The Pirate Bay Issue - English Translation

John Kennedy of IFPI

2009-02-25T17:24:00.003+01:00

John Kennedy of IFPI is being heard.

Rick Falkvinge, head of the Swedish Pirate Party, reports. There are a few sentences in Swedish at the beginning about how he's hoping to keep up better now (because of the pauses introduced by interpretation, maybe?).

No trial today

2009-02-23T16:50:00.003+01:00

As you may already know, there aren't any proceedings today. The trial will be resumed on Tuesday.

And yes, I know that the blog is not up-to-date. I'm sorry, but I have way too much stuff to do right now. Oscar Swartz is covering the trial for Wired.com, but I can't find a direct link to his entries, so you'll have to find them yourselves. And then there is the spectrial site, of course. TorrentFreak should cover at least the major points. And I'll try to make time. Eventually.

Huh..

2009-02-22T15:44:00.001+01:00

From Forbes.com:

Swedish blogger Snild Dolkow reported [...]

That's pretty cool.

The Pirate Bay trial, day three

2009-02-19T08:47:00.007+01:00

Summary of yesterday's (Wednesday's) proceedings, from SvD.se.

The case should be dismissed -- This was what the four defense attorneys were saying during the third day of the Pirate Bay trial. SvD.se is covering the trial live.

9.06 The trial on the four defendants continues. This morning, representatives from the industry will be heard. In the afternoon, the defendants will state their case.

9.07 The judge revisits the fact that the prosecutor has modified the charges -- which was revealed yesterday. The prosecutor has cancelled the charges of producing copies, and is now concentrating on the fact that torrent files have been distributed through The Pirate Bay.

- The only thing being dropped are the claims of producing copies, nothing else, says prosecutor Håkan Roswall, calling the changes an "adjustment".

The changes creates a few questions -- The defense attorneys do not consider it an "adjustment", but that a charge is being dropped. According to Peter Althin, Peter Sunde's defense attorney, they will revisit this subject later. The judge wants to know what consequences this will have for the trial, but it is agreed that the issue will be brought up again later this week.

According to the prosecutor, making something available [the remaining charge] happens when someone uploads a torrent file to The Pirate Bay. When other people download that torrent file, The Pirate Bay is also committing a crime, according to the prosecutor.

09.16 Peter Danowsky, the representative for record industry organization Ifpi and, in the trial, six Swedish record companies, begins to state his case. He starts with some background information on The Pirate Bay -- The number of users they had 2005, how the site works, and that is possible to download torrent files from it.

He directs the court's attention to the e-mail sent to The Pirate Bay about copyright infringement on the site -- and that the answer from the representatives has been that they don't care.

09.22 Ifpi has been testing The Pirate Bay, says Peter Danowsky. Copyrighted works has been downloaded via the site in order to make sure they work.

- With the help of The Pirate Bay, a number of recordings were downloaded, and these were later turned in to the court. We also have screenshots of this, says Danowsky.

According to Ifpi, The Pirate Bay has caused "considerable damages" for the record companies.

09.29 Danowsky cites the law. He points to the fact that the law states that a person assisting or preparing copyright infringement can be forced to pay compensation to the copyright holder for the financial losses and suffering.

- The damage that the four have caused through The Pirate Bay is, among other things, reduced sales of the recordings brought up in this case. But the damage is larger than that for the record companies. The Pirate Bay's activities lead to reduced interest in buying CDs, reduced interest in online sales, reduce interest in creating legal services, says Danowsky.

This means that Ifpi is not only requesting compensation for the losses in record sales, but for what the record companies consider further consequences of file sharing sites like The Pirate Bay.

09.40 Ifpi goes through the requests for compensation -- bringing up the number of downloads from The Pirate Bay. The damages are calculated by how many downloads had occurred when Ifpi downloaded the files from The Pirate Bay and by how many downloads had occurred when the police struck.

- What kind of values do you assign to this? asks Peter Danowsky, and continues:

- For the albums, we've chosen what the record companies would have gotten on average if the download had occurred through a legal service. At the time, a record cost ten euro, and the record companies got 6.5 of that.

The record companies' requests for compensation are affected by if the download occurred before or after there were legal downloads. The compensation is higher for records that have been distributed even though there were no legal alternatives, than for the records that were available through legal sites. The compensation is also affected by if the artists had approved their records being available on the Internet -- for example, The Beatles had not approved this when Ifpi downloaded "Let It Be" through the site.

09.49 Ifpi declines adjustment of the requests for compensation. Danowsky doesn't believe the statements that the four defendants are unable to pay the compensation. In his opinion, The Pirate Bay has earned large sums of money.

09.50 Peter Danowsky of Ifpi has stated his case. Henrik Pontén, representing Antipiratbyrån [lit. Bureau of antipiracy, similar to MPAA] and two swedish film companies, states his case. Antipiratbyrån has also downloaded from The Pirate Bay, and according to Pontén, they agree with Ifpi.

Antipiratbyrån demands compensations of 4.5 million crowns [$500 000] - a sum calculated by what The Pirate Bay would've had to pay in license fees to sell the movies available from the site. Antipiratbyrån also wants compensation for loss of goodwill.

09.58 The court takes a break.

10.20 Monique Wadsted of attorney firm MAQS, representing eight American movie and game companies, staets her case.

10.21 Wadsted says The Pirate Bay has had every opportunity to remove torrent files linking to copyright-protected works.

- It's not harder than removing a Word file for us ordinary people, she says.

According to Wadsted, the four defendants are "equitably liable" and should pay the compensation together.

10.24 Wadsted is going through, among other things, the technology - that a "leecher" becomes a "seeder" when a complete file is downloaded, how the tracker counts the number of times a file has been downloaded and so on.

10.27 The case concerns, among other things, "Harry Potter & The Goblet of Fire", "The Pink Panther" and the TV series "Prison Break". Wadsted reviews the number of times these works have been downloaded and uploaded through The Pirate Bay. According to Wadsted, Prison Break was made available on The Pirate Bay on December 3rd, 2005 and was downloaded 48 104 times between that point and May 31st 2006.

10.34 According to Monique Wadsted, The Pirate Bay has had "considerable traffic". The request for compensation is based on the fact that the works involved were not available on legal sites. As such, the compensation is based on what The Pirate Bay would have payed for advance screening licenses.

- What the users have gotten is an advance screening copy, but also a copy without copy protection, says Wadsted.

That means that the film companies want 261.48 crowns for every downloaded copy of Harry Potter, 222.55 crowns per download of Syriana, Walk The Line and Pink Panther. For the TV series Prison Break, they are demanding 415.81 crowns per downloaded copy. [100 crowns is about $11.20.]

Additionally, they are demanding compensation for "damage to the market" and "internal damage". They have also doubled the compensation - Wadsted references a Danish verdict which she will revisit in her final plea. Just like Ifpi, Wadsted doesn't see any reason to adjust the request for compensation.

10.46 Monique Wadsted has stated her case. The court discusses whether the defendants will state their cases before lunch, or at 13 o'clock like the court's schedule says.

10.47 Per E Samuelsson, representing Carl Lundström, moves for an acquittal since the prosecutor has modified the charge and that the case is no longer about producing copies. The attorneys of Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij and Gottfrid Svartholm Warg agrees, moving for the acquittals of their respective clients.

The prosecutor says he leaves it to the court to decide. The court in discussions. Monique Wadsted says the case is also about making available, and that it doesn't matter that the prosecutor is no longer bringing up production of copies.

The judge says the district court will announce their decision in the matter at a later time.

10.51 The trial continues. Jonas Nilsson, Fredrik Neij's defense attorney, states his case. He points to the fact that the counter for the number of times a work has been downloaded via The Pirate Bay is not reliable.

Jonas Nilsson stresses that The Pirate Bay are not the ones supplying works on the site, but that it's the users. He also says there is no copyright-protected material on the site's servers.

- No one can think that The Pirate Bay is supplying these files, says Jonas Nilsson.

Nilsson also brings up the description of the criminal act, and that the prosecutor claims that making available is uploading a torrent file. According to the defense, the uploaders computer has to be running, and the torrent application has to be running.

- And we don't know that they are, says Jonas Nilsson.

10.56 The defense keeps pointing out uncertainties.

- We don't know who's the uploader. We don't know how the uploader got a hold of the works. We don't know how Fredrik Neij has influenced the uploader. And, maybe more importantly, where is the concrete facilitation, other than through The Pirate Bay supplying a fully legal functionality and technology.

10.58 Jonas Nilsson brings up how Fredrik Neij came to be involved in The Pirate Bay's activities.

- He joined because he is a technician. He's a technician at heart. He didn't join because of ideological reasons, nor economical. He has done this without salary, and The Pirate Bay has never been run as a commercial project. However, after a time it was discovered that one could collect ad money for running the site.

According to Jonas Nilsson, Fredrik Neij has never encouraged anyone to commit copyright infringement. Neither has The Pirate Bay - though people often claim they have, says Nilsson.

- Where can we find evidence for such actions? he asks.

The bittorrent technology itself is not illegal, and Fredrik Neij's attorney points to this fact. Uploaders and downloaders need a special application, but The Pirate Bay has not supplied it. Instead, Jonas Nilsson stresses that the application can easily be found on the Internet or in stores.

- It's not a rare piece of software, he says, moving on to describe The Pirate Bay as a search engine.

- I mean that the torrent files that have been found via The Pirate Bay could also have been found on other search engines, like Google.

11.06 Earlier during the day, the plaintiffs have rejected that the e-commerce law is applicable in this case. Fredrik Neij believes otherwise. The Pirate Bay should be considered as a supplier of a service. In paragraph 16, it says the supplier of a service is not liable for the content in the information being transferred - a fact Neij and Jonas Nilsson consider very important for the case.

11.08 Ola Salomonsson, defense attorney for Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, is stating his case. Svartholm Warg is pleading innocent to all charges.

- He has not changed his opinion after the prosecutor's extensive presentation. He can simply not see in which way any of this would be a crime, says Salomonsson.

Just like Jonas Nilsson, Salomonsson points to the fact that The Pirate Bay have never encouraged copyright infringement. The defense claims The Pirate Bay should be regarded as a service and opposes all the claims of intent. There is nothing on The Pirate Bay encouraging the users to download copyrighted works, says Salomonsson.

11.15 The payments brought up by the prosecutor "don't always refer to The Pirate Bay", says Ola Salomonsson. Svartholm Warg will not deny the payments, but the defense claims that they are not neccessarily connected to The Pirate Bay.

11.18 Ola Salomonsson has stated his case. Next up is Peter Althin, representing Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi.

11.19 According to Peter Althin, Peter Sunde has not had the kind of responsiblity for The Pirate Bay that the prosecutor is claiming. Without going into detail, Althin says that the invoices displayed by the prosecutor do not in any way tie Peter Sunde to The Pirate Bay.

- He will explain this very carefully at a later time, says Peter Althin.

The defense makes a comparison to a soccer fan submitting his opinion to his favorite team. In the same way, Peter Sunde has had opinions of The Pirate Bay, but that doesn't mean he can be held responsible for the site. Neither does the fact that Sunde has been the press contact for the site.

11.24 Ola Salomonsson interrupts to point out that the agreements shown by the prosecutor do not neccessarily mean that any company has been founded on The British Virgin Islands - something that was brought up yesterday.

11.26 Per E Samuelsson, Carl Lundströms defense attorney, is stating his case.

11.28 Samuelsson brings up the fact that the prosecutor has said that The Pirate Bay is not on trial, but separate individuals. But Samuelsson has not heard the prosecutor say a word about Carl Lundström. According to him, the trial is more about principles of criminal law rather than copyright.

- To convict someone for assisting in a crime, you have to be able to connect the defendant to the act of assisting. But the prosecutor hasn't even been able to do this when stating his case, says Samuelsson.

He continues with bringing up the EU directive 2000/31 about e-commerce. There, too, it says that a service for information transfer shall not be held responsible for the content. This means that the four people claimed to be behind The Pirate Bay shall not be held responsible. The people who have uploaded the works should.

The EU directive has become Swedish law through the Swedish e-commerce law, which has been brought up earlier in the trial. The law states that one can't demand that the supplier of an information transfer service should know what the information contains.

- It's like if there was child porn on Blocket [a Swedish site similar to Craigslist]. Of course, the owners of Blocket wouldn't be held responsible, but the one who submitted the material, says Samuelsson.

- The prosecutor has to be able to show that the defendants, on an individual level, have encouraged downloads. The prosecutor has not been able to do this.

11.37 The defense attorney brings up Carl Lundström's background - about his past businesses and how Lundström started broadband company Rix Telecom. There, Fredrik Neij got a job after meeting Lundström at a trade fair in Jönköping. But when Neij got the job, The Pirate Bay had already been started, Samuelsson says - a fact that according to the defense clearly shows that he [Lundström] doesn't have anything to do with the service.

Lundström met Gottfrid Svartholm Warg at a dinner in 2004. Svartholm Warg was running the company PRQ with Neij, and Lundström was interested in becoming a partial owner or buying the company. However, he pulled out for various reasons - and Samuelsson says that the relationship between Lundström and the others is stricly a business relationship.

11.44 Carl Lundström har had nothing to do with the printout [huh?] of The Pirate Bay included in the indictment, Samuelsson says. And he rejects any discussions about compensation.

- We will win this case purely on common criminal law. The alleged main crimes [the crimes TPB are charged with assisting] are consist of making a copyrighted work available, and when the prosecutor went through all the written evidence we could see who made each and every work available. There, you could trace an e-mail address and get in contact with this person, Samuelsson says and points to the fact that over 80 percent of the files on The Pirate Bay are not copyright-protected.

He continues by pointing out that the law says that a business connection can never constitute "assisting a crime". Neither can thinking about buying a company, he says. The connection between Carl Lundström and The Pirate Bay has been stictly a business relationship.

- That is the cornerstone of Carl Lundström's defense, Samuelsson says.

11.52 The third day of the trial is over. The negotiations will resume at 9 AM tomorrow morning.

There is more, but I have to get to school. I'll continue later today.

Update: Okay, so I didn't. Got caught up in other stuff I had to do. But here it is, finally.. :)

50% of Charges Against Pirate Bay Dropped

2009-02-17T15:53:00.002+01:00

I haven't been able to follow the trial today. Had a lecture in compiler construction, and was interviewed by newspaper Skånska Dagbladet.

