world the need for unencumbered service will make them develop this kind of thing quite fast.

Also a lot of dark-nets will spawn once the pressure is too high.

Will the basic principle have changed? No. So I conclude that this pissing contest is organized to seed fear and doubt again and nothing more. Stupid morons.

Re:So much fuss for what exactly?

[JustNiz]

Its a win for them because it sets precident in all future cases that just making links available really is a form of guilt.
The precident also gives them the mechanism and the reassurance that they do have a reasonable case to go ahead and start actions against everyone they can find.

I watched the trial, and I agree!

[Goateee]

IANAL, but I have watched the whole trial and I most agree with you that the prosecution could not ever prove any crime was commited.

As far as I understand, all charges for actually breaking any laws had to be dropped because they would simply not hold. When these charges were dropped, much time was spent explaining that they had lost income due to piracy. This could however not be proven either. They put forth studys that said the decline was due to piracy, and the defense countered with studys saying that it could not be linked to piracy.

An intresting counter argument from one of the studys was that most of the decrease in income by the music industry was matched by an increase in income of the artists. A possible reason for the decline thus is that a shift away from the music industry was happening. I wont try to find and read this study, but the expert pointing out this fact said something about a five-year span and that the industry had lost one billion dollar in, I assume, annual income. I'm not sure if this only accounts for american artists or certain industrys. My question is if it sounds likely that the income of the artists have increased by half this amount during what I think was 2002-2006? If so, this is a shift I'm glad to see!

Anyway, proof that they lose money due to piracy, or even piracy on TPB in particular, does not make TPB guilty unless they have made any crime. They could not prove this, and still all the accused get pretty much the harshest possible punishment!

conflict of interest?

[BrokenHalo]

That's what I was thinking. Is there no legislation in Sweden addressing conflict of interest? I had always been under the impression that the Swedish were relatively enlightened or progressive in matters such as these, but perhaps I should reconsider.

Re:conflict of interest?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what I was thinking. Is there no legislation in Sweden addressing conflict of interest? I had always been under the impression that the Swedish were relatively enlightened or progressive in matters such as these, but perhaps I should reconsider.

Much like the native Americans weren't prepared for the onslaught of European-style guns and smallpox that descended upon them, the Swedes weren't prepared for American-style corruption and bribery.

Of course it's flawed

[__aailob1448]

What else did you expect from socialists.

Re:Of course it's flawed

[damburger]

Oh please. How is pandering to corporate interests socialist? Its dictionary definition capitalism. Pull your head out your arse.

Re:Of course it's flawed

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahem, courts pandering to capitalist interests would be texbook "fascism", not capitalism, actually...

Re:Of course it's flawed

[damburger]

Fascism is just the position capitalism moves to when it feels threatened. Note the long list of American industrialists jumping into bed with Hitler and Mussolini in the 1930s

Re: Byte

[TaoPhoenix]

Thank you for not being so mean to paintball me with "Citation Needed".

But here it is.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte ...
History ...A byte was also often referred to as "an 8-bit byte", reinforcing the notion that it was a tuple of n bits, and that other sizes were possible.

      1. A contiguous sequence of binary bits in a serial data stream, such as in modem or satellite communications, or from a disk-drive head, which is the smallest meaningful unit of data. These bytes might include start bits, stop bits, or parity bits, and thus could vary from 7 to 12 bits to contain a single 7-bit ASCII code.

Re:suck it up

[Anonymous Coward]

That would be like allowing Steve Jobs preside over MS's trial.

Oh please CAN WE?!

Re:suck it up

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the fanboys do it for free and will tell you whether or not you care.

No Copyright

[apocalypse2012]

The Copyright privilege is a social contract. I vote to cancel it. It is no longer needed.

Sure they can be members

[TheLink]

There is nothing wrong with judges being members of legal organizations.

However, Justice must not only be done, but it must also be _seen_ to be done.

So even if a judge is impartial, he must also appear to most that he is impartial.

Thus a judge should recuse himself from a case if he has "interests" in it, even if he would actually be objective and impartial.

