This a outrageous scandal really, Cheeze the courts you thought where safe and justice has fallen victim to american lobby groupds that corrupt the politicians and court employed.
This is just like throwing gasoline on a fire about the tacky methods of Ifpi and other similar organisations that proves to the people that the big corporations just try to do everything to win, even buy judges...
Next election I would be suprised if there isn't a new party being in goverment.

Um, illegal downloading is illegal. If a judge supports something that is law, isn't he doing his job?

To put it another way, if he was trying people that stole cars and he was a member of the fictional Anti-GTA League, would that create the same kind of scandal?

Or am I missing something?

The judge should be disqualified for advocating copyright laws? That's BS. If anything it made him perfect for the case. I hope these Pirate Bay ******** get ***** in jail.

Judges are supposed to be neutral, and that includes not participating in groups that may have an interest. In order for justice to be served, the one imparting it should be outside foreign influences.

It's not a question of whether illegal copying is illegal, the question is whether the judge would have been prejudiced by his position within those organizations. It seems highly likely that the judge would have heard of The Pirate Bay before the case began and have already concluded that the defendants were guilty before hearing the trial. It sounds like the judge should have disqualified himself, but the Swedish courts will have more information and make their decision.

I don't know Swedish law, but were this tried in the US the judge would absolutely not have to recuse himself from the case. The most common grounds for a judge leaving a case are: 1) He/she has a financial interest in one of the parties, or occasionally an affected third party, or 2) Prior involvement with the case, for example, if you were prosecuting someone, and now hearing their appeal as an appellate judge.

Having ideological or policy beliefs isn't generally grounds for recusal. If it was, think about the problems this would cause. Where do you draw the line? Can you not hear cases about abortion if you belong to NOW or Planned Parenthood? What about if you're Catholic? If there's a class action against cigarettes, does the judge have to recuse himself if he's a smoker? If you attempt to analyze every personal interest in a judge, no case would come to trial. Judges are humans, and while we ask them to apply the law impartially, it will always be an imperfect process. And this is, perhaps, the biggest flaw, and also the greatest strength, of the modern legal system.

It's also not a case of illegal copying, which the Pirate Bay doesn't do. It's a case of facilitating illegal copying.

It may not be a paid membership but the judge's organization was part of the defense. "Norstrom is a member of The Swedish Association for Copyright, an organisation whose board includes Peter Danowsky, who represented the music and film industry in the trial, the group said on its website.". That said I doubt any other judge would be as equal handed in the case. The whole thing is not justice, they were found guilty before the trial even started.

That is awesome news, I mean, if they suceed to have a retrial.

To people that thinks: What is this guy pirate scum that steal my software???

I must say that piratebay is sometimes the ONLY source of some media, if you want me to buy your game SELL IT HERE DAMNIT.

And before you say: "buy on amazon" I must say that amazon for example usually refuse to ship some items to here, like many other companies.

I DO buy games on steam for example, but not all things are avaible there, some books, movies, music, games, and whatnot are only avaible on torrent or rapidshare, I must not even talk about localized things, here no company license or localize many things, thus we are forced to get it ilegally if we want it localized.

And if you ban us from that content, the result is us not having it, not us buying it legally (that as I stated, and as Valve stated, the main reason of piracy is unserved costumers).

Seriously, I know a huge scene of anime fans, that watch fansubbed anime here (that are not avaible legally), and they DO give lots of money to companies buying merchandise and whatnot, some anime companies even recognized that part of their money come from watchers of fansubbed anime, and they know that if they crack down on the head of the fansubbers they will plainly lose clients, not gain new ones, specially in this case, where people get the fansubbed version for a language reason, impeding a person from understanding a product, will only make that person ignore it.

Pirate bay DO is a great beacon of cultural sharing, they DO help lots of people, and I believe that altough their name says otherwise, it has lots of legitimate reasons (even if they are criminal, I believe that the laws are wrong, not the people)

I'm all for the Pirate Bay, you cannot liken their (Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij and Gottfrid Svartholm) efforts to car theft. While their position was very much digital anarchy, and they made that extremely clear, just take a look at their legal threats section haha, they are just providing service which has become synonymous with the term internet. Unless the internet becomes a much more unfriendly space torrent sites are here to stay and will continue being used. Forever. There is no way they can be stopped. Pirates are not just criminals they are kind of freedom fighters as well, and the pirate bay is simply a means for people to do what they want to do, something which is the basis of the internet. Developers may cry bloody murder but until they decide to tackle the problem in a way which is productive, not just epic international lawsuits, they will never make any headway. I liken it to the war on drugs, it cannot be won.

Logan, if you believe strongly enough in your ideological or policy beliefs to join an association or other official body, that is where the line should be drawn. Your question is now answered :D

Instead of filling law suites I would expect the large media companies to learn the reality of the situation and develop a more modern businesses approach.

Samuel, I'll cut right to it: You're full of crap. It's stealing. It's not "freedom fighting," there's no ideology, it's just stealing luxury/entertainment products instead of paying for them. This isn't food from the UN being kept in a warehouse by Somalian warlords while the people starve. These are people who have enough money to afford a computer and an internet connection, and the computer is good enough to play modern games, or they have a (modded) game console. These people are stealing, plain and simple. There's absolutely zero grey area here.

It's an interesting debate really, should providers of a service be punished for the use that people put that service too, and how far does it go?

I mean, look at it this way, we have drug dealers who provide a drug and are jailed for it, but then they provide an illegal substance, there is no legal component to their service

We have Arms Stores that sell weaponry legally, that is then used to kill people illegally. These people aren't punished. We then have arms traffickers, who do the same thing but are punished for it, but the difference being their intent to fuel conflict. (one could argue anyone who sells weaponry fuels conflict but lets not go there)

With this we have a group of people who provide a service that is used, not only for illegal activity, but quite legitimate and legal file sharing. Now to say they are unaware of what occurs would be naive, but apart from putting up some warnings and policing it to the best of their ability it would be hard for them to stop given the nature of their service and the number of users it has acquired.

One could liken it to an ISP, they provide internet access, much of the use it is put to is completely normal legal activity, but a lot of it isn't, crime is rampant. Now to say they are unaware of it would be naive, but all they can do is throw up some disclaimers and police it to the best of their ability, but given the nature of the service they provide and the number of users, it would be difficult to prevent.

But do we throw ISPs in jail? No, of course not the idea is ridiculous but the comparison can easily be made. hell if anything they're even more guilty, because if they didn't allow access to the internet then people couldn't share material illegally through it and the number of crimes committed on the internet in general is far greater than what the founders of the pirate bay may or may not be guilty of.

Let me get this straight, I don't support piracy, that said I don't support an artists right to claim ideas and concepts as their own and charge money for it, even though I recognise the need to do so. (it's a complicated set of beliefs). I do believe there are more than one instance where piracy aids sales (certainly not all cases), but without well documented research no one can say one way or another.

But I MOST CERTAINLY DO BELIEVE, that putting people in jail for what the users of their service do, is wrong. It sets a dangerous precedent and opens up a kettle of fish I think no one really wants to explore. Do we start jailing lawyers for potentially getting criminals off the hook, do we jail ISPs, do we start jailing Arms Dealers when a gun they sell legally is used to kill someone. What about doctors, do we jail them when they fail to diagnose someone with Münchausen's and give them drugs? What about youtube, shall we punish it's creators for the ability to view copyrighted material? Where does it end?

As for the judge, he most certainly should have been disqualified from presiding over this trial, sure it may be impossible to get someone who has "no" opinion on the matter, but someone who has quite strong ties to the defence should not preside, it's a perversion of justice (not talking about the man's ability to be impartial, I make no assumptions about his moral character, it's just the possibility for abuse of his position is far more ripe in this situation, whether he did indeed abuse this position is completely speculation).

@Samuel
I'd disagree with the freedom fighter aspect, but I can see where you're going, and likening it to the war on drugs, I'd have to completely agree.

@Bob
I'd have to say they themselves are not stealing, the users are, and there is plenty of grey area, but we won't go there, it's not the real issue at hand.

@Logan
You're right about the repercussions, but you've taken it to extremes. Maybe a Catholic Judge could rule on a religious case, because that's just his personal set of beliefs, but perhaps it would be wrong to allow person who is a member of the catholic priesthood to judge the case. The difference being that one already has something actively vested in a particular result, while the other is merely on the sidelines of the issue. Sure both could influence the result in favour of their beliefs if they chose to, it's just one is considerably more likely to.