TorrentFreak writes, 50% of Charges Against Pirate Bay Dropped.

There has been high drama on the second day of the Pirate Bay trial. Due to serious shortcomings in the prosecution evidence, around 50% of the charges in the case are going to have to be withdrawn. The defense describes it as a ’sensation’, seeing half of the charges being dropped on the second day.

Click the link for the whole story.

Pirate Bay defense attorney on the trial: "Pathetic"

2009-02-17T07:19:00.002+01:00

From PC för Alla:

The pirate wars have begun, and the defense is preparing for a long fight. The mood is both hopeful and uncertain. And cocky.
- This is dinosaurs making a sad and pathetic attempt at trying to hold on to the old ways, says attorney Per E Samuelsson.

Sweden's most attention-warranting trial has begun. PC för Alla has chatted with three of the four attorneys representing the defendants in the Pirate Bay trial starting today.

Per E Samuelsson, defending Carl Lundström, considers the case is obvious. He believes that the trial is not about copyright infringement, but that the prosecutor is trying to get at the infrastructure of the Internet. In his interpretation of the law, it's not possible to prosecute anyone for supplying items or online services that can be used in an illegal manner.

- All four will be acquitted. The law does not cover this, what our clients have done is not a crime. It's like charging BMW with assisting speeding offence because they market the fact that their cars can reach 250 km/h [about 155 mph], says Per E Samuelsson.

He doesn't mince words with his rivals in the courtroom, and advocates that the prosecution is an impossible attempt at stopping technical advances.

- The record and movie industries are fat cats who will end in a big belly flop. They're very vocal and will push 10-15 lawyers and world-famous gurus from London forward, but I think us four attorneys are winning this, says Per E Samuelsson.

He believes it's a political trial and that the advances cannot be stopped with criminal cases, that people have to find alternative ways so that consumers can get inexpensive movies while the creator gets paid.

- The technology is here to stay. If the record companies win, they'll still lose. They have to find a way to create a direct contact between the creator and the consumer. The proposals to add a fee to ISPs may be one way, says Per E Samuelsson.

[Caption: ] Pirates and defense. From the left: Gottfrid Svartholm Warg (Pirate Bay), Peter Sunde (Pirate Bay) and Peter Althin (Peter Sunde's defense attorney).

"I'm sure he'll be acquitted"
Peter Althin is also hopeful. He is sure his client Peter Sunde will be acquitted.

- I'm sure my client will be acquitted. Our opinion is that he is not responsible for The Pirate Bay in the way the prosecution states.

Will this go all the way to the Supreme Court?
- That's what you have to assume when it comes to something this new. But we're taking it one step at a time, says Peter Althin.

He's slightly sceptical to the fact that the verdict may change the legislation about file sharing.
- When I was in the parliament, I noticed that different parties have different opinions on the file sharing legislation. The legislators won't have to consider this verdict. We will have to think about this.

Ola Solomonsson, defending Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, is the attorney most hesitant to expecting an acquittal. He doesn't want to speculate, but expresses some doubt:

- It could go either way. We may succeed, or we may not. The verdict is not obvious, and these issues are not simple.

Ola Salomonsson and Per E Samuelsson both see some things that may put their clients at a disadvantage.

- Gottfrid is a man of few words. He's of the very firm opinion that he has not committed any crime, but he has to be more straight. I hope he will loosen up in court, says Ola Salomonsson.

"Cocky texts on The Pirate Bay"
Per E Samuelsson identifies another weak point in the case.
- There are certain cocky words on the site, encouraging crimes. If they could prove exactly who wrote them, it could be on the verge of being punishable. But I don't think they can, because the prosecutor has not mentioned them at all.

Another thing that might make it difficult for the defense attorneys is that they also have to deal with the enormous compensation that the 16 companies involved in the Pirate Bay case demand.

- I'm a criminal case lawyer, and I don't want to handle civil law cases with damage claims. We have tried to separate the issue of damages from the criminal trial, but the district court has refused. It's unreasonable that 75 percent of a criminal case is about civil law, says Ola Salomonsson.

However, Ola Samuelsson sounds very certain that the case will not reach the Supreme Court.
- I'm used to it. Even if this is a new issue, I don't think it will reach the SC, says attorney Ola Salomonsson.

PC för alla has repeatedly tried to reach Jonas Nilsson, who's defending Fredrik Neij, without success.

Prosecutor Håkan Roswall says he does not want to make any comments to the press.

Pirate Bay Trial: The Hottest Ticket in Stockholm

2009-02-17T07:14:00.001+01:00

Swedish blogger and Internet pioneer Oscar Swartz is reporting for Wired.

His summary of the first day can be found here.

On the first day of trial..

2009-02-16T15:41:00.002+01:00

On the first day of trial, the prosecutor gave to me..

one screenshot of a torrent download,
another screenshot of a torrent download,
another screenshot of a torrent download,
another screenshot of a torrent download,
another screenshot of a torrent download,
another screenshot of a torrent download,
another screenshot of a torrent download,
another screenshot of a torrent download,
.... and so on.

The first day of trial is over. It wasn't really exciting. I will see if I can find some interesting news articles and translate them later tonight.

500 crowns for a Pirate Bay-ticket

2009-02-16T13:09:00.002+01:00

From Mediebloggen:

The Pirate Bay's trial has become a happening. The press from around the world is there, as well as the blogs. And the pirate site's founders arrive in a pirate-themed bus.

There isn't much room for the general public. But around ten "tickets" were handed out to people who had turned up this morning, according to the district court's chief guard Thomas Östman. It was far from enough, and dozens of Pirate Bay fans are now in room 8 listening to an audio feed from the trial.

According to information to Mediabloggen some visitor's tickets were even sold on the black market this morning. 500 crowns [~$60] to be able to be part of the cirkus' first day in the district court. Like any given rock show...

The trial against The Pirate Bay has begun

2009-02-16T09:50:00.015+01:00

It appears this article is updated as the day goes... I will try to update the translation as well. The newest entry will be at the top.

Just after 9.00 AM, monday, the trial against four men with connections to the file sharing site The Pirate Bay begun. The verdict will set a precedent, and has garnered international attention. Media from all around the world is present in Stockholm's district court.

15:56
The trial was ajourned at 15.45, and will be resumed Tuesday (tomorrow), at 9.00 AM.

15:26
This morning, people were almost fighting for the seats in room 9 in Stockholm's district court. Now, the rows are relatively empty -- even though there is only three of them.

There have been many reports of the international attention, and there are several reports in foreign media. The attendence is not quite as good. Neighboring country Norway seems to have the most journalists on the scene. According to a reporter from Dagens Näringsliv, two of his colleagues are in Sweden to cover the proceedings. During yesterday's press conference, there were the occational English-speaking journalist. The rest are remarkably anonymous.

15:24
The afternoon has been considerably more calm than the morning, inside the courtroom as well as outside. During the break, several of the defendants were able to walk around freely, without being overly crowded by journlists with questions.

Carl Lundström may be the defendant who received the least attention today. He doesn't belong to the same group as the three others, and mostly keeps to himself.
Moreover, he won't say a word.

- My attorney loves to talk. I don't want to take that pleasure away from him, he told DN.se during the break.

The attorney he speaks of is named Per E. Samuelsson. But he has another one, Stefan Jevinger, expert on copyright. Upon being asked why he's the only one with two attorneys, he answers:

- I don't want to lose.

14:49
The court takes a break. Prosecutor Håkan Roswall announces that he's done with about half of the documented music downloads.

14:43
The prosecutor is still walking the court through the downloads, currently music.

The total is the works of 20 artist, nine movies and four computer/video games. Among the artists that have seen their work illegally downloaded are Backyard Babies, Joakim Thåström, Amy Diamond and Håkan Hellström.

The Pirate Bay is considered the Internet's largest place for downloads of movies, music, games and application. Between 22 and 25 million people use the site's so-called tracker service that connects the file sharers.

14:15
Prosecutor Håkan Roswall shows the court how various file sharers can be tracked.

Among other things, he shows the audience that at a certain point in time, 81 people made the movie "Den svaga punkten" available. An additional eleven people had parts of the work on their computers, making these available.

Another one of Roswall's examples is the movie "Mastermind".

The prosecutor shows the amount of downloads, at one point 4,137. He also has screenshots from some downloads. He shows how the torrent technology works in practice.

Prosecutor Håkan Roswall is trying to establish charge number two: Assisting in copyright infringement.

13:35
Prosecutor Håkan Roswall talks about the Pirate Bay raid:

- All in all we confiscated about 195 computers. After this, the police have been going through these and found, among other things, e-mail, he said.

The e-mail will be brought up later in the proceedings.

Håkan Roswall rejects the claim that this is "the first time in the world" that the bittorrent technology is being brought up in court:

- That's not true. There's a verdict in Finland from 2008. I'll be getting to that case later.

13:15
The trial is resumed.

12:00
Break for lunch. The trial will resume at 13:00.

11:48
Sunde is brought into the picture when the site is being rebuilt. Among other things, more search functions will be added.

- Now, I'm not saying that Peter Sunde did all the programming himself. But it's being supervised by him, says the prosecutor.

The new, updated and more modern site is launched in 2005.

On July 1st 2005, Swedish law is changed to make it illegal to download copyright-protected files from the Internet. According to the prosecutor, Carl Lundström among others are aware of this.

11:37
The prosecutor is now describing his view of the development of The Pirate Bay (TPB).

- According to some archives, the adderss became visible on the Internet for the first time on July 15th 2004, he says.

The company PRQ with contact Fredrik Neij is behind the site.
The site has also had legal activities, notes the prosecutor, implying that The Pirate Bay is not one of them.

At first, the site was small, but they wanted more users. In October of 2004, Fredrik Neij met Carl Lundström, who operated the company Rix Telecom, says the prosecutor. With his help, they can configure a larger number of computers.

- Lundström also supplies Neij and Svartholm Warg with two servers. Both are seized in the spring 2006 raid.

The prosecutor believes that Lundström initially saw himself as a sponsor. However, he would eventually own 40 percent of the company. According to the prosecutor, Svartholm Warg and Neij got 30 percent each.

11:13
The next feature: How The Pirate Bay's site works. Everyone's eyes are on the white screen behind Sunde/Althin.

"This is how you click", says a computer-like voice while showing what it looks like after clicking on the movie "Shark Tale". Statistics, information about torrent files etc. is shown.

The audience appears uninterested.

10:52
Time for a movie. Prosecutor Håkan Roswall demonstrates how The Pirate Bay actually works. The technology is not the simplest -- but important to understand in a case like this.

10:40
The participants took a 15 minute break. At least, kind of a break. In fact, there was probably more happening in the quarter out in the hallways than what has happened in the negotiations so far.

The defendants, with Sunde and Svartholm Warg in the lead, were crowded by media as usual.

Peter Sunde told DN.se that he has a good feeling about it all. He was a little nervous earlier today, but it has passed.

-- You can't be nervous all this time, he said, and admitted that he wasn't even sure about which day he will be heard by the prosecutor.

Attorney Peter Althin agreed. Thirteen days without breaks, a little too much in his opinion:

-- You need a little time to absorb everything.

Beyond that there was not much to say. Althin said "everything's moving along". Monique Wadsted, representing the big Hollywood companies, said the exact same thing.

The bigwigs were not the only ones to attract attention. The hallways swarm with young people dressed as pirates and, well, all kinds of stuff.

Coffee in a thermos bottle or not was definately the lowest common denominator. [meaning that the bigwigs did not have them, while pirates did]

10:14
The negotiations will take a 15 minute break.

10:12
The defense is contesting the sky high compensation amounts. For the first time, the mood is slightly dampened.

Carl Lundström's attorney Stefan Jevinger points out, among other things, that the defandants cannot be held responsible for all of the damage since there are other users who have enjoyed what the defendants are being held responsible for.

The defendants have said that the demands for compensation do not scare them.

During a press conference this Sunday, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg said "they are welcome to send an invoice". If he gets one, he will frame it and hang it on his wall.

9:58
Prosecutor Roswall describes the demands for compensation. There are a lot of numbers of different sizes. In the end, the district court will have to take a position on the 117 million crowns [about 13.5 million US dollars] that the industry demands as compensation for their lost revenue.

9:50
The defendant's attorneys contest the charges.

Peter Sunde's attorney, Peter Althin, says Sunde's plead is built on different grounds from Svartholm Warg and Neij's. Sunde has not been responsible for the organisation or operation of TPB, says Althin.

Carl Lundström's attorney, Stefan Jevinger, points out that the case is a case of criminal law -- not copyright. To supply a service -- that can be used illegally or legally -- is not illegal, says Jevinger. Even in the case of file sharing.

He also says that this is why Carl Lundström can't be held responsible for anything except what he has done himself. And he has had nothing to do with the web site TPB, he has only supplied a service to them.

9:31
Negotiations are being held in room 9, the largest room available to the district court. It has about 35 audience seats. There is also a live audio feed to room 8 where an additional 25 seats are available.

Still, a majority of the attendees won't fit, and have to wait outside.

The prosecutor is currently announcing the complete list of charges. The charges are based on the investigation report, a 1,400 page document excluding appendices.

9:23
Journalists and the public were let in first, after a bit of delay. Then came the defendants as well as prosecutor Håkan Roswall with companions. The atmosphere is slightly chaotic, yet calm. In the audience are journalists and bloggers -- many of them with a laptop.

After a series of procedural issues it was time for the issue of the day: the prosecutor states his case.

Prosecutor Håkan Roswall opens with stating that The Pirate Bay (TPB) is one of the world's largest Internet file sharing services. It is funded by ad revenues, and the four accused have knowingly and willingly been running TPB. As such, they have facilitated other people's infringement.

8:35
Just after 8:30 AM, three of the defendants, Fredrik Neij, Peter Sunde and Gottfrid Svarholm, arrived at Stockholm's district court.

They arrived in a pirate-themed bus, named S23K, which will serve as a place to meet for the people around The Pirate Bay and Piratbyrån.

The three were met by a large variety of media. Journlists from all around the world are currently gathered at Flemminggatan 14 in Stockholm. Bloggers and Pirate Party members also followed the men. However, the three and their attorneys soon disappeared in anticipation of the start of the trial.

