Pirate Bay Day 5 — Prosecution Tries To Sneak In Evidence 341
Hodejo1 writes "On the old Perry Mason TV shows, it was a common sight to see someone burst into the crowded courtroom at a dire moment and confess aloud that they, not the defendant, killed so-and-so. In reality, courts do not allow evidence to enter trial without a chance for the opposing council to view it and for a judge to rule on their admissibility. Yet, in the fifth day of the Pirate Bay trial, lawyers for the prosecution again tried to sneak in surprise evidence while questioning defendants. The judge put his foot down this time, telling lawyers for the state, 'If you have documents which you eventually plan to use, you need to hand them over now.' The prosecution continues to struggle in court. In one humorous moment, prosecutor Håkan Roswall tried to show how 'hip' he was with technology when he questioned defendant Peter Sunde. 'When did you meet [Gottfrid] for the first time IRL?' asked the Prosecutor. 'We do not use the expression IRL,' said Peter, 'We use AFK.' The defendants are not out of the woods yet. Lawyer and technology writer Richard Koman wonders aloud if the Pirate Bay's 'I-dunno' defense is all that much better."
IRL, the prosecution is AFK. (Score:4, Funny)
FAO Editors (Score:3, Informative)
The word you're looking for is "counsel", not "council".
Re:FAO Editors (Score:5, Funny)
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Am I so behind the times even epic fail is outdated?
Yeah, ever since TPB got their first legal threat we have started to reefer epic fail to "trying to threaten TPB with your legal mumbo jumbo."
Re:FAO Editors (Score:4, Funny)
To be blunt, yes!
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The word you're looking for is "cingcong", not "council".
Fixed ;-)
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Considering that this trial is in Sweden, the submitter may be Swedish (though they do learn English pretty thoroughly in school), and homophones can tricky even for native speakers, I think we can let this one slide.
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You're missing the point. Part of the editors' job ought to be to fix errors in submissions before posting them. It's excusable that the submitter not know the correct spelling, but the editor should spot it and correct it.
Re:FAO Editors (Score:5, Funny)
New here?
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No, just trying to avoid a complete and utter surrender to cynicism.
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I'd say that Swedes and others who have English as their second language in general are better on separating homophones than those with English as their first language. I can't remember ever seeing a swede mixing up their/they're/there, your/you're or site/sight. I frequently see Americans and UKians doing that. For some reason, mixing up then/than and lose/loose seems very common though. Furthermore we never use "whom" and "neither...nor" and we always have a problem deciding whether to use "who", "that"
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Of course if in your dialect "shoes" and "goose" rhyme, I guess they could be.
Actually, the way most Swedes pronounce those words when speaking English, they rhyme. Swedish doesn't have the "z" sound at all so we never learnt how make it in a natural way. My English is pretty good, but I'm having a very hard time making the s/z-sounds with "voice" at the same time, not just the snake-like hissing (like all s-like sounds are in Swedish). I can do it if I focus, but it doesn't come natural. I guess it's the same thing when English-speaking persons try to speak Swedish (or Spanish/Frenc
Re:FAO Editors (Score:4, Informative)
You can't win on here - someone always comes after me if I say "England" when I mean "UK". Someone would probably have blasted him for excluding Northern Ireland if he said "British". :)
Re:FAO Editors (Score:4, Funny)
See? I still can't get it right! :)
Furthermore (Score:2)
We don't use the expression "wonders aloud". We say "wonders AFK". Except that in this case Koman was wondering at-K.
Re:FAO Editors (Score:5, Informative)
The word you're looking for is "counsel", not "council".
It's council in UK English.
Err, no it's not. QC = Queen's Counsel.
Re:FAO Editors (Score:4, Informative)
No, a council is an administrative body, such as the group of elected councillors who get to spend council tax. A counsel is, depending on context, a piece of advice or a lawyer.
Re:FAO Editors (Score:5, Funny)
You are quite right, council is spelled council in the UK... just like it is here in the US of A. There are many other words we spell the same as well - like paper, law, sausage, and ... counsel.
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This is one example of a case where the English and American spellings are the same, and the only distinction is between those who know how to spell and those who don't. Also, FWIW, I'm British.
