I'm quite (although not 100%) sure that evidence based on the contents of the hard drives is valid in a Swedish court. We have no concept of "objection, your honour" here. I think the evidence is practically only limited to materials that are not covered by a doctor's or lawyer's confidentiality.
For example, there is Swedish case law that establishes that if the police use wire-tapping based on suspicion of a certain crime and the tapped calls reveal a completely different type of crime, then that evidence may still be used in court.
I wonder how the court could reach that conclusion. Here is what the E-commerce directive says:
Article 13 - "Caching"
1. Where an information society service is provided that consists of the transmission in a communication network of information provided by a recipient of the service, Member States shall ensure that the service provider is not liable for the automatic, intermediate and temporary storage of that information, performed for the sole purpose of making more efficient the information's onward transmission to other recipients of the service upon their request, on condition that:
(a) the provider does not modify the information;
(b) the provider complies with conditions on access to the information;
(c) the provider complies with rules regarding the updating of the information, specified in a manner widely recognised and used by industry;
(d) the provider does not interfere with the lawful use of technology, widely recognised and used by industry, to obtain data on the use of the information; and
(e) the provider acts expeditiously to remove or to disable access to the information it has stored upon obtaining actual knowledge of the fact that the information at the initial source of the transmission has been removed from the network, or access to it has been disabled, or that a court or an administrative authority has ordered such removal or disablement.
Now one could perhaps assume that the court is referring to either (b) or (e) here, but to my knowledge Yahoo only provides links in this case. If a link that leads to infringing material is openly published I cannot see how (b) could apply. Surely the copyright owner cannot claim that Yahoo violated an access condition in collecting the link when it was openly published by a third party. If the court felt that (e) applies then it's very difficult to see why this should apply transitively.
Personally I'm skeptical to whether article 13 should be applied to the links that search engines provide.
If you are a busy person then the cost of getting interrupted will probably be higher than the cost of the call (in terms of what the phone company charges). In that sense, making an unscheduled phone call is somewhat akin to making a collect call, i.e. making something at the expense of the receiver.
I watched an interesting documentary about Hans Rosling's life and work where he said that if you multiplied the huge number of views of that TED talk by the few number of minutes it lasts, then that short video clip in terms of total teaching hours outweighed all the teaching that he had done throughout his entire career, which he believed to be a quite humbling thought.
I'd argue that NBC firing the guy for posting this video to YouTube suggests an organization even more confused about the internet than either Couric or Gumbel in this clip
Those who believe that creators should have the right to capture the full value of their works indeed ignore the natural spillover effects and if you think about it a natural extension of that thought would be that we do away with antitrust law. After all, without antitrust laws it would be easier for companies to capture something that's closer to the full value of what they provide rather than consumers getting access to the spillover effects of that production.
Now, of course not everyone supports antitrust laws, but probably many of those who support extensive fiddling with the market as with the copyright laws of today do, so I think the argument could work on them.
"Considering that Assange was hiding out in the UK and was purposely avoiding returning to Sweden suggests that he has no interest in answering their questions"
Not at all. He wanted to answer the questions. He apparently just didn't want to travel to Sweden for some reason.
I guess that depends on whether the prosecutor would charge him or not after the questioning, so it's difficult to know. With the whole world following the matter I guess the prosecutor would try to make a decision quite speedily though.
Assuming that Assange's lawyer has not been misunderstood by the media I must say I found some of his statements a bit odd. And the fact that Sweden cannot extradite Assange to the US if he was first extradited to Sweden for another reason that is as far as I understand governed by European rules, so shouldn't a lawyer be aware of that?
I do understand that Assange may feel let down by Swedish authorities that unlawfully leaked personal information to the press and in many other ways seem to act quite unpredictably.
Slightly off-topic, but there was an interesting article (machine-translated from Swedish) published some days ago that I didn't notice until now.
Apparently, if the UK extradicts Assange to Sweden then any question about an extradiction to the U.S would be up to the UK to decide about up. That would apply until some weeks after the sexual crime allegations have been cleared up. Maybe Assange would even be safer from the US in Sweden, since he might then have two layers of protection.
Why would the judicial branch of the Swedish government be aware of discussions between the executive branches of the US and Swedish government?
I strongly doubt that unless it would be information used as evidence in a trial, but I'm not a lawyer or anything so it's only based on my understanding of it.
If the government finds it obvious that there is not enough reason to grant an extradiction request it can deny it immediately. If it doesn't the case it tried by the supreme court. Even if the supreme court would not find any legal reasons to deny an extradiction the government may still (after the trial) deny extradiction. According to the Swedish Government's page about extradiction "Extradition is permitted, provided that the act for which extradition is requested is equivalent to a crime that is punishable under Swedish law by imprisonment for at least one year."