"Huge and important"

2009-02-16T09:29:00.002+01:00

Attorney Peter Danowsky, prosecutor Håkan Roswall and one of the defendants, Gottfrid Svartholm, comment the trial.

-- This is a huge and important copyright infringement case, but it's not a political case as some claim, says attorney Peter Danowsky, one of the industry representatives, on his way into the courtroom.

Prosecutor Håkan Roswall has decided not to comment on the case for the duration of the trial.

One of the defendants, Gottfrid Svartholm, discusses the huge attention with TT:

-- It's a bit over the top. Maybe it would've been enough with one camera. But we're going to win this, at least at the highest authority.

Upon being asked if losing will result in any large consequences, Svartholm answers:

-- No, not for filesharing on the net in any case.

Outside Stockholm district court, among the people demonstrating in support of The Pirate Bay, is Krister Lindberg.

-- I'm here to show my support, and I think it's the issue of democracy that's the most important, not the file sharing issue itself, says Lindberg who is of the opinion that there are large risks that the freedom on the net will be reduced while restrictions increase.

from DN.

The trial has begun!

2009-02-16T09:23:00.002+01:00

The defendants arrived a few minutes after 8.30 AM in S23K, a pirate-themed bus.

The trial began at 9.00 AM.

Live commentary in English here.

Spectrial updates

2009-02-13T12:00:00.002+01:00

Follow the links for the full texts.

The press conference live @ internets!

With the help of our friends at Bambuser, we will broadcast our press conference live and direct!

For you who do not have the opportunity to attend us in person check out our live broadcast from the press conference. Here you will have the opportunity to ask questions through the integrated chat directly to us during the press-conference and we will try to answer as many questions as possible.

Hey media, please behave

Apparently we’ve created a buzz [1, 2, 3 (swedish)] about the fact that we exclude some parts of the media from interviews and the press conference. This is why we choose to do this:

Right now at the bay…

This is what we are up to atm

Time to sign up for the press conference

2009-02-11T19:03:00.003+01:00

Fresh off the Spectrial site: Time to sign up for the press conference. In English. Works for me. :)

National Museum of Science and Technology

2009-02-11T18:51:00.003+01:00

There's lots of stuff happening on the Spectrial site.

Marcin, one of the Piratbyrån guys, just microblogged the following:

The National Museum of Science and Technology called both yesterday and today, wanting to put one of our early TPB servers on display. Art or history? Maybe both!

I thought that was pretty cool.

The Pirate Bay Issue - Here it is

2009-02-11T17:33:00.004+01:00

The kind folks at one of Sweden's major newspapers, DN, have put together a short recap for us.

There may be a few unknown proper nouns in the text. You should be able to find most of them on Wikipedia. Otherwise, just ask in the comments, and I'll try to explain them.

2003: The Pirate Bay is started

The Pirate Bay is created by people active in the lobby organisation Piratbyrån [lit. The Piracy Bureau], that wants to change copyright and claim to defend the free* exchange of information and culture on the Internet. On The Pirate Bay, the visitors can find and download files, for example movies or music, using something called torrents. Torrents work by downloading the files in small pieces that can be fetched from several differenet computers connected to the site. When The Pirate Bay begin their activities, the American movie and music industries are already fighting the illegal file sharing.

2005: Sweden's laws become harsher

It was already illegal to make copyright protected material available on the Internet. Now it's illegal to download it as well. The number of people participating in illegalities see a considerable increase overnight. The evidence proves to be complicated in file sharing cases. Since the law was taken into effect, only a few people have been sentenced for illegal downloading. The crime can result in a prison sentence, but so far there have only been fines.

Spring 2006: Sweden is pressured by the U.S.A.

The Pirate Bay's user base is steadily growing (according to the site, it passed 20 million in 2008). One factor is that broadband coverage is improving. In the U.S.A., industry organizations like the Motion Picture Association (MPA) which represents the movie and TV companies have been making progress in their fight against file sharing. Now they're setting their sights on Sweden. The Swedish Ministry of Justice is petitioned to take harsh action against The Pirate Bay. Swedish police and government representatives visit the U.S.A. American movie companies filed a report with the police. The Minister of Justice, Thomas Bodström, is in direct contact with the Prosecutor General and the head of the National Police Board.

May 31st, 2006: The Pirate Bay raid

The police strikes hard: 186 computers are seized from about ten different locations across Sweden. About 50 policemen are involved. Hackers retaliate by sabotaging goverment webpages. Just a few days later, The Pirate Bay is once again available from servers in other countries. The next day, SVT [Swedish public service television] expose that there had been discussions between the Swedish government and American authorities and industry representatives. The Minister of Justice, Thomas Bodström, is accused of ministerstyre**, that is, he tried to influence the Swedish authorities in a certain case, which is forbidden in the constitution. He is reported to The Committee on the Constitution. The events are also reported to the Parliamenary Ombudsman. After their investigations, both authorities decide to rule in favor of The Minister of Justice.

Summer 2006: File sharing goes political

Large demonstrations are held after the Pirate Bay raid. Amongst the ranks are followers of Piratbyrån and the newly formed Pirate Party side by side with representatives from the youth organisations tied to Folkpartiet, Vänsterpartiet and Miljöpartiet [three of the seven parties in Sweden's parliament]. The Pirate Party, participating in the election with demands of reformed copyright, achieve 0.63 percent of the votes in the autumn parliament vote. The file sharing issue causes internal conflicts in the parliament parties. It is obvious the issue will not fit in the traditional left-right axis.

Januari 31st 2008: The Pirate Bay is indicted

Four Pirate Bay representatives are charged with assisting and conspiring to break copyright law. There are very specific reasons for the charges being phrased like that. The difficulty facing prosecutor Håkan Roswall is that The Pirate Bay itself doesn't take part in up- or downloading. What the site does is to help users who want a certain file to get in contact with other people who have that file on their computers. The transfer itself is not routed through the site. Because of this, the way the case ends may be very significant for determining what is considered copyright infringement.

February 2009: The trial

The trial of The Pirate Bay starts on Monday, February 16th, in Stockholm's district court and is expected to go on until February 4th [this is probably a typo]. The situation is even more critical since the parliament is voting on the IPRED directive during this time. If the directive is passed, the ability to search for and find those who take part in illegal file sharing will increase significantly. You can read more about the new law here [Swedish].

Sources: DN, Wikipedia, SVT, Piratbyrån, Antipiratbyrån, Wired, Ny Teknik, Riksdagen.se

* Free as in speech, not beer. The Swedish word "fri" could mean both, but in my opinion, the context makes it pretty clear.
** Ministerstyre is apparently unique to Sweden. It means a minister is not allowed to interfere with specific cases being handled by the authorities. You can read more on Wikipedia.

Translated streams during the trial

2009-02-10T22:14:00.002+01:00

The Pirate Bay and Piratbyrån have set up a site/blog about the trial (it's linked in the right-hand menu here on the blog, too).

They're saying they will set up a translated stream during the trial. Impressive.

Pirate juror had to leave post

2009-02-10T19:58:00.003+01:00

A short note about the Swedish justice system:
We don't have a "jury" as such, but rather a group of laymen in cooperation with one or several experienced judges. All of these then determine the verdict and punishment together. This article is about one of the laymen.

The headline is a little misleading. He isn't really a Pirate juror (how cool would that be?), but a layman who was supposed take part in the trial.

One of the jurors in the Pirate Bay trial that starts next week has had to leave his post. He was considered to have a conflict of interest and has been replaced by a new juror.

- Originally, three jurors were interviewed and some opinion was offered. Upon a question from me to the jurors about whether they are or have been members of any copyright association or anything of the like or if they've been artists, one of them said yes, said district court judge Tomas Norström, the chairman of the court in the Pirate Bay case.

Juror Lennart WestMan, (MP), who is a composer, confirms that he's had to leave the case. He is a bit disappointed.

- I guess there's a risk that the conflict of interest would be brought up when the case gets moving, but personally I feel there's no conflict. I do write and compose music as part of konstmusikfacket [lit. Art Music Union], but I don't do any of this downloading at all, says Westman.

The Pirate Bay trial, which is planned to run for thirteen days, will be broadcast live via SVT's web site.

SVT is the Swedish public service TV. From what I have heard, the mentioned live broadcast will be audio only, since video capture in the courtroom is not allowed.

Article from Sydsvenskan.

On a side note, Sydsvenskan had a copyright special last Sunday. Seven pages of the paper were devoted to copyright debate, The Pirate Bay, The Piracy Bureau and The Pirate Party. Almost the whole special was uploaded to The Pirate Bay on Thursday by Sydsvenskan(three days before it was released in print). They asked people to download it and help them make improvements before it was printed in the paper.

TPB wants the trial broadcast

2009-02-10T19:38:00.003+01:00

From Nyheter24.

Founders demand that the court choose another courtroom.

There is a risk that one of Sweden's largest political trials will be held in a room the size of a high school class room. The owners of file sharing site The Pirate Bay are announcing their demands in anticipation of the trial on February 16th: a new courtroom which holds at least 150 people and the possibility to broadcast the trial live.

This night, The Pirate Bay's press contact Peter Sunde leaked a mail from co-founder Fredrik Neij about the demands for the trial on his blog. In the email, which has also been sent to their lawyer Peter Althin, they want the room for the trial to be changed.

As it stands, the proceedings will be held in room 9 of Stockholm's district court where only 35-40 people will fit. Instead, the defendants want it to be moved to a larger one, with room for 20 seats for family and friends, as well as 80-100 seats for the press and the public.

In the mail, Neij writes:

"It's a threat to us and due process that they are going to limit the insight into the trial. 20 seats for the media, that only covers the established media, which is owned by our opponents."

Peter Sunde also wants reserved seats for bloggers, and that they are allowed to broadcast the trial live via Bambuser. On his blog, he writes:

"I also want us to put in a request to the court about broadcasting a live video stream via Bambuser for the whole duration of the trial. We want to show them how it's done. Playing with an open hand, everything should be transparent!"

Trial in 3, 2, 1...

2009-02-08T16:46:00.003+01:00

The TPB trial starts on Monday, February 16th.

I started this blog at the day of the Pirate Bay raid, May 31st 2006. My purpose was to translate Swedish news articles to English, in order to allow non-swedes to keep up with the news flow (the very first post can be found here). As the news flow died down, so did my blog's activity. With the trial approaching, I expect lots and lots of news, and so I am reviving the blog.

Since most of you will be new to this blog, I'll start with a short introduction.
My name is Snild Dolkow. At the time of the raid, I wasn't really politically active in any way. I had joined the Pirate Party a couple of months earlier. After the raid, I became more active, and helped during the 2006 elections. Now I'm on the Pirate Party ballot for the 2009 European Parliament election.

Okay, so I may not be the most objective person you'll find. But I'll try. I hope you will find it useful.

And this time, I've made sure comments will be visible on the page (yay!).

Piratbyrån comments on TPB case delay

2007-06-09T11:52:00.000+02:00

Prosecutor Håkan Roswall was, once again, granted extra time to press charges against TPB. The case has been delayed to October 1st. Swedish pro-piracy organisation Piratbyrån has commented on this, and even released an english translation.

I'll quote their press release here:

As expected, the prosecutor Håkan Roswall got prolonged time to bring a legal action against The Pirate Bay until October 1st 2007. More unexpected is the reasons given and the grounds for the decision.

- For a discrict court the reasons might seems sufficient, but for someone familiar with the case and the technique the arguments doesn't add up, says Magnus Eriksson of Piratbyrån.

Lets analyze the reasons given one by one:

"That the analyzis of confiscated equipment are still under way and that the equipment to a large extent consist of servers, which makes the work much more time-consuming."

- A server is not a multi-purpose machine like a regular computer. Contrary to what Roswall claims, it's often adapted to only one purpose. Therefore, the investigation of a server should be less time-consuming than that of a personal computer. Still Roswall claims that he can't return the servers even after a year of investigation.

"That he awaits the opinion of the state crime lab regarding analyzis of scripts and documentation of the torrent database."

- TPB consists of around 6000 lines of specially written code, or 16 lines of code to analyze each day. Up to three police officers have been dedicated to this for a year. What The Pirate Bay tracker and torrent site does should be obvious for everyone today.

"That the investigation regarding economic exchange in the activity of the Pirate Bay is still going on."

- If you haven't found anything illegal in an investigation of economic activity after a year, there is nothing there. No matter how much you wished it was!

"That encrypted information has been encountered in some of the confiscated computers that hasn't been cracked."

- This encrypted data does not belong to The Pirate Bay, but to the customers of Internet service providers PRQ. But only confiscation and investigation of equipment belonging to The Pirate Bay was allowed. Besides, a standard level encryption today takes about 40 years to crack. That's a lot of appeals for prolonged preliminary investigation!

"A large number of people have been actualized in the investigation. These must be questioned before the investigation can be completed."

- What is a "large number"? Two, five, a dozen? Who are they and why haven't they been actualized until now? The few people working with The Pirate Bay have been public and there are no army of secret co-workers!

These reasons given to the district court was found sufficient to grant the prolonging of the investigation. As we can see they do not stand up to a closer examination.

[Contact info and a paragraph about Piratbyrån removed]

Pirate Bay charges delayed

2007-05-23T18:22:00.000+02:00

From Sydsvenskan (lit. "The South Swedish"):

***Translation
The charges against the three suspects after the razzia on The Pirate Bay last year will be delayed even further.

Prosecutor Håkan Roswall has to June 1st to press charges, but tells magazine Ny Teknik [lit. "New Technology"] that he will request that the deadline be moved to October 1st.
***End of translation

This is pretty much what was indicated in The Local a few days ago. The article in Ny Teknik specifies the problem: there are encrypted disks. I find myself proclaiming "Wow, how unexpected" in an excessively sarcastic tone.

Prosecutor to press charges against TPB

2007-05-10T15:45:00.000+02:00

Last week, prosecutor Håkan Roswall announced that he is pressing charges against TPB.

The Local has an article in English here. Good for me. I don't have to translate. :)

Heh, sorry about the comments..

