Swedish Anti-Piracy Lawyer Gets New Name 'Pirate' 178
An anonymous reader writes "Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet (in Swedish) reports that Henrik Pontén, a lawyer of Antipiratbyrån, a Swedish organization against file sharing, has received a notification from officials that an application for change of his name has been approved and a new first name 'Pirate' has been added to his name. Authorities do not check the identity of persons applying for name changes. Pirate Pontén now has to apply for another change in order to revert the change."
Re:it will only hurt the cause... (Score:5, Interesting)
There is also the possibility that he did this too himself, nobody knows since who ever changed his name is anonymous.
And know this, the news article was published on the day before the Swedish election. Very suspicious timing by the anti-piracy agency here...
And yet transsexuals cannot change gender freely (Score:5, Interesting)
In Sweden if you're trans and want to change to a name of the different gender you need approval from social servcies, which among other things requires you are sterile. Yet a lawyer can add "Pirate" to his first name without the agencies even checking the identity of the applicant. Hurra fÃr myndigheter!
Re:Someone should (Score:3, Interesting)
He was a record producer who was convicted on multiple counts of rape.
Re:it will only hurt the cause... (Score:2, Interesting)
Not so fast ... understand the full implication of "published on the day before the Swedish election". Could be members of The Pirate Party, the folks that run The Pirate Bay. These guys have real candidates running for real public offices.
Should have copyrighted his old name (Score:1, Interesting)
And then sued him personally if he tried to get it back or use it without permission....
Poorly executed IMO but a step in the right direction all the same.
Re:it will only hurt the cause... (Score:5, Interesting)
Or we could admit that speculation either way is pointless. People do fake crimes, and Occam's Razor != knowing.
The last line of TFA... (Score:5, Interesting)
mentions an official stating his name will be reverted "in due time"
What are they waiting for? Oh! That's right... an anonymous application!
On the note of applications, this article will probably precipitate a flood of similar immature requests. Maybe the department should suspend applications for a short while until appropriate changes in the procedure are put in place. Hopefully, it doesn't require any legislation and is simply a directive from some official to change the policies.
Cheers!
Re:it will only hurt the cause... (Score:1, Interesting)
Given the track record and the scientology connections of the swedish anti-pirate side, the likely possibility is that it's a false flag thing.
Re:it will only hurt the cause... (Score:5, Interesting)
But goddamn that's a brilliant prank.
In my mind, this is actually a little beyond childish prank territory.
To all you folks who are going to write in with "ZOMG LMAO! Grow a sense of humor!" and so on, ask yourselves: would a straight-up act of identity theft be as funny if it were aimed at an anti-copyright lobbyist? This isn't a prank--the man's signature was forged on an official document, and then (apparently) submitted to the Swedish tax authorities. I don't know about Sweden, but in the U.S. that's pretty heavily criminal conduct.
Re:it will only hurt the cause... (Score:5, Interesting)
It's perfectly legitimate to suspect that this guy did this himself to make the pirate party look more childish and discredit them. We've seen the anti-piracy fucks do weirder, stupider and more far fetched things in the past.
Re:Entirely consistent behavior. (Score:3, Interesting)
Any pro IP lawyer who has made public statements has already made it clear he has no interest in integrity either his own or that associated with his name.
Re:Someone should (Score:2, Interesting)
And several of the girls admitted that they had sex with him voluntarily and that they had been pressured by the newspaper (Aftonbladet or Expressen, can't remember which one) to file charges.
The guy has tried to appeal the sentence (he is already out of prison, but he want his name cleared). He basically said that (from my memory): "I know I pressured the girls by false promises and so, and I was a real bastard and an awful person, but I did not commit rape."
The guy was owning a record company, and it was very naive by the court to say what they did, some girls (and guys) would be happy to sleep with someone like that if it can fast forward their career. It is certainly not "PC" to say so, but it is still the fact of things.