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Pirate Bay Retrial Denied, Judge Declared Unbiased
bonch writes "A Swedish court has ruled that the judge in the PirateBay trial is unbiased and there will be no retrial. Stockholm District Court defended the judge's membership in copyright organizations as a necessity to 'keep up with developments in the field' and that merely endorsing the idea of copyright law was not grounds for a mistrial. The defendants must now rely on the appeal process, while one defendant has written on his Twitter account that the PirateBay will also be suing Sweden for human rights violations."
Everyone is quoting this wrong. The only part denied was the one based off the bias. I'm not sure how swedish law works but I'd imagine there are plenty of other ways for this be declared a mistrial. Public uproar will be a part of that too.
Also, they still have the appeal. So if they are denied appeal or judges make a bad call off the appeal it will make a serious uproar in the country.
Any guesses how long it will take before the appeal starts/decisions are made/etc?
Just in case someone jumps to conclusions...
This just means there will be no re-trial, but the Pirate Bay still has an appeal, it doesn't mean they have to pay to fine or go to jail yet. That's still far away.
Of course they'll say he was unbiased. If he was biased in this case they'll have to review ALL the previous cases to make sure that he wasn't influenced for those.It was the only call they could make.
Now I might not agree with their decision but I expect they also know it has a good chance of going forward at appeal and so therefore do not need to address this now.
Boo! And not, like, some kinda "scary" boo! This shit's a boo with NEGATIVE connotations!
They win, it adds fuel to the fire and gets the followers bolstered.
They lose, someone fights to fill the void (because there is money to be made) and people come up with even new technology to avoid such scenarios.
Legislators need to come up with an alternate approach to this perceived problem. Similar to how legalization (decriminalization) and regulation of illegal drugs would stop drug wars, some other strategy in the "war on piracy" could bring money to content creators while not making an arms race out of sharing information.
Violation of due process is violation of human rights.
Sounds very much like the Right to a fair trial is being violated -- which specifically is mentioned in the Council of Europe's "Convention on Human Rights" in 3.6 article 6.
So no, they are not being pussies.
They are going through the process right now. They are appealing. I'm not saying that I like the decision but this is far from Kafka.
Please post. thanks.
"Judge Bauregard P Burnside today justified his membership in the KKK saying, 'I have to keep up on current civil rights developments.'"
The fact that the defendant in this case is The Pirate Bay doesn't change the fact that they deserve a fair trial.
If you were on trial for marijuana possession but the judge was a member of dozens of groups with names such as "Stop Drugs Now", "Weed Killed My Son", "Christians for a Drug Free America" etc etc, regularly received kickbacks from commercially-run prisons (who cater specifically to drugs-related incarcerations) and frequently accepted donations from government anti-legalization lobbyists, would you consider yourself likely to receive a fair trial?
Therefore, following on from this, would you therefore say that your constitutionally protected right to a fair trial was being infringed? Would it not be a huge stretch to also say that these rights should exist to all people- become one of these so-called "human rights"?
Granted, it's not on the same level as militia machinegunning unarmed villages, but the right to a fair trial is still what I would consider a basic human right.
Check out my sci-fi book "Lacuna" at http://goo.gl/MVxX8
Hey, that's what I say when I'm caught watching porn on the internet when I should be working! Get your own lame excuse, or I'll sue you for infringement.
...sees this summary and thinks ... DUP?
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
FTA
(But Eka and the other judges concluded that simply endorsing the principles of copyright law was no grounds for disqualification in a trial; copyright was written into Swedish law, and judges can't be called "biased" simply because they support existing laws.
"The Court of Appeal has come to the conclusion that none of the circumstances set out, individually or taken together, means that there are legitimate doubts about the judge's impartiality in this case. There has not been any bias," concluded the court. The decision cannot be appealed")
Imagine the hideous analogies we can come up with. Judge A belongs to the bar association. Can he rule on lawyer misconduct? I am playing devil's advocate here and like I said I don't agree with the decision. I hope they win their appeal but I think human rights violation is a tad overboard. They still have their appeal.
Granted, it's not on the same level as militia machinegunning unarmed villages
That is all I'm saying. I agree with you that it was not a fair trial. I'm talking about matters of severity.
Imagine the hideous analogies we can come up with. Judge A belongs to the bar association. Can he rule on lawyer misconduct?
What a horrible meta-analogy. That's almost as bad as me saying that something... relates... to stuff...
I am the richest astronaut ever to win the superbowl.
that that court is biased too.
So someone needs to investigate on them.
Until you reach the very top of the shitpile.
Which most likely is sitting invisibly above the government. (I mean lobby groups.)
I say: Vote for the Pirate Party!
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
So wait, the fact that a juge is against drugs biases him against you having or not having drugs how exactly ?
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
We might be reading more into this membership thing than is needed. One justification for membership put forward was "in order to keep current on the issues." If this membership is part of ongoing professional education, then I am not so sure it is inappropriate. However, it would be a lot more telling to learn what percentage of judges eligible to hear this case is a member of such an organization? If it is more than 50%, then I have to lean in favor of the justification. If it is less, then I certainly have my doubts... and if it is 10% or less, I smell a rat.
So wait, the fact that a juge is against drugs biases him against you having or not having drugs how exactly ?
Suppose you're on trial for doing something that's related to the sale of drugs but might not actually be a crime: for example, telling people which parts of town have all the dealers. Or putting up a public bulletin board which anyone can use to post any sort of information, but in practice is mostly used to post the phone numbers of drug dealers.
If the judge is an anti-drug crusader, he's more likely to (mis)interpret the law in order to declare your behavior illegal, because he wants to stop the sale of drugs, even though you might not actually have broken any laws.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
One rarely sees such droll humor here on Slashdot.
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
Um how so? I hate the outcome but show me a lack of due process due process. Again, I may think the outcome was wrong but again they had a trial with the ability to ask for a mistrial for bias and with the ability to appeal when that failed. I think the decision was biased and bad but I can't really argue that there wasn't/isn't due process.
This is what you get for buying Ikea.
Are you saying that
a) they are no humans
b) they have no rights
or
c) you are just a dick? ^^
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
and judges can't be called "biased" simply because they support existing laws.
Excuse me. A judge may determine whether a law has been broken, he may set a punishment if it is proven that the law is broken, but if he supports or disapproves of a law he is biased. A judge may be in favor of all laws being enforced, but any specific law no.
Why bother
Note that the judge B (Anders Eka) deciding if judge A was biased was himself a member of a pro-copyright group. The whole thing is disgusting.
http://blog.brokep.com/2009/05/20/google-is-your-friend/
It was a fair trial. It turns out they were guilty. Nothing in the universe can get around that reality.
The most they can do is get off on some technicality, which if it were any other circumstance would be condemned for the violation of the principles of justice.
But hey, wait, they didn't get off, and they did, and are still doing exactly what they were accused of doing.
Innocent they are not.
Actually, it is kinda Kafka-esque in a way because we've got such volatility in the net-neutrality stage right now with our new American President. Things are teetering on a very fine edge and these next few years could determine many of the laws that will affect all of us in some way or another.
This sig will self destruct in 5 seconds.
Well, a "right"... What is a right? You only have that "right", because people that were stronger than your enemies decided that it would be that way. In reality, there still are no rights, and everything is based on the rule of force / law of the jungle.
It's just, that the psychological warfare (eg. making them believe they are weaker, and you are the boss) got way more powerful nowadays.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Fellow pirates,
I implore you to continue your campaign on Slashdot to make me feel less guilty. I know that not paying someone for their work is wrong, but if Slashdot posts enough articles bashing the RIAA/MPAA/copyright law/whatever, it's easier for me to accept what I'm doing emotionally by visualizing someone else as the bad guy. Once on the forefront of relevant IT news, Slashdot is now a lame repository of mainstream pseudoscience links and pro-piracy articles to appease a dwindling readership. I am overjoyed.
Even though the open source community is about giving back as much as it is taking, I'm just going to take. I'm a human leech with self-serving beliefs and an inability to empathize with content creators who are trying to make a living.
I don't believe John Carmack should be paid for his work. I'm going to sit on my ass while he spends years coding the next advanced 3D engine from id Software. When their game comes out, I'm going to pirate it without giving a second thought about paying John Carmack for his work. I'm just so used to pirating things now that I take it for granted. If anyone mentions John Carmack to make me feel guilty, I'll look for Slashdot articles that bolster my viewpoint, such as this one, amusingly posted in the Your Rights Online section even though none of my rights are being violated.
According to that study, it's okay to not pay people for their work because there's some vague hope that they'll make up the difference in income through "concerts and speaking tours." Artists are now forced to take time out of doing what they want to do. John Carmack must stop programming in order to make money from programming. It's genius. The study does exactly what I need it to--make me feel less guilty when I pirate. We've managed to stretch the truth so far that we're actually telling ourselves that we're helping artists by not paying them for their work. Excellent job.
I look forward to Slashdot telling me everyday who the bad guys are. Even though Slashdot has sued websites in the past for copyright infringement, and they've pretended to care about plagiarism, we're supposed to go along with Slashdot's anti-copyright agenda. I'm okay with that hypocrisy because it serves me. It makes me feel less guilty when I pirate something. Remember, I'm not the bad guy--the RIAA/MPAA/whatever is. That makes it okay for me to not pay people for their work.
EULAs and copyright licenses are wrong, yet the GPL is good. Piracy isn't theft, yet GPL violations are referred to as "stolen GPL code." I accept all of these double-standards because it serves me. I pretend not to notice when someone points out that the GPL relies on copyright law, and if I want to get rid of copyright, my beloved open source code will no longer be protected by the GPL. I don't care, because I'm too busy concerning myself with what I want for free, not about the consequences. I want to get rid of copyrights because I've been told that copyrights are the bad guy, and they are an obstacle to my rampant piracy.
Fellow pirates, let us continue our selfish leeching. Let us paint others as the bad guys to absolve us of our emotional guilt. Our goal is to convince people that piracy is something the good guys are doing in a fight with the evil corporations. Making money is wrong, even though Slashdot displays ads, and it cost me money to buy the computer I'm using to pirate stuff.
Yours truly,
A fellow Slashbot
It's on the same level as political incarcerations that only the worst of states practice.
And speeding is a crime. Right. Get some sense of proportion — that's what the GP was talking about.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
I can see why you post as AC.
I don't think they should go to jail or even wear a massive fine, they aren't violent criminals and it's debatable that they have even cost anyone money. but what they were doing under swedish law was illegal ffs.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
The FSF page specifically says that the GPL assures the copyright of software and protects the rights of the content creator. So why are Slashdotters constantly opposed to copyright and in favor of piracy except in GPL violation articles? Does your opposition to copyright mean I can take your GPL code and sell it as a closed-source program?
regularly received kickbacks from commercially-run prisons
<quote>juge is against drugs biases him against you having or not having drugs how exactly</quote>
His taking kickbacks from people who profit from an incarceration is exactly how. It doesn't matter if a person is guilty or not if the judge makes a profit from a guilty verdict.
If he disapproves of a law, then arguably he could be considered biased as his refusal to believe a law is just might affect whether he enforces it or not, but it's hard to see how your judgment would be affected by the fact you happen to support the law being tried.
Judges are supposed to enforce the law, and do so fairly. If someone is accused of violating that law, they're supposed to ensure that person is fairly tried, with evidence that is pertinent to the case raised, irrelevancies struck out, and a fair judgment given if that someone is found guilty. Now, it's hard for me to determine why anyone who supports a law would act differently to someone who doesn't care specifically about a particular law but does care about the rule of law. If I support copyright law, am I going to try to make sure someone is found guilty of copyright infringement simply because I support the law and not due to their guilt or innocence? Why? Why would I do that? Why would I want someone innocent of the law I support found guilty? Would that not undermine the law I support rather than support it?
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Just because the ruling didn't go in the defendant's favour DOES NOT mean their rights were violated. What a bunch of stupids.
Previewing comments are for sissies!
What? I'd say any issue that involves the possibility of going to prison is a worth rights issue. What "proportion" are you on about?
I never understand this "but there are worse things to worry about" special pleading whenever Human Rights are mentioned. The European Convention on Human Rights is basically our closest thing to what the US has in its Constitutions. You don't hear people saying "Get a sense of proportion" when someone talks about right to bear arms, or taking the fifth amendment.
I suspect that lawyers have thought this through, and have a better idea of what European Human Rights law covers, than armchair lawyers on Slashdot...
Except the behavior you describe is already illegal. Facilitating a crime is a crime.
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
Violation of due process is violation of human rights
What violation of due process? They had a trial. They had no problem with the judge's organizational memberships before they lost (and yes, they almost certainly knew about them--we are not talking about membership in the Illuminati, but membership in prominent public professional organizations).
Nice straw man. Who claimed it was?
This is about fighting it under Human Rights law. If someone in the US tries to overturn a ruling based on the US Constitution, you don't hear people whining "New Definition of Constitution".
The Human Rights we are discussing here are defined by the European Covention of Human Rights. That's what it means. It's got nothing to do with whatever definition you are thinking of. If you are proposing a different definition, then you are the one who is proposing a "new definition of Human Rights". Just because there exist countries with appalling human rights records is no more relevant than countries that have nothing like the US Constitution. The ECHR is basically our closest equivalent of the US Constitution, and I don't see why people have to whine about it just because it's called something different.
To claim that this caused no bias is a disgrace on the Swedish judicial system. It's hogwash. The Litmus Test here is: If there was no bias involved then this should have been declared in the first minute of trial and allowed for any objections at that time. To hide it through the entire trial and as best they could afterwards until the defendants were able to dig it up shrieks of the fix being in and the trial being nothing but show. I'm left to wonder how the prosecution actually managed to keep straight faces throughout all of this since they surely had to have known.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Slahsdot is pretty consistently in favor of the general concept of copyright. It frequently (and still pretty consistently) opposes particular details in some implementations.
"The use-mention distinction" is not "enforced here."
Which is about what the level of this "bias" is at. It's essentially saying that he's biased because he believes there should be laws (it doesn't really matter what those laws are particularly).
I'm sorry, but what alternate universe are you in and what do you serve in your Kool-Aid?
Yeah right. I think you just got OWNED. That's what happened.
A false dichotomy is an old debating trick where one party says, "well, you oppose X, and therefore you must be for Y!" It's called "false" because the world really doesn't work that way. There are many different options.
You are employing a false dichotomy here. Opposition to the current copyright regime is not synonymous with the abolition of copyright. Many of us, instead, feel that copyright needs to be reformed, not abolished:
These changes will maintain the spirit and essential utility of copyright law while curbing the abuses of the past half-century. Reform will restore copyright to the status of a fair social contract that rewards creativity without smothering it.
Show me which part of Swedish law they violated. Show me the files on their site that were in violation of said law. Oh wait... Your just a troll with no evidence to back up your statements....
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
But perhaps in this case, with copyright organizations (of which the original judge was a member apparently), you don't generally deal with people that want to support the law.
Look at their overall actions - they want to change it, to suit them better.
One that hath name thou can not otter
I don't normally have any reason to think about the Swedish justice system, but this makes it look like a joke to me. How many people in nations other than Sweden have never followed a Swedish trial before now, and this is their first exposure. Convicting Swedish citizens for the benefit of powerful foreign corporations for "assisting in the infringement of copyrights", where the judge is a member of multiple pro-copyright organizations? Whether it's fair or not, I think that this is a black eye for the Swedish legal system in terms of international perception.
A judge may determine whether a law has been broken, he may set a punishment if it is proven that the law is broken, but if he supports or disapproves of a law he is biased. A judge may be in favor of all laws being enforced, but any specific law no.
How about a judge who publicly states he is opposed to murder? Can he sit on a murder case given this flagrant bias towards anti-murder laws?
Not much hypocrisy if you can really grok the genesis of the GPL. There's a reason the GPL is also known as the copy*left*. Perhaps go back and do some more research, this has been explained quite a few times here already over the years.
Here is an easy start on it copyleft
Basically, it is a very good attempt at trying to solve a lot of the problems with copyright as it has been transformed into the abomination that we have today. It's a well thought out and pretty fair compromise which seeks to give the best possible set of rules to a situation where the rules have been skewed in the direction of "perpetuity". Copyright as originally proposed was for a limited time. Taking "limited" to mean "any length of years we can bribe through congress, then some", the law itself has been compromised so that the public good-to be able to use the stuff in some sane time period, to have it enter public domain-was lost. People alive today will never get to be able to use copyrighted works as originally intended if something is copyrighted today. It has been placed beyond human life spans! That's NUTS and goes completely against the spirit of the original thinking, and even then it was *very* generous in terms of years..but NOOO, that wasn't good enough! Every time major works get close to entering public domain, wham, another huge extension and more restrictions. The GPL is a very rational way to work around those restrictions and to insure the "public good" part, so that things copyrighted under that license can actually be USED by the people and not ABUSED by some jerkoff corporation or cartel.
Copyright is an 100% human political construct that is GRANTED to you by collective society, and originally for only such a time as you could try and make something from it, then it was supposed to be passed on to the public at large to benefit. We the people could make your copyright terms be three days, get it? Or zero. But..it got pushed to life plus enough for the lazy ass kids to still make loot from it, plus some corporation made up of paper work shufflers who never had a creative thought in their life. The public today gets bupkis!
Now..you won't be able to ever "legally" be able to take those ideas and see what else could be done from them..you'll be LONG GONE before things copyrighted today fall out of copyright. That's why copyright is broken and things like the GPL-copyleft- are necessary to try and work around those crazy law extensions that some big cartels-and I mean cartels in the fullest unethical business sense-pushed for. It's a well meaning compromise and seems to be working so far.
For the other, it is called a combination of civil disobedience, also a normal human response to really stupid laws (see also prohibition, etc) and a reaction to *blatant cartel price gouging* in the face of digital copies of works costing at most a small fraction of a penny to reproduce, but because of cartel pricing, are being forcefully restricted to many dollars per "lawful copy". 100,000% markup is blatant highway robbery pure insanity price gouging, and is only "law" and "business practice" today because these cartels bribed off congress enough to get this stuff passed and to keep the feds off their backs. It's a criminal enterprise at this point, and people just don't care, they just DON'T give shit one about being less than upfront with obvious crooks. That's just human nature, now you know why there is this apparent dichotomy.
When content creators are a little more righteous and fair, they get treated better, when they are obvious crooks and scamsters like what is represented by the new term MAFIAA, people just don't care, because they know they are dealing with crooks anyway, so..meh. Just meh.
When the government and "law" starts busting these cartels for price manipulation and collusion (which they SHOULD and NEVER do, those laws are on the books as well, and are being blatantly ignored because of obvious
Um, most /.ers would be for a 10 year copyright with mandatory registration, decriminalization of personal file sharing, and clauses that allow non-commercial use of a product if it is abandoned. Most /.ers oppose criminalization of personal file sharing, long copyright such as the totally ridiculous life + 70 years, the ability for things to be lost when they are abandoned and oppose unreasonable penalties for infringement (such as only $50 or $100 a song, not $80000). You only need to look at a story where for-profit infringement to take place to see the majority condemns their actions.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
This case was about what responsibility TPB has relating to how their service was used to break copyright law, specifically Videos. So it seams very important what the Judges opinion is of the role of copyright law in protecting large content owners. Obviously a judge who showed interest in supporting a expansion of copyright law would have more interest in setting this precedent. His interest in the manner would not have been so worrying in the case of determining actual infringement, this case was more about how far that law should extend. Infringement seams clear cut in this case, just not who can be held responsible for the infringement.
Facilitating torrent downloads is not illegal in Sweden.
Don't forget that thepiratebay is tied to the pirate party, so it is in their interest to generate as much publicity for them as possible by "recruiting as many young people as possible to their team" with these stunts such as "biased judge", and "human rights violations", and all of the other things that their propaganda machine produces.
Where ARE my mod points lately?
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
Don't most modern governments have something in their constitutions or charters which prohibit making laws with the sole purpose being just to prosecute someone?
Isn't that what Swedish parliament did? Didn't they specifically pass a law to prosecute TPB?
If not, then the whole process is a sham.
They're using their grammar skills there.
That is a perfect summation of what I believe needs to be done with copyright. I find it appalling that back when the world was large, meaning it took a long time for works to move form one place to another, a 14 year copyright was seen as fine, but now that the world is small, meaning we can send data around in world in seconds, we need life + 70 years. Copyright should be brief so that it serves the purpose of "promoting the progres of useful arts and sciences," not infinite so that companies can sit on things.
These courts are crazy. There is only one question they should be asking themselves: WWJHTSD? What would judge Harry T. Stone do in this situation?
"Show me which part of Swedish law they violated."
They were found guilty of assisting in making copyrighted materials available. It's the Swedish equivalent of the "contributory copyright infringement" and "vicarious copyright infringement" laws in the USA. If you'd like more info about the particular Swedish laws, google "pirate bay verdict english translation."
It basically came down to the facts that the four defendants knew what was going on, and that each had a chance to stop it, but did not. And, of course, unlike sites like, say, Google, they dismissed safe harbors. Safe harbors shoudn't be ignored -- they're there to protect you, but if you don't take advantage of them, you risk big trouble.
"Show me the files on their site that were in violation of said law."
Huh? You know that they weren't charged with copyright infringement, right? I'm sure you know how the BitTorrent protocol works -- this wasn't a download site; it was a tracker site. What files do you mean?
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
Um, most /.ers
You've spoken to all of them have you? I remember seeing stats that barely 1% of us even comment, let alone express their opinion on copyright laws.
would be for a 10 year copyright
Which will grow 10 years every 10 years, retroactively.
with mandatory registration
That will be eliminated the first time someone claims they "forgot" to register, like it was back when we had mandatory registration.
decriminalization of personal file sharing
Woah! When did personal file sharing become criminalized? Shit, I better flush my burnt DVDs!!
and clauses that allow non-commercial use of a product if it is abandoned.