Re:FAO Editors (Score:5, Funny)
Figured. You sound British.
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Isn't that more of a burden on the prosecutors? (Score:5, Interesting)
Correct me if I'm wrong, I was under the impression that this burden was placed far more on the prosecutors who had to share with the defense council their lot of evidence, than the other way around.
Although, as in this video by a law professor, what you say to a cop can be used against you, but never for you - as that would be ruled as hearsay:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc [youtube.com]
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IANAL, but having read a lot of Perry Mason stories I play being a lawyer on /.
In US law a witness can't say he heard someone say something. The person who spoke what the witness heard should be called as a witness instead.
That's because the speaker, not being under oath, wasn't necessarily telling the truth. In court, after having sworn to tell the truth, the person can be questioned on what was told.
The assertion that whatever you tell a cop can be used against you doesn't mean he can repeat what you said
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"Party admission" (e.g. confession) is *not* hearsay. It is admissible in virtually every jurisdiction. Your example was poorly chosen, as it is obvious that no charges would be pressed against you for having imaginary cocaine in your trunk. Should you however confess to, say, a murder (and there are other i
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Correct, party admission is classifies as non-hearsay. Even if it did not have that status, it would likely still be admissible hearsay because it was a statement against self-interest, and the defendant would not be available to testify directly (since a defendant cannot be forced to testify). (I am am not a lawyer, so I may be mistaken here, but that sounds right to me). Granted that workaround would only be valid in the case where the admission in question was made by the defendant. The non-hearsay class
"I didn't read it" (Score:4, Informative)
"Fredrik Neij was questioned by lawyers who tried to paint him as the point man for The Pirate Bay operations. Peter Danowsky, who represents the music business, pointed out that Niej owned The Pirate Bayâ(TM)s domain and then showed him a contract he had signed saying that he would oversee operations for the site. Neijâ(TM)s response? âoeBut I didnâ(TM)t read it.â"
If that's the extent of TPBs defence, then they are screwed. I don't think saying 'I didn't read it' really stands up with a judge, ANY judge.
Re:"I didn't read it" (Score:4, Informative)
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As I understand it, the law says it's illegal to aid breaches of copyright.
As a consequence, if e.g. you offered to your friends to let them text you if they had or needed pirated software and you matched those who had with those who needed, you might breach the law. Or if you put up a sign that said "PLEASE POST WHAT PIRATED SOFTWARE YOU NEED AND I WILL TELL YOU WHERE TO GET IT", and you actually helped them.
The defense in this case is that they effectively created a bulletin board that people could use to
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I know jack shit about Swedish law, but the RIAA presented a similar argument in its cases against filesharing sites in the US. SCOTUS eventually ruled that the sites could be held liable only if they actually encouraged piracy, not if they simply knew about it.
If Sweden's system works close to the same way ours does, even that would be hard to convince a judge of, since criminal charges are a lot harder to uphold than civil.
Re:"I didn't read it" (Score:5, Informative)
According to ArsTechnica coverage, one of the interesting things about Swedish law is that sometimes, as here, civil and criminal cases can be dealt with in parallel in the same court room. Thus, we have both the state prosecutors and their equivalent of the RIAA both making their case, and even if some particular doesn't apply to the criminal case, it can still be valid to the civil case taking place in parallel in the same court room.
Combined civil/criminal trials like that seems to violate all sorts of ideas of justice folks like me here in the US might have, but it's the way their system works, and TPB seems reasonably confident of the outcome, much more so than they'd be here in the US under comparable civil-only circumstances, so who are we to say?
Aiding breaches of copyright law ... (Score:3, Insightful)
So why isn't Microsoft charged as a co-defendant? Seems to me that more people use Windows to pirate copyright material - after all, people who use F/LOSS don't feel as much *need* to pirate copyrighted software.
We could also add the news media, for reporting this story, thus telling people how to get the stuff. They're sure "aiding breaches of copyright law". And the makers of large hard drives, iPods and iPod-like devices, mp3
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The prosecution will simply have to prove that it was impossible for them NOT to know.
