Down To Business

The first week of The Pirate Bay trial showed us where both parties stand and it is miles apart. They can not even agree on which law should be applicable, the have or have not for the e-commerce law. This law, which as I understand it is based on EU directive, states the service provider is not liable for the information and goods transferred though its infrastructure. In short, it is like UPS cannot be held responsible if someone sends illegal drugs through their service. Another issue this merge of criminal and civil law for this trial which the defense is not happy with. One on the back ground comments from the defense lawyers when the lawyer Peter Danowsky (Ifpi) did his a la American style trial attempt with introducing new evidence during the trial was something like:

I warned the Court this would happened and I was right.

This indicates that there has been pre-trial discussion about this issue and there are a disagreement.

The upcoming week of the trial is even more important then last week. It is now the Prosecutor is going to present us the evidence through his witnesses. He has stated his case and is now going to attempt to back it up his charges.

During this critical cal part of the trial, I am moving back to London next week. This means I am going to have face this very awkward period of being without internet *shudders* I can’t promise that I can do live tweeting. Even though GMT is much better time zone to be in compared to PST to be in sync with the Trial, little good that does if I don’t have internet access. However (it is a good however) my great neighbor K has let me use her wifi before and I might be able to have some access.

But how this great group works, there is no dependence on just one person. There are a lot of great peeps on #spectrial covering this trial. I want to highlight a few but if you think I should add someone, please email me at blog {at} sofiak dot com !

matti_kolu on Twitter

Mahriman on Twitter

spectrial on twitter is great on keeping you up to day of all of the #spectrial

Here are some good blogs to keep an eye on: xthree and Don’t Panic and projO’s blog (Swedish but I think I read English translation too)

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Update: It is now 82 countries. w00t!!

This trial has a worldwide interest and is an issue for many. For the last couple of days, visitors from 79 different countries came to my blog.

Thank you all for coming by!

Ok so the editing for this pictures is not the prettiest, but I have been up all night and it is 6am for me. Plus I have had to listen to that boring Prosecutor 😉 Please forgive me.

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This has never occurred to me before, in the Prosecutors attempt of proving intent it opens up to a person’s political views. Should really one person have to declare his or hers personal political views in a Court? The answer is no. Frankly, this is so un-Swedish!

Where does one draw the line? For me, I rather be conservative and not allow too much of political view to be talked about in the Court room to be on the safe side. After all, it is ones actions not belief that is on trial.

It is a very slippery slope – and totally unacceptable – to have someone’s political views on trial. I felt very uncomfortable with that Peter Sunde was pushed to declare his views, he was very strong and could resist. But what if someone else is not as strong and much more nervous? I now understand why Fredik Neij was so adamant of saying his interest was purely technological.

When it was mentioned before that this would be a political trial, I thought it was more national politics. Sweden vs US / Powerful Media companies and organisations.

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I am 99% sure this is the way it works. Swedish Courts have their own way of doing things.

On the last day of this Pirate Bay Trial, the Court will say thanks and good-bye for now. No judgment will be delivered in the Court room at the final day.

Instead, the Court will deliberate away from all parties and the public. The Court will publish their judgment and have paper copies ready in 3 weeks time. Tons of journalists – and bloggers I hope – will hurdle around the Courts admin office when the judgment is made public.

Just so you know and don’t have too high expectation for a grand finale of a Not Guilty verdict on the last day of the trial.

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I am as surprised as the rest of you that the Prosecutor dropped a big part of the charges against The Pirate Bay peeps. From the initial comments from the defended and their lawyers they did not see this coming.

As #spectrial indicates this is PR game with high stakes. To have part of the charges dropped on Day 2 ends up in Bad PR column. This is also a marathon and not a sprint race. This is won at the last step not at the start.

This should be the Prosecutor’s chance to prance around with his brilliance and there has been a few smug comments like ‘I am an expert of computer crimes’ and ‘ I have a long experience of copyright infringement’. He still gives the impression, to me anyway, of amateurville. He sounds like he does not know his case inside and out. This came across from the start.

P reads the list of claims of damages.
Court: Interest?
P: Ah yes. Yes.
Court (slightly irritated): From when should the interest start?
P: *silence*
P: 31 may 2006

He does not even get his opening statement right?!? At most times when the defense lawyers are pointing out something, there has not been a sharp & quick repose from the Prosecutor. A few times he has gone very defensive and answered back with ‘I can interrupted it my way’. Other examples of similar things is that he has not check the normal company structure from the British Virgin Islands. If he didn’t, don’t the MPAA & Co have the resources to do this?

Then there is the failure of presentation with a computer. It is clear that the Court wants to see the Prosecutor’s evidence on a projector and this projector has failed a few times. The Prosecutor easily gave up on it with the comment ‘Once it has started to misbehave then there is usually no stopping it’ whereas the Court wanted to him to keep trying it. This happens after years of preparation!?

All of this just does not make sense to me. After listening to his opening statement, I have been waiting to have a moment of clarity so I can understand his logic. Too high expectation? I hope that he not playing dumb and this is his best.

