The Pirate Bay Gets Closer to Retrial

By Jane McEntegart
published

An attorney for one of the four men involved in the Pirate Bay case last week outlined the group’s defense that will be used when they appeal last month’s guilty verdict.

Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Peter Sunde and Carl Lundström were last month sentenced to one year each in prison and fines amounting to a combined $3.6 million. All four vowed to appeal the ruling and during the press conference, Sunde went off camera and came back with a sheet of paper that said "I OWE U 31,000,000 SEK." That's as close as they are going get, he said. He went on to say that even if he had that kind of money, he would rather burn everything he owned and even then, he wouldn’t hand over the ashes.

Not long after, Tomas Norström, the judge presiding over the case, was accused of being biased in his decision due to his involvement with various copyright bodies. Norström is a part of Svenska föreningen för upphovsrätt (Swedish Copyright Association), whose other members include those who represented the entertainment industry in the trial against the Pirate Bay. Norström denied that his involvement with copyright groups played any part in his decision, however Pirate Bay defense lawyer Peter Althin said that he plans to demand a retrial.

Althin spoke to CNet on Friday and detailed Peter Sunde’s defense, adding that he is asking the high court of justice to grant a retrial in the district court of Stockholm. According to the interview with CNet, in addition to the alleged conflict of interest, Sunde's appeal objects to the verdict's conclusion that his company helped develop The Pirate Bay. Rather, he has only admitted being a spokesman for the site. They are (of course), using the ever popular argument that TPB does not encourage anyone to commit a crime. So even if Sunde’s company was found to have a development role, TBP did not assist copyright violation. Althin told the publication that Sunde is also claiming that the damages to copyright holders were too high and calculated in an unreasonable way.

TorrentFreak today reports that, aside from demanding a retrial, the four will also ask for a fresh investigation to be opened up. According to TF, the defendants will request a new investigation from the police because the investigation on which the prosecution built its case was headed by Jim Keyzer, who already knew that he was going to be employed by Warner Bros. when he interviewed the defendants.

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Jane McEntegart
36 Comments Comment from the forums
  • dragonfang18
    Arrrrg!!! I hope they be owning the justice system again. ARRRRG!
    Reply
  • turboflame
    Maybe eventually the industry will get tired of going after torrent trackers and torrent software developers and go after the people actually committing crimes. You know, the people who are actually downloading/uploading illegal content. Funny how everyone always forgets about them.
    Reply
  • jsloan
    hope the swedish find the internet illegal
    Reply
  • B-Unit
    Umm, they've tried that, do you not recall the tales of kids being fined like $70,000?
    Reply
  • daship
    Its time for Hollywood to start posting .torrents of their own for $1.00 a pop "more then fair price" and let technology move on. Just think if they had $1.00 for all of these .torrents. People that use .torrents do so because $20 for a DVD is $19.00 to much. These people would not go buy it if they had to, therefore they arent loosing any sales.

    Hollywood needs to set up a cheap netflix type of system with $1.00 movie rentals.

    Just think if these ass holes were around when the radio was invented.

    The internet is the next best thing, it has the power to replace conventional TV and Radio, get on the wagon or be left behind.
    Reply
  • solymnar
    dashipJust think if these ass holes were around when the radio was invented. The internet is the next best thing, it has the power to replace conventional TV and Radio, get on the wagon or be left behind.
    Radio pays royalties to music companies and stays afloat with "and now a word from our sponsor". So the RIAA is just peachy with radio and always will be.

    That said I do agree that if they focused on adapting to the times instead of trying to milk more money where there isn't money to be milked it would probably turn out better for them...and everyone else.
    Reply
  • Zoonie
    turboflameMaybe eventually the industry will get tired of going after torrent trackers and torrent software developers and go after the people actually committing crimes. You know, the people who are actually downloading/uploading illegal content. Funny how everyone always forgets about them.
    Wow, yeah, serious crimes like downloading the Lost episode that just aired on TV the night before!
    How about this kind of energy and resources were instead put on bringing in REAL criminals, like pedophiles, murderers and traffickers?

    This has been discussed so many times before - the entertainment biz needs to understand we're not living in the 70's anymore.

    And to the swedish government... GROW SOME EFFING BALLS!
    Reply
  • crisisavatar
    That court ruling was extremely biased I hope The Pirate Bay owns their faces, dirty greedy corps need to stop the abuse.
    Reply
  • Raidur
    Yeah it seems like the corporations are dirtier than the pirates themselves. :) And its not like they're doing this with the intent to stop piracy... they know they will never even put a dent into it with shutting down a site or 2. They're doing it for money, the bastards, like they don't make enough... If they really wanted to stop illegal torrents they would start hitting the ISPs/downloaders. That's the only way they could strike fear and stop or slow illegal torrent downloads.
    Reply
  • descendency
    Right or wrong, I find it amazing that they would jail these guys for years and fine them that kind of money and still let the site run.

    I realize closing the site won't stop the trackers, but it does raise an interesting question about what they are really after.
    Reply