Why only non-commercial? The whole point of copyright is to financially encourage valuable activities that people would otherwise not do. If the original publisher no longer wants to publish the work and I think I can make some money publishing the work, then clearly there are people who want copies and are willing to pay for them, so why not encourage me to serve that need? Why reserve that right to someone who doesn't want it anymore?
Most /.ers
yeah, cause you know..
oppose criminalization of personal file sharing
I imagine a world where file sharing is illegal and actually enforced will be the end of personal computing.
long copyright such as the totally ridiculous life + 70 years
But.. but.. I did some work 20 years ago and my great grandchildren might have to get a job!!
the ability for things to be lost when they are abandoned
"lost" is the extreme.. how about just "rare". It's really quite sad that a book that has been in print only 5 years is so hard to get. These days I go to Amazon and click through the long list of secondhand book sellers (who, btw, the copyright owners would love to stamp out!) and eventually find one that will mail me the product for almost the same cost of new. It's a travesty.
and oppose unreasonable penalties for infringement (such as only $50 or $100 a song, not $80000).
"Penalties".. what a puritan idea. It's like we're too gutless to make this a crime and its clear that no actual damage has been done, so let's "punish" them by giving *more* money to the greedy bastards who want life+70 years for a work they couldn't even be bothered publishing 5 years after creation.
You only need to look at a story where for-profit infringement to take place to see the majority condemns their actions.
Again, you live in this fantasy where us bored minority of commenting users somehow represent the silent majority.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Just in case anybody is wondering if facilitating/vicarious/contributory infringement is against the law in Sweden (you already have one AC who seems to think it is not), Swedish law is very clear. Per Chapter 23, Section 4: if you're complicit in an act, you can be held liable for the act. This is a blanket clause that applies to all laws for which prison time is a possibility.
There wasn't a huge miscarriage of justice here -- they were found guilty of assisting in copyright infringement because they proudly assisted in copyright infringement. It's a bit too late for them to claim that they somehow weren't aware of the purpose of their own site. The legal system has much better bullshit detectors than many Slashdotters seem to think.
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
FTA
I don't understand. Fuck teh article?
I would be for a 28 year copyright, definitely not decriminalizing personal file sharing, for unlimited personal use of a given material in any format once it is purchased in one format, and clauses that allow commercial use of a product if a regular and escalating monetary fee is not paid.
personal file sharing can be larger than some older commercial file sharing was.
We want to encourage creation of works with a 28 year window- we do not want to lock up our culture in perpetual copyright to immortal corporations.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Maybe more people would take them seriously if they presented themselves in a more credible manner.
Obviously, they believe that file sharing is not morally wrong, and should not be illegal. And yet, selecting the name "Pirate Party" makes them appear to be saying "We know what we are doing is wrong and we are proud of it! Ha ha! Look what we can get away with!"
If they picked a more respectable name, like maybe "Electronic Freedom Party" or "Fair Use Party" or "Abundant Goods Party" or whatever, maybe people would take them a bit more seriously.
If they wind up exhausting all options and sent to rot in jail....they may have a corrupt system to blame, but they will have to shoulder some of that blame themselves just for their immature behavior.
The judge in this case does not support existing laws. He is the chairman of a lobby organization that wants to push the existing laws even further.
I'll probably be modded troll for this, but this is my opinion, and agree with it or not, it is still my opinion. If you can share yours, don't be upset for me doing the same.
If you disagree with my opinion, hit reply and try to persuade me. Hit reply and cuss me out. Ignore me as a freak. But don't get pissed off because someone feels differently than you, ktnx.
Two points
Why do Slashdotters believe the rights of the content creators whose material is pirated on PirateBay don't matter, but the rights of GPL authors do? If copyright law is wrong, then I can do whatever I want with your precious GPL code and completely ignore the usage restrictions described in the copyright license.
First, no one said that "the rights of the content creators whose material is pirated on PirateBay don't matter"
I will say it, because that is what I believe. But that is not what most slashdotters think or feel, you are just making things up and posting them.
Second, you are right, the GPL should not exist. Without copyright law, as I said I am for, the GPL *wouldn't* exist!
Copyright needs abolished. And before you say "How do you expect artists to be compensated?", the answer is, by getting a job like everyone else. No one should have any say so or right to control the sharing of what is in your head.
That covers both the things I come up with in my head myself and share, OR the things in my head put there by others who clearly choose to share them by making them public.
Copyright is not about doing squat for artists or 'content creators' as you call them, except for limiting their rights.
How can a law that, while yes protecting that fraction of 0.001% of the thoughts you made, but in exchange for removing your right to use the other 99.999% of the thoughts in your mind that came from 'outside', usually from another fellow human being? That is not protecting your rights, its removing them.
While most of slashdot is all about making copyright sane, all they are arguing over is how restricted is ok, 99.999% or just 99.991%, simply because one number is lower than the other.
Humanity developed language more complex than any other primate (or life of any sort for that matter) just to share the ideas and thoughts in our heads. That is such an insanely great accomplishment of history!
And now, very recently compared to the rise of human language, a small group of people are wanting to reverse that effect and prevent us from sharing those ideas that brought about civilization.
It's an all or nothing solution. We are either free, or not. There can be no middle ground. Our society will either have to control all of it or none of it. Our communications will either have to be monitored or free, our privacy to be either continuously probed or protected.
Copyrights are like a vine that will never stop growing to choke off our freedoms until we cut it off at the root.
The right to copy and imitate, to share ideas and information, is a right that exists independently of our government.
Gravity is not made or destroyed by the government, nor are rights. Just as gravity can not be bought or sold for the sake of the will of others, nor can rights. Rights are observable.
We evolved to use language to share our ideas. Language wouldn't need to exist as it does if not. Humanity would not be where it is today, and you would not be in a civilized nation to create ideas, if it wasn't for the ideas that were shared before you were born. You have NO say so about that changing. It will not. It can not.
And finally
Conclusion--if copyright is wrong, then so is the GPL.
Exactly.
So then, does it make me a criminal if I'm driving down the highway and move over to get out of the way of a speeder?
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Most /.ers oppose criminalization of personal file sharing
What does "personal" filesharing mean? I think you mean "public" filesharing - i.e. uploading and downloading with random people you don't know on the internet. As far as I can tell, the only piece of copyright you support is laws against selling pirated material for a period of 10 years. That seems like a pretty thin version of copyright, and I'd feel dishonest if I described that as "in favor of the general concept of copyright" (as mentioned two comments above). The copyright you're describing can pretty much be summed up as "never prohibit anything I want to do with copyrighted material; only prohibit selling it, and I don't want to do that anyway".
Well said. I am pretty much inline with you, so what all this "majority of slashdotters" is, I have no idea.
I would however, rather have some synchronisation of patent law and copyright with respect to the time, that means 20 years. Where did you get your 28 years from?
"Civis Europaeus sum!"
No, it does matter, when he believes that there should be stronger laws than what currently exist in the case he's judging. If he wants stronger laws in an area, how can anyone (even he himself) be sure he's not leaning towards the prosecution in a case? What we're talking about is the application of law that may not technically exist. It's akin to charging someone in the US with conspiracy to commit theft, and then never charging the person who actually stole.