2007-05-10T15:39:00.000+02:00

Just like many of you, I was wondering why there were no comments at all on the blog. I mean, it's been read quite a number of times.. Well, it appears I had comment moderation turned on. And I never noticed the comments, so they were never approved. So, when I logged in today to add a post (which will probably be the one after this one), the new Blogger interface said in big letters: "401 unmoderated comments waiting" or something like that. Two hundred of them were spam. Luckily, they were the latest 200, so they were easily marked and rejected. Sorry if I managed to reject any valid comments in the process.

Anyways, so now there are about 200 comments on the blog. I'll try to read them through and answer them if I think it's still relevant. :P

(don't worry, comment moderation will now be turned off.)

Edit/addition: Today at 5:35 PM, I got over a hundred notifications proclaiming new comments on my blog. I was very excited.

The Pro Piracy Lobby

2006-07-12T15:31:00.000+02:00

We're going international, baby!

The Pro Piracy Lobby has been started. It's an international cooperation between pro-piracy groups, including Swedish Piratbyrån. Check them out at http://www.propiracy.org.

Piratbyrån calls for Bodström to resign

2006-06-30T09:23:00.001+02:00

I don't have to translate. Yay!

Sadly, there's no direct link to the particular article, just go to the temporary emergency solution piratbyran.org and read anything you can find in English. Oh, and the small text in the upper right corner translates to

As soon as bodström sobers up, we'll probably get our server back, but until then, this will have to do.

Just to be safe, I'll post the text here (if you don't find it or if it disappears when the real site is put back up or something):

*** *** *** Text start
Juridical Outrage Continues. Bodström Must Resign!

After the raid against the Pirate Bay, Piratbyrån and almost 200 other servers, information suggesting pressure from American lobby organisations as well as the US government was the reason for the police action was released. Minister of justice Thomas Bodström immediately denied all knowledge of that kind of foreign influence.

This Tuesday however, Swedish public service TV have presented evidence that shows how, shortly before the raid, the US justice department threatened with trade sanctions via the WTO if Sweden doesn't act harder on Swedish file-sharing sites – that is, the Pirate Bay.

- This is no more than a farce-like juridical outrage featuring Thomas Bodström as the main character, says Tobias Andersson from Piratbyrån. - If he has a grain of decency and self respect left, we expect him to resign from his post.

The Pirate Bay is a file-sharing site using the Bittorrent technique. The technique itself is in no way illegal, which is why the Pirate Bay has not been shut down before. The complexity of the technique is also why Bittorrent hasn't had its legal status tried in the US.
- We demand all cards to be put on the table immediately, says Tobias Andersson. We won't tolerate this kind of fiddling, lies and foul play. It's an attack on freedom of speech!

Piratbyrån has not yet gotten its server back after the raid, although it was not an official target for the bust. The police remain silent, contradictory and refer to prosecutor Håkan Roswall for more information. Roswall on the other hand has not given Piratbyrån any answers.
- We're convinced that this raid against the servers was meant as sabotage against the Pirate Bay and Piratbyrån and not as a juridical case, says Tobias Andersson. - Obviously we are an uncomfortable part of the debate, but it's alarming that freedom of speech is not worth more for copyright crazed lobby organisations and legal authorities

Piratbyrån is forming a critique against copyright by operating as a think tank and information aggregator for issues concerning intellectual property, file sharing, piracy and other related topics. We pursue no activity that could be considered a violation of Swedish law.

Press contact: Tobias Andersson, Piratbyrån: +46(0)734-072091 piratbyran.org@gmail.com

Letter from MPA to Swedish justice department

*** *** *** Text end

Also, be sure to check out this torrent. It's a swedish news report (subtitled!) on the stuff that's happened. Now with extra U.S. threats! Yay!

PRQ servers still not returned

2006-06-30T08:43:00.000+02:00

Yeah, sorry about the delay folks. I got kind of tired of translating, and I didn't find anything really interesting, and then I was away for a week without a computer. Oh, the humanity! :þ

Rasmus Fleischer, an "official" member of Piratbyrån, maintains a blog named Copyriot. He has posted some info on the procedures of getting back the servers of PRQ and Piratbyrån.

*** *** *** Translation
Håkan Roswall compares Piratbyrån to terrorists and The Pirate Bay to... Something even worse

Now I've been told, by word of mouth from a person who was there in Stockholm district court this wednesday, what the prosecutor Håkan Roswall said at the first of many negotiations that will be held about the confiscation of different servers connected to the raid on The Pirate Bay.
The company PRQ wanted four computers back, used for bookkeeping and customer registers (also neccesary for PRQ to be able to pay their taxes). Håkan Roswall refuses and insists that the computers are to be locked away for at least another year. He claims this is important for the investigation.
When the district court looked into the case, it was time for Håkan Roswall to justify his actions. Now, how would he do that? Well, at first he supposedly talked in general about what BitTorrent is for about a half hour as well as (no one understands why) how wireless networks work. If you were to guess, jurymen and the judge were confused. Then, Håkan Roswall said, according to what I've been told, this, word for word:

I don't know how to express it, but you could say Piratbyrån is like IRA and The Pirate Bay is like the armed forces branch of IRA.

You're stunned.
The prosecutor's ignorance is one thing: IRA is "the armed forces branch" of the Sinn Féin party, something that should be common knowledge. Even more unintelligible is why he even put Piratbyrån in the mix. This negotiation was about the company PRQ, and the supposed importance for a crime investigation that their [the company's] accounts are not returned (not even as a copy).
What's worse is what Håkan Roswall obviously is trying to say: The fact that Piratbyrån is arguing for the right of indexing services like The Pirate Bay to exist, means that we can choose to disregard freedom of speech.

PRQ has appealed to the court of appeal, but until then, demands of more people and companies to get their computer equipment back will be tried by the district court. The confiscation of Piratbyrån's server will be tried, hopefully as soon as next week. But count on that Håkan Roswall will give a single inch. This is, of course, a political question, where pressure needs to be applied at as many points as possible, if we don't want to accept that a prosecutor can arbitrarily decide that one net voice be silenced for an undecided amount of time, without even a suspicion of crime.

PS.
If someone reading this was at the district court procedures, I'd be very grateful for some lines in the comments and any confirmation of Roswall's statement.

The confiscation of Piratbyrån's server has to be brought into the debate now. Among other things, maybe something like a petition. If anyone feels motivated, feel free to contact me.
*** *** *** End translation

Business owners demand reparations

2006-06-14T13:13:00.000+02:00

Expressen.se reports that business owners affected by the raids demand that the state pay them a total of almost 2 million kronors (about 267 000 american dollars). Original article here.

*** *** *** Translation
IT business owners claim 2 million from the state

Today at 12.00, the IT business owners who had their servers seized during the Pirate Bay raid are gathering.
They're demanding that the state pay them almost 2 million in damages.
- Some have been afraid of bankruptcy because they have been unable to operate their company, says Clarence Crafoord, their legal council.

The police took all the servers on the premises - including the ones having nothing to do with the activities of The Pirate Bay.
It has spelt devastating consequences for several small business owners in the computer industry, who are completely dependant on the proper functionality of their servers.
Centrum för rättvisa [literally "Centre for justice"], an organisation that handles issues where [the rights of] citizens or businesses have been violated free of charge, has accepted their case. Today, tens of companies meet in order to agree on their demands. They demand between 10 000 [1336 USD] and 200 000 [26 730 USD] each.
- According to our estimates, it's a matter of a couple of millions. The numbers are not quite settled. Also, more business owners could join in, Clarence Crafoord says.

Very critical
He is very critical to the fact that the police took all the servers - instead of copying the information on them. Or figure out what ones belonged to the activities of The Pirate Bay.
- It's like a parking lot with pre-rented spaces where the police want a couple of cars. But then, they take every car in the whole lot. It's completely out of proportion, he says.
- These are small computer businesses, with one or a few employees. For them, being closed down for a week could be the difference that brings bankruptcy. Centrum för rättvisa has not yet decided if the claims are to be sent to Justitiekanslern ["Chancellor of justice"] today, or if they will wait for more business owners to join in.
*** *** *** End translation

"The politics of piracy"

2006-06-12T23:18:00.000+02:00

"The politics of piracy" is the title of an article written by Bernhard Warner for the Times Online. It's a short summary of the Pirate Party and the recent events. Read it here.

Shameless plug

2006-06-08T16:24:00.000+02:00

A friend of mine has a band named The Itch. I'm going to link to their website now, and you're going to enjoy it.

[/shameless plug]

Now move along, citizen.

U.S. Pirate Party started

2006-06-08T08:25:00.000+02:00

Well, it appears an American Pirate party has been started. Check their website out.

I can't reach the web site right now. Maybe it's overloaded?

The Pirate party reaches 6000!

2006-06-06T19:10:00.000+02:00

A minute ago, the Pirate Party crossed the 6000 member line. Their member count has quickly risen the last few days, from 2200 the day before the razzia.

File sharing becomes important during elections

2006-06-06T14:16:00.000+02:00

After the activities of the last few days, some kind of expert has claimed file sharing to be this election's big question in Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet, SvD. Pirate Party goes "duh", youth organisations of the established parties go "yay, we're in".

Miljöpartiet (the Green Party) actually announced they wanted to legalize downloading in their election manifest:

Downloading music and movies should be allowed for private use, but the musicians[no, it doesn't say "artists"] have to be compensated.

This is very close to this quote:

File sharing technology in itself is good, and downloading is here to stay. However, our point of view is that the creators have to be payed for their work.

Want to know who said that? Henrik Pontén of Antipiratbyrån. Miljöpartiet wants people to think they're pro-file sharing, when in fact they're just trying to ride on the wave of current events. Read my old post about Piratbyrån's speech at Reboot. It's not about downloading, stupid!

Pirate party cries for server help

2006-06-06T12:09:00.000+02:00

The servers hosting the Pirate Party's web site can't cope with all the attention. They need help with web servers to ease the load. Check it out here.

National day of Sweden!

2006-06-06T10:55:00.000+02:00

Today, June 6th, is the national day of Sweden. Since last year, that's a holiday! Yay!

Ok, now for some stats. Since the late evening of June 2nd, the counter has tallied 28 931 hits on this blog. By pasting the text from the blog into Openoffice.org writer, I can see that I've written 29 pages, with about 13 600 words and roughly 81 000 characters. Also, I have been linked to from all kinds of places. I'm glad to have reached out to so many people. The news will probably slow down the next couple of days, but I'll be sure to report if anything new comes up.

"Come out of the file sharing closet"

2006-06-06T10:23:00.000+02:00

Swedish newspaper SvD reports that Ivar Wenster, head of culture in the Karlskrona municipality, had confessed to file sharing, encouraging others to do the same.

*** *** *** Translation
Head of culture wants more to come out of the file sharing closet

The Karlskrona municipality head of culture has admitted to file sharing and encourages others to follow. "I want more people to come out of the file sharing closet so that we can get a debate going", Ivar Wenster tells SvD.se. Later during the monday, he was reported to the police.

Head of culture Ivar Wenster commits crimes every day. He's one of the thousands of swedes who download music from the Internet.

- I want more adults to come out of the file sharing closet. We need to get a debate going that is about more than if it's right or wrong, Ivar Wenster tells SvD.se.

Since Juli 1st last year, it's illegal to download or supply copyrighted material. The crime can result in a fine or prison for up to two years. Ivar Wenster was reported to the police on monday morning, writes TT [a swedish news agency].

With his request, Ivar hopes more adults with established positions in society dares to reveal that they're file sharing, in order to make the industry rethink its position.

- The industry has to find new ways to refine their products instead of fighting against future consumers. If more adults got into the debate, the big companies would surely understand that this is not only about young people defying the law, he tells SvD.se.

The decision to reveal that he's a file sharer was made after last week's raids on The Pirate Bay and the following war between net pirates and the authorities, which, among other things, led to the web sites of both the police and the government crashed. Ivar Wenster believes the media reflect a simplified image of the problem.

- It seems it's only young net anarchists that are file sharing, but that's not true. Many adults who want to keep track of what's happening in culture download too, including me. In my work I meet lots of cultural workers making money on being able to spread their music, making more people discover them.

But won't it be hard for them to earn money on their music if people just download it instead of buying it?

- Of course, but the question is not that simple, and that's why I think a debate with more people involved is necessary. At the same time, you should keep in mind that the biggest losers are the major companies, and that it won't actually befall those without money.

So you want the new law which abolishes file sharing of copyrighted material to be annulled?

- Yes, it's crazy, it doesn't follow the evolution. Sweden has about the highest usage [percentage users of the population, of course] of broadband in the world. When new ways of exchanging information is developed, that law makers panic in fear of losing control.

Aren't you scared of being caught? This could be a matter of both illegal file sharing and agitation [encouraging others to do so].

- Nej, but I've been getting some crap from the local newspapers around here. But most people probably feel I have a point, it's just no one dares to say it out loud.

So you're not afraid of being fired?

- This is nothing I've done on the clock, I don't and download at work.

The chairman of the municipality board Mats Johansson (s) [social democrates] has, according to TT, had a serious talk with his head of culture during the day.
- I respect his opinion, but committing crimes is not acceptable. Part of Wenster's job is even to socialize with some of the concerned cultural workers, Johansson tells TT.

*** *** *** End of translation

Pirate party member info leaked?

2006-06-05T21:34:00.000+02:00

In this article, Aftonbladet.se claims the info from the Pirate Party member database has been leaked. Aftonbladet says the list is circulating over the net, and claims to have the complete list of members, including birth dates, which city they live in, and their phone numbers. Piratpartiet broke the news to their members on the site some time before the article was published. However, the authenticity of the list has not yet been confirmed.

The reporter had called Rick Falkvinge, leader of the Pirate Party, before the story broke. He claimed the list contained info from about 8 000 members. This is the main reason this information is currently considered a hoax by Pirate Party members. The Pirate Party forums have roughly 8 000 members. The list in the hands of Aftonbladet is probably the result of a script roaming through the member list of the forums. The information contained there is not linked with the member database. It is completely volountary to input this information into your profile, and the forums are open to non-party members too.

The article is written in a way as to cast doubt on the validity of the Pirate Party organisation. One example are the birth dates claimed to be on the list. They call them "födelsenummer", birth numbers. This is supposed to make people think of "personnummer", social security numbers, something you don't want to be spread across the Internet. Another example is that they have called people on the list to verify it. Some people had their phone numbers on their profile pages, others can be easily looked up if the name is rare enough.

