Warner Music Admits It Hired Police Investigator Before The Pirate Bay Investigation Was Complete
from the that's-not-good dept
Back in April, we wrote about the fact that a police investigator in Sweden who had been in charge of the case against The Pirate Bay had been hired by Warner Brothers. At the time, there was no proof that he had been hired during the investigation. In fact, it appeared otherwise. Based on this, I didn't see why this was such a problem -- though many people in the comments felt I was being naive. And, indeed, it turns out that a further investigation has now turned up the news that, in fact, the guy was hired while the investigation was ongoing. Though he's now left that job, this does call into question the entire investigation against The Pirate Bay.And while it turned out that I was wrong about what happened, based on the evidence at the time, I still believe that it was wrong to jump to conclusions about what Warner Music did without actual evidence. Jumping to conclusions without evidence is what the industry does. We should be above that. When the actual evidence is there, then we should be clear and call it out -- and indeed, finding out that Warner hired the guy in the middle of the investigation is a huge problem and should throw the entire case into question. But, let's hold ourselves to a higher standard than the entertainment industry, rather than stoop to their level.
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Filed Under: corruption, investigation
Companies: pirate bay, warner music group
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It's interesting to note that The Pirate Bay filed charges against a couple of music labels for hirering Media Defender to commit computer crime directed towards them. The investigation was dropped by this very same police man.
Btw. nowadays Google Translate supports translation from Swedish to English in case anyone wants to read the Swedish sources.
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But the accusation above was about when he was hired, not when he started work.
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I said it then I say it now
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Corruption or Treason?
http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fsydsvenskan.se%2Fnojen%2Farticle331913.ece& amp;hl=en&ie=UTF8&sl=sv&sl=es&tl=en&tl=en
http://sydsvenskan.se/nojen/article 331913.ece
I find the comments especially interesting. To us Americans, it is merely a case of police corruption, but to the Swedes, it is something far worse. The Swedes seem to think that the Swedish police officer Jim Keyzer "has turned Sweden into a banana republic." In other words, they are saying that he has turned Sweden into an American colony, that he is in fact a Quisling, that he knowingly committed treason against the Swedish state in the paid service of a foreign power, Warner Music. The traditional penalty for treason is "a long rope and a short drop." Keyser can presumably avoid being hanged, but he will probably have to leave Sweden and never return.
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With any other target, we may not have jumped to these conclusions. But, the RIAA occupy an unenviable position alongside Microsoft, SCO and Jack Thompson where jumping to the worst conclusion is all too often the correct thing to do.
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Tongue In Cheek
He gets a job with Warner but we are not to jump to any conclusions.
Warner is part of the same entertainment industry that lobbied for the DMCA, and now fails to live buy the same rules of that law. One thousands of occasions they (the entertainment industry) has done things outside the law. But we should not jump to conclusions. Thats a big LOL.
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I don't think Swedes see this primarily as a power struggle between countries and their legal systems, but rather as corruption of the police (uncovered cases of this are quite rare here) and legal system. And naturally there is a lot of frustration among people that this behaviour isn't seriously questioned by the police, prosecutors and leading politicians.
The Swedish minister of justice got a formal question from an MP about this when it was first revealed that the police was working at Warner Brothers. She replied that it was a good thing that police competence was being appreciated even outside the police authority and referred to a couple of laws that say that someone who works for the police may not simultaneously have other work that hurts the confidence in the police, and a police officer may not reveal or use/exploit any classified information he or she has gained access to during his/her employment. She also said then that there were no indications of any irregularities.
I wouldn't be surprised if she gets a new question after the uncovering of these latest facts. It will be interesting to see how that unfolds.
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Warner Warner Music
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To: Claes, #12
ADT
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"With regard to the corrupt society, it soon does not matter which country you live for the e exactly the same hypocrisy and diktaturfasoner everywhere" (Tired of Counterfeiting Folk 2008-06-06 02:26)
(Does "diktaturfasoner" mean what I think it means? )
"which says the U.S. government, military, which monitors the phones and police officers purchased by mutinationella companies. Yes Sweden is increasingly resemble a banana republic. [regering som lyder USA, militär som avlyssnar telefoner och poliser som köps av mutinationella företag. Ja Sverige börjar mer och mer likna en bananrepublik.]" (Kent 2008-06-06 00:57)
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" Did the police _verkligen_ him to leave rather than working for an American? Feel really that the police can-and should-call into question this man's right to leave! " (Micke - Malmo 2008-04-20 13:58)
"Greetings from Finland! [Jag är inte svenskspråkig men jag är intresserad om de här Piratebay case.]* I'm not English speaking but I'm interested about these Piratebay case. Hope you Swedes can do the only right thing: Piratebay is not guilty and antipiratbyrån and judgement major U.S. film industry, etc. är skyldiga. is guilty. Judgement is MAFFIAN!" (Kastelukannu - Turku, Finland 2008-04-18 19:50)
(* I speak a bit of German but I don't speak any Swedish. Is he saying that he is a Finnish-speaker?)
"Vidrigt, Sweden! How it works: 1.Håkan Roswall says in the Swedish Parliament that Piratebay not commit any crime. 2.Amerikansk lobby (media) put pressure on Swedish politicians and especially Bodström. 3.Bodström exercises ministerstyre and requires a switched on to Piratebay and the entire PRQ. 4.Håkan Roswall directs a switched on (where a number of Swedish company which has nothing at all to do with Piratebay). 5.De American media companies are buying the police the police handling the investigation. Troubled!" (Peter Swanstedt 2008-04-18 16:14)
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"Scandal. State investigators are employed by Hollywood - Time to put down the case - The Swedish state is a small pluttig majonett to American studios. SKANDAL!" (RB 2008-04-22 19:20)
"Not many of demokratik in our country =(... Christer! Try to understand: to "steal" anything is to take it away from someone else, to "copy" is to create an equal dan. The whole issue revolves around the limits of intellectual property yesterday. It is something that needs to be discussed democratically among the citizens (not decided on the power above our heads). Just because the leadership says one thing it does not mean that it is right that there should be so. [Hur hade du betett dig i Tyskland på 30-talet?] How did you behaved in Germany in 30 century? Consider yourself some time!" (Captain Svartskägg - The seven seas 2008-04-22 12:59)
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Weasel words
The second paragraph - "I wasn't really wrong, because I am naive".
Dude, when you are wrong - admit it, learn from it and move on.
It pretty clear that:
* you can't admit to being wrong,
* therefore you won't learn from being bamboozled,
* therefore you will make the same mistake again.
Don't worry it isn't against your manhood to admit when you are wrong.
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Re: Weasel words
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Um. I admitted I was wrong, and then did learn from it: I explained *why* I was wrong. It was because I didn't think it was proper to jump to a conclusion without the evidence.
You are saying that I should jump to conclusions without evidence?
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piling on has to stop
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Jumping?
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