Above quote fails it. At least I think so.
On the basis of what I have learned in following this story, the defense is that Swedish law requires the prosecution to demonstrate intentional assistance was provided to someone who was infringing on a copyright, and tje defens is that such a demonstration cannot be done. It cannot be done because any copyright infringement that may have occurred was an unintentional side effect of TPB's activities. It doesn't matter whether TPB management was aware in general t
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_Party#Relations_to_other_Swedish_pirate_organizations [wikipedia.org]
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For example, a homophobic deed towards a gay man is sentenced harder than the same act towards a straight man, due to gay rights political pressure.
What is "a homophobic deed [...] against a straight man"?
Also, [citation needed]
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reciting him Mormonic prose?
That would be a possibility! :)
Re:"I didn't read it" (Score:5, Informative)
"Fredrik Neij was questioned by lawyers who tried to paint him as the point man for The Pirate Bay operations. Peter Danowsky, who represents the music business, pointed out that Niej owned The Pirate Bayâ(TM)s domain and then showed him a contract he had signed saying that he would oversee operations for the site. Neijâ(TM)s response? âoeBut I didnâ(TM)t read it.â"
If that's the extent of TPBs defence, then they are screwed. I don't think saying 'I didn't read it' really stands up with a judge, ANY judge.
It does hold up if hes trying to avoid a conspiracy charge, he needs motive and intent, the lawyers are trying to use his contract to establish his intent. His response that he never read the thing quite neatly defeats using it as a written evidence of his intent.
It might backfire on him later for other reasons but if the question is "what are the operations of TBP" with the intent to stick you with a conspiracy charge "Who the fuck knows" is a great answer.
Re:"I didn't read it" (Score:5, Insightful)
The parent AC is absolutely correct. Since the prosecution is trying to show that the pirate bay owners intend to purposely violate copyright where as the defense is sticking with the story that the pirate bay is a sharing website which only removes material if it is against the law or has misleading description.
As someone else noted in a different article (or perhaps website) it's going to be extremely difficult for the prosecution. It would be a contradiction to say that the people responsible for posting the child porn on the pirate bay are responsible rather then the admins, then say that any copyrighted material posted on TPB the admins are responsible for.
Re:"I didn't read it" (Score:5, Informative)
Because you didn't read it correctly. The point OP was making was that either TPB are guilty of all crimes committed by the makers of torrents shared on their site or they are guilty of none. Saying they aren't responsible for paedophilic material, but are responsible for copyrighted material, when the process by which the materials .torrent gets onto there system is the same is nonsensical.
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It has supposedly been tried. See the infamous "troll investigation" post.
You're comparing different situations. We know NYCL is actually a lawyer. We know nothing about the AC. (And the post is +5 now anyway.)
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They can only be screwed if they have committed a crime to begin with, and so far I don't know if this has been discussed or decided on? They only seem to try to figure out who have done what and is responsible for what parts of TPB and so on and not discuss if whatever they have done would actually be illegal or not.
There is nothing wrong with overseeing operations of TPB if TPBs business isn't illegal in the first place.
But I don't get why the defendants try to tell the story how they don't have anything
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Re:"I didn't read it" (Score:5, Insightful)
Seems as though the law thinks otherwise these days. It's safer to consider the EULA a contract if you're worried.
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Even better:
"The computer was buggy and all i saw was a row of boxes, you really need to do more testing under WINE." (Yes this really happens).
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"Where's my signature?"
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"I already owned the software, so it was my property to use as I wished. No further contractual agreements were necessary; clicking the button labeled 'I agree' was merely one of several necessary steps to use the software, no more legally significant than inserting the CD into the computer. No valid contract existed, other than the one implied by the Uniform Commercial Code at the time of purchase."
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The issue is that the validity of a EULA has never been tested in court.
I guess this lie is never going to die around here.
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I've tried to numerous times here. I am about to give up. Even those who are pointed to the cases respond with emotional arguments while they ignore what the cases actually say. Here is an example of someone responding to me with emotion and arguments that make it clear he does not understand contract law: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1132537&cid=26906351 [slashdot.org] He tries to argue that he can "bypass" a EULA and then ignores my notification that he would then be violating copyright law.