The real question now is:
Is this faulty information supplied to the newswriter, or is this a masked attempt at an attack on the party directly from Aftonbladet? Aftonbladet has always had a critical attitude towards the pirates.

In conclusion, an attack on the party was not unexpected. This is a systematic attack on freedom, and after an attack on both the Pirate Bay and Piratbyrån, an attack on the Pirate Party was to be expected as well. I guess someone feels threatened by the work of Piratbyrån and the Pirate party..

Morning pirate debate

2006-06-05T07:44:00.000+02:00

This morning, the morning news show on TV channel TV4 performed a short interview with Rick Falkvinge. While the interviewers were a little too hostile and too focused on file sharing, I feel he got through, proving the Pirate Party is here to stay, and that they're not only about file sharing, but also want to protect privacy.

The issue will be discussed during the morning. I'll tell you if something interesting is said.

More pirate humor

2006-06-05T07:34:00.000+02:00

Piratbyrån forum moderator kenny_lex likes to draw.

Check this one out. It says:

- I'm sorry, but there's only one fish and one loaf of bread. Since copying is illegal, watch me eat them.

What would have happened if Jesus didn't copy and share things?

Another comic depicts the president of Swedish IFPI (kind of like RIAA) exclaiming "We don't want to exaggerate, but now we're hiring Al Qaeda in the hunt for those mean pirates!"

Demonstration speech. Pics!

2006-06-04T21:27:00.000+02:00

This speech was held by Pirate Party leader Rick Falkvinge during the Stockholm demonstration on June 3rd.

*** *** *** Translation
Friends, citizens, pirates:

There is nothing new under the sun.

My name is Rickard Falkvinge, and I'm the leader of the Pirate Party.

During the last week, we've seen several examples of legal outrages. We've seen the police abusing the measures available to them [the DNA test]. We've seen the actions of the entertainment industry. We've seen high-profile politicians mobilizing in order to protect the entertainment industry.

All of this is scandalous without parallel. That is why we stand here today.

The entertainment industry wants to convince us it's all about payment solutions, about the way a certain group of workers will be payed. That it's about their diminishing sales figures, about dry statistics. It's a pretext. It's about something entirely different.

To understand today's situation in the light of history, we need to go 400 years back, back to when the church had a monopoly on culture and knowledge. What the church said, went. Pyramid communication. There is one person at the top, talking to a number of others down a pyramid. The culture and knowledge had a source, and that source was the church.

And may God have mercy on the one who dared to challenge the churche's monopoly on culture and knowledge! They were subjected to the most horrible legal abuse conceivable, at the time. Under no circumstances did the church allow the citizens to spread information on their own, they governed the whole law enforcement; prevention, punishment and harassment.

There is nothing new under the sun.

Today, we know the only right thing for the evolution of society was to let the knowledge go free. That Galileo Galilei was right. Even if he was infringing on the knowledge monopoly.

We're talking about a time when the church went out in full force, promoting the idea that citizens didn't have to learn to read and write, since the priest would tell them everything they needed to know anyway. The church knew what it would mean if they lost their control.

Along came the printing press.

Suddenly, there was not only one source of knowledge to listen to, but several. The citizens - who had started to learn to read - could take part of unsanctioned knowledge. The church was furious. The royal families were furious. The British royal family even went so far as to forging a law that said only printers specially approved by the royal family were allowed to print books, multiply knowledge and culture for the citizens.

That law was called "copyright".

Then, a couple of hundred years passed by, and the freedom of the press was created. But everywhere, the same old model of communication still existed: one person talking to the many. There were different people to listen to, but everywhere, one person talking to the many. This was used by the state in introducing a system of a "liable publisher".

The citizens will indeed be able to take part of knowledge, but there will always be someone to answer if they - oh, horrible thought - take part of the wrong knowledge.

And this is what is changing in the foundation today. Because the Internet no longer abides by this model. We no longer simply download culture and knowledge. We upload at the same time too, to others [like I do! Yay!]. We share files. Knowledge and culture have, amazingly, lost its central point of control.

This is the central point of my whole address, so I'm going to go into it in deeper detail:

Downloading is the old mass medium model where this is a central control point, a control point with a responsible publisher liable, with the risk of their press subsidy being revoked and so on and so forth, where everyone can download knowledge and culture from the central point of control, that can give and take away rights as they see fit.

Culture and knowledy monopoly. Control.

File sharing constitutes simultaneous up- and downloading from every connected person, and completely lacks central control; it's a situation where all culture and information organically flows between millions of different people at the same time. Fundamentally different. This is something competely new in the history of human communication. There is no longer anyone to hold responsible if the wrong knowledge is spread.

That is why the companies talk so much about legal downloads. Legal. Downloads. Because they are trying to make the only legal thing to be fetching from the central point under their control. Downloading, not file sharing.

And this is exactly why we are going to change the law.

During the last week, we've seen how far a player is prepared to go to prevent loss of control. We saw the constitution being violated. We saw how forced measures [poor translation; it refers to the DNA sample] and restrictions of personal integrity were used by the police, not for fighting crime, but for the obvious purpose of harassing the ones involved and everyone who have been anywhere near them.

There is nothing new under the sun, and history always repeats itself. This isn't about compensation for a certain group of workers. This is about control over culture and knowledge, because he who controls them, controls the world.

The entertainment industry has tried to shame us, telling us what we're doing is illegal, that we're pirates. They're trying to push us down under some rock. Look around you today - see how they've failed. Yes, we're pirates. But one who thinks being a pirate is a shame is mistaken. It's something we're proud of.

Because we've already seen what it means to be without central control. We've already tasted, felt and smelled the freedom of being without a central monopoly of culture and knowledge. We've already learnt to read and write.

And we're not about to forget how to read and write, just because it's not fit in the eyes of the media of the yesteryear.

MY NAME IS RICKARD, AND I'M A PIRATE!
*** *** *** End translation

Notes
Damn, his speeches and texts are always hard to translate.. I'm pretty damn exhausted from hanging out with my little brother all day, too. I keep messing the words up.. So, the rule about assuming what makes sense is even more important when reading this one.. :)

Right, I promised pictures!
There are lots of them here, and some of them here. Also, make sure you check out this picture (rffu!).

Addition: There are a couple of other translations of this speech, located here and here. I haven't checked them out properly, but if something in my translation seems sketchy, look it up there. Or read it all there.

Antipiratbyrån is off the Internet

2006-06-04T21:17:00.000+02:00

First of all, the reason for the ~24 hours worth of inactivity is that I had to go babysit my little brother at his house. They don't have an Internet connection. So, the good part is I'm back, and bad part is that I never want to hear about Tony Hawk 3 again. Ok, enough of that.

Antipiratbyrån is now off the Internet. There have been ddos attacks against their site. They started by just removing all the pictures, but that didn't cut it. They took their own server offline in order to deny the attackers the satisfaction of succeeding.

According to Expressen.se, Henrik Pontén had this to say:
- We shut it down. Things are a bit lively on the Internet right now, so we thought that was a good move.

ddos attacks have also been noted against the website of the Swedish police. which, of course, is very unfortunate. It should be noted these attacks are not supported by any official organisation.

Swedish piracy culture

2006-06-03T14:43:00.000+02:00

I thought I'd try to show you some of the piracy culture here in Sweden. It's not rare that arguments are lined with humor and satire, while still maintaining a to-the-point discussion of what it's all about.

Piracy is generally accepted in Sweden. I can sit at work and discuss the file-sharing applications, the latest Lost episode I downloaded or the quality of the X-men cam release with my colleagues. I can discuss the issues at dinner with my girlfriend's parents. Nobody is going to judge me, and so, most people are very open about their piracy.

Now, look at this picture from the May 1st demonstration (link 2) this year. This banner is a parody of rfsu, an organisation for sexual education. The banner says:

There are many questions
- How is it done?
- Why do you seed?
- Is my upload too small?

Of course, these questions are parodies of common sexual questions. This is just one of the examples of humor in Swedish piracy debate. In the 2005 demonstration, some people walked around sharing (handing out) fil. In swedish, file=fil.

I think we have a pretty unique view of the copyright issue here in Sweden. What's your opinion? Want to tell me how it is in your country? Feel free to leave a comment.

Piratbyrån's speech at Reboot

2006-06-03T14:39:00.000+02:00

This doesn't really have anything to do with the TPB issue except showing you what kind of argumentation Antipiratbyrån is trying to get rid of. During the Reboot conference mentioned in one of the most recent posts, Piratbyrån held a speech. In English. A transcription is available here. Read it. It's quite long, so if you just want the most important part, find the one with the header "It's not about downloading, stupid!". This is really interesting stuff.

"I was denied a defender"

2006-06-03T12:54:00.000+02:00

As I noted a couple of posts ago, Gottfrid Svartholm was denied legal representation during his interrogation. I had read the article, but when I sat down to translate it, the web site was so overloaded I couldn't get to it. Anyways, it's back, and here's the translation.

Keep in mind, this was published June 1st. There is lots and lots of new info that has been revealed since.

*** *** *** Translation
"I was denied a defender"

Updated: Gottfrid Svartholm, one of the men behind Pirate Bay and owner of web host PRQ, was arrested shortly after 11.30 AM yesterday[May 31st]. "The police denied me a public defender, so I told them nothing at all", he says.

On 11.31 on wednesday, May 31st 2006, Gottfrid Svartholm was on his way to work at the office on Norra Stationgatan [that's a street] he hires from Bahnhof.

At that time, he was arrested by the police who brought him in for questioning. According to Gottfrid Svartholm, the interrogations were pointless; when he was released six hours later, the police still knew nothing.
- I was taken in for questioning, and they started asking me about Pirate Bay, what I knew and what my connections [to TPB] were, Gottfrid Svartholm says.
- I didn't get a public defender, and my regular legal advisor had been apprehended as well, so I told them nothing at all.

Why were you denied a public defender?
- According to the policemen, I'm not risking a prison sentence for the crime I'm a suspect of, and hence they don't have to give me a defender.

Today, after the police razzia, Gottfrid Svartholm is busy with helping all the customers of PRQ, who, despite having no connection to The Pirate Bay, have been affected because the police seized the servers their sites were on.

What happens to the Pirate Bay now, when will you reopen?
- I'm not really involved in that work, but it'll be soon, Gottfrid Svartholm says.

Here in Sweden, or abroad?
- Abroad.

Ulf Göranzon of the Stockholm police force confirms that there are limitation in the right to a public defender.

- There is a discrepancy between the right to have a defender present and the right to a public defender.

But wasn't the regular advisor was one of the arrested?
- I can't comment on details in specific interrogations, but if Gottfrid feels something wasn't handled correctly, I think he should report it to Polismålsenheten at Åklagarmyndigheten [Some kind of internal affairs, I'm not sure.].
*** *** *** End of translation

Notes
The red updated note is not mine, it was in the article.

Oh, and the real one is on its way up..

2006-06-03T10:19:00.000+02:00

The real Pirate Bay is on its way up!! Don't expect everything to work just yet, though. Hey, at least we have a pirate ship firing something that looks like cannon balls on the Hollywood sign!

And I'm even still logged in! Whoo! :P

Fake Pirate Bay up!

2006-06-03T10:14:00.000+02:00

This link was posted on the Pirate Party forums: http://thepiratesbay.org/. It's a FAKE. Stay clear. They require registration and a fee. The real site is http://thepiratebay.org, nothing else. Also, The Pirate Bay would never force registration on its users; that has been a very critical point for the people behind it.

Make up your mind!

2006-06-03T09:46:00.000+02:00

According to idg.se, Gottfrid Svartholm, one of the suspects, was denied a defender during his interrogation. I can't translate the article right now, since their server seems to be severely overloaded (except for the front page..), and it will probably not be fixed until monday. Anyways, the police said that since he's not risking prison on the suspicions, he's not entitled to a public defender during the interrogation.

Ok, now remember that last sentence.

Next, let's ponder the DNA sample the legal advisor was forced to supply. When confronted with this, the police responded that forced DNA samples are fully legal when suspected of a crime where a possible consequence is prison.

Ok.. So now, a question on many people's minds is.. "w00t?!?". If it's not on your mind, re-read the police's statements above, compare the possible consequences, and then agree with the rest of us.

On another note, Anakata seems to have some humor even now. Oscar Swartz reports that, according to sources near him, the person suspected to be Anakata (they're not sure?) has confessed the Palme assassination.

The Pirate Bay to be spread over six countries

2006-06-03T08:55:00.000+02:00

Oscar Swartz, founder of one of the first Swedish internet companies Bahnhof (and he's done lots and lots more), reports from the Reboot conference in Copenhagen. Original article here.

*** *** *** Start Translation
Pirate Bay goes up in six countries + conclusion
Today, The Pirate Bay (TPB) informed us that the site will be back up tonight or tomorrow [June 2nd or 3rd]. They also said there will be four copies of the site in Holland, Russia, Ukraine and another country within the EU. This statement was delivered during an address of Rasmus Fleischer of Piratbyrån and a representative from The Pirate Bay (TPB) here at the Reboot conference in Copenhagen.

As they were leaving, I tried to find out from TPB if they were only bullshitting, if it was just loose discussions or if people were really working on getting the site up at these places now. They insisted stuff is happening and people are working right now. They even added another two countries, one withing and one outside the EU, where announce servers would be run, that is, servers that store the tracker files but not the web site itself. "When we're on the web and say we're from Pirate Bay of Sweden and that we need help with hardware and hosting, we immedeatly get offers of loyal support. The Pirate Bay will be stronger than ever!".

It'll be exciting to see this unfold. If international loyalty and disobedience can be built, the copyright industry can get a tough fight against the users of the net. It seems to me that this raid against the world's most popular torrent site hardened the resistance rather than broke it down. After lots of years in the Internet business, in which I've seen the culture network technicians and "net characters" live in, I'd like to make the following sociological observation: After this trial by fire, where they may be destroying a whole Internet business (PRQ) where a couple of guys have put in years of work, and these now seem to keep pointing their fingers and mocking [their opponents], it makes you wonder what will be able to stop The Pirate Bay. These guys standing up for themselves has given them enermous amounts of respect in the Internet world and if international loyalties are built, it's not surprising that Anakata becomes a role model with many people out there wanting to walk in his foot steps. If they can stand up for themselves in the same way remains to be seen.

