50% of Charges Against Pirate Bay Dropped

[Pikarya]

http://imgshack.info/images/t53lm4hq5xp6q0yczimf.jpg

There has been high drama on the second day of the Pirate Bay trial. Due to serious shortcomings in the prosecution evidence, around 50% of the charges in the case are going to have to be withdrawn. The defense describes it as a ’sensation’, seeing half of the charges being dropped on the second day.

Click to read the full dramas: 50% of Charges Against Pirate Bay Dropped | TorrentFreak

What has been shown in court today is that the prosecutor cannot prove that the .torrent files he is using as evidence actually used The Pirate Bay’s tracker. Many of the screenshots being used clearly state there is no connection to the tracker. Additionally, prosecutor Håkan Roswall didn’t adequately explain the function of DHT which allows for so called “trackerless” torrents.

The flaw in the evidence was pointed out by Fredrik Neij (TiAMO), who requested to comment on Roswall’s explanation of how BitTorrent actually works. Fredrik said that the prosecution misunderstood the technology, and told the court that the evidence doesn’t show that the Pirate Bay’s trackers are used.

This has resulted in prosecutor Håkan Roswall having to drop all charges relating to “assisting copyright infringement”, so the remaining charges are simply ‘assisting making available’. “Everything related to reproduction will be removed from the claim,” he said.

The defense was happy to see that already half of the charges were dropped during the morning session of the second day. “This is a sensation. It is very rare to win half the target in just one and a half days and it is clear that the prosecutor took strong note of what we said yesterday,” said defense lawyer Per E Samuelson.

Peter Althin, representing Peter Sunde said, “It is clear that this is an advantage for the accused.”

“EPIC WINNING LOL,” Peter himself later commented on Twitter.

IFPI was quick to release a statement where they try to spin the dropped charges into something good. “It’s a largely technical issue that changes nothing in terms of our compensation claims and has no bearing whatsoever on the main case against The Pirate Bay. In fact it simplifies the prosecutor’s case by allowing him to focus on the main issue, which is the making available of copyrighted works,” IFPI’s legal counsel said.

During the remainder of the morning session it was mostly prosecutor Håkan Roswall talking. Among other things he explained in detail how email works (made no mistakes there). Several details on the hardware that was taken during the raid in 2006 were discussed, as well as invoices and email conversations about server costs.

After the lunch break, around 1:30pm the court decided to end the day early. Tomorrow morning the prosecution will continue to build (or break) their case and on Thursday the defense will have its say.

[Athas]

Images submitted into evidence by the prosecution destroyed half the prosecution’s charges?

[Seraph]

Images submitted into evidence by the prosecution destroyed half the prosecution’s charges?

Don't surf for pron while you are building your case.

[Moochi]

Being from Sweden this is all over the news.

The prosecutor is such an amateur. Why is he even involved in the case if he has no idea what he is prosecuting them for? At first it just seemed like a way to scare Pirate Bay off.

Also funny how the majority is on PBs side. There's a few on the other side and then of course Hollywood.

Even if PB would happen to lose the case many doubt it's gonna change anything.

[Telamond]

Of course the Swedish population is on the Pirate Bay's (PB) side. ~35% of the Swedish population have done or are doing p2p. Only a police state could be able to stop it.

It's also how the Roswell (prosecutor), supposedly the best IT-prosecutor in Sweden didn't even know the difference between bit and byte.

[Uzor]

Of course the Swedish population is on the Pirate Bay's (PB) side. ~35% of the Swedish population have done or are doing p2p. Only a police state could be able to stop it.

It's also how the Roswell (prosecutor), supposedly the best IT-prosecutor in Sweden didn't even know the difference between bit and byte.

Last time I read statistics I think I read about 70% of the Swedish population between 15 and 30 download music, movies and games.

Somehow I feel like its more. I don't know a single person that don't download shit. Maybe 70% openly admit to downloading. Hell, on the radio yesterday one of the hosts "said" he downloaded music. I say said because when asked about it he tried to change the subject. He could pretty much have said he downloaded and it would be equally obvious.

Best part about this is all the people dressed as pirates attending it.

[Telamond]

+70% between 15 and 30. Is just a big part of the p2p demographics of Sweden. When I state 35% it's for the whole population.

If it wasn't for p2p, then a lot of indie movies/music wouldn't have received the publicity they had right now...

Piratpartiet (The Pirate Political Party) received around 1% of the Swedish population votes. This even though they don't have an ubiquitous ideal on how to rule Sweden (much like the Green Party and SD).

[Vandalhart]

Is there any real proof that Piratebay actually affects movie sales?
I mean, I'm sure it does, but if the movie is truly good, and someone loves it, I'd think that the person would go out and buy the movie.

Even if I downloaded Iron Man and watched it, I'd still go out and buy it because I enjoyed it a lot.

[Telamond]

There has been no statistical proof that movie sales has dropped down since Pirate Bay opened. No statistically correlation what so ever. Think the direct opposite has been proven though.

[Uzor]

Besides, through P2P movies reach out to a larger audience then that it would normally reach. I've watched a lot of movies that I've enjoyed from just searching latest uploaded movies and downloading a random one. Those are movies I normally likely would never have watched otherwise. So theoretically, commercials in movies reach a larger audience. If they wanted to make more money, they could raise the cost of commercials in movies.

[Zoner]

Day 3 - The Pirate Bay’s ‘King Kong’ Defense

The Pirate Bay trial is moving forward rapidly and again the day in court has ended early. On the third day the prosecution presented the amended charges. The defendants all called for acquittal while Carl Lundström’s lawyer scored points with the already legendary ‘King Kong’ defense.

The third day of the trial started with prosecutor Håkan Roswall who presented his updated/amended charges to the Court, taking into consideration the developments of yesterday (50% charges removed). He characterized these amendments as a “small change”.

The defense lawyers responded saying, “We don’t agree that this is just a small adjustment of the claims, but we’ll return to the matter later.”

According to IFPI’s Peter Danowsky, the damages claimed from The Pirate Bay are the same as if the site had ‘legally’ obtained licenses to distribute the music world-wide, regardless of whether all the downloaders had later decided to buy the music or not. Effectively, they are trying to say that one download=one lost sale. They are talking about imposing the costs of a “global distribution license” on TPB.

For the song “Let it Be” by The Beatles, IFPI is asking for 10 times the damages, since the band’s music isn’t officially available online. Interesting logic here - perhaps if The Beatles music was made officially available, people wouldn’t even need to pirate it. The same 10X multiplier is used for all material ‘made available’ before official release, referring to this charge as a special “preview license.”

Peter Danowsky disputes the claims of the defense that they have no funds and cannot pay damages. He called TPB “organized crime on a grand scale,” which netted “significant revenues.”

“If I have all this money they claim, someone has apparently stolen it from me,” Peter Sunde twittered in a reponse.

“Maybe [they are not able to pay] the whole of the claimed damages, but a lot anyway,” said Danowsky. The damages being claimed against the four defendants total 117 million kronor ($13 million).

Sony complained in court that The Pirate Bay never remove torrents on copyright holders request, but that they have the ability to do so since they remove torrents that are named in a way that doesn’t reflect the material they link to. They note that The Pirate Bay has a bad attitude to complaints and ridicules the complainer. Sony says they have suffered many lost sales, suffered damage to their goodwill and other damages to their market.

Henrik Pontén from Svenska Antipiratbyrån (Swedish Anti-Piracy Bureau) said that their position is very similar to that of the IFPI. Their claim for damages is based on what it would’ve cost for The Pirate Bay to have acquired a global distribution license. This value was doubled to account for an alleged “loss of goodwill”.

Next up, Monique Wadsted for the movie industry. She talked about various alleged infringements, including those on the TV show ‘Prison Break’. Again, she feels that since the infringements took place before an official launch of the media, the damages are calculated based on the cost of a special “global preview license”.

During the second half of the morning session the defense lawyers had the chance to respond. Due to the reduction in the charges, the four defendants say they have no responsibility for the charges that remain.

The lawyers representing all four called on the court for the acquittal of their clients.

Fredrik Neij’s lawyer pointed out that the download figures as reported by the site were far from accurate, and that they should therefore not be used as evidence. It was further argued that uploading a torrent does not mean that the copyrighted files are also ‘available’, since it then has to be seeded. The torrent files, on the other had, are not exclusively on The Pirate Bay, and can also be found through other search engines such as Google.

Gottfrid Svartholm’s lawyer stated that users generate the content on The Pirate Bay, and that his defendant has no control over it. Peter Sunde’s lawyer pointed out that his client was merely the spokesperson of the site, and said that Peter was not responsible for anything else. It was further argued that the correlation between the number of downloads and damages suffered by the copyright holders is non-existent.

As Carl Lundström’s lawyer, Per E Samuelsson took the floor and pointed out the weaknesses in the prosecutor’s case. The defense argued that prosecutors have failed to prove that Lundström has been involved in any transfer of any copyrighted material. He played the King Kong defense.

“EU directive 2000/31/EG says that he who provides an information service is not responsible for the information that is being transferred. In order to be responsible, the service provider must initiate the transfer. But the admins of The Pirate Bay don’t initiate transfers. It’s the users that do and they are physically identifiable people. They call themselves names like King Kong,” Samuelsson told the court.

“According to legal procedure, the accusations must be against an individual and there must be a close tie between the perpetrators of a crime and those who are assisting. This tie has not been shown. The prosecutor must show that Carl Lundström personally has interacted with the user King Kong, who may very well be found in the jungles of Cambodia,” the lawyer added.

After the King Kong defense the court decided to adjourn the court case, which will continue tomorrow on day 4. Thus far, the trial is ahead of schedule.

Peter said that after today’s proceedings they all went for some pizza, where they met the whole opposing side. He asked if they could pick up the check. “They refused,” he said.

Day 3 - The Pirate Bay’s ‘King Kong’ Defense | TorrentFreak