Pirate Bay Appeal Lay Judge Employed By Spotify?
from the a-bit-of-bias dept
There have been all sorts of questions about unfair bias in the Swedish trial against The Pirate Bay and its founders, and the latest claim is that one of the "lay judges" on the appeal is employed by Spotify, currently a music industry darling trying to set up a licensed, authorized online music streaming system. Given that Spotify could reasonably see sites like The Pirate Bay as somewhat competitive, and that it counts major record labels among its ownership, it's hard to see how allowing an employee to be on the lay judge panel (sort of, but not really, the equivalent of a jury) is even close to fair.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: bias, copyright, lawsuits, sweden
Companies: spotify, the pirate bay
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Bias?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Ok, honestly...
This travesty of a "justice" system is beginning to make me sick. I'm not familiar with Swedish law, but what kind of business law system are you going to expect when judges can be employed by anyone but the Justice System?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Cue..
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Excellent Example
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Lessig is right
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Capitalism!
Long live capitalism!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Capitalism!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Capitalism!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Swedish Judges
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
It's too bad that this lay judge probably will be removed though (but I do agree it's natural considering his employee). I have met him a couple of times and he is a really smart guy with a Master of Engineering degree in computer science currently studying for a doctor's degree (game theory if I remember correctly). His team of programmers came third in the IOPC - International Online Programming Contest 2007 and won another worldwide programming competition the same year.
The main focus is the law of course, but still - his technical knowledge would have been useful. Personally, I believe that he is impartial (based on having met him and listening to a radio interview with him about this case), but that is not enough - a lay judge also needs to appear unbiased to the general public. I would guess that TPB is worse off without him though.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
In the earlier trial the problem was that the main judge had a side occupation which he failed to inform the parties of in advance. Such side occupations is something which I can agree with you could be problematic in certain cases. I haven't read anything that indicates that it is very common though, so I wouldn't draw any general conclusions from that isolated case.
Lay judges and the real judges have an equal say and they serve as representatives for the people, just like jurors do. In Sweden we have three levels in our court system. In the lowest court the lay judges are in majority, in the middle court the professional judges are in majority and in the highest court there are only professional judges.
The problem with bias I think is that the people involved ask themselves whether they are partial or not, but do not really evaluate whether they also appear to be impartial from the point of view of the public and the parties involved. Just being impartial is not enough. People also needs to believe that you are.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Wow
Now if they just spent half that much effort into actually adapting to the times ...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Wow
Sorry, but that doesn't make much sense.
I don't know why it took that long to prepare the case either, but I think it would be more reasonable to blame the prosecutor. I'm not sure if the fact that the criminal and civil charges were tried at the same time delayed the civil case somehow.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Wow
Yeah, in an attempt to minimize their damages after they realized they weren't going to get away with it.
Sorry, but that doesn't make much sense.
Makes perfect sense.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Wow
That's a nice conspiracy theory, but I don't think there's anything to it. First of all, they didn't know that this lay judge was going to be assigned to the case. And secondly, he's a very free-thinking and independant person with lots of job opportunities so I highly doubt that they would be successful exercising influence on him.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Wow
You wish.
First of all, they didn't know that this lay judge was going to be assigned to the case.
Nah, it was just a "coincidence", huh?
And secondly, he's a very free-thinking and independant person with lots of job opportunities so I highly doubt that they would be successful exercising influence on him.
Hey, I'm "a very free-thinking and independant person" too, but I still know what kinds of things will and won't make my employer happy.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Wow
>>
>Nah, it was just a "coincidence", huh?
Well, I thought you might be going here, but I figured you might just as well show how conspiratoric you are yourself.
Yes, the assignment was a coincidence.
The courts use random selection all the time. Just imagine the PR damage it would do to IFPI if it came out that they had tried to influence the selection of judges. I don't believe they would take that risk (it wouldn't be worth it), and if they tried I don't think they would be successful.
I'm not naïve. I know of cases here in Sweden where the record company representatives have tried to twist the law. I just don't find your theory very likely in this case.
And if they had chosen the lay judge, why choose someone who stood out as one of the brightest students during his years at KTH (the Royal Academcy of Science in Stockholm) and is known to thousands of people thanks to his success in international programming contests? Why not choose a more low-profile colorless person? His connections with Spotify were bound to be highlighted.
Btw. I've seen multiple blog comments here and there saying things like "oh, this guy. Yeah I know him from my time at KTH".
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Lay judge co-owns patents with creator of uTorrent
Marcin de Kaminski writes in an article (google translation) that earlier the plaintiff's argument was that it is beneficial for judges to actively educate themselves by being part of for example the Swedish Copyright Association. Now, on the other hand, they seem to be afraid of this lay judge having relevant technical knowledge. Maybe only some knowledge from certain parties is good...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Lay judge co-owns patents with creator of uTorrent
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Lay judge co-owns patents with creator of uTorrent
Umm, no, they're objecting to his being employed by one of the parties in the case. I suppose you think criminal defendants should be allowed to sit on their own juries too, eh? I mean, who else would know more about their true guilt or innocence? What a load.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Lay judge co-owns patents with creator of uTorrent
Yes, but why are IFPI complaining about the lay judge being biased to their advantage? That's the question. The motives they present need not necessarily be the real motives.
I can identify three possible reasons:
1) they want a clear precedent and the discussions following the verdict to focus on the matter at hand so that they can also use that to put pressure on other sites
2) they realize the defendants will do it anyway, so if they do it first they come out looking better
3) they are afraid of this lay judge's technical knowledge, his background on the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) where students often have a more relaxed view on the whole file sharing issue, or by his relationship to the uTorrent author.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Get rid of our own judge rule
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Update: More bias accusations in the TPB case
Considering that the judge in the previous TPB trial was a member of both these organizations and had a position on the board of the latter one, one has to wonder if this will lead to anything. So far I think the defendants have not formally objected to the lay judge mentioned in the blog post above. Maybe they have changed their minds about him now that they know more about him.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Lay judge found to be biased due to being employed at Spotify
Google translated article.
No decision seems yet to have been made regarding on of the defendants' laywer's objection to two of the main judges for their connection to intellectual property organizations.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]