A small list of c
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In most of the world that is untrue, a EULA as a post purchase agreement has no legal value, is just a bluff and can be readily ignored. Now because I know that to be true, I do not typical bother to read EULAs as it is just a waste of time as it has no legal weight, click, sure I'll click, rather pointless as the contract established at purchase is the only one I am bound to and any contract post purchase is meaningless.
At the end of the day, they provide 'unedited' lists of torrents, they neither check
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I completely agree with what your saying but there is still a difference. Whilst it's safer to assume an EULA is a contract, EULA's still have that grey area flexibility that you can gamble on. What I was trying to imply is that treating a signed contract in the same light as an EULA is not sensible. It only works one way, not the other.
Note, I did not RTA so I not know if they were actually talking about an EULA, but the quote higher in the thread makes it sound very much like a contract.
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Bullshit, if "TL:DR" applies they are both the same. :D
Also you can't be responsible for signing something you didn't understood, so ... :D
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Post-purchase EULAs may or may not be enforcable, depending on where you live since they may find that the transaction is over before the EULA is presented. Download a piece of gratis software and I doubt you got much chance, because you've made no consideration before being presented with the EULA. Same goes with any online software purchase where they present you with the EULA before you make payment, as some do. Any online games or applications or services that contains terms of service are quite probabl
We do not use the expression IRL, we use AFK. (Score:5, Funny)
Do I sense a new meme in the making?
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AFK is used more for chat-based systems, like IRC and other multiplayer games where communication is as or more important than the action.
IRL seems to be used more with messaging type software (even if it's used for chatting), such as Messenger or Jabber or maybe AIM.
Another way is purpose-based chat uses AFK, and passing the time chat or whatever those "chat rooms" I keep hearing about where people try to hook up with cops would use IRL. This observation is 10 years old, though, so I don't know if the kid
Re:We do not use the expression IRL, we use AFK. (Score:4, Interesting)
IRL makes more sense to me.
My definitions have always split:
IRL == Something that takes place in meatspace.
AFK == I'm grabbing lunch. I'll talk to you later.
AFK for me has always been synonymous with "away" and IRL refers to an event taking place while AFK.
"What happened to bob? He's AFK taking care of some chores IRL."
I'm with the prosecution on this one. (Hehe the only time I'll probably say that about this case.)
Re:We do not use the expression IRL, we use AFK. (Score:5, Funny)
An Feste Korper? In the Solid Body?
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I doubt the germans roll their own version?
Caught red-handed, some unofficial translations (Score:5, Informative)
The prosecution was caught red-handed both 4th and 5th day and the defense once again protested this method of trying to throw the defendants off guard with new material, saying things such as "you've done this all week -- have you not learned anything at all?" and "this is starting to look like an American movie trial -- we request you hand over ALL material NOW".
The court took a break for discussions. After 10 minutes the court informs the prosecution that they must hand over any material they have not already handed over and which they wish to use in their case. The prosecution, specifically Danowski, acts like a 5-year-old and says "but.. the problem, your Honor, is that I don't know if it's necessary, so.. [I wish not to, is the meaning of this]", which the court immediately smacks down with "the meaning of the court's decision is that all material, any material, not presented to the defense, that you wish to use, must be handed over NOW".
The prosecution clearly was very disappointed that they weren't allowed to play cowboys in court.
The prosecution also tried to snare Peter Sunde with a lot of documents found on the web.. Danowski tried to make it look like Peter Sunde had said things he hadn't said with the help of [ square brackets! ] which Peter Sunde kindly informed is a way to insert 3rd party information, or reflection, on a quote. The prosecution is going about with rather dirty tactics.
Prosecution lawyer Monique Wadsted questions Carl Lundstrom, pleading not guilty and having nothing to do with TPB, calling TPB illegal, trying to have him label it as illegal as well. The defense protests, luckily. Got damn industry lawyers...
Re:Caught red-handed, some unofficial translations (Score:5, Insightful)
I think this is the biggest mistake the prosecution is making to be honest.
