Pirate Bay Defendant Aims For Sweden's Supreme Court

justice4all writes with this news from eWeek Europe:"One of the defendants in the Pirate Bay trial says he will take his appeal bid to the Supreme Court in Sweden. One of the defendants of the Pirate Bay trial, the Swedish tech magnate Carl Lundstrom, has confirmed he will appeal the sentence imposed by a Swedish appeal court, by taking his case to Sweden's Supreme Court. Lundstrom, along with his three co-defendants – Peter Sunde, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, and Fredrik Neij – were found guilty of being accessories to copyright violations by a Swedish court back in April 2009. The copyright test case against The Pirate Bay was brought by the Swedish subsidiaries of leading music and film companies, including Sony BMG, Universal Music, EMI and Warner Brothers."

Comments

Supression is futile

[EmperorOuk]

Despite the fact that a Swedish court ordered an ISP to shut down service to The Pirate Bay in August last year, the website continues to function. The website is now apparently registered in the Seychelles.

It should be pointed out that Pirate Bay does not host copyrighted material itself, but instead links to a number of torrents elsewhere on the Internet.

These two paragraphs alone highlight the futility of the recording industry's crusade against piracy. I bet it's lawyers who love to hate piracy more than anybody else.

Re:Supression is futile

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

I bet it's lawyers who love to hate piracy more than anybody else.

Lawyers love anybody who has a crusade and deep pockets. They're the only winners in any legal dispute.

Re:Supression is futile

[JaredOfEuropa]

Actually, helping a murderer can make you an accessory to the crime if you know what his intent is (over here, at least. Not sure what the laws are like in other countries). If someone asks you "I bought this firearm, can you train me in using it safely?", and then goes off to shoot someone after you trained him, you can hardly be blamed. But what if someone drops by and states: "Those kids in the park have disturbed my rest for the last time! Can you explain how this shotgun works, and then help me saw off half the barrel?".

The latter case would be hard to sufficiently prove beyond doubt, if they'd charge you in court. In case of the Pirate Bay however, it should be abundantly clear to the owners that their tracker is used for sharing copyrighted materials, and little else. There's probably several laws they could be charged under. Aiding and abetting, membership of a criminal organisation, etc... Again, not sure what the laws are like in Sweden, but many countries have laws against this sort of thing. With penalties resulting in a cease and desist against the site at the least, fines, damages and perhaps even jail time.

Re:Supression is futile

[delinear]

I don't think they're acting out of some kind of ignorance of how their service is being used - quite the opposite, I think this is people with an agenda (to bring down copyright) providing a service that is aimed at advancing that agenda. I might not agree with their approach but I'm not averse to the thinking behind it. Having said all of that, I think it's pretty clear that they've not committed any crime and that the law is being twisted by those with their own agenda to try and make them criminals. What they offered was realistically little different to what Google or Bing or Yahoo already do, albeit with a target user base with a more specific interest. I have zero issue with private individuals acting within the law to undermine what many people see as an unjust set of rules, I'm a little more wary of big corporations acting in collusion with government to twist laws to take said individuals down (it wouldn't even be so bad if they outright enacted laws to make their actions illegal, at least then we could hold them to account and ask why Google and MS have had a free pass, but this whole thing stinks of corruption at the highest level).

Re:Supression is futile

[bzipitidoo]

You can be sure TPB knows it is helping people copy information regardless of legalities.

"Bring down copyright" may have become the agenda, but I'm sure it didn't start out like that. This was just people being friendly by freely sharing information with any and all. It wasn't a problem until the copyright trolls started getting ugly over the loss of their artificial monopolies, and started extending the definition of piracy to treat any minor with a computer the same as a big time manufacturer of counterfeit goods. It is the copyright extremists themselves who have done more than anyone to help us all see how bad an idea copyright law is.

And would it be so bad if copyright was destroyed? What ever will we do without copyright? No more big budget movies, new books made better thanks to excellent editing, professionally produced and polished songs, or so the industry would have us believe. However, we really do not have a choice. I can't see any way to keep copyright viable in its current form. The day isn't far off when the entire Library of Congress will fit on a thumbnail sized memory chip, and in mere seconds can be copied in its entirety, and transmitted anywhere in the world. And most of all, without needing any agency that could monitor the event for any reason, including purposes of collecting a levy or tax. Maybe a network can be watched, though encryption and chaff throw doubt on the ability to make anything of the traffic. But how do you regulate two people who want to swap memory chips? It's like regulating sex between consenting adults. Can't be enforced.