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Today is the US Media companies turn to tell the Court their claims so I better add some more abbreviations 🙂

I will be listening to SR (Swedish Radio) and tweeting.

Abbreviations:

LL is Lundstrom’s Lawyer
NL is Neij’s Lawyer
SVL is Svartholm Varg’s Lawyer
SL is Sunde’s lawyer

PD is Peter Danowsky (Ifpi)
MW is Monique Wadsted (US Movie companies)

P is for Prosecutor
N is for Frederik Neij (tiamo)
SV is for Gottfrid Svartholm Varg (anakata)
S is for Peter Sunde
DL is for Defence Lawyers (I don’t want use DA because it means District Attorney and that would only confuse things more)
DD is for downloads.
Film was for the film by the Swedish Police showing how to create a torrent file and then upload and download it.

WB is Warner Bros.
21C is 21 Century Fox
U is for Universal

Hmm, hope this list does not become much longer!

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Here some of my thoughts from the first day of the trial and I like to read your takes on this and other points!

The Prosecutor relies on non-police work/investigation as the basis for this trail. This is so wrong in so many ways. These organizations are claiming that was TPB does is illegal and then they go and exactly the same thing. My question is then, why are they not on trial too? A court case can either be a criminal case, which TPB case is as I understand it, or a civil case. For a criminal case, surely the Police should do all of the investigation submitted to the Prosecutor and the Court as the Police should have an objective stance. Any organization does the investigated work obviously has an agenda behind their work and findings. They have also seemed to have a sloppy work for some of there charges where no source or IP no have been collected.

That brings me to the second questions. The Prosecutor was reading up a lot of Swedish IPs with company names and he is suggesting that this is illegal activity – again why are not representative of these companies on trial?

It all seems to be so fuzzy on who has done something possible illegal. Different rules applies to different groups?

The Prosecutor also put a lot emphasis the date when the torrent was firstly uploaded to TPB and also that the first seeder (called capper right?) is very important to facilitate the torrent to the public. I am wondering here if the Prosecutor is trying to put this on the TPB peeps? I doubt very much that he can prove who the first seeder was and whether or not it was from TPB peeps.

Another thing that the defense lawyers picked upon was the Prosecutors claim that any IPs under telia.com was Swedish and only Swedish even though the bit torrent client showed an US flag next to it. Something tells me that this is going to ripped apart by the defense 🙂

The defense attorney for Lundstrom pointed out – to the Prosecutors surprise – that one charge that is filed against his client has not been done correctly according to the Swedish Law and hinted that therefore the charge should be dropped. I am looking forward to hear more about this point.

The point from the defense was that Swedish Courts only has jurisdiction to award claims for damages for crimes done in Sweden. In the material submitted to the Court there is no distraction from the plaintiffs in their material what is a domestic and non-domestic downloads.

Torrentfreak, which is wickedly good blog!, has a post about the Day 1 – click here to read.

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I am live tweeting The Pirate Bay trial at www.twitter.com/sofia

I am doing my best to move from Swedish legal speak to written Tweet English but it will not be a 100%.

Abbreviations:
P is for Prosecutor
N is for Frederik Neij (tiamo)
SV is for Gottfrid Svartholm Varg (anakata)
S is for Peter Sunde
DL is for Defence Lawyers (I don’t want use DA because it means District Attorney and that would only confuse things more)
DD is for downloads.
Film was for the film by the Swedish Police showing how to create a torrent file and then upload and download it.

And a thanks to Swedish Radio that have had a perfect feed so far.

I need a abbreviation for downloads! Thanks Mark!

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This is going to be a political drama played out in the Swedish Courts, which is unusual in Sweden. Personally, I am concerned that the Court shall not fully understand the technical aspects of it all. After all, this is a system that only allows sound to be broadcasted from the trial and now is going to cast judgment on the forefront of internet boundaries. Another issue is that the Court is highly likely to be influenced by both domestic and international interests which is an absolute forbidden in the Swedish system.

No matter who wins at the the first level of the Court system, it is going to get appealed.

In Sweden there are 3 levels in the national Court system. The lower Court is assembly by 1 Chief judge who has a legal background and who is appointed by the Government. Next to the Chief judge in the Court is 3 jurymen (men or women) appointed by the main political parties.

This trial is a multi-facetted dilemma that the Court is going to have to deal with.

It is Rich vs. Poor.
Rich: MPAA, government authorities – domestic and foreign. Poor: The Pirate Bay and the mass of everyday users.

It is New vs. Old.
New: internet users, cutting edge thought leaders. Old: The establishment that wants protect their own interests.

It is Right vs. Wrong.
As any court case, it is to establish who is right and who is wrong.

It is National Sovereignty vs. International agreements.
Sweden has a its own culture with openness and transparency which is not always reflected in the International agreements that Sweden has signed – which one take president over the other?

My time difference is 9 hours after Sweden so I am not going to be able to post up to date information and reflection of what is happening in the trial but my aim is to summarize the main event in English on this blog.

This is a very important trial because it is the first major case that has been brought to the Court. Other nations will monitor the events and act accordingly. To get up to date information and reactions, I suggest you follow this. #spectrial

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