For example, if a judge's relative was being charged for murder, a good judge would not handle the case even if he knew he would be able to be objective and impartial. Because any verdict would be tainted.

Re:Sure they can be members

[Bigjeff5]

Point taken, still, I don't advocate calling him a slimebag judge just because he has an opinion. He should have recused himself in this case, but really I can't believe the defense didn't do any kind of research on this guy.

I'm no lawyer and hindsight is 20/20, but I would have thought a little research on the judge would be SOP. Unless they were angling for a mistrial because they knew they would lose, then who is the sleezy one in this case?

Re:Sure they can be members

[TheLink]

Some people might call it defense in depth.

Re:Sure they can be members

[rtb61]

In this case there was no way that was ever going to happen. End result, all it does is continues to demonstrate the utter corruption and moral absence of the recording industry upon a global basis, sex drugs and rock and roll obviously have nothing to do with justice and morality.

Now the Swedish government is left looking legally foolish and incompetent because they allowed this ,ever so public, travesty of justice of occur. It is mind boggling that they Swedish copyright executives thought they would get away with it, damn the quality of drugs up there must be pretty good, as for the judge feigning no conflict of intrests, I would bet there would be a whole 'family' of interests involved in copyrights fronting and supporting activities.

Re:Sure they can be members

[BoothbyTCD]

Yeah I mean it's not like US Supreme Court justices are members of organizations like the Federalist Society, which might influence their judicial judgment...

Recuse

[Anonymous Coward]

Recuse (not sure if its the correct translation, I mean *self-imposed* recuse by the judge) is not only meant for cases where a conflict of interest exists, but also where a conflict of interest might *appear* to exist. This is meant to protect the public believe in the unbiasedness of the judical system.

So yes, he should have recused himself.

Re:Like a judge belonging to an antiabortion group

[Anonymous Coward]

Add Alito, Scalia, Kennedy, and Thomas - they are also Catholic and somewhere between very and fairly conservative.

Re:suck it up

[aaandre]

Awesome sig!

Re:English Language Article -Wall Street Journal

[GPLDAN]

In the United States, this is known as the Cheney-Libby Axiom.


Some of us just called it getting Dick'ed.

Re: Appeal - what if...

[Anonymous Coward]

What if it had been a trial where the defendant was an auto-maker (say) accused of
criminal negligence; and then it was found out that the judge actually is a board member of the automaker company? There would be no question but to have a retrial right away, and perhaps censure the judge.

What is Sweden's bar and law associations stand on this? Would this not set a bad precedence in Swedish law?

No, of course it isn't unbiased.

[Anonymous Coward]

Haha, right in no one is this "unbiased". It'd be about as "unbiased" as if a judge in the Pirate Bay Trial was a member of the Pirate Party.

Open Mind?

[Roger W Moore]

In some defense, if he is a member of the organization not in a capacity of financial beneficiary of copyright, then it isn't quite so clear cut.

Sorry but it is very clear cut. When you go to trial you expect to face an unbiased judge who will decide based on the merits of the case. Everyone's justice system relies on this principle. In reality of course everyone has their own biases. This is why it is essential for judges to be publicly apolitical to a large degree. To do otherwise makes it impossible for anyone to believe in the justice system because it is so easy to claim that they reached a particular verdict due to some political affiliation whether or not this is really the case. The result is complete loss of confidence in the justice system which is a bad place to be.

Hamlet

[Roger W Moore]

Looks like the Swedish court system is rotten.

So much for Shakespeare...

and i thought ...

[Anonymous Coward]

the americans had the only corrupt courts! oh well that was my first mistake today! oh wait, my second because i thought first!

Re:suck it up

[Ciaran Power]

I don't see any difference between what you're saying and the grand-parent.

Occam's Razor says that the explanation of a phenomena should make as few assumptions as possible

the explanation of a phenomena = the (correct) answer

Any additional /unnecessary/ complexity is an 'assumption' so:
as few assumptions as possible = as simple as possible.