In a comment to my previous post["Pirate Bay, Department of Foreign affairs and the MPA"], someone wrote:
I've been trying to keep track of everything that's happening by reading the confusing newsflow. I think a play-by-play walkthrough of the chain of events, since both me and others were (and still are) confused, not quite understand what happened. What happened at PRQ? What happened at Bahnhof? What was confiscated at Bahnhof and PRQ, respectively? I beleive that you, Osvar, is very suitable for writing something like that since you know people at Bahnhof and also seem to have close contact with people at TPB (and also PRQ?). I look forward to an objective description of the events.

OK, I realize that this can be a bit messy. A short text in a pause from the conference:

On a request from prosecutor Håkan Roswall, the city court issued a search warrant for a number of places in order to get to those running The Pirate Bay and secure evidence. The Pirate Bay didn't exactly have an office with a sign on the door, so they struck at ten places at the same time. They suspected that three people were mainly responsible, two of which were running the Internet service provider and hosting business PRQ.

The servers of TPB where housed at Port 80 (a part of Rix Telecom) in their server hall located in Bankgirocentralen's [Bank giro transfer service central?? Dunno. It's used for wiring money around, and is very extensively used for paying bills and stuff.] building by the Globe [picture!] in Stockholm. The police struck there and took a large number of servers away. But, they also struck against PRQ's server hall, taking a large number of servers away from there, too. Exactly what servers and what their relation to TPB was, I don't know. But they were after both TPB as an ongoing activity as well as the people running TPB, thought to be the same as the PRQ guys. These people were suspected of copyright infringement, or accessory to copyright infringement (by helping people to share files, you'd presume). At the same time, they struck against the homes of the suspects and confiscated personal computers and more. One of the suspects were Mikael Viborg, who had been active as the legal advisor of TPB. The police acquired a DNA sample from him. Bahnhof isn't involved in any of this. However, they have a (far too) large office in Stockholm where they've been renting out rooms to external tenants, an accounting firm for example. Trustlab, an IT security business supposedly run be the same people as PRQ, rented a room. That's why the police also searched the office of Trustlab during the razzia.
*** *** *** End translation

Some design changes

2006-06-03T07:28:00.000+02:00

I made some design changes with my 1338 (that's one more than 1337) javascript/css skillzorz. As you've probably noticed, all the articles are now collapsed to begin with, and can be expanded. The page was becoming far too long, and I think this will make it easier to get a quick overview of the posts. Another, more superficial, change, was that I replaced the large (53 kB) banner behind the blog's name with a simple green. It didn't feel right having a background larger than the rest of the whole page combined.

Oh yeah, and there's a hit counter on the bottom of the page now. It started counting last night, and I must say I'm surprised by the numbers so far.. I thought there would be like at most ten people reading this. :P

Demonstrations ahoy!

2006-06-02T17:59:00.000+02:00

It appears a couple of demonstrations will take place tomorrow, on June 3rd, in Stockholm and Göteborg (the two largest cities in Sweden; Göteborg may be called Gothenburg in English). They will be arranged by mainly by Piratbyrån and the Pirate Party in Stockholm and Gothenburg, respectively, but there are some youth sections of the established riksdag parties that will be there showing their support, too.

The demands are that all the seized servers are returned, all investigations are dropped, and that the DNA samples be destroyed. They also demand explanations from everyone responsible, in extension minister of law Thomas Bodström.

Sympathizers have been told to bring CD's and a good mood, and while they are encouraged to leave their sabres at home, parrots are welcome.

Henrik Pontén claims he was misquoted

2006-06-02T14:23:00.000+02:00

Wow. Di.se has published a new interview with Henrik Pontén. Sure, this is hot news, but this interview feels very.. orchestrated. You'll see what I mean.

*** *** *** Start translation
Antipiratbyrån, are you taking legal action against Piratbyrån?

Hi there, Henrik Pontén of Antipiratbyrån. An interview on di.se during the thursday created some debate and question marks around your stance towards your opponents in copyright-sceptical Piratbyrån.

Are you taking legal action against the lobby organisation Piratbyrån?
"No, there is freedom of speech in this country, and Piratbyrån has a right to their opinion. We've never pressed charges against Piratbyrån and doing it is completely out of the question."

What kind of parties are you taking legal action against?
"Those who commit crimes against the copyright law, in this case the file sharing site The Pirate Bay. Earlier, we've pressed charges against a number of single file sharers who have broken the same law, among others."

What is your view of Piratbyrån?
"We have a fundamentally different opinion, så we are certainly opponents. Piratbyrån's view of copyright is not compatible with ours."

What is the purpose of Antipiratbyrån?
"We fight for a functional copyright. In my point of view, the right to free speech is tightly connected to the creativity that the copyright holders behind the works we try to protect stand for. At the same time, we feel it's time for the file sharing sites to start separating material that is independantly produced and material that is protected by copyright, something they aren't doing at this point."

Foot note: In an interview with Henrik Pontén June 1st about the police razzia against The Pirate Bay, di.se reported that Pontén had said:
"Yes, I'm happy that the police have started working with these matters. At the same time, we here at Antipiratbyrån have primarily worked against the copyright-hostile organisation Piratbyrån, the ones behind the site. The Pirate Bay is at the bottom of the chain, even if the damage they've done is very extensive."

This friday morning, Henrik Pontén felt he was misquoted. Because of this, the quote in the article with the header "Antipiratbyrån: They've caused great damage[link to my translation]" has been edited.

*** *** *** End translation

Now, didn't that just feel very orchestrated? I'm going to add a note about the contents being changed, and how it was changed, in the translation of the old interview.

This cannot be stressed enough

2006-06-02T11:54:00.000+02:00

Christian Engström, riksdag candidate of the Pirate Party, has posted this thread on the Pirate Party forums.

*** *** *** Translation
Piratbyrån being silenced is the main issue

When we talk and write about the pirate razzia, it's important that we focus on the right aspect of it.

The fact that the police has struck against The Pirate Bay is bad. Multiple Swedish cases have shown that the activities of The Pirate Bay are not in violation of any swedish law. The fact that the police wants to "try the legality" of a site is not an excuse to shut it down - probably for a long time ahead.

But the real outrage is that Piratbyrån has been closed down, too.

Piratbyrån is a political activist organisation that promotes changes in the copyright law. Now, the police have taken away their right to express their opinion, by taking their computers away. The initiative for this raid came from Antipiratbyrån, the lobby organisation of the record companies, which represents the opposite political opinion in this matter.

Henrik Pontén tells Dagens Industri [I translated this interview before]:

- At the same time, we here at Antipiratbyrån have primarily worked against the copyright-hostile organisation Piratbyrån, the ones behind the site.

The validity of this statement will probably not be debated. Piratbyrån has been a thorn in the side for Pontén and MPAA since the beginning.

But the fact that they dislike the opinions of Piratbyrån doesn't mean they have the right to use the police to silence us pirates. It is such a severe violation of our constitutional right to free speech, that it's hard to express in words.

Powerful interests from the USA contact the politicians in the swedish government, asking them to use the police against their own political opponents. And happily, they[the swedish politicians] obey.

The fact this this happens, even at the beggining of an election campaign [the election is september 2006, I think] leads our thoughts to Belarus, or countries even worse. As I already said, it's hard to express in words.

We should focus on the political aspect of this outrage, not the legal one.

If we focus on what happened to The Pirate Bay (which in itself is an outrage), we'll only end up in lots of discussions about what's legal and what's not according to current law. Honestly, it doesn't matter. Our goal is still to change the law into something that makes it crystal clear that what TPB (and others who spread culture) is doing is legal.

Us pirates aren't interested in legal jibberish. We want political change. And, until we reach that goal, we'd like to keep our freedom of speech.
*** *** *** End of translation

Legal advisor blog

2006-06-02T06:50:00.000+02:00

The legal advisor, Mikael Viborg, has started a blog explaining his experience with the ongoing investigation. There is a version in English, too, although I'm not sure if all the info is there.

Another important note is that SVT's [Swedish public access channel] news show Rapport has found out that the razzia was initiated on demands from the U.S. Apparantly, it went down like this: MPAA -> U.S. Government -> Swedish government. Then, the swedish government contacted the legal authorities, but had the answer that the case had already been looked into, and that it was their opinion nothing could legally be done. In spite of this, the state secretary of the minister of law ordered the police to perform these raids. I've heard that this is legal in Great Britain, but in Sweden, this is against the constitution. The government is not allowed to tell the authorities what do to in a specific case; the only way for them to step in is to change the law. This is a serious violation of Swedish law, and a severe limitation of our rights. If a foreign power is allowed to control Swedish law authorities, we need a new government, or our sovereignty is threatened.

Just one more..

2006-06-01T20:43:00.000+02:00

The member count of the pirate party is rising rapidly today. Original article here.

*** *** *** Start translation
Over 3 000 members

The police razzia against The Pirate Bay has increased the member count with about 35% [as of this translation, it's over 50%!]. From roughly 2 200 members yesterday afternoon, to over 3 000 members 24 hours later.

- The criticism is unanimous from an absolute majority of swedish Internet users. This razzia is a legal outrage, an attack against an open and free society of information, a severe violation, especially for the young. They feel prosecuted and choose to become members of the party. If this increase in numbers continues, we'll soon be the largest youth party of the country, Rickard Falkvinge, leader of the Pirate party, explains.

For continuous updates of member counts at comparisons with political youth associationsm visit the page Member counts in comparison.
*** *** *** End of translation

Notes
Most of the groups listed in the comparison are youth organisations of the established riksdag parties. The exclusions are Feministiskt Initiativ, a new party aiming at feminism only, Ezenhemmer, which was a spoof party popular with modem users back in '94, and Miljöpartiet, which is one of the seven parties in the riksdag. We're catching up!!

..and now, I'm done. I hope. :)

That should keep you busy for a while.

2006-06-01T20:37:00.000+02:00

I really need to take a break right now.. I think I covered most of the important articles and facts so far. I have a piece of glass in my finger that I can't get out, but I've been writing constantly today despite of that. Hurts like hell. My back is getting all sweaty from my chair, too. The time is 20:36, and I have only eaten two meals today..

Yeah, 'nuff feeling sorry for me. I'm gonna go grab an apple and maybe some lemonade, then I'm gonna call my girlfriend and talk some. If I find something really important, I'll try to get it translated before I go to bed. Otherwise, see ya during (if I have time) or after work tomorrow!

Interview with Henrik Pontén

2006-06-01T20:12:00.000+02:00

Every swedish file sharer's nemesis, Henrik Pontén, leader of Antipiratbyrån, has been interviewed by di.se. There is a very important note, but I'll make that point after the translation.

*** *** *** Translation
Antipiratbyrån: They've caused great damage

Henrik Pontén, lawyer at Antipiratbyrån, are you satisfied after this wednesday's police raid on the pirate site The Pirate Bay which Antipiratbyrån has been fighting fiercly for a long time?
"Yes, I'm happy that the police have started working with these matters. At the same time, we here at Antipiratbyrån have primarily worked against the copyright-hostile organisation Piratbyrån, the ones behind the site. The Pirate Bay is at the bottom of the chain, even if the damage they've done is very extensive."

Why is it that it's taken so long before anything happened in this case? The Pirate Bay has been around for about 2,5 years now?
"That's a question I'll have to refer to the police."

How will you proceed in this matter?
"It's all in the hands of the police now, so we'll have to wait and see what happens in the investigation. But in the future, there is certainly the possibility of demanding that damages be payed."

Are you worried The Pirate Bay will be resurrected?
"The people behind it have already announced a promise, but that's in line with their outwards profiling. You should remember the servers seized by the police will cost hundreds of thousands crowns to replace. We'll just have to wait and see."

What's your view on the web hosting company Bahnhof, which you earlier have reported to the police, last week announced an appeal for Integrity marking among the service providers in order to protect their customers? Is this something that will make it more difficult for you in the fight against pirates?
"It's worth lots of welcomes and appraisal if the service providers want to pick up the debate on on-line integrity. Of course, they have never supplied information on their customers before, so the real difference won't really be that huge. It's a punch in the air, really."

Now that one of your largest targets are gone, what happens?
"Our goal is to make the Internet something good for everyone involved, for both consumers and producers. Our work is to first supply legal alternatives, something that is expanding as we speak, and after that reach people with our information. Legal actions are our third choice. Going as far as it has in this case is rare."

*** *** *** End of translation

Notes
Ok, now read his first answer again. Unless Pontén has been severely misquoted, this means bringing Piratbyrån down was the main purpose of all of this. It is true that Piratbyrån started The Pirate Bay, but since it shadowed its other work, they were separated in the middle of 2004. Piratbyrån is simply a web site with news and discussion forums concerning copyright law and patents. Can it be that Antipiratbyrån has actually aimed for, and succeeded at, violating our constitutional right to free speech and our own opinons? It certainly seems so. The worst part is that they managed to trick the police into doing this for them. It also seems Pontén is aware that the charges pressed will not lead to anything; he seems pleased that the investigation will cripple The Bay for a while, since all the servers will be kept for as long as the investigation is going on. He seems very smug about it..

Addition (June 2nd)
Read this. Henrik Pontén claims to have been misquoted in this interview. The quote on di.se has been changed. The part that previously said

Yes, I'm happy that the police have started working with these matters. At the same time, we here at Antipiratbyrån have primarily worked against the copyright-hostile organisation Piratbyrån, the ones behind the site. The Pirate Bay is at the bottom of the chain, even if the damage they've done is very extensive.

..now says

Yes, I'm happy that the police have started working with these matters. For a long time, The Pirate Bay has been a large distributor of copyrighted files. The damage they've caused is very extensive.

Wow. Just, wow. This is clearly a post-construction. There is no way they could've misquoted him that severely. Personally, I'm hoping for a recording of the interview to be released. I'm guessing that won't happen, though.

Swedish rap group Fattaru affected

2006-06-01T20:05:00.000+02:00

The established Swedish rap group Fattaru's web site was taken down in the raids. This is stated in a fan chat with the group on aftonbladet.se.

*** *** *** Translation (not complete interview, since only this question is interesting)
Kim says: Hi! I got stuck on you after your first single :)
I'm wondering if you're playing anywhere this summer, so I can finally get to see you?

