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The Circus Widens In Aftermath of Pirate Bay Verdict

Posted by kdawson on from the buy-me-some-peanuts-and-crackerjacks dept.

MaulerOfEmotards sends along an in-depth followup, from the Swedish press, of our discussion the other day about the biased trial judge in the Pirate Bay case. "The turmoil concerns Tomas Norström, the presiding judge of The Pirate Bay trial, who is suspected of bias after reports surfaced of affiliation with copyright protection organizations. For this he has been reported to the appeals court (in Swedish; translation here). The circus around the judge is currently focused on three points. First, his personal affiliation with at least four copyright protection organizations, a state the potential bias of which he himself fails to see and refuses to admit. Secondly, Swedish trials use a system of several lay assessors to supervise the presiding judge. One of these, a member of an artists' interest organization, was forced by Mr. Norström to resign from the trial for potential bias. The judge's failure to see the obvious contradiction in this (translation) casts doubts on his suitability and competence. Thirdly, according to professor of judicial sociology Håkan Hydén (translation), the judge has inappropriately 'duped and influenced the lay assessors' during the trial: 'a judge that has decided that "this is something we can't allow" has little problem finding legal arguments that are difficult for assisting lay assessors to counter.'" Click the link below to read further on Professor Hydén's enumeration of "at least three strange things in a strange trial." On a related note, reader Siker adds the factoid that membership in the Pirate Party exploded 150% in the week following the verdict. The Pirate Party now surpasses in size four smaller parties in Sweden, and is closing in on a fifth. Political fallout could ensue as soon as June, when an election for EU parliament will be held.
Professor Hydén continues with enumerating "at least three strange things in a strange trial" (translation): First, that someone can be sentenced for being accessory to a crime for which there is no main culprit: "This assumes someone else having committed the crime, and no such individual exists here... the system cannot charge the real culprits or it would collapse in its entirety." It is unprecedented in Swedish judicial history to sentence only an accessory. Second, that the accessories should pay the fine for a crime committed by the main culprits, "which causes the law to contradict itself." And third, that accessories cannot be sentenced to harsher than the main culprit, which means that every downloader must be sentenced to a year's confinement. Prof. Hydén sums up by saying that to allow this kind of judgement the Swedish Parliament must first pass a bill making this kind of services illegal, which it has not done.

19 of 319 comments (clear)

  1. All aboard mateys!!! by marco.antonio.costa · · Score: 5, Funny

    Arghh!!!

    --
    Send your spendthrift head of state this
  2. Seems like the Swedish know what to do. by Idiot+with+a+gun · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Cause political chaos by throwing sudden, and massive support behind a new political party. Wish Americans were capable of picking some other party aside from Republicans or Democrats.

    1. Re:Seems like the Swedish know what to do. by mrmeval · · Score: 5, Informative

      Many many laws are on the books that forbid or seriously cripple third parties. There are some areas a third party CAN NOT GET ON THE BALLOT BY LAW.

      Ask the Libertarian party (not to be confused with libertarians) how hard it is to get on the national ballot. They cannot get on some local ballots, in some cases not even as write-in candidates.

      Both the Repulsocrats and Demicrats were more than willing for that legislation to happen. The only thing allowed has been usurpation of a party which the neo-cons did to the Reps and the socialists did to the Demis.

      --
      I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
    2. Re:Seems like the Swedish know what to do. by migla · · Score: 5, Interesting

      "Wish Americans were capable of picking some other party aside from Republicans or Democrats."

      In Sweden there's a 4 % threshold for "Riksdagen", the parliament, which probably makes it easier to succeed with a new party, compared to the system in the USA.

      IMO, One thing that the US should perhaps do is to have 2 rounds, like they do in Finland, when electing a president. If no candidate gets > 50% in the first round, the top 2 advance to the second round. This way you could vote for what you really want in the first round and one day an outsider might stand the slightest chance.

      --
      Some of my favourite people are from th US; Vonnegut, Chomsky, Bill Hicks.
    3. Re:Seems like the Swedish know what to do. by aynoknman · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The one party pretending to be two have the people sufficiently duped. I think that wrestler turned politician, Jesse Ventura, said it exactly right when he said politics is a tremendous show and it's all fake.

      Piet Hein said it poetically:
      Relativity: A grook with no reference whatever to the two-party system

      To wear a shirt that's relatively clean,
      You needn't ever launder off the dirt
      If you possess two shirts to choose between
      and always change into the cleaner shirt.
      -- Piet Hein

      --
      We need a "+1 -- nice sig" moderation.
    4. Re:Seems like the Swedish know what to do. by abolitiontheory · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The name Pirate Party especially intrigues me. The reason is this: movements in history often end up very far from where they start. Imagine in 100 years, when history has stripped the original reason for the naming of the 'Pirate Party' from social memory, as a father explains to his son why the majority party of their country is named after ancient sea-robbers. Already the term pirate has been shifted and reassigned once. What if some day the just majority of a society is known as pirates? Shifts in ideology produce interesting etymological histories.

    5. Re:Seems like the Swedish know what to do. by Kjella · · Score: 5, Informative

      I'm a passionate believer in copyright, in fact my livliehood depends upon it, and yet I'm not politically dense enough to vote based purely on a parties stance on copying music.

