MESSAGE
| DATE | 2009-02-17 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
|
| SUBJECT | Re: [NYLXS - HANGOUT] Copyright Wars continue
|
A Swedish prosecutor on Tuesday dropped a charge levied against four men
on trial for running The Pirate Bay, one of the most popular BitTorrent
search engines and trackers on the Internet.
Tuesday's proceedings saw Swedish prosecutor Håkan Roswall drop a charge
of aiding in the making of copies of works under copyright, said Peter
Sunde, one of the four on trial. The charge was dropped due to the
inability of the prosecution to prove copies of content were made, he said.
"We have definitely won this round," Sunde said.
One charge -- essentially aiding the making of material under copyright
available -- remains. Sunde and the other three defendants, Fredrik
Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg and Carl Lundström, could face prison
time. Swedish authorities want them to forfeit 1.2 million Swedish
kronor (US$140,000) in advertising revenue generated from the site.
A lawyer for the music industry, Peter Danowsky, denied that dropping
the charge hurt the overall case.
"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," Danowsky said in a statement published
by The Local, a Swedish
newspaper published in English. "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," he said in a statement.
The Motion Picture Association is seeking 93 million Swedish kronor in
damages, and the IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic
Industry) is seeking €1.6 million (US$2.06 million) in damages.
Evidence presented by Roswall on Tuesday included screenshots showing
computers were connected to The Pirate Bay's tracker, or software that
coordinates P-to-P (peer-to-peer) file sharing.
But a majority of the screenshots show that The Pirate Bay was actually
down at the time and that the client connections timed out, Sunde said.
The clients, or peers, were still connecting with each other, but
through a distributed hash table, another protocol for coordinating
downloads unrelated to The Pirate Bay.
The schedule for Wednesday includes testimony from a Swedish antipiracy
agency as well as the Motion Picture Association, Sunde said.
Ronny Abraham wrote:
> This should be interesating. I read some of the letters they would send
> back to copywrite lawyers and they struck me as having a lot of humor, as
> well as total confidence that the law was on their side.
>
> My favorite reply was the one where they claimed their in house lawyer was
> recovering from a hangover.
>
> On Feb 16, 2009 2:13 PM, "Ruben Safir" wrote:
>
> BBC NEWS / TECHNOLOGY
> Graphics Version | Change to UK Version | BBC Sport Home News Front Page
> | Africa | Americas | Asia-Pacific | Europe | Middle East | South Asia |
> UK | Business | Health | Science & Environment | Technology |
> Entertainment | Also in the news | Video and Audio | Have Your Say |
> 16:36 GMT, Monday, 16 February 2009
> Pirate Bay file-sharing defended
> Gottfrid Svartholm Varg, partially obscured, and Peter Sunde
>
> The founders of a website which carries links to copies of music, films
> and TV programmes have gone on trial in Sweden on charges of copyright
> theft.
>
> The Pirate Bay is the world's most high-profile file-sharing site and is
> being taken to court by media firms including Sony and Warner Bros.
>
> The men face up to two years in prison and a fine of $143,500, if
> convicted.
>
> "File-sharing services can be used both legally and illegally," defence
> lawyer Per Samuelsson said.
>
> Frederik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Peter Sunde Kolmsioppi and Carl
> Lundstorm have portrayed themselves as digital libertarians and say that
> they cannot be prosecuted for copyright theft because none of the
> content is hosted on their computer servers.
>
> The men are accused of "promoting other people's infringements of
> copyright laws", according to charges filed by senior public prosecutor
> Haakan Roswall.
>
> Representatives of the movie, music and video games industry are seeking
> about 115 million kronor (10.6 million euros) in damages and interest
> for losses incurred from tens of millions of illegal downloads
> facilitated by the site.
>
> FROM THE BBC WORLD SERVICE
> More from BBC World Service
>
> "It is legal to offer a service that can be used in both a legal and
> illegal way, according to Swedish law," Mr Samuelsson said at the
> opening of the trial, which is expected to last three weeks.
>
> He said the site "can be compared to making cars that can be driven
> faster than the speed limit".
>
> Monique Wadsted, a lawyer representing media firms, including Warner
> Bros and MGM, involved in the case said: "It's not a political trial,
> it's not a trial about shutting down a people's library, and it's not a
> trial that wants to prohibit file-sharing as a technique.
>
>
> "It's not a political trial"
>
> Monique Wadsted, lawyer
>
>
> "It's a trial that regards four individuals that have conducted a big
> commercial business making money out of others' file-sharing works,
> copyright-protected movies, hit music, popular computer games, etc."
>
> The Pirate Bay, which was founded in 2003, directs people to "torrent"
> links, which allow file-sharing program BitTorrent to download and
> upload files among potentially millions of users.
>
> "They have already failed to take down the site once. Let them fail
> again"
> Gottfrid Warg
>
> Swedish police raided the company's offices several times and seized
> nearly 200 servers in 2006, temporarily closing the site. But it
> re-opened a few days later with servers hosted in different countries.
>
> Mr Warg, in a webcast on Sunday, said: "What are they going to do about
> it? They have already failed to take down the site once. Let them fail
> again.
>
> "It has a life without us."
>
> John Kennedy, chairman of the International Federation of the
> Phonographic Industries, representing 1,400 member record companies
> worldwide, said: "The Pirate Bay has hurt creators of many different
> kinds of works, from music to film, from books to TV programmes. It has
> been particularly harmful in distributing copyrighted works prior to
> their official release.
>
> "This damages sales of music at the most important time of their
> lifecycle."
>
> Mr Kennedy said the four men had "made substantial amounts of money"
> from the site, "despite their claim to be only interested in spreading
> culture for free".
>
> On Sunday, Mr Sunde said: "It does not matter if they require several
> million (kronor) or one billion. We are not rich and have no money to
> pay."
> --
> http://www.mrbrklyn.com - Interesting Stuff
> http://www.nylxs.com - Leadership Development in Free Software
>
> So many immigrant groups have swept through our town that Brooklyn, like
> Atlantis, reaches mythological proportions in the mind of the world - RI
> Safir 1998
>
> http://fairuse.nylxs.com DRM is THEFT - We are the STAKEHOLDERS - RI Safir
> 2002
>
> "Yeah - I write Free Software...so SUE ME"
>
> "The tremendous problem we face is that we are becoming sharecroppers to our
> own cultural heritage -- we need the ability to participate in our own
> society."
>
> "> I'm an engineer. I choose the best tool for the job, politics be damned.<
> You must be a stupid engineer then, because politcs and technology have been
> attached at the hip since the 1st dynasty in Ancient Egypt. I guess you
> missed that one."
>
> (c) Copyright for the Digital Millennium
>
>
|
|