They're trying the same tactics that are used by the music/movie industry in the US which rely on an clueless or biased judge. Sweden is a particularly technically literate country, I think even the worst judge there could see through this kind of idiocy and so they're acting as their own worst enemy.
I'm actually suprised because I figured they'd be more clever than this, I figured they'd realise if they played it straight and acted the victim they'd be able to push the case well and probably get at least some kind of result. The problem is they're not playing the victim, they're actually blatantly playing an aggressive agenda and I don't think a judge is going to look too kindly on a group of people who are acting in such an aggressive manner whilst the defence are the ones looking very strongly victimised. For all the FUD and stats they pull out in the media claiming they're the victim (from calling it theft through to massaging stats) and making people believe it they're outright failing to translate this propaganda success into the courts and are just making themselves look like complete and utter idiots.
Tactful, is apparently not a word these people understand.
Re:Caught red-handed, some unofficial translations (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm thinking that the Prosecution and Plaintiffs had prepared to fight a very different case, and were expecting a defense that was some variant of "sharing copyrighted material that has been legally purchased is not copyright infringement".
Instead TPB has raised the defense that whether or not any copyright infringement may have occurred, we are not culpable for it; you've got the wrong guys.
That defense actually looks pretty strong. And the Prosecution and Plaintiffs look at this point like they not only didn't do their homework, they didn't even have a clue as to what subjects they should have been studying.
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[quote]Prosecution lawyer Monique Wadsted questions Carl Lundstrom, pleading not guilty and having nothing to do with TPB, calling TPB illegal, trying to have him label it as illegal as well. The defense protests, luckily. Got damn industry lawyers...[/quote]
Uhm, what he claims is that he backed off from getting more involved since it wasn't obvious that TPB was 100% legal and there was no risk for charges? That's not the same as saying "When I found out TPB was illegal I didn't wanted anything more to do w
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Fuck, messed up the quote, damn boards with their crappy syntax :D
Anyway, even IF Carl would have claimed TPB illegal he's no judge and his opinion isn't worth more than anyone else.
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If you use Firefox you can install the Slashdotter extension [mozilla.org]. In addition to several handy options for tweaking Slashdot, you get a nice "Reply to selected text"-option when right-clicking. This inserts a blockquote for you. Recommended!
Re:Caught red-handed, some unofficial translations (Score:5, Insightful)
And one look at the legal threats page is enough to prove that those guys treat the law as a joke they can ignore.
erm. American law is a joke, and they can ignore it.
Not a very funny joke admittedly.
Uhoh, it's cliffski (Score:5, Insightful)
Gee, I wonder if
1) there's a difference between lawyers in court and citizens outside of court speaking their mind -- clearly they're equivalent!
2) there's a difference between laws of the United States of America and the Kingdom of Sweden -- clearly, these Swedish judges should not tolerate disrespectful attitudes towards American law!
OK. I'm laughing:
enough to prove that those guys treat the law as a joke they can ignore
Did you not understand that this trial is a Swedish trial? American law actually is a joke until it's applicable in Sweden.
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The attitude of "theres nothing the court can do even if they win" and "we dont have any money so its tough" just reeks of petulant children refusing to tidy their room.
I can think of some other people who have refused to knuckle under to unfair laws, and who knew that the actions of the government were unjust and could not stand in the face of a refusal to obey. Some of them even regretted that they had one life to give for their country, or knew that we must surely hang together, or we will all hang separately.
Re:Caught red-handed, some unofficial translations (Score:5, Insightful)
"the prosecution acts like a five year old"
I suggest you read the various smarmy bullshit TPB frontmen have issued over the years before accusing the prosecutors of being immature. The attitude of "theres nothing the court can do even if they win" and "we dont have any money so its tough" just reeks of petulant children refusing to tidy their room.
And one look at the legal threats page is enough to prove that those guys treat the law as a joke they can ignore. Remind me how well that attitdue goes down with judges?
There's a huge difference here.
A private parties' opinions voiced outside a courtroom when there are no court proceedings occurring concerning another parties' actions has exactly squat to do with statements of parties *inside* the courtroom *during* court proceedings. You might as well bring up that they may have also acted childish having teased a classmate on the playground in primary school for all the relevance it has to what's happening *now* in a *courtroom* during a court proceeding.