      And if you think it's the only case the Pirate Party has an opinion on, you're mistaken. Granted, they all revolve around the same theme but:

      FRA law: Military intelligence permitted to snoop on all traffic passing the Swedish border, which includes tons of domestic communication. Possible police access too.
      IPRED law: ISPs forced to hand our subscriber details to private companies, where ont even the police can get access to the same data.
      IPRED2 law: More of the same.
      EU-US ACTA trade agreements: Includes riders for more invasive searches by customs and other nasty stuff
      EU Telecom directive: Forced storing of traffic data, the French want a "guilty until proven innocent, three strikes and you're cut off" law.
      EU Copyright extension: Want to increase from 50 to 95 years, now they want to "compromise" on 70 years.
      EU Letter RFID tagging initiative: More tracking of where, if not who you're communicating with.

      Of course the TPB case is the big driver, and they're all in the copyright/privacy/due process sphere so it's not by any means a full politic. But honestly, a 4% party doesn't rule the country. Take for example the Greens, you know they'll bend over in pretty much every other area as long as they score some big wins on environmental issues. The rest of the time they'll be pushing coalition politics because the 30% party needs wins in many areas. That's where the Pirate Party is too, being a little more honest about it. Plus, it'd make no sense for the Pirate Party to declare sides unless someone would agree to cooperate, if they went with a socialist politics then after the election the other parties could say "Well thanks, you're now committed to voting our way but we'll completely ignore your proposals so you'll have no influence whatsoever". How is that wise?

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    6. Re:Seems like the Swedish know what to do. by the_one(2) · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I honestly believe that the Internet is one of, if not the, greatest inventions ever. That's why I think defending it is more important than if the tax goes up or down 2%

    7. Re:Seems like the Swedish know what to do. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Let me be the devil's advocate here (or the optimist ;-)

      "The Pirate Party now surpasses in size four smaller parties in Sweden, and is closing in on a fifth." That's one way to put it. Another is that the pirate party is now the fourth party in Sweden by member count. It's bigger than two of the four parties in the ruling coalition. And a this rate it will be third by the end of next week.

      Should this translate into actual votes during the next election (a *big* if), it would be extremely difficult to form any coalition, unless the two main parties decide to go for the kind of "anything but them" coalition that's usually reserved for the far right. You can bet every party in Sweden is watching this extremely closely; this is the kind of scenario that keeps politicians awake at night.

      Another reason why they're watching it is that politicos in the western world have long despaired to get the young adult vote. Methink they know where to get it now.

      As for the "important issue", well, yes, it's not Really Important. That's exactly how we got into the current life+70 years cr*p. The thing is it never was important because the people didn't care, and they didn't because they had to buy the LP, book, VHS or CD anyway, and nobody cared if the copyright tax was 1% or 50%. Now the question is between okay, or no internet, big fine, or jail. So they do. Watch this space.

    8. Re:Seems like the Swedish know what to do. by iJusten · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Most European countries are ruled by coalitions. Apart of Italy, they tend to be pretty stable and last at least the four years till the next election.

      The party that wins the election tries to find a party that makes it the majority in the parliament. To find such a partner, it has to make concessions and to promise not to go on ideological overdrive. The pressure to rule wisely doesn't come only from outside from the public and the lobbying interest groups, but also from inside the government itself.

      I tend to think this is fairly wise way to rule a country. Sure, you can't make fast moves like you can in America, but on the other hand, the changes that happen are well thought out and not apt to be reversed after the next election. The instability of the cabinet brings, maybe contradictionary, stability to the country as a whole.

      --
      Chronologically late.
  3. What is their to debate? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Had the judge been an active member of the Swedish Pirate Party, worked closely with the defendants in the past, not disclosed it and handed a not guilty verdict, you can be sure the *AAs would of been all over it like flies on a pile. Mistrial, end of story.

  4. If the Pirate Party really has that many people... by skine · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If the Pirate Party really has that many people, and every downloader must be sentenced to at least a year's confinement, then everybody should turn themselves in and overcrowd the jails.

  5. Because it must be said... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Time to make this judge walk the plank!

  6. Re:If the Pirate Party really has that many people by KarolisP · · Score: 5, Funny

    so like... slashdotting the jail eh? :)

  7. Re:Slashdot by the_womble · · Score: 5, Interesting

    RTFA. The judge is a member (actually a director in at least one case) of organisations that are lobbying to change the law, to make what Pirate Bay did illegal.

    Pirate Bay's lawyer's argue that what they did was not illegal. Is the judge, who is committed to making sure it is illegal, the best person to apply the law impartially?

  8. Re:So what? by MoonBuggy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The judge is a member of copyright organizations. So? Isn't copyright the law? Knowing copyright law is probably why he's on the case.

    I'm not 'pro-piracy', although to say I'm 'anti-big media' would probably be fair. That said, copyright is not a single ideal and there are plenty of opinions on it's implementation. The groups that the judge is a member of take a view that the law should be changed to make copyright stricter - surely that presents a conflict of interests when dealing with a case that tests the limits of copyright law in the opposite direction?

  9. Re:So what? by T+Murphy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    As mentioned in other stories this past week, the judge was a member of some groups that have agendas, and is in a leadership position for two of them I believe. I think at least one group is, like you say, simply a means of staying on top of current issues and being aware of the law, but that is not the case for all the groups he belongs to. I'm not pro-piracy, but I'd rather the pirates win than have these big companies keep extending control over our governments.

    --
    My webcomic
  10. Re:Slashdot by NormalVisual · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Keeping works from the public domain by means of effectively infinite copyright terms is more disgusting. It's also "stealing" in the literal sense of the word, without having to twist its meaning to jive with a political agenda like the pro-copyright lobby likes to do, and is a violation of the social contract that is the sole reason copyright exists in the first place.

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  11. The Ninja Party. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    In 100 years, things will have settled into a two-party system.