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

from the well,-look-at-that dept

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.

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

Legal Questions About Facebook's Blocking Of Links To The Pirate Bay

from the is-that-legal? dept

Last month, the news broke that Facebook had started blocking any and all links to The Pirate Bay... including links in private messages between two users. Wired is now exploring whether or not Facebook has violated the law in censoring private communications between two people. While I find Facebook's actions to be questionable, I can't see how/why they'd be illegal. It's just an automated filter. The EFF is suggesting it might violate wiretapping laws by "looking at" private messages, but if that's true, any ISP-level spam filter probably faces the same legal questions.

That said, what is troubling is Facebook's defense of the policy, claiming that it is allowed to do so, because under its terms of service, it says users cannot "disseminate spammy, illegal, threatening or harassing content." But, as the Wired article shows, there's plenty of legit content on The Pirate Bay as well. The reporter and his editor tried to send a link via private message to a public domain book on The Pirate Bay, and had it rejected, claiming that it was an abuse and the sender would be reported. While Facebook has a right to decide how it runs its service, it's quite disappointing that it would outright declare any link to The Pirate Bay to be somehow illegal. That's simply not true.

Filed Under: blocks, wiretapping
Companies: facebook, the pirate bay

Pirate Bay Verdict May Actually Lead To Pirate Party Official Joining European Parliament

from the you've-started-a-movement dept

While the entertainment industry still really seems to think that the disputed verdict in the Pirate Bay trial was a victory, most folks who can look beyond the immediate ruling have recognized what a horrific loss this has been for the industry. On the technology side, it's done nothing of importance. Even if The Pirate Bay is eventually shut down, there are at least a dozen other sites to step in and take up the slack. On the business model side, shutting down The Pirate Bay will do nothing to fix a seriously broken business model. But, perhaps most important of all, the industry is pushing more and more people over the edge, from indifferent to the industry, to actively working against the industry. I expected the uselessness of the verdict when it came to tech and business models, but I didn't realize that it would energize people on the political side as well.

There's been lots of talk about how the verdict massively increased the number of Swedes joining The Pirate Party, but the big question is whether or not it will be enough people to make a difference, and will they actually follow through. The initial showings are impressive. A new political poll shows that the party's popularity has grown tremendously, to the point that if a vote were held today, The Pirate Party would gain a seat in the European Parliament. It's now become the second largest party for voters in the 18 to 29 age group. This isn't just a random fringe group that the industry (and other politicians) can completely dismiss. It is still small, but what's amazing is how the industry's blatant shortsightedness has given rise to an entire political movement that keeps attracting more and more members. It seems likely that the entertainment industry still doesn't realize what sort of backlash it's creating, but at some point, it might want to start paying attention.

Filed Under: europe, european parliament, pirate party, sweden
Companies: the pirate bay

Best-Selling Swedish Author Torrents Her Own Audio Book To Protest Pirate Bay Ruling

from the legitimate-uses dept

We've already seen that plenty of content creators use The Pirate Bay for legitimate distribution and promotion purposes, and now Dan writes in to alert us that a best-selling author in Sweden, Unni Drougge, is so annoyed by The Pirate Bay verdict, that she made an audiobook version of her best-selling recent novel and put up a torrent via The Pirate Bay, along with a "manifesto" in support of free file sharing. Apparently, this is getting her plenty of attention, as her book has jumped to the top of the audiobooks list (what were people saying, that the top downloaded lists never include authorized content?).

Filed Under: authors, books, protest, torrents, unni drougge
Companies: the pirate bay

Google Denies Similarities To The Pirate Bay

from the good-luck-with-that dept

There's been a lot of talk recently from supporters of The Pirate Bay about how the ruling against the site is bad news for Google, because that site can be used just like The Pirate Bay -- and plenty of folks have set up custom searches via Google's tools that limit search results to Torrent files. A Google representative from Italy has finally spoken up about this, claiming (as did the entertainment industry at the trial) that Google is different because it actually honors takedown requests, unlike The Pirate Bay, who tends to ridicule takedown requests. It is, in fact, true, that this is a difference, though in real terms in means very little, since content taken down seems to reappear pretty quickly elsewhere. But if that's the only point of differentiation, it raises additional questions of why the law should state that a company in one industry needs to protect the business models of companies in another industry. From a technical perspective, what the two sites do is quite similar: point you to locations where you can find the content you want. Neither breaks copyright law specifically itself.

Some say that Google's willingness to take down links, compared to The Pirate Bay's decision to flaunt them, shows something about intent, and suggests The Pirate Bay team is guilty of some sort of contributory copyright infringement, in "inducing" or encouraging people to break copyright law, but it's quite troubling when someone can be blamed for a crime not for actually committing it, but for producing the technological tools that make the crime possible. What you're left with is a judgment call on intent, and that's particularly troubling when it comes to tools, where part of the interest for the toolmakers is in just enabling technology to do what it can. Suddenly enabling something that disrupts another's business model by creating a more economical and efficient system shouldn't be considered illegal. It's what we normally call progress.

Filed Under: copyright, search engines, torrents
Companies: google, the pirate bay

The Pirate Bay IP Addresses Point To Prosecution Lawyers

from the funny-stuff dept

In a somewhat amusing joke, it looks like the folks behind The Pirate Bay have had their latest IPs listed as being controlled by the law firms involved in the prosecution against them. Some thought that somehow the law firms had taken control over the IP addresses, but it appears to be much more of a joke by The Pirate Bay folks, showing the prosecutors how IP info isn't universal truth. However, the timing of this little prank may have been a bit off, as The Pirate Bay site has been experiencing some downtime due to ISP issues totally unrelated to the IP addresses or to the trial (though, it didn't stop someone from emailing me that The Pirate Bay had been down for all of three minutes and something must be wrong!!!).