It was perfectly reasonable to make a joke over the clueless legal threats TPB received from entities outside their country, many if not most based on laws that don't even exist in Sweden like the DMCA, when a reasonable interpretation by normal people in Sweden of the Swedish laws would make those legal threats seem like a bad joke at best.
If you had a webpage with pictures of your family on it and received a threatening letter from some Mullah in the middle-east threatening you with legal action for your moms' face not being covered by a veil, would you consider it ridiculous?
How about if you were a restaurant owner in a country that permitted smoking in public and inside restaurants and you kept receiving legal threats from NYC?
When it was repeated hundreds and hundreds of times, would you be "childish" for posting those silly threats with some snarky replies since they seemed to pay no attention to the ridiculous nature of their legal threats?
Personally, I find what little restraint they *did* show remarkable considering the circumstances.
Strat
ack! (Score:5, Funny)
What scares me most (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm Swedish and a member of Piratpartiet [piratpartiet.se] (The Pirate Party) since the first day it was announced. I have of course been following this sitcom with great interest, but I'm still not sure which outcome is better for the future in a bigger perspective.
The prosecutors play this case so utterly unprofessional that I'm starting to think that they WANT to lose, but make it look like they tried to win. The reason for this is simple. If they lose, they will use this as "evidence" that Sweden need a whole bunch of new draconian surveillence laws and increase the scope of liability for copyright infringements which will kill the internet as we know it.
In a way I want TPB to lose. That will shut up the law mongerers because it will show that current laws are good enough. It will also make them martyrs and will 100-up the public support for the ongoing pirate movement (which actually is very little about filesharing and mostly about the right to privacy, anonymity, freedom of speech and uncensored exchange of information).
They way I see it, the only realistic way to really make a change it steering society away from 1984, which is the direction it's heading in right now, is to vote the Pirate Party into the EU parliament, where they will be able to make a lot of noise where it counts. Only 3 months left to the election...
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So want to sacrifice them to save all the private persons actually doing the infringement by preventing any laws which would make it easier to catch them?
I see the reason but I don't think it's just. We, the people committing the infringement is the criminals, not the people offering the technique which makes it possible.
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I fully agree with you. I also fully support the Pirate Bay guys (except Carl LundstrÃm, who is just a neonazi, daddy's-money venture capitalist who only wants to make more money).
However, it's a very tricky case. I also don't think it's fair to convict them. Whichever side wins, it will make the society change in ways that are hard to foresee and the only positive thing I can see in this mess is that it will make The Pirate Party stronger.
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You could say the same thing about anything and everything, though:
[Whatever happens], it will make the society change in ways that are hard to foresee
Re:What scares me most (Score:4, Insightful)
Where is the proof that people copying stuff is hurting Sweden?
Maybe you should tell the relevant Swedish people thinking about those laws that Sweden is not a state of the USA.
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Our politicians are spineless lizards who simply do what USA says.
The reason we vote for them are because if we don't, maybe the wrong lizard wins.
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It doesn't make sense to sacrifice social principles for short term protection. The people who want to change the laws and create surveillance states everywhere will not change their minds just because they "win" the TPB case. It will only encourage them more. Even if they lose the TPB case, they will find some other prete
Motive? (Score:2)
So, according to your theory, the _prosecutor's motive_ to LOSE the case is:
1) serve the will of the recording industry, at the cost of his own reputation,
2) ?
3) Profit?
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If the current administration believes that Sweden needs new draconian surveillance laws, and the general public does not agree, then wouldn't it be prudent to vote against the incumbent party? And who would there be to vote for? This is why any attack on the status quo needs to be both legal and political, so as to give the opponent no place to turn to. Under no circumstances throw the case, instead let them escalate it to the polls.
Doesn't matter (Score:5, Insightful)
Whoever wins, the swedish lose.
If The Pirate Bay wins, the swedish laws will be changed to make sure what they've been doing would be an offence had they done it under the new law. If TPB loses, the current laws will be shown to be enough for prosecuting and convicting tracker admins.