=> the (best) answer is as simple as possible

Re:Public Opinion

[transistor_fet]

With the increasing conflict between what people normally do and expect to be able to do, and what certain parties are trying to prevent by using copyright law, the general public is becoming more and more aware of copyright law. One is always concerned with what one is directly effected by. (Hopefully) things like this will get more of the public involved so that if any changes to the law happen, they are more in favour of the *public*. Somehow I have my doubts that will happen any time soon though, particularly with the corruption and lobbying efforts and such.

Re:suck it up

[Anonymous Coward]

actually, it'sevenmore subtle and precise:

entia non sunct multiplicanda praeter necessitatem

Entities should not be added unless strictly necessary.

You are free to assume as much as you want, but if a given phenomena can be expalined by reference to the entites already accounted for, there's no benefit in adding more entities to any given explanation.

Wich roughly translates to: cut the bullshit.

Re:Murder bias

[Anonymous Coward]

Almost, but not quite; It would be more along the line of the judge being member of several organisations seeking to extend the meaning of "murder" to include every kind of crime that might cause damage to commercial interests, while presiding over a trial against a band of shoplifters.

Re:suck it up

[ZarathustraDK]

Stop talkin' 'bout mah propahteh'

Occam

Re:suck it up

[Anonymous Coward]

Occam's Razor is that the simplest answer is true,

Sorry, but no. Occam's Razor says that the explanation of a phenomena should make as few assumptions as possible. In no way does this translate to "the simplest answer is true" because in many cases the simplest answer isn't true.

Haven't seen any grammar Nazis for a while so....

Phenomena is plural, phenomenon is singular.

Good night.....

Re:Like a judge belonging to an antiabortion group

[BayaWeaver]

Yes, we would NEVER let a Catholic decide abortion cases... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_G._Roberts

Add Alito, Scalia, Kennedy, and Thomas - they are also Catholic and somewhere between very and fairly conservative.

OMG! There goes Roe vs Wade! But seriously, what I meant was right-to-life groups that exist to specifically oppose abortion. Not all Catholics are antiabortion.
I have to admit though that it is a little alarming that the SCOTUS lacks religious diversity.

Keep in mind!

[MWoody]

Keep in mind: if, as many people in this thread protest, the judge shouldn't be allowed to join special interest groups, how would this case have gone? Would the judge not belonging to this organization change the views that lead him to join said organization? In other words, he'd still be of a significant pro-copyright bias before the case started, it's just now we'd have no indication of it.

What's more, it's not exactly easy to get a judge with zero true bias. I mean, to take that logic to its conclusion, should a murderer get off because the judge was anti-murder? Would we be as angry if the judge in the Pirate Bay case was a member of the EFF? As a human being, the only way for him to be truly bias-free would be to be ignorant of the situation entirely, and while that's OK for juries, trying to find a major judge who has lived in cave for a few decades is going to be rough (and not necessarily desirable, given that he's ruling on a case that requires some technical knowledge).

Put another way: judges are meant to judge without bias. They're not meant to exist without forming opinions.

(All that said, he still should have revealed his affiliations beforehand, so that the proper authorities could review it. Its relevance wasn't his decision to make.)

"They've started to sing!"

[mijkal]

The king and his men,
Stole the Queen from her bed,
And bound her in her Bones,
The seas be ours,
And by the powers,
Where we will, we'll roam.

Yo Ho, haul together,
Hoist the colours high,
Heave Ho, Theives and Beggars,
Never Shall We Die!

Some men have died,
And some are alive,
And others sail on the sea,
With the keys to the cage...
And the Devil to pay,
We lay to Fiddler's Green!

The Bell has been raised,
From it's watery grave...
Do you hear it's sepulchral tone?
We are a call to all,
Pay heed the squall,
And turn your sail toward home!

Yo Ho haul, together,
Hoist the colours high
Heave Ho, Theives and Beggars,
Never Shall We Die!

"Hoist the Colours"

I'm glad that...

[Anonymous Coward]

...I live in the USA, where the courts would never be so corrupt as to prosecute me for putting a few files on the internet.

Proving Once Again...

[IonOtter]

Its not how much justice you can get, its how much justice you can afford. (Paraphrased from here.)

And apparently, the bad guys could afford more than the folks at the Pirate Bay.

