Person In Charge Of Determining If Pirate Bay Judge Is Biased... May Be Biased

from the well,-look-at-that dept

Wed, May 20th 2009 4:19am — Mike Masnick

As Swedish officials are looking into charges that the judge in The Pirate Bay trial was biased, there's now some concern that the person in charge of figuring out whether he was biased... might be biased as well. Apparently, he serves on a board with the main lawyers who argued the case for the entertainment industry (and two of their main assistants). Of course, in legal circles you do end up getting to know others in the field, but as brokep from The Pirate Bay notes: "Not any of OUR lawyers are on that board. But two of the opponents lawyers in the same board." Considering that officials should be trying to make it clear that there's no bias, it seems like they should pick someone who has no direct ties to the attorneys involved in the case. Brokep also has some fun in noting that it was simple to find this info on Google, and he's surprised that no one else had done such a simple search yet.

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Filed Under: anders eka, bias, copyright, lawsuits, sweden
Companies: the pirate bay

23 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 20 May 2009 @ 4:32am

he's surprised that no one else had done such a simple search yet

Maybe they were searching the torrents instead of google?
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Anonymous Coward, 20 May 2009 @ 5:25am

Re:
rofl AC
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sycarion, 20 May 2009 @ 5:51am

sacking
Obligatory MP quote:

We apologise again for the fault in judge bias. Those
responsible for sacking the people who have just been sacked
have been sacked.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 May 2009 @ 5:53am

One would think that they would go out of their way to avoid even the appearance of impropriety.

Oh well. Another kangaroo court
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gabriella, 20 May 2009 @ 6:14am

JUST SPOKE TO EKA HIMSELF
i just sopke to mr Eka himself:
http://www.ment.se/node/8103

just use google translate if yous cant read swedish
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chris (profile), 20 May 2009 @ 6:23am

Re:
One would think that they would go out of their way to avoid even the appearance of impropriety.

this whole proceeding is a farce and underscores pretty much all of the complexities that surround the politics of file sharing.

in their race to over simplify the issue, the copyright lobby (and by proxy, their coin operated government puppets) have consistently underestimated the intelligence, passion, and tenacity of the people they are fighting.

the prevailing attitude among the content industry has been one of willful ignorance to the fact that this is a political movement that isn't going to just go away.
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Tgeigs, 20 May 2009 @ 6:40am

Re: JUST SPOKE TO EKA HIMSELF
There's a Swedish language? I thought you all just bumble talked like the chef from the Muppets...

Love your women though. Seriously....
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Anonymous Coward, 20 May 2009 @ 7:24am

Its amazing how much influence you can have when you have had windfall profits for years. Sometimes it seems like the recording industry has purchased the government and legal system.
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Anonymous2, 20 May 2009 @ 7:42am

Re:
What do you mean "sometimes?"
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Tor, 20 May 2009 @ 7:47am

I think the bias allegations are a bit exaggerated this time around, but it's still surprising that they didn't try to google the connection themselves. Seems like an easy thing to do.

Here's a translation of Mr. Eka's response from the article linked above:

"- The reason I am included on the list is because I was part of a reference group that discussed projects related to free speech and issues related to printed media"

"- I have deemed that I have no connection to copyrighted material since I never have been involved in such matters. In addition, I have only attended one meeting at this group and that was two years ago if I remember it correctly."

Although I have mixed emotions about involvement in the Swedish Copyright Association, if what mr. Eka says above is correct it doesn't seem very troubling. But it's still a surprise that they didn't check this in advance.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 May 2009 @ 8:05am

Still, if this judge finds there to be no bias, TPB can appeal this decision too.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 May 2009 @ 8:08am

tpb cant win on merit so they try to win on political crap. weenies.
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Tor, 20 May 2009 @ 8:12am

Re: political crap
If anyone politicised the trial it was the plaintiff lawyers who brought up and questioned the TPB guys' political views on copyright.

I fail to see how the issue of unpartiality is related to politics though.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 May 2009 @ 8:17am

Re:
Why would it be a surprise? They hate the internet, one would assume they don't have a clue in how to use it.
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DJ, 20 May 2009 @ 11:32am

Re: Re:
I think y'all are forgetting that Google is going by the wayside and will not be sorely missed....
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DJ, 20 May 2009 @ 11:33am

Re: Re:
oh yeah, and that "Web 2.0" itself is just a passing fad.
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Jason, 20 May 2009 @ 11:41am

Re: Re: Re:
Pshh! For what? Wolfram Alpha? What a joke!
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bshock, 20 May 2009 @ 2:12pm

surprised that no one had done a simple search?
Lack of research doesn't seem all that surprising to me, at least in this case. As I recall from the Pirate Bay trial, the prosecution apparently hadn't done sufficient basic research on the nature of BitTorrent or the Pirate Bay system itself.

I suspect that Internet denizens have different -- hopefully better -- standards on what constitutes research.

As a middle-aged person, occasionally I still find myself following stupid old patterns for obtaining information. For most of my life, there was no Web, no Google, no Wikipedia, etc. All we could do was slog to the library and make phone calls, and half the time these approaches were fruitless.

While I've mostly trained myself to Google a question of fact before going off like a half-cocked idiot, I suspect that not everyone my age or older has been quite so fortunate.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 May 2009 @ 4:43pm

Re: surprised that no one had done a simple search?
the basic nature of bittorrent isn't very relevant in the end. how the bits move isn't important, how the bits were found is. The intent of pirate bay is to share stolen stuff. their top listings are all pirated software dvd rips and so on. intent is the key here. bittorrent as a protocol isn't on trial.
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ranon, 20 May 2009 @ 6:00pm

some more evidence
http://blog.brokep.com/2009/05/20/another-one/
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Tgeigs, 21 May 2009 @ 6:25am

Re: Re: surprised that no one had done a simple search?
Yeah! Like Linux apps, etc.

Ass.
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Anonymous Coward, 21 May 2009 @ 9:48am

Re: Re: surprised that no one had done a simple search?
The intent of pirate bay is to share stolen stuff.

Huh? How's that?
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Another corrupt Judge, 25 Jun 2009 @ 9:42am

This was my fave.

"I have deemed that I have no connection to copyrighted material since blah blah blah."

Thats like me saying "I have deemed that I have never used the internets, that I have never read a book or watched TV"
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