Saturday, April 25, 2009

More Pirates Caught

Recently, a court in Sweden found 4 members of the Pirate Bay guilty of copyright infringement and sentenced them to a year in prison and fines them 3.6 million dollars. An appeal in imminent. Pirate Bay is website that allows users to find torrents that enable file sharing . . . but not through Pirate Bay.

That's the interesting, and troubling part. Pirate Bay doesn't actively participate in sharing files. They're really more of an online dating service. Hooking people up. They provide the means to find your match. What you do after that, well . . .

Still, the court decided that they were as culpable as those who share and download the files, and more difficult to prosecute, thus the ruling. It's seen as a huge victory for the movie industry as they blame revenue losses on file sharing technology and the evil people that use the technology.

Never mind that hollywood seems to be getting all their inspiration from comic books, and producers hire the like of Paris Hilton to be in their films . . . noooo.

So, the files sharers are doomed, right? Not so fast.

Turns out the judge who ruled in the case is a member of, not one, but two copyright organizations! Can you say conflict of interest?

"Every time I take a case, I evaluate if I consider myself having a conflict of interest. In this case I didn't find to have one," Norström told Sveriges Radio, the national Swedish radio network that first exposed the issue on Thursday morning.


Yeah, and the Pirate Bay is a vacation spot. Bring the family!

So, the case may be thrown out and re-tried. It may very well end up the same for the Pirate Bay founders, but it does delay sentencing. Maybe America will gain 4 swedish citizens.

No comments: