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US Lawyers Target Swedish Pirate, and His Unicorn
Chaonici writes "When a Swedish citizen identified as Ryan heard about US movie studio Liberty Media's plan to get copyright infringers to confess and voluntarily pay up, he couldn't stop himself from sending them a
satirical email promising that he will pay 'from the pot of gold I got at the leprechaun at the end of the rainbow', regardless of scathing criticism of the studio from his unicorn. However, despite his location, the jesting nature of the email, and his insistence that he has never downloaded anything for which the studio is suing, Liberty Media's lawyers have taken the 'confession' seriously, and have issued a subpoena to Google for personal information related to Ryan's Gmail account. In a phone call, the legal team affirmed their determination to 'hunt him down, all the way to Sweden if need be.'"
Yes, but the lawyer naively thought that the law was going to be interpreted by the letter, the way it had always (officially) been done in modern day Sweden. They just underestimated the power of angry multinational mega-corporations and their lobbying/bribing/truth-twisting skills. The trial was very un-Swedish in many ways. TECHNICALLY they didn't break any Swedish laws and the lawyers approached it in a purely technocratical way. Usually that would had worked. Unfortunately, everything turned into messy discussions of intents, unproven figures of lost sales, attitudes and the like. This while there was MASSIVE pressure from very very strong international interests.
My other account has a 3-digit UID.
They have UNICORNS in Sweden?!
There is no -1 Disagree.
Actually this is their train of thought: If someone messes with us or tries to interfere with us, then let's make it as expensive, time consuming, and difficult for them as possible, and make knowledge of our actions public as possible, to set an example.
No one stole anything through pirate bay, they may have committed copyright infringement, but that is an entirely different thing.
As a side note, the postal office enables people to send drugs and bombs to each other, they are still not held accountable, despite they knowingly do this. The "enabling" part is a faulty argument. However, they did definitely knowingly host links to the files, and did not act when made aware of such files; that is a proper argument that you can build on and probably argue in a court.
"Civis Europaeus sum!"
Confessions without proof are not valid in Sweden (you cannot for example do plea-bargains in the Swedish court system). It is well known that people make up confessions; for example the Swedish police has received the confessions of over a 100 people, who all confessed murdering the former prime minister Olof Palme. Confessions are only counted (but only marginally so) if there is also technical evidence and / or witnesses.
The point is, if they trace the guys IP, it is doubtful that the Swedish court would grant a request to reveal the identity behind the IP address, you need to have at-least some bit of concrete technical evidence (e.g. logs identifying him in a bit-torrent swarm) to do that.
"Civis Europaeus sum!"
No one stole anything through pirate bay, they may have committed copyright infringement, but that is an entirely different thing.
Not even that. The Pirate Bay is charged with "assisting copyright infringement of 24 albums, 9 movies and 4 games", nothing more, nothing less. According to the Swedish constitution that's the only thing that should be taken in consideration by the court. Anything else they may have done except assisting copyright infringement of those specified 24 albums, 9 movies and 4 games is completely off-topic in the trial. Also, all fines and damages compensation are required to be in line with proven losses and it's against the constitution to use general deterrence, to make examples of specific deviants.
One thing we learned during the TPB trial and the debates of the new surveillance laws (FRA, IPRED, datalagringsdirektivet) is that the Swedish constitution isn't enforced at all. We have a "constitution deputation" but what they say are only to be regarded as "recommendations" and weighted with the opinions of other deputations. Previously this wasn't a problem because courts and law makers have pretty much followed the constitution anyway but the last few years it has become clear that we desperately need a constitutional court with full veto.
My other account has a 3-digit UID.
My first question, if I were this guy's lawyer, would be, "Do you believe this man shared files based solely upon his email?"
If the answer is "Yes", then I would say, "That would indicate that you also believe he owns unicorns, talks to leprechauns with pots of gold at the end of rainbows based upon your same assumptions."
If the answer was "No", then I would ask, "Then what are we doing here?"
Make them look as stupid as possible.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.