Re:Supression is futile

[Kjella]

Having said all of that, I think it's pretty clear that they've not committed any crime and that the law is being twisted by those with their own agenda to try and make them criminals. What they offered was realistically little different to what Google or Bing or Yahoo already do, albeit with a target user base with a more specific interest. I have zero issue with private individuals acting within the law to undermine what many people see as an unjust set of rules

That's pretty much the difference between the USPS and a drug mule, one operates a general transport company and the other specializes in transporting drugs. If you want it applied to copyright I suggest you read the US Sumpreme Court ruling against Grokster, where they in a 9-0 verdict found targeting lawbreakers as a market gives you secondary liability for their actions.

Corporate media can die. Human rights must live.

[mykos]

The world will go on without not-for-profit average joes buying every movie that shows up. Corporate media is not important to the human race as a whole.

If hearing a song without the proper license to do so gives a corporation the right to take someone's liberty and pursuit of happiness, this is a crappy set of laws to live under.

Re:Does Sweden have laws?

[TeknoHog]

You mean, as opposed to your (US/UK) common law system where laws are made up by judges as they go along?

Makes one wish

[lostmongoose]

for the days when Sony was cool with personal copying http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betamax_case

Re:Does Sweden have laws?

[LordLucless]

They're the same system. Seems like the US makes up their laws as they go along, and the US makes up Sweden's laws as they go along.

Not like I can talk though, as an Australian.

Re:Does Sweden have laws?

[zarzu]

So what you're saying is that laws are made up by judges as they go along.

Accessory?

[srussia]

From the link in TFA: “The Stockholm district court has today found guilty the four individuals that were charged with accessory to breaching copyright laws,” said the statement from the Stockholm district Court.

Either Sweden has very weird laws or very bad translators. There was no mention of any conviction of breaching copyright laws. How can anyone be an accessory to a "crime" for which no one was convicted?

Re:Accessory?

[the_one(2)]

That was what their attorneys said as well. Didn't help them. The whole trial was very weird.

Re:Accessory?

[a_n_d_e_r_s]

No the really wierd part was that he was convicted for accessery to accessery to copyright infringement.

Note that noone was convicted for copyright infringement. The others was convicted for accessory for copyright infringement and he was convicted for helping them.

Most think that the swedish supreme court will hear this case.

Re:Accessory?

[shentino]

The weird part was how both the presiding judge and a key member of the judicial conduct committee had BLATANT conflicts of interest and failed to recuse themselves.

Re:Accessory?

[DragonWriter]

There was no mention of any conviction of breaching copyright laws. How can anyone be an accessory to a "crime" for which no one was convicted?

Even in the US -- both under federal criminal law and under the criminal laws of most states -- it is quite possible to establish the facts necessary to convict someone as an accessory to a crime independently of whether or not anyone has been convicted as a principal of the crime.

Otherwise, e.g., the death of the principals in a crime -- which would preclude their prosecution -- would also let all accessories off the hook.

Who do you think you are fooling?

[westlake]

The world will go on without not-for-profit average joes buying every movie that shows up. Corporate media is not important to the human race as a whole.

It seems to be mighty important to the pirate.

Because that is where he is spending his time - if not his money.

The corporation does not exist independent of its investors, employeees or its customers. Their pusuit of liberty and happiness.

The geek fan fick in 2011 will most likely be based on the 45 year old Star Trek: TOS It seems to take a Pixar to produce something as good - as original - as The Incredibles, Ratatouille, Wall-E.

Re:Does Sweden have laws?

[Opportunist]

If there is no reason to ever interpret a law, we could instantly throw out all judges. Because every trial would already be decided because for every possible incident there would be a law. Our law books would be heaps more heavy, but we'd cover every possible inch of our life with a law.

There are certain cases that are simply clean cut. Most are not. Killing should be punished. In the same way in all cases? Is there no difference between premediated, plotted and planned killing to get someone's money and killing because he insulted you and you pushed him over a cliff, not thinking in that moment that this will kill the person? Is there a difference between stealing because you prefer stealing to working and stealing because you need money NOW to pay for the life saving surgery of your child and nobody wanted to give you any?

Laws exist because we do not want people to do certain things. Judges exist because people still do them, and it should (and, at least in our law, does) matter WHY they did it.

Re:And.

[Surt]

The problem with warezers is that their belief systems shift to change their desires.

Isn't that much better than most people, like Christians, whose belief systems don't shift even in the face of overwhelming counter-evidence?