"The report also delves into the hurdles to having Assange extradited to the US (something the US is apparently already discussing with the Swedish government)"
For what it's worth the swedish minister of foreign affairs has officially denied (article is in Swedish) any such discussions pointing out that "we have an independent judical system that acts on its own accord in accordance with the law and does not have contacts with swedish political instances".
Now it's of course difficult to know whether that's true or not, but I would venture to guess that the political price of being exposed having such discussions would be quite high since I think the public support for Wikileaks is strong in Sweden and the government has recently tried hard to not upset the public opinion in issues regarding the right to personal privacy and transparency, ever since the public outcry after the wiretapping laws it was responsible for two years ago.
"Wikileaks Leak Suggests Hollywood Is Better At Preventing Terrorism Than The TSA"
The tougher question is which one is best at coming up with movie plot threats? ;)
Seriously though, this is an interesting perspective. I wonder if we haven't seen a transition from poor people envying the living standard in the USA to people in other countries being fascinated by american life style and values. I heard a foreign reporter some time ago talk about how big influence american soap operas had on people's ideas about gender equality in some arabic countries.
Well, I don't think it's meant as a legal license, but more as a way to bring attention to the importance of sharing and that it is as an act that is rewarding to all parties involved - just like the Poetic License (a very nice interpretation of the BSD license) is not meant to be used as a legal tool.
One of the linked articles claims that Assange has been charged with "sex by surprise". This is completely wrong. There is no such crime as "sex by surprise" in Swedish legislation. Rather there is a slang term more correctly translated as "surprise sex" that means "rape". It would never be used in any formal context (see this blog post).
Being a swede myself I can tell you that there are some real problems with the Swedish legal system related to sexual crimes. The former Ombudsmen for Justice got a lot of critique for saying that he believed that there are innocent people in Swedish prisons and stressed the importance of keeping the legal procedure standards high.
So I would urge people to not be so quick to see conspiracies in every corner. There are actually some other good explanations:
* an imperfect legal system regarding due process in cases of allegations of a sexual crimes.
* a prosecutor who wants to further her career
* the girls' laywer is a highly political figure with some quite radical ideas (for example he wanted Sweden to boycott a soccer world championship in Germany in order to protest against the situation of sexually exploited women there).
The reason that the prosecutor wants to hold the interrogation in Sweden is probably because she wants to have the possibility of arresting him if their suspicision of crime is strengthened by the interview. Assange's swedish lawyer Björn Hurtig has however referred to a case where the Swedish High Court found that a man who lived in Dubai and was suspected of tax evation of some 17 million SEK should not be arrested in his absense since he had been free to leave Sweden at the time (just like Assange got an ok from the prosecutor to leave Sweden) and had volunteered to be part of questioning over the phone (just like Assange). The court found that an arrest would lead to unnecessary inconveniences and costs for the man.
As far as I can see the Finnish Pirate Party does not have trademark reform on its agenda, so pretending that they do indeed seems to be a misrepresentation of their politics. I seriously doubt that the statement in this case is libelous however. Normally there is an extra wide margin of tolerance in the context of political speech.
Regarding the European situation another document that is interesting is the resolution on ACTA (pdf) proposed by the green group in the EU parliament. Proposed resolutions will be handled at the parliamentary session next week.
I searched for the story and found it covered in what I would regard as a trustworthy local newspaper (article is in Swedish), so even though it seems unlikely with so considerate thieves my best guess is that the story is true. Here's what Wikipedia has to say about the newspaper.
On the post: IFPI Convinces ISP To Just Hand Over Hard Drives Of Torrent Site
Re: Get out of jail free.
For example, there is Swedish case law that establishes that if the police use wire-tapping based on suspicion of a certain crime and the tapped calls reveal a completely different type of crime, then that evidence may still be used in court.
On the post: Italian Court Says Yahoo Is Liable For People Finding Infringing Movie Via Its Search
Now one could perhaps assume that the court is referring to either (b) or (e) here, but to my knowledge Yahoo only provides links in this case. If a link that leads to infringing material is openly published I cannot see how (b) could apply. Surely the copyright owner cannot claim that Yahoo violated an access condition in collecting the link when it was openly published by a third party. If the court felt that (e) applies then it's very difficult to see why this should apply transitively.
Personally I'm skeptical to whether article 13 should be applied to the links that search engines provide.
On the post: Phone Calls Are So Last Century
On the post: DailyDirt: Some Nice Graphs....
On the post: NBC Fires Guy Who Posted The Bryant Gumbel/Katie Couric 'What Is Internet' Video
One just got to love that quote. Spot on!
