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Prosecutors Change Pirate Bay Charges Again; Weak Evidence Exposed
from the it-took-them-two-years-to-prepare-this? dept
Before the trial of The Pirate Bay started in Sweden, it seemed like the defendants were being a bit brash in declaring the whole trial a spectacle, with no real legal basis. While I have a difficult time seeing how The Pirate Bay is guilty of being anything other than a search engine, I had assumed (at the very least) that in the two or so years that Swedish prosecutors and various entertainment industry lawyers were preparing the case that they would at least present a competent case. So far, they haven't shown that at all. First they were forced to drop half the charges on the second day of the case, after realizing that half the charges didn't apply. Then, the prosecutors have been called out repeatedly for introducing new evidence, against the rules of the court. Then, there was the snafu of asking a proclaimed Pirate Bay user to talk about how The Pirate Bay is bad.
The stumbling has only continued. It started with the prosecution modifying some of the remaining charges, as they once again seem to have realized that what they charged these guys with doesn't apply. Isn't that the sort of thing you're supposed to do well before the case is actually in the trial stage? Then, they put some of the anti-piracy investigators on the stand, where it was quickly shown that they were technically incompetent -- and the examples they were showing may have been found via The Pirate Bay, but didn't involve The Pirate Bay at all in the actual sharing of content (which makes sense, since The Pirate Bay doesn't host any content itself). When challenged on whether or not the file sharing actually involved The Pirate Bay's trackers, the IFPI's Magnus Martensson admitted: "I think I've said this three times, that I just assumed it." Great bit of "evidence" there.
Furthermore, Martensson was asked about how using The Pirate Bay differed from using Google, and he appeared unaware that Google could be used to find torrents. Yes, this is the guy in charge of "anti-piracy" efforts, admitting when questioned that "I don't know about Google." Did it really take this long for the prosecution to assemble such a weak case?