Filed Under: ip addresses
Companies: the pirate bay

Maybe The Pirate Bay Should Just Pay Hollywood For All The Advertising It's Done

from the this-isn't-going-to-end-well... dept

While The Pirate Bay ruling is now quite tainted, and about to go through at least an appeal if not a full retrial, it seems that the entertainment industry has wasted no time at all using the ruling to threaten a bunch of other sites, telling them that the're next if they don't shut down. In fact, some already are shutting down, as they'd rather not deal with a similar lawsuit.

Obviously, the entertainment industry still thinks it won this case. But, as we noted when the ruling came out, it's actually quite a loss for the industry, because it makes them think the legal response is working. Their reaction to the result highlights that. But look a bit closer at the details and you realize just how badly the industry is shooting itself in the foot (repeatedly). Lots of people have pointed to the fact that the Pirate Party in Sweden has rapidly grown in membership, making it one of the larger political parties in the country, and its political ambitions are growing.

But... even more interesting, as pointed out by Michael Scott is the news that The Pirate Bay itself has seen its own traffic and popularity grow noticeably thanks to the trial. Once again, the entertainment industry's strategy has only driven more people to find out about the site and what it does. What's amazing is that the entertainment industry should already know this. After all, what kicked this whole trial off was a big raid which briefly shut down The Pirate Bay, but which also put the site into the worldwide media, and massively increased awareness of the site... a trend that only grew as the press coverage continued.

By far, the biggest promoter of The Pirate Bay has been the entertainment industry itself. If the Pirate Bay guys owe the entertainment industry any money at all, it should be for all the promoting the entertainment industry has done for the site.

Meanwhile, as Hollywood stupidly celebrates all this as a victory, others are noting that the next generation of file sharing systems coming down the road will be nearly impossible for the entertainment industry to stop. The entertainment industry doesn't even realize what battle it's fighting, which is why it still thinks this trial has been a victory.

Filed Under: entertainment industry, publicity
Companies: the pirate bay

Judge In Pirate Bay Case Appears To Have Ties To The Copyright Lobby

from the ooops dept

Via Martin Thornkvist, we find out that Swedish Public radio has discovered that the judge in The Pirate Bay case apparently has some ties to the copyright lobby (that's a Google translation -- if you know Swedish, the original is here). Apparently, he's a member of a few organizations that work towards strengthening copyright laws, and even holds a board position in one of those organizations. The lawyers representing the entertainment industry also belonged to one of the pro-copyright organizations in which the judge is a member. Experts quoted in the article note that this is highly irregular, and the judge should have recused himself for conflict of interest. The judge, of course, claims that he doesn't believe he was biased at all, but others note that any hint of bias is a problem in such a legal case (let alone such a high profile one).

Filed Under: conflict of interest, copyright, copyright lobby, judge, sweden, trial
Companies: the pirate bay

Paul McCartney's Confused About The Pirate Bay

from the speaking-out-of-turn dept

Paul McCartney is making some news by speaking out in favor of The Pirate Bay verdict, claiming he thought it was "fair," but the details of his comments suggests he is speaking about these things without being particularly knowledgeable about what The Pirate Bay does or is.

"Anyone who does something good, particularly if you get really lucky and do a great artistic thing and have a mega hit, I think you should get rewarded for that. I'm in favour of that sort of thing."

He says that as if there is anyone out there who claims that artists shouldn't get "rewarded" for doing something great. The problem is no one is saying that. We're just debating how they will (not should) get rewarded. And, of course, plenty of artists who embrace things like The Pirate Bay are getting rewarded for doing so. Claiming that they're not is simply false and suggests ignorance of the subject.

"The problem is you get a lot of young bands coming up and some of them aren't going to last forever so if they have a massive hit that's going to pay their mortgage forever. They're going to feed the children on that and if they don't get that money, if they don't see that money, I think it's a bit of a pity."

It's a pity that they might actually have to continue working, rather than living off one single hit? Perhaps we have different ways of thinking about things, but I think it's a much bigger pity when you think about all the musicians in the past who didn't have a wonderful free promotion and distribution system, and were unable to make any money because they were limited by gatekeepers known as the major record labels.

The fact that new musicians are popping up today and getting attention and (yes) making a living by embracing these tools and using them to their advantage, again, suggests that McCartney is speaking from a position of ignorance rather than knowledge.

"I've been very lucky because my main era with the Beatles was at a time when everyone did get paid."

That's simply not true. Most bands of his era did not get paid. That's because the only path to getting paid was to sign to a record label, and many bands were unable to do that. Today, on the other hand, bands have many more options to create their music, to distribute it, to promote it and to get paid for it. And one of those tools is The Pirate Bay... which McCartney wants to take away.

Filed Under: business models, file sharing, music, paul mccartney
Companies: the pirate bay

Press Finally Realizing That Google Can Do Anything The Pirate Bay Did

from the nice-victory dept

With the entertainment industry all excited about the supposed "win" in The Pirate Bay case in Sweden, it appears that some in the media are recognizing what plenty of people have been pointing out for years: you can find most of the same stuff via Google. This was actually a point brought up during the trial, to which the industry responded that Google took down links on request -- which is true, but doesn't change the fact that similar links pop back up just as quickly. At some point, eventually, you'll have to believe that the industry will go after Google for this, and Google will have a much stronger defense. It certainly doesn't violate the Grokster made-up "inducement" standard. It's pretty clearly protected by DMCA safe harbors otherwise. So, what will the industry come up with next? It'll be some novel legal theory, certainly, but somehow it won't be a novel business model. The industry doesn't do that sorta thing.

Filed Under: file sharing, search engines
Companies: google, the pirate bay