> long copyright such as the totally ridiculous life + 70 years
Maybe in the abstract sense. But the fact "Steamboat Willie" comes up in every Pirate Bay or RIAA thread is an obvious deflection from the issue at hand.
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
By that logic Google is one big criminal organization, since you can search filetype:torrent. Or the disposable cell companies, because drug dealers can and likely do use them anonymously.
They were found guilty of assisting in making copyrighted materials available.
Except as swedish law was *always* applied before, you had to actually charge the people who *made* the materials available. You were not allowed to charge just the accessories. Thus, the charges and subsequent conviction push the law past where it was allowed to previously apply.
Canada: The US's more awesome sibling.
Google in good faiths removes search results when it is asked. This has been a topic of controversy on Slashdot before. Cell phone carriers have been given common carrier status because of what you refer too, usage in criminal activities. There wouldn't be a FTC statute about common carrier if there never had been a discussion about the liability of the phone providers in the first place, so your argument is really, really weak.
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
Speeding is a criminal offense ? News to me.
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
No, but this was not the case either.
The organisations that he was a member of were for having tougher punishments for copyright violations.
So a more suitable analogy:
How a bout a judge who publicly states that he is for tougher sentences for murder and in an interest organisation working for capital punishment being the only verdict for murder.
Can he sit in a murder case.
My answer to this would be NO.
The thing is not whether he is for the law or not, a judge must be for the rule of law in general, so this is not really the point.
However, his membership in organisations that are for tougher punishments, clearly indicate that he is biased in this aspect. I don't doubt his qualifications to deliver a guilty/not-guilty verdict, but since the judge is involved in sizing the punishment, where there is considerable room of choice for him, he is not suitable for ruling on what the punishment should be.
The second thing, which I think is also true in America is that a judge will be considered bias if there is a risk for the public confidence in the legal system, whatever your opinions about these organisations are (they are not appropriate in my meaning, and he could probably have chosen better and less biased organisations to join), you cannot really deny that people are loosing their faith in the legal system for this. That is very troubling in my mind.
"Civis Europaeus sum!"
Except the behavior you describe is already illegal. Facilitating a crime is a crime.
What isn't so clear is whether "facilitating" was intended to include what TPB does. They don't host, transfer, or even see the content of any illegally transferred files. Every ISP has a more direct hand in copyright infringement than TPB does.
To continue the analogy, you'd probably have a hard time arguing that someone who owns a public bulletin board is "facilitating" the sale of drugs, particularly if he makes no attempt to verify the truth of anything written on his board.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
That's in public records? Guess it's different in Sweden...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Interesting. Speaking as a disinterested party (I don't see any heroes or villains here), this seems like an appropriate closing of a loophole.
It's pretty common for new technologies to create new loopholes that the original framers of a law did not intend -- here I'm referring to the legal system in general, and not specifically copyright code or any country in particular. These loopholes tend to get closed quickly. Just as nature abhors a vacuum, law books abhor a loophole.
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
A judge being having strong emotions towards a crime you're accused of is no problem for you?
First, I could see him being more ready to accept you're guilty because he would not want to let a guilty man escape. I dunno about your country, but here a trial isn't opened until there is at least some material available other than "I think he did it".
Second, in case you're actually guilty, there is usually some leeway in the hands of the judge concerning the verdict, to take into account the circumstances the crime was commited in. A judge strongly biased against what you did will probably use it to punish you as severely as he possibly can.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Is filesharing a crime in Sweden?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
He also sits on the board of the Swedish Association for the Protection of Industrial Property, an advocacy group that pushes stricter copyright laws.
You can simplify it by calling it the ivory tower syndrome. As a system gets older, there tends to be widening gaps between those in power and those rules by said powers.
In itself, this is normal. If I am a boss of a small company, I can keep in contact with each of my employees. I can go and ASK what kind of a refreshment they want AND probably have the capacity to supply it. Something intresting seems to happen, IF people in a small group are asked what they want, they limit themselves to ask for things that are reasonable with that group. Either that or magically every small company doesn't have someone with outlandish desires. But as the company gets bigger, the request for type of refreshments becomes wider. No longer just coffee, thee and water but perhaps cola as well. Then different varieties of tea. Soda. Decaf. Herbal teas. Fairtrade coffee. Snacks. Health food.
At a given point, a line has to be drawn as the cost of supplying all those refreshements becomes larger and larger per person served. Four builders in a car can get a drink from their boss at the gas station. A bus load woild already be a problem. A large office, impossible. Just the process of the boss noting it all down would require a major piece of organisation.
And so systems are put in place, layers of organisation that make the day to day running possible but also seperate people.
You see this clearly in europe with the emergence of protest parties and the reaction of the established parties to it. In the netherlands it is almost literally "We think we are doing alright, why doesn't the voter accept that we are doing alright when we tell him we are doing alright". Because the VOTER sees something different. Wether that is immigrants or social security or healthcare it don't matter.
The british decleration scandal is a large part of this. Not the scandal itself, but what it tells us about those in powers and those who are not. What is the difference between the average politician, judge, journalist (NEWS), media-person(artists) and the voter? The first all got a HIGH paying job. They are the ones who traditionally make public opinion but we got the old Yes Minister quote "The problem with public healthcare, public schoold and public transport is that those who make the decisions go to private hospitals, send their kids to private schools and are driven in chauffeur driven cars" in action. How can a news anchor who makes a million a year relate to being unemployed? It is hard enough to do with a normal job, for the superrich it is not possible.
In the netherlands, the SOCIALIST tv broadcaster VARA pays some of its top talent HALF a million euros. Yeah, they are going to be real socialists, capable of keeping in touch with the common man.
In the netherlands their is currently building resentment against the legal system. Not so much the police but the judges who keep handing out incredibly weak sentences. The judges don't live anywhere near crime affected areas, they work in buildings with armed guards outside and associate in circles of friends that are completly white. They make a salary that makes it easy for them to buy CD's or iTune with never having to wonder why the prices for media have never come down despite ever shrinking production costs.
The whole process of seperation is incredibly subtle and takes decades. The owner of a newspaper becomes richer, he will promote those editors that share his view of the world, editors that want to be promoted will make sure they share his view and hire only writers that share that view. And never to directly,it is not as if the job interview goes "Do you vote VVD" or something like that but gradually the effect is the same.
It shows clearly in that a lot of news media seem to reflect so poorly what is happening on the streets. Hell, Iran can be explained. The powers that be just did what they always did, the one they decided should win was made to win. But years of isolation from the masses made it a complete suprise that the masses had moved
28 years (14 initially + 14 more if applied for an extension) is the original term at the time copyright was originally written into the U.S. constitution.
Personally, I still think it's still too much. What I wouldn't mind is some way wherein you get a few years for free, and then you have to pay some nominal amount of money to keep your copyright, which grows progressively. If your stuff really is so popular that it's making heaps of money, then you can presumably use a share of that to keep it going. And if it's not making money, then keeping it just prevents others from creating (potentially useful) derived works... so let it expire; or pay for the privilege of denying others - either way, a net benefit for the society.
The claim you make is that he uses his membership to keep informed. But this club is informing him of only ONE side of the argument. Where is his membership of consumer organisations? His membership of the Pirate Party? His contribution to the swedish EFF (if such a thing exists?).
A politician visits a moskee to keep informed about developments in society.
A: this shows he is a caring involved person.
B: this shows he is a muslim lover who screws over the majority for a minorty.
A or B can be proven by simply asking this. How much time does he spend with other religions?
Dutch radio station gets subsidie for broadcasting ethnic music and reporting on issues that affect minorities. oddly enough the amount of jewish music is zero. Vietnamese music? Zero. Chinese? Zero. Indonesian? Zero. Oddly enough, all the music is either related to islamic or black immigrants. Everyone else is ignored. Is it therefor a station deserving of its claim to serve all minorities?
Being unbiased means you don't listen to just ONE side of an argument while ignoring the other side. This pro-copyright group is NOT going to give him unbiased info. It would be like me listening to Geert Wilders to get the true info on immigration issues. OR for that matter, to ignore Geert Wilders and only listen to the above mentioned radio station. Biase is biase no matter what side you choose to favor.
Ask yourself this, what would the case have been if the judge was found to be a member of the Pirate Party? Do you think the copyright holders wouldn't have complained then?
To continue the analogy, you'd probably have a hard time arguing that someone who owns a public bulletin board is "facilitating" the sale of drugs, particularly if he makes no attempt to verify the truth of anything written on his board.
If a guy is just posting others' notes on the board - no, he isn't facilitating.
If he's specifically told that other guys X and Y are using his board to exchange messages directly facilitating drug sales; and a reasonable person in his position would consider there be a strong probability that it is indeed the case; and he explicitly refuses to pull down the messages regardless; and X and Y do turn out to be using the board that way (as found out from other evidence) - then, yes, he is facilitating the crime, and is responsible for that.
Ok, I'll bite. I'm going to Canada next year with my wife. What's the best place to pick up girls for a threesome?
The problem with legalizing personal file sharing is that you then basically don't have "copyright" as we know it today for the classes of works that get pirated, as the owners would lose the right to control copying of their product. You can't both believe in copyright for songs, software, books etc and want legal personal file sharing, the two beliefs are mutually contradictory. Unless you completely redefine what copyright means, but please don't do that. Invent a new word if you have to.
Which is about what the level of this "bias" is at. It's essentially saying that he's biased because he believes there should be laws (it doesn't really matter what those laws are particularly).
Or the level of bias that he's at because he belongs to an association that stands to profit enormously from a guilty verdict? Seriously... How the F#L$K do you possibly get more biased than that?
I am the richest astronaut ever to win the superbowl.
Closing those loopholes is not the task of a district court. The only ones that have the right to make new interpretations of the law, or change it is in Sweden:
1. Supreme court of Sweden, EC Court and the European human rights court
2. The riksdag and the European Council in conjunction with the European Parliament.
There is no case law in Sweden, except for the one that the supreme court makes. This also include civil cases.
"Civis Europaeus sum!"
I just lost my faith to Swedish court system. Even though Piratebay is sorta spreading illegal material through their trackers, the hunt of them has been lead by copyright lobby's and firms up to a point where only winning is the goal no matter what means (bribery) there are used.
I'm sick and tired of hearing about this crap.
They are guilty. Trying to weasel out based on the fact that the judge wasn't completely blind to the fact that they were guilty is horse shit.
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
There is something rotten in the state of Sweden...
Don't be crazy anymore!
"merely endorsing the idea of copyright law was not grounds for a mistrial. "
That's all right, it isn't merely endorsing the idea of copyright law, it's being friends with the prosecuting solicitor, friends of the prosecution and making up a law that doesn't exist.
So three other reasons that don't fall under that and so it can be claimed a mistrial.
This trial is about whether or not they broke Swedish law. As slashdotters constantly whine on about, they claim they have done nothing wrong under Swedish law.
If they are right, then what's the problem? the judge supprots Swedish law (duh... he is a JUDGE), and TPB guys claim innocence under that law.
If they are pretending to be freedom fighters who want to CHANGE the law, they need to talk to politicians, not a judge. In fact, your first step in changing a law is to get yourself lawfully caught and arrested under it so you can show its injustice.
Thats if you actually give a fuck... rather than just trying to wangle out of a prison sentence at all costs like these guys.
BTW judges are set by politicians elected by the people. If they set harsh drug or copyright laws, then that represents the will of the people. If thepirateparty have 60% membership, you may have a leg to stand on, but the majority of Swedish voters clearly like the current law as it stands, and thus they fully expect (quite reasonably) that the police, and judges will enforce that law.
I would hate to live in a country where politicians are voted in to make laws, but judges ignore them. Only on slashdot would people pretend that's a good idea (just to justify piracy).
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
Very very very bad analogy.
If my neighbour spends his time acting as a local directory enquiries for drug dealers, I am very very keen for that guy to be arrested.
Just because he isn't handling drugs doesn't mean he isn't helping facilitate a drug problem in my area.
Its amazing the crazy bullshit that gets rationalised by people who want to justify pirating music.
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
And, since the telecoms infrastructure was involved too, this is the government facilitating. The closing of THIS loophole means that the ISP's and backbone carriers all the way up to the government are ALSO guilty.
We shall expect to see Sweden prosecuting itself for 40M KOR any time now.
and if that's true and it's NOT held by a corporation, there is no copyright on it.
So your OP is correct.
Unless TPB get lots of money and bribe politicians to become a fully paid up corporation.
Severity is irrelevant - human rights are something that get eroded gradually as a rule - you need surveillance because of the terrorists. You need trial without jury because there are some evil people. You need detention without trial because you can't reveal your sources. ... whatever crime he thought you were commiting.
... aren't automatically granted - they're badly named, because they are not 'rights' that are automatically granted. They're ... more like obligations. Duties. Things that we say we believe in, and if we do, we MUST stand up for them - because if we don't, who else will? It's very convenient to shuffle 'civil liberties' to one side, because 'there is a danger in the world' but that road... well, people have been down that road many times in human history, and it rarely ends well.
And then one day you wake up, to find that you're being watched all the time, and the person watching you has _sole discretion_ to arrest, try and convict you of
Human rights
I'm guessing "From The Article". Though I have to admit that since we're talking about a legal matter and possible lawsuits, appeals, and/or mistrials I originally read it as "Failure To Appear" and thought I'd missed something.
everything today is derivative...it is called evolution.
as for the privilege of denying others...that is called oppression.
and personal file sharing...well, that is just stealing shit.
Invent a new word if you have to.
Like copyleft, perhaps?
RUGBYRUGBYRUGBY
You can't call it an unfair moderation just because you were -1 modded flamebait. It doesn't matter what you think about your post, the slashdot moderators are the ones duly elected/appointed to the position of making the decision. What they moderate goes whether you agree with it or not.
See my point now?
That hole in your face, shut it, now.
DMCA won't allow you to copy personal DVDs right? Otherwise it was a marvelous troll.
If that was so certain, then why are they so afraid of letting an unbiased judge hear the case?
Basically we have two groups in this case. One one side, there is the Pirate Bay. They are the accused. On the other side is the pro copyright lobbying group. They are accusing TPB of breaking several laws. But they are also the judge. And, apparently, the second judge, the one who ruled the first judge unbiased is also a member of the pro copyright lobbying group.
I say this, not as a file sharer (honestly, I prefer CDs), but as a programmer. I.e, a copyright holder. I see nothing pointing to them getting a fair trial.
Yes, since some years back it's now illegal to upload and download. This year they actually made it practical to try to find the filesharers by allowing people other than the police get the person behind an IP address. In the news they are all talking about getting the "pro" uploaders, but that doesn't change the fact that you aren't allowed to download either..
