Sorting out the Pirate Bay verdict
In the aftermath of the Pirate Bay trial, many Swedish law experts say they consider Friday's high-profile guilty verdict severe but fair. Very few had predicted the verdict before it was handed out.
Complicating the case in many observers' eyes was the fact that no copyright-protected files were stored or distributed on the Pirate Bay Web site. But reading the 107-page sentence from Stockholm's Tingsratt district court offers a clearer picture of the grounds on which the court found all four defendants guilty of having assisted in making 33 copyright-protected files accessible for illegal file sharing via Piratebay.org.
The reasoning makes clear that the principal crime was committed by individual file sharers. This was established via technical evidence that came from content on servers confiscated by the police, as well as by testimony from witnesses who actually downloaded files using torrents on the Web site.
Pictured, from left, are Pirate Bay defendants Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij, and Gottfrid Svartholm Warg. Carl Lundström is not pictured.
(Credit: Pontus Alexander/Fabian Landgren)The four defendants--Peter Sunde, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Fredrik Neij, and Carl Lundström--were accused of having assisted in this crime, and according to Swedish law, it's not necessary to know who committed the infraction in such a case, only that it was committed.
During the trial, prosecutor Håkan Roswall also pointed out that very little is needed to be sentenced for assistance. He referred, as precedent, to a case several decades ago when a person was sentenced for assisting in a case of mayhem, only for having held the culprit's coat.
In its verdict, the Stockholm court states that "responsibility for assistance can strike someone who has only insignificantly assisted in the principal crime," then goes on to show how the defendants participated to a sufficient extent to be considered guilty.
First, the court establishes--through the defendants' statements and e-mail correspondence, and through letters from copyright owners published on the Web site--that the defendants all knew about copyright-protected files being shared by Pirate Bay users.
Second, the court demonstrates that through the Piratebay.org site, they offered both a search function for torrents (small files pointing to the desired file), means for easily uploading and downloading the torrents, and a tracker--the server that keeps file sharers linked while they swap.
But two further criteria have to be met to be held responsible for assisting: holding a position of responsibility and having intent.
Relying on the defendants' statements, e-mail correspondence, and accounting records, the court shows that they have collective responsibility--all having been in the position to act, and all having known about the others' actions. This is also why all four received the same verdict, though they clearly held different roles. Warg and Neij are the co-founders of The Pirate Bay. Sunde is a programmer and a spokesman there, and Lundstr öm offered technical services to the site in 2005.
Intent to swap
The court then finds that the four men had intent, as they knew about torrents pointing to copyright-protected files, and still allegedly did not act to cancel them from the Web site.
For the same reason, the court finally dismisses the defendants' last objection: a European law that doesn't hold e-merchants and service providers responsible for hosting clients' illegal material if they don't know about it.
Eventually, having shown the defendants guilty of assisting in copyright infringement, the court finds that one year of prison is fair, given the extent of the file sharing, and that The Pirate Bay's activities were "managed as a commercial project" and "managed in organized forms."
Though the verdict probably will be appealed twice, all the way up to the Swedish Supreme Court, Swedish legal experts don't expect it to be altered in any major way.
"I would be surprised if the verdict were overthrown in higher courts," said lawyer Kristoffer Nordman of the Swedish law firm Vinge, according to Swedish business weekly Affarsvarlden.
Lawyer Agne Lindberg of the law firm Delphi & Co. agreed, but told the paper the sanctions might be adjusted. Neither lawyer was directly connected with the Pirate Bay case.
Sad to say, though, but the world is turning into one where the corporation terrorizes the public.
I mean seriously, a better defense would be "get a court order from sweden and we'll remove the offending data, but we don't have time to manage user submitted content and sift what's copyrighted or not."
By law, they had no obligation to remove pointers to the copyrighted stuff, but by acknowledging that they knew the pointers were there, they're guilty by accessory. Play dumb next time!
you could compare computer sellers and empty cd sellers to firearm sellers.
In the theft of physical property most countries have laws that allow the prosecution of any person who facilitates the crime in any way which can include hiding/housing the criminal especially when this is knowingly done. In my country this is called conspiracy or aiding and abetting and enables the prosecution of all people who contribute to the committing of the crime even if they did not directly commit the crime themselves.. The people who set up Pirate Bay by their own correspondence, forum posts, blog entries and so on clearly knew that theft of intellectual property was going on and appeared to have a philosophy that promoted the free sharing of intellectual property regardless of copyright.
