The PirateBay Trial

Listening to the radio this morning, some radio journalist at the Swedish Radio has found out that the judge responsible for the Pirate-bay trial is heavily involved in two organisations that have as main objective to protect patents and copyrights. He was even on the board for one of the organisations.

Some lawyers are requiring a retrial. We will see what happens.

Edit: Sorry slow posting by me, anyway the original source was the Radio news, sloppy source naming by TechDigest. Funny that it wasn´t the some commercial media which made this discovery or maybe not that surprising.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Well one of those two organisations, the Swedish Copyright Association, is not a lobby organisation. It's pretty much only a forum for discussion on the subject. You'll have people on both sides of the fence professing to it's neutrality. So that one is just a dead end when it comes to possible bias.


The second one, the Swedish Association for Industrial Property, I know nothing about.

I do however ask myself why people are surprised that there are forums for discussion for experts in various fields and why membership to such a forum should even remotly be considered biased? Any arguments made need to be held up to scrutiny and where would you find other experts if you couldn't organize them in some way?
 
It basically says they are accusing the judge of picking the case himself instead of him being picked in a lottery fashion. This is being denied by the officials in charge of the court.
 
Theft is a criminal matter where the original owner is deprived of goods. Copyright infringement is a civil matter covered by different laws where the owner is not deprived of goods. Until you understand the difference, you're not really qualified to debate the issue.

Sorry for the reality check.

Seeing as these two people who were involved in what you call copyright infringment are in jail, and jail is not a valid punishment for civil matters, I'd say you're the one not actually qualified to debate the issue.

And you were saying something about reality?
 
Apparently the judge in the pirate bay trial is a member of various organizations that fight piracy and thus shouldn't have been the judge
 
Apparently the judge in the pirate bay trial is a member of various organizations that fight piracy and thus shouldn't have been the judge

Explain again why an officer of the court charged with upholding the law shouldn't be a member of organizations that are for upholding the law?
 
Organizations for upholding the law, or organizations pushing for desired laws not yet on the books?

The latter sounds like judicial activism.
 
Explain again why an officer of the court charged with upholding the law shouldn't be a member of organizations that are for upholding the law?
There's a difference. If the judge is part of a lobby or other interest groups directly related to the merits of the case and pushing for stricter interpretation of the law in question, there might be a bias, don't you think?
 
Explain again why an officer of the court charged with upholding the law shouldn't be a member of organizations that are for upholding the law?

Do you really not see conflicts of interest?

The judge is member of organizations that try to push for a stricter interpretation of the law, which directly relates to this particular case. He is surely biased, and hes job is to interpreted the law objectively..

The majority of the respected "Law men" in Sweden are all together on this one, he shouldn't been allowed to judge this case.

Similar example:

Lets say you are a tobacco company that are getting sued for something. The judge at your trial is a member of a lobby group that tries to outlaw cigarettes. Surely you wouldn't want him as a judge? You wouldn't you would file some sort of complaint and get a new judge that has no ties or interest to the particular trial.
 
I see potential conflicts of interest, not automatic conflicts of interest.

Regardless, in this particular case, are there any questions of fact that are in dispute? From my understanding, there are not.

Are there any questions of legal interpretation that are in dispute?

Or is everybody just arguing their own moral code about what should be right or wrong based on their layman's understanding, without actually knowing the law?
 
I see potential conflicts of interest, not automatic conflicts of interest.

Regardless, in this particular case, are there any questions of fact that are in dispute? From my understanding, there are not.

Are there any questions of legal interpretation that are in dispute?

Or is everybody just arguing their own moral code about what should be right or wrong based on their layman's understanding, without actually knowing the law?


Some times laws fail.
 
Then you should talk to the legislators, or whomever has the ability to change those laws.

Arguing that a trial judge isn't enforcing your morality is flat out wrong headed. They're their to arbitrate the law as its written.
 
Back
Top