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This is simply amazing and who knows, maybe Norway will be online Hollywood?

Message to DN:

Dear DN, I have seen more trolls on the Interwebz than you can possibly imagine. I spend hours every day digging through forums and I spent considerable time on various MMO-boards. I can sense incomplete stories and hoaxes from a hundred links away, as can most of your internetional readers! We’re all thinking the same thing: Screenshot or it didn’t happen!

“I have a lot on my mind right now”

Peter Danowsky, who represents IFPI, said to TT that:

“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. 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”

Its only been two days and both sides are equally dug in in their opinion on the state of the trial. With the possible exception of government prosecutor Håkan Roswall. Perhaps all that googeling on DHT cramped his style. I cannot for the life of me understand how he is stills ill prepared after three years worth of investigating.

Christian Engström(sv), first in line to take seat in the EU parliament if the Pirate Party receives enough votes in the upcoming election is a former juryman meaning has first hand knowledge of this stage of the Swedish justice system.  On Rick Falkvinge’s blog he comments:

“It’s possible that the jurymen can’t keep up with all the technical details. This is not necessary as a juryman. But you are keenly aware of the sound of crackling prosecution and can easily tell when the prosecutor hasn’t done his his job”.

Monique Wadsted did not leave Mr Roswall alone on the stage of failure today. Projo(sv) pointed out a news clip with Rick Falkvinge, Gottfrid Swartholm, Peter Sunde and quote maker Monique Wadsted. The reporter asks her:

“It’s the opinion of a lot of people that these laws have not kept up with technological advances”.

Wadsted replies:

“Regardless of the law…”

*Picks up jaw from floor*

Sorry, lets try that again.

“Regardless of the law, it is still not allowed to make money off of others copyright, eh, others copyright protected material with out paying for it.”

Not only does she claim that the law doesn’t matter, she very interestingly freuds copyright instead of copyright protected material. Could it be that making money off of others copyrights is EXACTLY what she does for a living?

That Youtube clip points me to another interesting one via the links at the end. It’s an interview with private law prof. Jan Rosén(sv). Eh I mean, Jan Rosén, president of the Association for Copyright(sv). This guy has repeatedly been interviewed in Swedish Olde Media under the unbiased guise of a private law professor. The Swedish blogosphere did not let this go by unnoticed and has given him the nickname Janne Jävig. It’s wordplay and doesn’t really translate but jävig means biased and Janne is merely a common nickname of people with the name Jan. It appears though that all media hasn’t picked up on this. Either that or the simply don’t mind lying to their viewers/readers.

Also related, The League of Noble Peers have released a Trial Edition of their Steal This Film as reported by TorrentFreak. They also link to some really funny quotes from the interrogations of Brokep, TiAMO and Ankata.

Well in a series of moves that earned the comment “EPIC WINNING LOL” by Brokep on #spectrial on Twitter, Mr Roswall first reduced the charges from, and I’m not sure I can translate this properly, “accessory to manufacturing” to “accessory to publishing”. This is barely more than what Jammie Thomas was dragged to court over. Prosecutor Roswall now has to prove that its illegal to make something available for manufacturing when no manufacturing has occurred.

But it wouldn’t be the Roswall we’ve come to known if he managed to hold on the ball from there. Oh no:

Defense: “How can you tell that this tracker.prq.to is the Pirate Bay tracker?

Prosecutor: “You can’t” <- huh?

D: “So the prosecutor claims that the software always uses The Pirate Bay, provided that it’s his claim that the software uses The Pirate Bay? What happens if the torrent contains multiple trackers?”

P: “It doesn’t.”

D: “Can the Prosecutor produce a copy of the torrent-files so that the court may verify this?”

P: <digresses into the details on how the research was conducted>

D: “Why doesn’t the Prosecutor have copies of these files?”

Seriously? “It doesn’t”? Keep in mind that this Sweden’s TOP IT-prosecutor! Most torrents contain multiple trackers, we know that, the defense knows that and I’m pretty sure the prosecution knows that as well. And why are there no copies of the torrents?

Then again this is the same prosecutor that can’t operate Power Point. In what is the most important case in his career he was told yesterday that he should “stop wasting the courts time and proceed with pen and paper”. This after spending 15 minutes battling his laptop.

That all you say? Why of course not! Earlier today(sv):

[10.04] Fredrik Neij requests to make a comment on the analysis of the trackers. This is normally not allowed but the court makes an exception.

Fredrik Neij explains that the torrent-files being shown contains no information and that they merely passed through The Pirate Bays servers

“The prosecution is building a case on a misunderstanding of the technology.” – defendant Fredrik Neij.