On the post: Swedish ISP Will Automatically Encrypt All Traffic To Protect Privacy Under New Data Retention Laws
Re:
On the post: Harvard Newspaper Staff Apparently In Need Of A Lesson On Copyright Basics
Capturing the full value of what one creates
Now, of course not everyone supports antitrust laws, but probably many of those who support extensive fiddling with the market as with the copyright laws of today do, so I think the argument could work on them.
On the post: US Looking To Use Computer Hacking Law Against Assange
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Not at all. He wanted to answer the questions. He apparently just didn't want to travel to Sweden for some reason.
On the post: US Looking To Use Computer Hacking Law Against Assange
Re: Re:
Btw. it has also been said that Sweden appealed against the bail decision but the prosecutor claims that this is not true. I'm not sure what's true in this case. However I know that some other widespread claims that Assange is charged "sex by surprise" is false. There is no such charge in Sweden.
Assuming that Assange's lawyer has not been misunderstood by the media I must say I found some of his statements a bit odd. And the fact that Sweden cannot extradite Assange to the US if he was first extradited to Sweden for another reason that is as far as I understand governed by European rules, so shouldn't a lawyer be aware of that?
I do understand that Assange may feel let down by Swedish authorities that unlawfully leaked personal information to the press and in many other ways seem to act quite unpredictably.
On the post: US Looking To Use Computer Hacking Law Against Assange
Re:
On the post: US Looking To Use Computer Hacking Law Against Assange
Apparently, if the UK extradicts Assange to Sweden then any question about an extradiction to the U.S would be up to the UK to decide about up. That would apply until some weeks after the sexual crime allegations have been cleared up. Maybe Assange would even be safer from the US in Sweden, since he might then have two layers of protection.
On the post: Congressional Research Service Notes That There Are Serious Challenges To Charging Assange
Re: Re:
I strongly doubt that unless it would be information used as evidence in a trial, but I'm not a lawyer or anything so it's only based on my understanding of it.
If the government finds it obvious that there is not enough reason to grant an extradiction request it can deny it immediately. If it doesn't the case it tried by the supreme court. Even if the supreme court would not find any legal reasons to deny an extradiction the government may still (after the trial) deny extradiction. According to the Swedish Government's page about extradiction "Extradition is permitted, provided that the act for which extradition is requested is equivalent to a crime that is punishable under Swedish law by imprisonment for at least one year."
On the post: Congressional Research Service Notes That There Are Serious Challenges To Charging Assange
For what it's worth the swedish minister of foreign affairs has officially denied (article is in Swedish) any such discussions pointing out that "we have an independent judical system that acts on its own accord in accordance with the law and does not have contacts with swedish political instances".
Now it's of course difficult to know whether that's true or not, but I would venture to guess that the political price of being exposed having such discussions would be quite high since I think the public support for Wikileaks is strong in Sweden and the government has recently tried hard to not upset the public opinion in issues regarding the right to personal privacy and transparency, ever since the public outcry after the wiretapping laws it was responsible for two years ago.
On the post: Wikileaks Leak Suggests Hollywood Is Better At Preventing Terrorism Than The TSA
The tougher question is which one is best at coming up with movie plot threats? ;)
Seriously though, this is an interesting perspective. I wonder if we haven't seen a transition from poor people envying the living standard in the USA to people in other countries being fascinated by american life style and values. I heard a foreign reporter some time ago talk about how big influence american soap operas had on people's ideas about gender equality in some arabic countries.
On the post: Copyheart: Encouraging People To Copy
Re: No, thank you.
On the post: On The Arrest Of Julian Assange
No such crime as "sex by surprise"
On the post: On The Arrest Of Julian Assange
So I would urge people to not be so quick to see conspiracies in every corner. There are actually some other good explanations:
* an imperfect legal system regarding due process in cases of allegations of a sexual crimes.
* a prosecutor who wants to further her career
* the girls' laywer is a highly political figure with some quite radical ideas (for example he wanted Sweden to boycott a soccer world championship in Germany in order to protest against the situation of sexually exploited women there).
The reason that the prosecutor wants to hold the interrogation in Sweden is probably because she wants to have the possibility of arresting him if their suspicision of crime is strengthened by the interview. Assange's swedish lawyer Björn Hurtig has however referred to a case where the Swedish High Court found that a man who lived in Dubai and was suspected of tax evation of some 17 million SEK should not be arrested in his absense since he had been free to leave Sweden at the time (just like Assange got an ok from the prosecutor to leave Sweden) and had volunteered to be part of questioning over the phone (just like Assange). The court found that an arrest would lead to unnecessary inconveniences and costs for the man.
On the post: There Can Be Only One New Finland?
Re: Swipe?
On the post: ACTA's Non-Final 'Final' Text Still Has Issues
European Parliament ACTA resolution proposal
On the post: Thief Steals Computer... Then Sends Its Owner USB Stick With All His Lost Data
Next >>