Imagine someone running such a bulletin board in the Netherlands, for pot smokers, believing that this is legal.
Now, if he gets several requests to take down messages, informing him that smoking pot is illegal according to a named US law, would you expect him to take it down, or to reply with something like "I'm not in the US, morons"? That's basically what The Pirate Bay has done.
If he was then to get a few requests from people in the Netherlands, who said that this is against the law, but could not tell which law, or even where he had misread the law that makes pot legal in the Netherlands, would you expect him to take it down? Or to tell them that he believes he is doing nothing wrong?
From my reading of the "legal" page on TPB, I have seen exactly ONE law quoted as for why what they are doing is illegal.
The US DMCA.
The thing is not whether he is for the law or not, a judge must be for the rule of law in general, so this is not really the point.
Just a quick nit to pick here. A judge must not be for the rule of law in general. A judge must be for human rights. If a law violates human rights is broken, it is the law that's wrong, not the person breaking it. In America, we consider the Constitution the be-all end-all of human rights, and so a judge's oath is to the constitution, not the law. Even if a law is technically "right," a judge must be for the intent of the law, not the letter of it. But your point is still valid.
It would be in public records if we were dealing with the US. The judge is on the board of the industrial property protection group, and board members of such groups are usually easy to find.
Here's the page for that group that lists the board, and he's right there
I can't find a website for the Swedish Copyright Association, probably because their real name is most likely something in Swedish.
In order to nitpick back a little bit...
Yeah, but then, a constitution is basically a law of how a country is supposed to be run and what powers it has, so the constitution have precedence over the other laws.
In Sweden, the constitution is called "grundlag" which literally translates to foundation law. The Swedish constitution specifically say that: no law shall be in violation with the ECHR, so that embeds the human rights part.
So, it can be nitpicked the other way. Since the Swedish constitution say that the ECHR must be taken into account, so must the judges and courts.
Human rights is very subjective to definitions, and are typically defined by constitutional laws and treaties. For example, the ECHR (and also the EU entry criteria) bans all form of capital and corporal punishments. This is thus seen as human rights in Europe, but as we know it, the US allows for capital punishment, which is seen as a human rights violation in the EU.
So, the point being, yes, a judge must take human rights into account, but only because that is specified in the law.
"Civis Europaeus sum!"
why was the trial not fair?
The judge believes in and supprots swedish law. You seriously would prefer a system where judges make up the law on their own?
besides, if TPB are right and what they are doing is legal 'under swedish law' wtf are they worried about?
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
if the judge had been a linux using member of the FSF, you guys would have cheered like maniacs, and INSISTED he was not biased.
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
I wish the case was so clear-cut... I sell crowbars, am I facilitating burglary?
I am a journalist, I write an article about dealers taking over a square or a park in the city (an thus
telling everyone where drugs are available), am I still facilitating?
At which level of indirection do you become guilty: i post a link to a site where they tell you where drugs are available, etc.
The 'facilitating' slope is slippery :P
with mandatory registration,
Definitively a big NO to that. Mandatory registration would mean that everybody who couldn't afford a lawyer would have no copyright at all and would be open for abuse by big media companies. The lack of registrations puts everybody on equal footing, as it ensures that everybody has copyright, not just those who understand the laws in detail.
You obviously need to pay closer attention to the FBI warning that comes on every single MPAA-produced commercial DVD.
The warning states that it is a criminal offense to copy AND distribute (aka fileshare, etc) the material on the dvd without the express written permission of blah blah blah [insert company name here]. Penalty of $100,000, etc per offense, and the appropriate legal code listing so you can go look it up.
Try reading it for a change instead of downloading the versions from TPB with the warnings stripped out.
@Mindless Drivel: 100% of Twitter posts ever Tweeted.
He may have been unbiased, but he definitely was computer illiterate! How could a judge make a ruling of great importance, without knowing the first thing about torrent downloads, he even admitted it was beyond his comprehension, but was able to make a conclusion based on the arguments presented before him. I say BS, you need to know when someone is throwing you a line with a hook on it, that way you can see the type of card playing he does, let's you know how to interpret further accusations/defense they might have. If someone lies to you about something (like a download being local peer to peer and not through a server) and says that piratebay is responsible for serving the content....then it would mean you know this person twists things, and therefor would be very skeptical of further opinions or conclusions from that person, no?
My first ever post.
I for one agree with your ideas. Based on the articles and comments I've read on /. I think it's quite likely that "most /.ers would" agree with you too.
If he's specifically told that other guys X and Y are using his board to exchange messages directly facilitating drug sales; and a reasonable person in his position would consider there be a strong probability that it is indeed the case; and he explicitly refuses to pull down the messages regardless; and X and Y do turn out to be using the board that way (as found out from other evidence) - then, yes, he is facilitating the crime, and is responsible for that.
I'm not so sure. We don't expect the phone company to monitor everyone's calls to make sure they aren't using the phone for illegal purposes, nor do we expect them to cut off service to everyone who discusses illegal activity over the phone. That's why we have common carrier laws. Why shouldn't the same logic apply to someone who owns a public bulletin board, or runs a torrent site?
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
If my neighbour spends his time acting as a local directory enquiries for drug dealers, I am very very keen for that guy to be arrested.
Of course you are; that's the point. If you're an anti-drug crusader, you'll be "very very keen" for anyone tangentially involved with drug sales to be arrested, whether or not they're breaking the law.
Likewise, statements like "Its amazing the crazy bullshit that gets rationalised by people who want to justify pirating music" suggest that you have the sort of bias that would lead you to be "very very keen" for anyone tangentially involved with copyright infringement to be arrested, whether or not they broke the law. You shouldn't preside over the TPB trial either.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
I'm talking about the sense of proportion, that ought to prevent a reasonable person from implicitly (or even explicitly) equating:
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Why not set up a charity to buy copyrights from artists and then distribute the works for free to all of society?
Not to beat a dead horse, but since Micheal Jackson owes like $400,000,000, would it be possible to raise those funds to purchase the copyrights to his works and then give it away to the public? Couldn't that be an alternative means to fighting copyrights that are too long?
Also very interesting. Taking it at face value that you and the other fellow are correct in your interpretation of Swedish law, it raises the question of why TPB isn't raising a stink about this instead of the nebulous "bias." If it's cut and dry that the law was applied incorrectly, that's a much more black and white thing to go on. Raising a possible motive for applying the law incorrectly seems like an unnecessarily contrived way of fighting for justice.
I've read a few opinions of the verdict written by legal experts and I haven't seen the point you've raised -- can you point me to some background here -- even if it's in Swedish?
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
We can agree on two things here.
You're sick and tired.
-FL
The closer you are to an ocean it seems, the less conservative the population. Newfoundland, for instance, is sexually mature and very relaxed and open. The prairies edge closer to the "burning gays in your front yard" end of the scale.
Interestingly, you might do better in the middle of the country. The more tightly wound people are, the more likely they are to explode and jump into odd experiments with complete strangers willy nilly. Doesn't sound very nice, though, but that's just a personal opinion.
Of course, that's a very wide brush I'm painting with. But I just had this conversation last night, so it was on my mind when I read your question just now.
-FL
Well, it is a bit more complex.
A district court can of course make a judgement in a case where there is no precedent, but any subsequent court cases cannot refer to a district or appeals court verdict and refer to that as precedent.