The court requests him to clarify and asks: “Are you claiming that the evidence before us doesn’t prove that the Pirate Bays’ trackers where used?”

The defendants are pleased when they all answer yes.

[10.07] Prosecutor Håkan Roswall requests a 10 minute recess.

I’m a bit divided here though, I mean were it not for the prosecutor acting as the shit shield for the MPAA and IFPI I probably wouldn’t mind the case being thrown out on a technicalty. I lends even more weight to the fact that these companies don’t understand what they’re doing. Since either way, no matter the outcome, either in this court or the ones that will follow, all its doing is stalling for time for society to decide if we want a free internet or if will let the content industry restart it as a cable tv network.

Rick Falkvinge, leader of the Swedish Pirate Party was live blogging from the court room today. Several of the highlights involve Monique Wadsted, who represents the MPAA. She made the headlines when it was discovered that one of her former employers include the scientlogists. She protected their bible with the help of copyright, and she got of to a slightly rocky start to say the least. Pretty much the first words out her mouth(sv) were “I have not filed the proper papers, you will have them tomorrow”.  The papers in question verified that she is authorized to represent her American employers. Apparently not very important…

She then tried to get TPB to admit her American employers own the rights to the movies in the law suit. Each and every one of the defense told her to take a hike(sv). Problem for her here is that Swedish Copyright doesn’t recognize the movie companies as the proper rights holders. Instead the actors, photographers and so on own these rights. All this according to the prosecutor Håkan Roswall… Awesome teamwork there.

Mr Roswall had a few moments of his own. While demonstrating how TPB works(sv), he prompted the following quote from Rick:

“Roswall is currently showing a movie concerning the workings of The Pirate Bay. For those of us accustomed to drinking information through fire hoses, this moves at the speed of snails”.

As a side note to the movie is starts off by showing that among the hardware seized in the raid one of the non working machines (or at least the IT Forensics couldn’t get it to work) was the machine collecting the download statistics. The statistics the case in part is based on.

Another epic quote(sv) was dropped when Mr Roswall, slightly unwillingly, described how they located The Pirate Bay hardware during the raid:

“We contacted The Pirate Bay. It answered. So we pulled the power cord to the server rack. After that The Pirate Bay didn’t answer anymore. So we were sure we had the right rack”.

Then he went on to describe how they seized every other server of every other client in the server hall. Another side note is that all TPB hardware in the server hall was actually labeled “The Pirate Bay”.

After the first day of court the defense lawyer Per E. Sameulson(sv), said this about prosecutor Håkan Roswall:

“Hes jumping around, a meter under the bar. … He says he’s not going to go after the site because its impossible, and instead bring down the people behind it. Yet he spent the entire day describing the site and how it was built”.

Fredrik Neij aka TiAMO, was also less than impressed with the prosecutor saying:

“The level of the technical discussion is low and in several instances incorrect”.

If you can’t sue the site and your not suing the operators what are you doing in court?

On a slightly more humorous note, competition for the seats in the primary court room was fierce as reported by blogger Oscar Swartz who had to buy his court pass(sv) on the black market.

Even funnier was the article in DN titled “Bloggers Laugh at the Trial”(sv). But the article also has a very interesting source coming from the largest morning newspaper in Sweden. Its based of the live blogs from different pirate party members at the court house. In the middle of the FRA-Law last summer I was ridiculed on a forum for claiming that bloggers in Sweden can set the agenda just as much as olde media. Perhaps it will go over better this time.

Scaber Nestor has links to several other international sites covering the trial in a variety of languages.

One listener sent in an email referring to Article 27 §2 of the Declartion of Human Rights.

Article 27

1. Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.
2. Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.

He obviously neglected to mention §1 as well as Article 30. Also Articles 12 and 26 complicate the matter further. It’s simply not reasonable, bordering on ludicrous to expect to be payed for every single use of every single copy of a work on the digital realm. The legal and surveillance machinery need to realize such a system would consume our democracy and violate several other human rights.

One important distinction did however make it through loud and clear. The non-commercial parts of copyright, concerning an authors right to be recognized as the author is not criticized by anyone. This might mean that the discussion could get out of the trenches this year. Yes? No? Yes! No… Maybe?

Heres a transcript

[00:09] When I feel like it, when I find a movie a want, then I’ll download it.

[00:13] Yeah, every day.

[00:15] Four ordinary teens, students at the media gymnasium in Malmö, who have all grown up in a time where all the worlds music, movies and computer programs have been available gratis and at the press of a few buttons.

[00:28] If Malin happens to have a movie that I want to see, she’ll just send it to me over MSN or whatever, and that way I wont have to find it on my own. Simple.

[00:37] It’s mostly Family Guy, Seinfeld, South Park and such. Comedy stuff.

[00:49] They want to see the latest TV series now, not in a year when they’re aired on SVT, TV3 or TV4.

[00:57] You see, the thing is, if I would try to watch these shows on regular TV, I would be forced to wait until… Well, lets say Family Guy airs once a week on Saturday evenings, and I have something else I want to do on Saturday evenings at like seven. It’s a lot more flexible for me to just download the show, and watch when I want to.

[01:17] The trial of the founders of The Pirate Bay will start this Monday, and the site is considered one of the largest facilitators of illegal file sharing in the world. But whether they loose the case or not seems of little concern to these students.

[01:30] File sharing wont stop just because you take down one tracker, theres a thousand others waiting to take their place.

[01:37] The students get to show us how it all works, and we try searching for one of the most successful shows on SVT right now, Mia och Klara.

[01:44]  You just type in what you’re looking for in this search box. That then gives you, well yeah, ten alternatives. And then its says like, download this torrent.

[01:55] And this is then available the same evening that it aired on regular TV?

[01:58] Yeah, if you want to.

[02:00] Mmm, usually.

[02:01] … with a really cute girl …

[02:04] It is illegal to download and share TV series and music, but these youth see it as hardly any more serious then the making of mix tapes that their parents used to do.

[02:18] Most see it as natural that an artist gets paid for doing his job. But I find this whole thing with record labels and going out to buy CDs kind of antiquated and pointless. I spend a lot of money going to concerts and festivals and that kind of, well, alternative ways of supporting the artists I like.

[02:40] Are you ashamed when you download the latest album any of the artists you like?

[02:44] No, I never feel any guilt. Most artists today have to be aware by now that this is what goes on, and pretty much every one downloads. There’s so many people doing it that I’m not alone. So no, I never feel any guilt.

[03:01] Even though very few file sharers have been convicted,  the hunt for them still continues.

[03:07] I’m almost in no way worried about it, because I’m so sure… I mean, the way I see it, it’s not illegal anymore since it’s become so common.

[03:18] The fact of the matter is that everyone in this room, and probably three quarters of everyone on this school does it. Why would they catch me?

[03:28] What about your parents then? Don’t they have anything to say about this? Are they fine with it?

[03:31] Yeah, they’re fine with it. They never say anything,

[03:36] And what about you? Have you’re parents never given you an earful?

[03:38] Well, this isn’t really something you talk about over dinner.

Today, they both held a joint press conference at noon, wich was streamed via Bambuser(sv/en). There was some chaos prior to that though when for some unknown reason all servers belonging to The Pirate Party(en) suddenly went offline. It turned out a a fan in a firewall had made its last revolutions and thus caused the whole thing to overheat. So PP’s coverage of The Spectrial had a slightly rocky start.

Something that has been a bit of a deal in the days leading up to the press conference was that due history between TPB and certain news media in Sweden, three large ones where banned from the press conference. TV4 a commercial TV channel and Aftonbladet a Swedish tabloid where banned for their unprofessional handling of the controversy surrounding the Arboga murders.

Another newspaper, Metro was banned for a series of articles claiming that TPB hosted child pornography, but when asked by the TPB crew for the links so that TPB could hand the issue over to the police, metro refused.

The press conference itself seemed to work out well from what I could tell from the Bambuser feed (Ankata sure likes to interrupt people though). But journalists of Olde Media(sv) where probably a bit startled when it turned out they where, in accordance with the R/W Culture of the web, expected to participate right of the bat and ask questions.

Right now it feels like the calm before the storm. Olde Media have just started pushing out content from the press conference, pirates are gearing up across the board and tomorrow all hell will probably break loose. My experince of the media coverage of the FRA-Law tells me that tomorrows papers will be much akin to Highlander, in that there can only be one subject on the front pages. P3, one of the national radio channels will interrupt its normal programming to send a SIX hours special(sv) on piracy, copyright and the trial. Pirate author Anna Troberg(sv) will be on the show(sv), no big suprise to any of the regular daytime listeners of the channel perhaps. The host of the special has had Anna on radio several times already.

Swedish national TV will broadcast the audio feed live (Swedish constitution prohibits video recordings of trials), a historical first.

Its going to be a hectic two weeks to be sure. And regardless of the outcome in this instance, which will pretty much be decided by the roll of a die, sweden will yet again evolve the relation between the social and olde media. Great things happened in the wake of the FRA-Law and this trial will change media landscape again. And I’m certain, it will be for the better.

Images from the Spectrial Press Conference (also of the S23k mobile press center)

martinloquist