And there's nothing we can do about it.
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Re:Doesn't matter (Score:5, Interesting)
Whoever wins, the swedish lose.
If The Pirate Bay wins, the swedish laws will be changed to make sure what they've been doing would be an offence had they done it under the new law.
How do you know that? I mean from an industry standpoint I can see this would make sense to achieve but what I can tell from what is going on in the Swedish public and just the fact that the Pirate Bay is getting a relatively fair trial (the judge did defend their position on the surprise evidence and also made the prosecution cut back on guided questioning) symbolizes to me that there is some actual change in ideas about to be written into law. It will take ages again but it's apparently happening. The WTO outcry after the Raid in 2006 was more than enough proof that the Swedes in general don't accept that American mafia tactics.
... all music videos gone, all illegal movie clips, audio clips, TV shows etc gone. This will never happen. The media industry is big but the internet industry is even bigger and they've just started to grow. What we're seeing now is the "old" industry being forced (by law) to accept that the internet is now boss and that they will have to start kissing some ass to survive. At least that is what I take from all this.
If you're from Sweden you probably know better but the way it is communicated to the outside the Swedes like their freedom and refuse to have this kind of stuff be an offence. On top of that, if they changed the EU directive or swedish law so that service providers are then liable for the content, Google and basically any other internet company would be screwed. How would they control and sort out all illegal materials without censoring? How would Google be still top search engine if you couldn't find anything. Think about Youtube
Re:Doesn't matter (Score:4, Funny)
There's always Sealand! :D
Oh, wait..
Well, at least they tried.
Re:Doesn't matter (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
If The Pirate Bay wins, the swedish laws will be changed to make sure what they've been doing would be an offence had they done it under the new law.
Unlike the United States, most countries (ie the ones that don't boast about being "free" but actually ARE) cannot apply laws to you in a retroactive manner.
Surprisingly, (Score:2)
It seems like the Pirate Bay has competent (or possible even good) lawyers.
Good for them. Good lawyers certainly don't come cheap.
Not out of the woods.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
While they got a lot of attention some time ago, nowadays they aren't heard of too often. So, Pirats, get off you behinds and lobby!
WTF ... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
In Real Life, Away From Keyboard.
To me, AFK has always meant the same as BRB (Be Right Back) .. along with a little "don't fuck with me while I'm gone please" when appropriate.. say, when you're playing an RPG (Role Playing Game). So to say you'd meet someone AFK is a little strange, to me, but hey, these dudes are Swedes, I'm sure they say a lot of stuff that is strange, to me.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I think you'll get different interpretations depending on who you ask. Thus my opinion follows:
AFK to me means I have to pause this for a bit while I work on something else. with no definite timeframe in my returning. You can go AFK to go to the bathroom, or to go shopping, or to go to bed. It implies you might return. (but would not be entirely unexpected to see you logout later without returning) It's a warning that you're not going to be around for awhile, and to continue without you with no commitm
Re: (Score:2)
IRL==In Real Life
AFK==Away From Keyboard
Richard Koman (Score:2)
This Richard Koman doesn't know shit. The reasoning, is explained below. He should be quiet because as a lawyer, it's usually not safe to give a legal opinion if you have no knowledge of it.
Here we have a english speaking, US lawyer commenting on a swedish case? That's like me saying that I know everything about US laws if that's not even my job. Last I checked, US and Swedish laws are not even remotely the same.
Does anyone remember what happened the last time a US justice made a comment about stuff that go
AFK, not IRL (Score:2)
... because this IS my real life, you insensitive clod!
discovery? (Score:2)
I'm definitely not a lawyer, but I though the "discovery" phase of the trial, (an early one) was the only normal time to introduce evidence? The whole point being not to waste the court's time dragging out a lengthy trial when the prosecution or defense is holding back some key piece of evidence that could instantly cause charges to be dropped or a plea bargain to be accepted?
Shouldn't the judge have to make an exception for introduction of new evidence not included in discovery after discovery is over?
Re: (Score:2)
You mean like this [mp3newswire.net] or this [torrentfreak.com]?