A precedent can only be set by the supreme court of Sweden, and that precedent in term direct the interpretation of the law which is codified by the riksdag.
The problem with the case, is that there is no precedent from the supreme court, so the district court really have no idea about how to apply the law in this case, but they still have to apply it within the bounds of the codified law itself (whether they reach the correct conclusions or the correct proportionality of the sentence is another question, that will take the supreme court to solve for good).
Since there is no precedent for the verdict, when the case have gone through the court of appeals, it will most likely (independent of the outcome) be appealed to the supreme court.
This process will take time, don't expect any final outcome until late 2010 at earliest.
"Civis Europaeus sum!"
We moderators aren't elected. We owe our position to force, the supreme authority from which all other authorities are derived.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
You were simply never breast fed as a child.
The universe is a big scary place which must be controlled! Resources must be hoarded and never shared because then Bad Things Will Happen. Fear rules the day, and nothing, no reasoning, not even having this tossed onto your plate will be able to confound that hard wiring in your mind. (Though it is useful to recognize for others so that they can understand the how and why behind freaky conservatives).
It takes work to achieve anything of any value. But once that value has been birthed into the world, why must it be paid for over and over (and over) again? "Oh, but how will the content provider be paid?" The content creator will be frickin' paid if the content is worth a damn. Even if it is 'pirated', the provider of the information will be compensated, more and more often through non-linear means. But it takes a level of insight and fearlessness to see that. Those who create insane, top-down economies like the one which is presently crashing all around our ears, want to criminalize sharing. It is not a so-called "rationalization," as the poster put it, to be offended by such a thing. This is why the Pirate Party describes itself as a political movement, and why they framed their arguments as they did.
The system MUST be crashed for sanity to reign.
And that has some people very, very scared. You'd better learn how to share pronto or you're going to be left out in the cold. Who is going to share with you when your dollars mean nothing? Quick! Better head-trip your kids with guilt and religion so they don't stop feeding you. Only Fear and Control will save you!
Pathetic.
-FL
You can't both believe in copyright for songs, software, books etc and want legal personal file sharing, the two beliefs are mutually contradictory. Unless you completely redefine what copyright means, but please don't do that. Invent a new word if you have to.
Tell that to Canada, which has legal both personal file sharing and strong intellectual property laws.
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
I get where you're going, but I don't subscribe to a Manichean worldview. Not everything is a binary choice. I believe that if I paint a work of art, I can have the "right" to prevent a megacorporation from making millions by selling it's image on t-shirts and society as a whole will not be, consequently, devoid of freedom. You may claim it's a slippery slope, but I think that there are times when it is important to prevent individuals from abuse by others.
Judges do not enforce the law, they adjudicate. This means that they are allowed to determine if the law was broken or not, and they can set the punishment for it's breaking within the legislative guidelines. Enforcement is the job of the police. If he approves of a law being enforced he may be more likely to apply it or see it's having been broken in cases where it might not have been appropriate.
Why bother
Murder is a broad enough subject that being for or against it is moot. We are all opposed to murder. If on the other hand he is opposed to the fact that a murder statute exists it's another story. If the judge were in favor of or against the murder statues being used in cases of drunk driving it might be different. he is then advocating an application of a law that might be inappropriate. It is up to the legislature to make the case of where to apply a law. In some cases usually in supreme courts it can fall to a panel of judges to determine if the legislature intended to apply a law to a circumstance but that's about it.
Why bother
Yes thank you that is what I was actually trying to articulate.
Why bother
They weren't required to monitor all torrents coming through them. They were asked to pull down certain specific torrents. That's the difference.
The judge didn't charge TPB with aiding illegal distribution of data for all such torrents that went through them - only for those where the copyright holder has directly contacted them and told them that copyright violation is going on (and where that claim was correct).
Yes, but is it a crime? Does the state attorney care about it? Ours doesn't give a rat's behind when you call me one, but I may still sue you, if I choose to.
One of the big discussions in the recent years have been whether it's a crime, i.e. whether it belongs in the law books together with murder, rape and other crimes the prosecution of which are in "the common interest".
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
What you miss is that the fact of having biased judges on trials is a human right violation regardless of whether the accused is the Pirate Bay or Andrei Sakharov. Do not confuse the (serious) problem with a (trivial, according to you) symptom.
Also very interesting. Taking it at face value that you and the other fellow are correct in your interpretation of Swedish law, it raises the question of why TPB isn't raising a stink about this instead of the nebulous "bias."
The verdict deals with this by stating that it is sufficient for the "main crime" to have been realized in order to prosecute someone for aiding and abetting. There is no need to prosecute the person committing the main crime.
This makes sense to me - suppose you help me get some explosives, and I blow myself up along with a bunch of people, and suppose you knew I was intending to do that. Now, there is no way I can be prosecuted, being dead and all, but it makes sense that you can be.
They weren't required to monitor all torrents coming through them. They were asked to pull down certain specific torrents. That's the difference.
Again, we don't expect the phone company to cut off service to people who use the phone to discuss illegal activities, or even to disconnect specific phone calls. We recognize that phone service is a tool that can be used for many different purposes, and that if someone is abusing it, it's the job of law enforcement to go after those particular people -- the phone company has no responsibility other than to provide information (which a torrent site does automatically). Why can't we treat torrent sites the same way?
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
not sure why you were modded down, guess the truth hurts. I guess the second part is debatable, I would have agreed he was biased, but biased to the good side, not the dark side ;) I also doubt there could be a much better result for anti-copyright groups, had TPB been found innocent by a EFF loving judge the laws would have been changed, and the pirate party would be a non-issue (until the new laws were passed.)
As such the copyright winners now walk out of Sweden scratching their heads, wondering how they spent all that money, won, and likely accomplished nothing.
Yes, if indeed the judge was biased, it was a violation. But it a much lesser (hence our talk of proportion) one, than those, that make serious headlines. TPB had a trial — in a free country, with competent legal help and with abundant mass-media coverage of every aspect... They also have a meaningful appeal going on right now.
In addition to these quantitative differences, there is a qualitative one — unlike the dissidents I listed, TPB are/were not fighting against the State. Which means, the State — which appoints judges and pays them — has no inherent interest in the trial's outcome. Thus it is far less likely, that TPB will be treated particularly badly.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
First,
TPB had a trial -- in a free country, with competent legal help and with abundant mass-media coverage of every aspect...
Which all mean little if the judge was indeed biased.
They also have a meaningful appeal going on right now.
There are quite different legal recourses depending on whether you are in a trial
or in an appeal.
Second, yes, there is a difference in graveness between the alleged human rights violations
suffered by the Pirate Bay defendants and the clear and horrible human rights violations
caused by the communist dictators of Burma.
But that is not the point.
The point is that if a right of yours is violated, you have a right (in the legal sense
and in the moral sense) to appeal to a higher court. That is what the defendants are doing.
I fail to see your point. You seem to think that only serious right violations should be
fought, while others should be accepted.
I cannot understand that.
"There are people in far worse situations" can be a good argument to convince a person to
live happily and positively even in face of difficulties, but it is a really lousy argument
to convince someone not to fight injustice.
I'm not surprised membership alone doesn't disqualify this judge. But they obviously must research all his past writings on copyright and dealings with the organizations, as well as subpoena records of all his recent large financial transactions. If they can show bias now, this will cast doubt upon all members of that organization in future.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell