Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
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/
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."
I hear rapidshare are a overdue visit from MPAA :P ...
http://rapidshare.com/files/248210674/Transfrmrs.2.Revenge.of.The.Fallen.CAM.XviD-Lynks.part1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/248208013/Transfrmrs.2.Revenge.of.The.Fallen.CAM.XviD-Lynks.part2.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/248208507/Transfrmrs.2.Revenge.of.The.Fallen.CAM.XviD-Lynks.part3.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/248208020/Transfrmrs.2.Revenge.of.The.Fallen.CAM.XviD-Lynks.part4.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/248210808/Transfrmrs.2.Revenge.of.The.Fallen.CAM.XviD-Lynks.part5.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/248208201/Transfrmrs.2.Revenge.of.The.Fallen.CAM.XviD-Lynks.part6.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/248212150/Transfrmrs.2.Revenge.of.The.Fallen.CAM.XviD-Lynks.part7.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/248206941/Transfrmrs.2.Revenge.of.The.Fallen.CAM.XviD-Lynks.part8.rar