Their fixation on the evils of rapacious corporations obscured the fact that ultimately most intellectual property is created by ordinary artists who struggle to pay the rent and buy food to put on the table and unrestricted file sharing ultimately damages the income of these struggling artists. The reason theft is punishable in law is due to the harm it does to the victims and by facilitating and protecting the downloading and downloaders of stolen property the creators of Pirate Bay are aiding and abetting activities that are harmful to all artists, software designers, game developers etc etc etc.
Let us not confuse these people with online sites that enable the downloading of legitimate material and do their best to discourage the distribution of copyrighted material as much as they can. These people convicted themselves with their own written words that revealed intent to facilitate illegal activity. Their conviction is reasonable and creates a precedent which is ultimately helpful to artists and other creative people as we struggle to survive.
This court case as served to do nothing more than setting a dangerous and squelching precedent that could ultimately censor search engines and therefore the very internet.
I am a program, and hence I also create digital content of a kind. However, in my case the 'rights' are all assumed by my employer. Why does 'art' (by what definition?) get protected automatically while my creations do not?
The reason is simple, the system was designed and implemented not to protect works or property but to protect artists who are easily ruined by distribution companies who have no incentive to repay them.
As a programmer, I get paid for each line of code I write. As long as I keep writing more lines I keep getting paid. This is not true of writers, poets, artists, etc. In the case of 'art' the artist could struggle for days, weeks, months even years to create a finished product. Only after that effort is expended can an artist begin to realize a profit on his 'work'. Thus, before the implementation of 'copyright' the artist was easily screwed by unscrupulous distributors who would copy their work without paying the artist a cent.
However, this is *NOT* theft and is nothing like theft. The key difference that people like the author miss is that theft has a clear impact on one party that can be easily quantified. If I steal a bike then it is easy to calculate the value of that bike. If I distribute a song, how is it possible to quantified the damage to the artist? If the artist were allowed to quantify it he would say 'millions', but if some random guy on the street quantified it he might say 'that song's a worthless pile of crap!'.
So, to conclude, copyright infringement is NOT theft and is nothing like theft. It is, and must be, treated as it's own problem. Artists that call it theft do themselves a disservice as that kind of thinking actually empowers the distributors (who have assumed the copyright from the artist) to do all sorts of very nasty things. They can do these things because the 'cost' of infringement is set almost exclusively by the distributors themselves. Copyright has become a bludgeon of the media industry, and they have learned to use it very effectively against artist and consumer alike.
Stealing a thing leaves one less left
Copying it makes one thing more
That?s what copying?s for
Copying isn?t theft
If I copy yours, you have it too
One for me and one for you
That?s what copies can do
If I steal your bicycle
You have to take the bus
But if I just copy it
There?s one for each of us
Making more of a thing
That is what we call copying
Sharing ideas with everyone
That?s why copying is fun
The Copyright Song, written by Nina Paley
intent and ability to assist a crime. intent and ability of copyright.
video and audio cassette, analog or digital. nothing has changed. the song in my head. or tape recording of the song in my head from radio or tv. or the digital copy of the song in my head from the internet. neither effects the sale of the video or audio of the song in my head on sale out there in shops. never did. the above doesnt somehow manifest into a competitor item being _sold_ down the road for less either. no does it equate with what happened in this case. nor the proven assistance of said selling unless they got someone on stand to say "yes i sold my **** in stores soley thanks to the above and beyond personal help i recieved personally from who also had intimate knowledge of my doings being... thepiratebay.org" - good luck with finding that btw, but anyway..
as before and always, plenty will still _buy_ yet _give_ away a real and authorised gift come birthday or next appropriate commercial holiday, etc.
just because these guys assisted in the ease of personal storage does not mean in anyway that these guys assisted in anyway to that of the crime which is breach of copyright.
the fish have mongered from stupid to smelly.
And whats the point, if, and that's a big if, the pirate bay goes down, it's only a matter of time before another is created.
- by arjungandhi April 24, 2009 5:29 PM PDT
- Seriously people; did you honestly think that they would have won? Plus for crying out loud the pirate bay wasn't even that good. There are a ton of better torrent sites on the web. Every time they take one down 3 more pop up in it's place.
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- by zaadams April 25, 2009 4:49 PM PDT
- you do know that the reason that the RIAA targeted the pirate bay is because they are the biggest and most used torrent tracker, right.
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