That's Not Bias

[DynaSoar]

Well, it is, but it's much more than that. It's conflict of interest. The judge and prosecutors should have recused themselves. They should be prosecuted for remaining on the case.

Re:Public Opinion

[bit01]

Generally, the public you refer to doesn't care one bit about copyright cases or law.

It's even stronger than that. They are not just indifferent. The vast majority of the population are actively flouting copyright law, everything from photocopying in the library as students to copying a friend's music to buying dodgy DVD's on the street.

Copyright maximalists, let alone copyright-as-it-is-currently-implemented preservationists are only a tiny fraction of the total population. And that's not even considering the third world and file sharers.

---

Adopt an astroturfer. Make their life hell.

Someone's gotta do it!

[jonaskoelker]

I sidestep this issue by not being the judge in this case.

Fine, but who's gotta do it? That solution might work for you, but what if everyone did that?

Rage unleashed

[Anonymous Coward]

Since public opinion is the real key, and since the general public could not care less about the desires of copyright lobbies or organizations, this sort of attitude will sooner rather than later end in a shocking bath of blood and tears coming from some unsuspecting John Doe unleashing his rage against the anti-social greed of such institutions... THE END

Go for it all!

[Sidzilla]

I think in a case like this, the Pirate Bay's lawyer should be seeking more than a mistrial. He should seek a reversal of the verdict and an end to all this. The Swedish government had it's bite at the apple and chose to use biased prosecutors and judges. (It seems a case for malicious prosecution could be made with the prosecutors and the judge in collusion with the copyright industry.) I would love to see them jailed and the pirates go free.

Aand why did this come out -now- ?

[Anonymous Coward]

"A conflict of interest occurs ... blah, blah, blah ... might compromise their reliability ... blah, blah, blah ... undermine confidence..."

Oh, good grief! Be serious!

This judge is BENT. This has a "drool" rating of 10.0, meaning, if you can't figure out this judge is bent, you are drooling on your keyboard. If the term "bent" does not translate properly into Swedish, it means, "crooked". [crooked: adjective meaning "dishonest".
  See also, phrase: "crooked as a dog's hind leg". ]

While it's amusing debating if the judge had any business trying this case while belonging to "Give All Pirates The Death Penalty" groups, might I add 'You're Missing The Damned Point'.

The question you need to be asking is:

Q) Why was -now- picked for this stunningly obvious conflict of interest to come out?

Forget what you think you know about "news scoops". That's movie crap. Up in the world of the pros, stuff is leaked on purpose. So think about why it serves them for this to come out now, after the trial and verdict.

A1) The judge thought he had it buried, someone actually did dig it up, asked him for comment, so (imagine judge on a conference call to RIAA and MPAA in Los Angeles) it was decided to admit it now and just take the heat. Heck, why not?

What are the Pirate Bay guys gonna do about it? It's now known they don't have substantial financial resources. Without bigtime attorneys you cannot even play at this level. I'm sorry, but that's how it is.

In an ideal world, the judge would be put under oath and asked some really direct questions about his "relationships" so he can be nailed for perjury later on. Then it's time to audit his tax records forever. In a non-ideal world, this sort of thing can be triggered.

I think it will eventually come out that the judge received direct benefits from RIAA/MPAA and that they were in constant contact. The fine is so idiotically high that it feels like frustrated music / movie people "finally getting their chance to fine someone big!". Those creeps have always acted in a strange reality, and the sentence they decided on was damned strange, too.

If you think this unlikely, let me ask you: Would you be willing to bet a big amount that in five years, a direct or indirect payoff is not discovered?

A2) The judge knew it would probably come out that he should not have been within 200 kilometers of the trial, and the best time to let it come out is:

A3) After sitting through the trial, and doing as much damage as possible in denying motions and such;

A4) After whacking the defendants with a ridiculous sentence and an unpayable fine, thus sending along a message plain and clear to see:

IF YOU DO THIS, WE WILL THROW YOU IN THE SLAMMER,

  even in Good-Old-Neutral-Hands-Off-Sweden,

      and we won't hesitate to use an obviously

      crooked judge to do it.