Fattaru says: We'll be playing all of the place, check out www.fattaru.nu, right now it's down because of the police raids, but it should be up by the morning
*** *** *** End translation

What about the constitution?

2006-06-01T19:25:00.000+02:00

Some guy named Peter J Olsson has written a small article on the issue, called "Grundlagen då?". Translated, it would mean something like "What about the constitution?".

*** *** *** Start translation
What about the constitution?

Laila Freivald's shutdown of the Internet newspaper that publushed a cartoon of Mohammad [no, not the really famous Jyllandsposten] was not a one-time single example of censorship without legal backing.

Laila Freivald's shutdown of the Internet newspaper that publushed a cartoon of Mohammad [no, not the really famous Jyllandsposten] was not a one-time single example of censorship without legal backing.
Yesterday, there was a police action concerning 50 policemen against the file sharing network called The Pirate Bay. Servers were seized, which also affected others.
File sharing itself can be discussed. Most, but not all of it, constitutes spreading of copyrighter material.
It is a kind of violation of the right to possession, and without protection for property, the society will be uncivilised and poor.
But those who share simultaneously own their copy of the item as well as letting a friend take part of it have always been a part of the mutual help that binds us humans.
You may say that sharing it over the computer with someone hundreds of miles away is past a certain line.
On the other hand, it's not self-evident that file sharing is as harmful to the commersial copyright holders as is often claimed. It increases the interest in movies, music and e-books. File sharers buys four or five times more legal music than others. And the pressure from file sharing will force more modern ways of distribution.
Swedish law has, even after the unnecessary tightening last year, has kept a cool stance. The two file sharers were convicted for a certain kind of communication [_uploading_ on Direct Connect] were only fined. This means a search warrant is out of the question [the punishment has to be at least "villkorlig dom", which is kind of letting you go free, but with supervision and certain rules to follow].
The more advanced form [of communication] The Pirate Bay supported was considered harder to attack. Above all, the Pirate Bay has been considered legal, since it only supplied an index in order to help file sharers in finding each other.
Yesterday's razzia will probably be pointless.

What's worse is that the police at the same time confiscated the server belonging to Piratbyrån, an opinion organisation aiming to change the file sharing laws. And the fact that the raid also closed down at least one left-wing anarchist site, planka.nu, which wants free bus and train rides.
Many others were affected by the raids.
Maybe the recent rise of left-wing anarchist violence campaign, affecting both centerpartiet [one of the riksdag parties] and arbetsförmedlingen[a place where you can find jobs], contributed to an increased acceptance of police actions.

Whatever your opinion of file sharers or planka.nu is, it's far worse that the police can stop legal, and even constitutionally protected opinions to be spread. If you accept this, you've crossed a line that may never be crossed.
*** *** *** End of translation

Pirate hunt 2006

2006-06-01T18:15:00.000+02:00

This is an article posted in the swedish magazine ETC. It is written by Mika Sjöman, active in the Pirate Party, and a candidate for the riksdag, should the Pirate Party get enough votes this fall.

*** *** *** Start translation
Legal outrages flourish; pirates hunted in light of election 2006

Yesterday, Sweden once again became interesting in the international news channels. The media reported about how the world's largest (swedish) file sharing community, Piratebay, was haunted by the police with the help of Antipiratbyrån, the lobbyists of the American movie industry.

I've previously written in the ETC Magazine about how us pirates politically protect every man's right* to take part of culture and knowledge. We believe that everyone should have the right to participate in the digital culture, since it doesn't cost a single crown to give everyone access to it. If the main issue is paying musicians and writers, we can find an infinite amount of great solutions. The record companies are no longer needed for the distribution, but only for production, even though they refuse to accept this fact. Why should they, when they're making billions on the currently implemented, outdated copyright law? With the possibility of file sharing, we have a fantastic opportunity to give everyone a social citizenship, that is, public access to a modern version of the public library.

When the law on file sharing from 2005, grouped with all the established government parties [all seven of them; the Pirate party is not one], supposed to imbue fear into the citizens and anguish, terrible things happen.

Yesterday, one of the Pirate party's former board members was apprehended by the police and brought in for interrogation because he was also the legal advisor of Piratebay. He was pulled into a police station and was forced to supply a DNA sample, even after pointing out to them that his involvement with the organisation was simply that of a legal advisor. The police told him that he should be more careful who he chooses to represent, upon which he answered that this is exactly what legal advisors are for [advising someone on law issues]. You see, the legal advisor is currently on his last year of the lawyer education at the university. If this is the way the police reasons, you may want to think twice before becoming a lawyer in future Sweden.

Another legal outrage, originating earlier in the day, was the confiscation of The Pirate Bay's servers by the police on orders from the prosecutor. You see, the police didn't just pull the plug on the servers providing completely legal torrent files, but also on the political organisation Piratbyrån that is not affiliated with the Piratebay organisation. A political organisation trying to affect the ways their issues are handled in the election movement of 2006.

Those who choose to accept the fact that politically active legal advisors and organisations are abused and forced to supply DNA samples as described above can't relax just yet, however. There were other things going on at the same time. Because of the prosecutor's blind rampage, several web-based swedish companies without any connection to The Pirate Bay were taken off the web. This is because the enforcers of the law didn't make a separation between the Piratebay and the server space of other organisations. Several business owners called activists of the Pirate party, asking what the hell is up with Sweden. They felt like outlaws. Even more subtly, the most important distribution channel for free musicians, that is the musicians who spread the music without record company contracts, disappeared. Some of the calls we had were from insanely pissed off musicians who are using Piratebay as their sole source of marketing in order to get gigs. What does the minister of law [Thomas Bodström] have to say about this criticism?

At the same time we must ask minister of law Thomas Bodström why the social democrates are letting us down on their election vow to not redevide police and prosecutor resources to hunt down file sharers. Maybe the minister of law is not a hypocrite, but isn't it time for him and the leaders of the established parties, who only last week criticised their own criminalisation of the file sharers, to blindly trust the voices of the lobbyists?

Sweden is wonderful, but we must never allow the development of a legal machine that in appears to almost randomly perform these atrocities. To defend ourselves, we must protect the principle of the right to privacy, one of the Pirate party's three corner stones. During the spring, the head of police has propagated DNA registration of suspects in papers like Göteborgs-posten. If the legal system is so easy to abuse that even political organisation's legal advisors are tried, we should stop taking their word on legally secure solutions.

Yesterday, the Pirate party's member count increased by 25%, and by that, the place as the absolutely largest new party outside of the riksdag was secured. It's sad it had to happen with the help of an American lobbyist organisation, but we promise that if we get into the riksdag, we will do everything it takes to stop it forever. The social democrates will not be allowed to legalize their illegal surveillance, and neither is the Anti-piracy lobby. They haven't earned that trust.

Mika Sjöman
Riksdag candidate of the Pirate party
*** *** *** End of translation

MPAA confirms American meddling

2006-06-01T18:04:00.000+02:00

News article from the Pirate party, about involvation of MPAA and American government officials.

*** *** *** Translation start
In yesterday's Rapport [a Swedish news cast show on one of the public access channels] segment on the razzia on Piratbyrån, it was stated that the USA had excercised political pressure on Swedish politicians, who in turn had told Swedish authorities to act on it, according to the sources of SVT [the TV channel].

This statement is partially confirmed in the press release sent out by MPAA, the American movie industry's pirate hunting organistation, yesterday. They write:

[T]he film industry has work vigorously with Swedish and U.S. government officials in Sweden to shut this illegal site down.

It appears American government officials in Sweden have been working hard to acheive these raids, which lead to the closure of political activist organisation Piratbyrån's web site.

- Is this really the way we want the Swedish democracy to work, asks Rickard Falkvinge, chairman of the Pirate party.

- Do we want to enable American government officials to decide what organisations get to express their political opinion in Sweden, and who doesn't?
The Pirate party doesn't want that.
*** *** *** End of translation

The police took the wrong servers

2006-06-01T16:55:00.000+02:00

Säkerhet & Sekretess, a swedish computer magazine focused on security, has published this article. In short, it's about all the servers that were taken in the raids, even though they had no connection to The Pirate Bay at all.

*** *** *** Start translation
The Police seized the wrong servers in the raid against The Pirate Bay

The police has seized many servers not affiliated with The Pirate Bay. But the police refuses to even reveal who, what or what the raid was directed at.

The police took many servers during the raid yesterday. Neither the prosecutor* Håkan Roswall nor the press contact of the police will reveal at who the razzia was really targeted. As it seems, the police went in and seized all the servers in the perimiter, without determining to whom they belonged.

One of the servers confiscated by the police was a Counter Strike gaming server owned by the gaming association Birdie.org, which was physically residing in one of the web service providers the police raided. Another was a private server run by Lezgin Bakircioglu [See the article translated from SvD].
- The gaming server was the prize in a competition held in Uppsala during the weekend. Fifteen 16-year olds had just won it. It was their machine, Lezgin Bacircioglu says.

The prosecutor*, Håkan Roswall, says he can't even answer the question on who or what the razzia was targeted.

According to Port 80 that had servers of The Pirate Bay in their server rooms, the search warrant said The Pirate Bay was the target. According to a source close to Henrik Pontén [head lawyer of Antipiratbyrån, sorely hated by swedish file sharers], the target was the web service provider PRQ. On the web site of The Pirate Bay, it says the police showed a search warrant on The Pirate Bay, and that they [the police] were shown which servers belonged to The Pirate Bay. Despite the fact that these servers were clearly marked [as being TPB], the police also brought servers belonging to Piratbyrån with them. According to The Pirate Bay, they are separate organisations.

Police spokesman Ulf Göranzon says:
- There is an investigation in progress, and we can't reveal under which circumstances we struck, or against whom. The purpose is to secure evidence to investigate suspicions of crime against the copyright law. The investigation is protected by law of secrecy, says Ulf Göranzon.

The police have published a web site where they encourage people who have had their servers seized to call 08-401 04 11 or fax a description of the server and its contents to 08-401 04 14. Since not even to staff answering that phone will tell us what the raids were all about, it's hard to know who can claim their innocence. Anyone wanting their property back will just have to call and hope they're not suspected of copyright crimes.

Säkerhet & Sekretess encourages everyone affected by this razzia to contact us. Among these are regular citizens who have had their e-mail [server?] confiscated, their web shops closed down, their World of Warcraft guild web page eradicated, and the british company Gameswitch, which has written a very critical protest against the seizure of their servers from PRQ by the swedish police. One of the employees of Gameswitch says equipment worth 90 000 crowns [about US $12 200], and the police won't answer their questions. They only have an invitation to fax in their information to the prosecutor about what their machine contains.

Among the sites that are gone are:

http://www.snabbstart.com
http://www.fragbite.com
http://www.istheshit.net
http://www.planka.nu
http://www.snatta.nu
http://www.anstalten.nu
http://www.prq.se
http://www.muffinmiltia.net
http://www.ccnordic.net

Many of those who have contacted us are upset as they feel as though they were criminals simply because they placed their servers at a low-price company.

Jonas Eriksson from Umeå writes:

I've been in contact with the police, but the only reply I got was that I had to send a fax in, and they would determine if the release of my server was to be prioritized. This is because they're low on resources.

You'd think that "You've taken my server without any just cause. Give it back before jk [justitiekanslern, an instance for reviewing actions of the law enforcement] eats you alive" would be sufficient, but apparantly not in this case. Furthermore, it's higly notable that the police performed a raid which is bigger than they can handle themselves.

Apparantly, the police, in spite of clearly marked servers, have clearly crossed the line concerning what servers were seized. The reason for this can only be speculated in. A broad definition? Incompetent investigators? A conspiracy of Antipiratbyrån, who are rumoured to have been represented both now and at the raid at the Internet service provider Bahnhof a year ago?

Another reader writes:

We are struck by this, and have no relation to TPB or any "Piracy activities" whatsoever. Our service were planned to be launched withing 2 weeks, and is mainly directed to an audience with an interest in computer games, with some news and a community. The servers are using unix and open source code exclusively.

We chose prq about a month ago, mostly because of their priceworthy operation service. I called the police yesterday and was told to write and fax a letter to them. I [have] done that, and I'm waiting for an answer about what's going on with my servers.

Fabian Mossberg writes:

I run a community called Anstalten.nu, and we're about 120 000 members wondering what the police's interest in our servers is. A meeting place on the web for youth, where you can discuss politics, friendship, music, books and movies. There has been no illegal content on our site, and, most importantly, we have absolutely NO connection to PirateBay, except the fact that we APPARANTLY were located at the same place.

For us operating these sites this means big problems. Partly because we lose out on all the new members (about 2-3 hundred a day), but more importantly, all our active members are finding other places to hang out right nu, and there's a risk that we'll be losing members. This is critical to us.

I thought Sweden was a democracy, a country where the work of the police force worked, but here, many young business owners have been sorely aware of the ignorance of the police. Photos of The Pirate Bay's servers have been available on their site, so it shouldn't have been hard to identify those.

PLEASE, help us to spread this problem through the news reports!

This article will be updated as we get more information.
*** *** *** End translation

Notes
*Prosecutor is åklagare. The original article said kammaråklagare. I don't think there's much of a difference, though.

I won't be updating the translation. The additions will probably be the list of web sites that are down, so check the list in the original article out every now and then.

File sharing razzia affects companies

2006-06-01T16:09:00.000+02:00

Sorry, I was referring to SvD, not DN, in the previous post. Anyways, the article is about innocent companies and how they have been affected by the raids. Original article can be found here.

*** *** *** Start translation
Razzia against file sharers strikes companies

In many cases, the servers confiscated during the polce razzia against The Pirate Bay belong to citizens and companies totally unrelated to the illegal file sharing. Now, the web server host fights to save its business.

Yesterday, the police struk against file sharing site The Pirate Bay. At the web server host PRQ, roughly 200 servers were apprehended. According to the company, only a few of those belong to The Pirate Bay. Most of the belong to single citizens or companies, not involved in illegal activities.

Those affected will now have a hard time keeping up their business without their web pages, mail and other Internet services. Gottfrid Svartholm, operative of The Pirate Bay and owner of PRQ, says that the customers of PRQ take it pretty well, considering their difficult situation.
- Luckily, most of them are very understanding, but many are becoming desperate. They are in a very difficult situation, he tells SvD.se.

