‘Pirate Bay’ Judge: Conflict of interest?
As most of you know, the guys who run The Pirate Bay, the most popular search engine for torrent files, were found guilty of, well… being pirates even though they don’t actually host the copyright infringing material.
A Swedish court on Friday found the four defendants in the high-profile Pirate Bay case guilty, sentencing each to a year in jail. The defendants were also ordered to pay a total of 30 million Swedish kronor ($3.6 million) in damages to copyright holders, among them a number of American media giants.
The four men–Peter Sunde, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Fredrik Neij, and Carl Lundström–were found guilty of having made 33 copyright-protected files accessible for illegal file sharing via the Piratebay.org Web site. [from CNet]
Of course, this verdict has got every copyright lawyer and executive working for the MPAA, RIAA and big media conglomerates rattling their sabres and making fun of their customers, but hold on a minute…
It’s since come to light that judge Norström, who presided over the Pirate Bay case actually sat on the board for two Swedish copyright organizations, the Swedish Copyright Association and the Swedish Association for Industrial Legal Protection. Even more amusing is that 3 of the lawyers for the plaintiffs are also members of the Swedish Copyright Association. I’m not sure what the Swedish rules on ‘conflict of interest’ are, but surely this can’t stand.
The four pirates have already appealed the decision, and ultimately this will take at least another couple of years to run through the Swedish courts. In the meantime, The Pirate Bay is still open.
152879 671406When I saw this page was like wow. Thanks for putting your effort in publishing this post. 317222
487687 944475This can indicate that a watch has spent some or all of its life inside the tropics and was not serviced as regularly as it really should have been. 635597