Gottfrid Svartholm understands that the police may strike against a site like The Pirate Bay, but maintains that it shouldn't be allowed to affect the innocent.
- Destroying a legit company that sells legal internet connections is something I can't accept, says Gottfrid Svartholm, who was interrogated yesterday.

According to Ulf Göranzon, head of information at länskriminalpolisen [the province police force], several people have contacted the police, wanting their equipment back, but he can't say when the servers can be returned.
- We will go through the contents. If it's not in our interest, it will be returned, he tells SvD.se

Ulf Göranzon claims the goal was never to cause problems for companies, but that the confiscations have been conducted according to existing rules.
- This action is completely according to routine. We'll do what is necessary to complete the investigation.

Lezgin Bakircioglu had two servers at PRQ. Both of them were seized. He feels ordinary small-time businesses should not be caught in the middle of this.
- We bought this service and stayed within the constraints of the law. We should not be victims in this, he tells SvD.se.

Lezgin Bakircioglu thinks the reason the police dared to do this was that the customers of PRQ were mostly small-time businesses.
- If they had done this to the large corporations, there would be hell to pay.

Gottfrid Svartholm says his clients will file a group complaint against the government as well as demand that damages to their business be compensated. Ulf Göranzon says no compensation is possible for measures like these.

Anyone wanting their seized server back is encouraged to contact länskriminalen in Stockholm.

*** *** *** End translation

Next article to be translated: Säkerhet & Sekretess on this same subject, including a list of some of the companies stuck in the middle of all this.

List of concerned web sites

2006-06-01T15:42:00.000+02:00

As we've already established, not only The Pirate Bay's servers were taken away, but also several other web servers and sites, both those of small companies and small hobby projects. On the forums of piratpartiet.se, a list of currently known cases has been created. I don't feel I have to translate this; just try out some links. Most of the web sites seem to have been able put up some kind of text about what has happened. The forum thread is located here.

The next article to be translated will be about this, from the swedish newspaper DN. I'm kind of swamped right now; there is lots and lots of information, and I'm trying to stay in the loop at the same time as I'm translating. So, as to quote Anakin: "I say patience".

Short interview with Falkvinge

2006-06-01T15:25:00.000+02:00

The newspaper Expressen has published a short interview with the leader of the Pirate Party, Rick Falkvinge. Original article here.

*** *** *** Start translation
Pirate Party: "Legal outrage"

The raid on the Pirate Bay is a legal outrage and proves that the police is controlled by interests of the american industry. This is the opinion of Rickard Falkvinge, leader of the Pirate Party, which is pro-file sharing.
- The police has no business being there, he tells Expressen.se.

According to Rickard Falkvinge, several previous trials have shown that the activities conducted by the people behind the web site The Pirate Bay is not illegal. Because of this, he is very skeptical to today's bust.
- This is a legal outrage. Which company would have accepted that the police came in and interrupted the whole business before being proven guilty of breaking the law, says Falkvinge whose party doesn't have a tangible connection to The Pirate Bay.
- Of course, we know who they are, since their opinions are pretty much the same as ours.

"Authority in this field"
According to him, the police has been controlled by the lobby organisation of the movie industry, Antipiratbyrån.
- The police considers Antipiratbyrån an authority in this field; they will do whatever they ask, Falkvinge says.
The Pirate Party was founded Januari 1st this year, and takes a stance for an open society with easily accesible information.
- We're going to election on the intent to stop this kind of foolishness, Rickard Falkvinge says.
*** *** *** End of translation

Forced DNA samples

2006-06-01T14:53:00.000+02:00

Säkerhet & Sekretess ("Security & Secrecy", litterally), a swedish computer magazine, managed to get an interview with The Pirate Bay's legal advisor, Mikael Viborg, who was also taken in by the police yesterday.

Original article here.

*** *** *** Start translation

Suspected pirate forced to supply DNA sample

Mikael Viborg, legal advisor of The Pirate Bay, was picked up by the police at his home yesterday. At the police station, he was forced to leave a DNA sample.

Säkerhet & Sekretess has talked to Mikael Viborg, 24-year old home business owner and law school student, one of the three people who were apprehended on suspicions of crimes against the copyright law. Personally, he claims to have nothing to do with copying files or maintenance of the servers, his only role being The Pirate Bay's legal advisor.

On wednesday around noon, the bust was executed, coordinated on several locations in Sweden, and Mikael says it was just before 12 o'clock the police knocked on the door in his home in Köping.
-There were four policemen from Rikskriminalen [the federal police force, I'd guess..], and as far as I know, they had also been cooperating with the Köping police force. Of course, I wanted to know what it was all about, and eventually they told me I was a suspect of copyright infringement. During the bust, they took all my computers, including peripherals like speakers and other stuff. They even took my cell phone. Then, I came with them to the Köping police station.

-Since I don't really have anything to do with The Pirate Bay other than being its legal advisor, I though this was odd. I don't think I couldn't have handled it myself, but before I said anything, I requested a lawyer, so as to feel safe. They started asking about The Pirate Bay, the workings of bittorrent and about my part in it all.

The real chock was when the prosecutor* decided there would be a DNA test.
-My lawyer, Ingvar Backman, contacted the prosecutor* to ask why, but the only answer was that a DNA test was "completely legal", without any in-depth motivation. I consider a DNA test to be a severe violation of my constitutional rights. This action could hardly be justified in light of the charges and my part as the legal advisor. I don't understand what they want to prove, or what they need the DNA sample for.

About three o'clock in the afternoon, Mikael was released. The suspicions still stand, and they concern violation of the copyright law, or, alternatively, being an accesory to violation of the copyright law.
*** *** *** End translation

Notes
*Prosecutor means åklagare. The original article said kammaråklagare, but I don't know what the English/American counterpart would be. I'm not even sure what a kammaråklagare is, but it's some kind of prosecutor. ;)

MPAA press release

2006-06-01T09:46:00.000+02:00

"Yxan" posted this link on the Pirate party forums. It's in english. Yay!

MPAA press release

Notes
There is some fun to be had at the expense of this press release. Let's look at a few quotes. This blog entry will be riddled with my own opinions, so if you're looking for (relatively) objective translations, skip this particular post. (Oh, and I'm still trying to get the quotes to look good.. bear with me.)

[...] the film industry has worked vigorously with Swedish and U.S. government officials in Sweden to shut this illegal site down.

Why were there U.S. government officials involved? Sweden is not a state of the US. Furthermore, why would U.S. government officials run errands for private interests? This proves that the industry has corrupted not just the swedish law enforcement, but also certain U.S. government officials?

thepiratebay.com

Wow, they don't even know the right domain name..

The Pirate Bay was the 479th most visited website in the world ranking 21st in Sweden and 312th in the U.S. In comparison, CNN.com is the 125th most popular site in Sweden.

That proves nothing. There is no reason for casual swedes to go reading american news on CNN.com.

We applaud Swedish law enforcement[...]

Hooray. And here I thought swedish law and its enforcers were supposed to protect the interests of the citizens of Sweden.

The major motion picture studios lost an estimated $6.1 billion to piracy in 2005. Internet
piracy alone cost the studios $2.3 billion.

So, where did all that money go to then? You can't speak of losing money, unless you mean all the money you spend on financing MPAA and such organisations, as well as bribing N.Y. policemen and buying reports that conclude $6.1 billion losses.

By shutting down Razorback2 and sites like The Pirate Bay, the ease with which pirates can obtain illegal content online can be slowed dramatically.

This changes nothing. There are lots of other sites still active. It may slow down those who completely relied on The Pirate Bay (and don't have any sources for a new tracker) for a few days. Soon enough, word of mouth will reach those people too, and it will all be the same again.

That's about it for this time folks. Sorry for the rant, but this whole issue is really frustrating, and I felt I had to vent. I'm at work right now, but I'll try to get a few more articles translated by tonight. This has turned out to be quite the outrage all over Sweden, especially the part about the DNA sample (Read the Rick Falkvinge translation below).

Rick Falkvinge's discussion

2006-06-01T09:01:00.000+02:00

Rick Falkvinge, the leader and founder of the Pirate party, has posted his comments on what has been going on. Keep in mind, the Pirate party isn't affiliated with The Pirate Bay or Piratbyrån.

Original forum post here.

*** *** *** Start translation:
Five legal scandals at a time

As all of you probably know by now, the police - 50 of them, to be exact - has gone in and closed down The Pirate Bay, the world's larget bittorrent tracker.

This alone is a huge outrage. Those servers do not contain any copyrighted material. The Pirate Bay doesn't violate the copyright law; this has been proven in previous trials. The police has been used as a tool for private lobbyist organisations, organisations that consider their interests threatened. As everyone with an understanding of Bittorrent technology knows, there is no copyrighted material on The Pirate Bay. Swedish law has been used by the industry lobbyists to harass the innocent. This is a legal outrage.

But there are more pitch-black sides to this story.

Let's start with the fact that one of the three arrested was the legal advisor of The Pirate Bay. Everyone knows that a legal advisor is a person who can help you with advice about the law, as well as help you in writing legal letters and other documents. In this case, the legal advisor of TPB was arrested as though he was a part of the activities, and a DNA test was force upon him. This is a legal outrage.

Independant artists have been calling me during the day, artists that pointed at the fact that The Pirate Bay has been their way to spread their music to the fans, music on which they later earn money through live concerts and other revenue streams. In effect, there is a situation where the established record companies has used swedish law as a way to hinder competition from new, creative artists. This is a legal outrage.

A number of small-time company owners have also called me during the day, desperate, since the prosecutor, Håkan Roswall, had decided that everything in the room was to be seized. All the servers, said to be between 100 and 1000. The servers of The Pirate Bay were clearly marked as such; the law on searches is clear on the fact that there should be a reasonable judgement on what is seized. This is clearly not the case here. The result is that all the companies hosted by the same company [as The Pirate Bay] lost all of their web services. Company owners have called me in despair, feeling helpless, as though they were outlaws. Their only crime is to house their equipment resided in the same room as the accused, but because of it, their business is closed down for an indefinite amount of time. This is a legal outrage.

Finally, there is Piratbyrån, the servers of which were also next to the servers of The Pirate Bay. Here, the situation means that an industry interest has used swedish law to close down another organisation[*], where the organisation is the ideological opponents[*] of that industry. They're closing down people with opinions[*] they don't like, and to top it all off, it's in the start of the election movements [The election is fall 2006]. This is a legal outrage.

There will be much happening around this issue the next few days. One thing's for sure, the upholders of the law made many mistakes today. I hope this is the last time the make the mistake of confusing industry interests with independant [and objective] sources.

Because we are going to remind them of this.
*** *** *** End translation

Notes
*I didn't know how properly translate the word "opinionsbildare". It would litterally be "builders of opinion".

ThePirateBay/Piratbyrån temp page is up

2006-06-01T08:38:00.000+02:00

There is a temporary page up on http://www.thepiratebay.org. There is some english info and links to some english articles. Check it out.

Antipiratbyrån's news article

2006-06-01T07:48:00.000+02:00

Antipiratbyrån is the swedish version of MPAA. If I recall correctly, they're even the swedish subdivision of the MPAA. It appears they were at least one of those behind the razzia.

Original article here (don't know if it's a permanent link..).

*** *** *** Translation

The Pirate Bay closed down

Today, the police performed a series of raids against places where The Pirate Bay operates. Thepiratebay.org was shut down at 12.30 [12.30 PM, GMT+1].

Up until last night, The Pirate Bay was the place for a large part of the illegal file sharing of the world. According to their own numbers, there were about a million users who could upload and download mostly movies, games and music. With its size and expressed goal to expose and make fun of concerned copyright holders, The Pirate Bay was made famous all around the world. Sweden became internationally known as a safe haven for those committing copyright crimes on the Internet. This was exploited economically, selling ad space, porn ads and collection of donations.

It's good that the swedish police is prioritizing this type of crime. Copyright pays for the creation of movies, computer game, music and other culture. Those who defy the copyright law steal from the creators and movie watchers of the future. This is why shutting down The Pirate Bay is good for all those who appreciate new movies and entertainment, says Henrik Pontén, lawyer of Antipiratbyrån.

Swedish productions are highly damaged by the illegal file sharing, says Per-Erik Wallin of Föreningen Sveriges Filmproducenter [Litterally: Association Swedish Movie Creators]. If swedish movies are available on the net before they open, there is a lesser probability of the movies getting back the production cost, and even less to pay for the next movie. This damages both script writers, directors, actors and the movie crew.
*** *** *** End translation

Notes
There is not much to note here. Perhaps that swedish movies are subvented, and partly payed for with tax money.

Sleepy time

2006-05-31T23:14:00.000+02:00

I have to go to sleep now. I'll try to get Antipiratbyrån's press release translated tomorrow, before work. If there are any articles you feel you need translated, feel free to drop me a line on qaunuckshin curly a gmail point com.

Piratpartiet's news report

2006-05-31T23:07:00.000+02:00

I didn't have to translate this one, since the Pirate Party has been nice enough to do it themselves.

There is a short article and press release. It seems to be pretty much the same in both languages, so head on over there for some info.

Edit: It seems the temporary low-fi site they had due to heavy load is gone now, and with it the press release. I'm trying to find it again.

Piratbyrån's press release

2006-05-31T22:27:00.000+02:00

Piratbyrån is a think tank which mostly focuses on integrity, patents and copyright. Read more about it on wikipedia. Piratbyrån founded The Pirate Bay, but is not affiliated with it anymore. Their web servers were located at the same host, and Piratbyrån's site is currently unavailable as well. They have set up a temporary blog page here. Their first (and currently only) post is a press release. In swedish. ;)

Original text located here.

*** *** *** Start translation:
PRESS RELEASE
To be published immediately
May 31st 2006

Movie industry tricked the police into shutting down Piratbyrån.

Today, the police performed a razzia against The Pirate Bay, the world's largest Bittorrent tracker. The site has been a meeting place for people with an interest in culture for several years. With the help of the Bittorrent technology, everything from school essays to obscure japanese music to videos of the ESC final has been effectively spread.

There has been no illegal content on the servers whatsoever. The torrent files, links used by people to connect to each others and download the material simply contains descriptive text, text which is certainly not copyrighted.

"Antipiratbyrån has obviously misled the police in this case", says Tobias Andersson of Piratbyrån. "They seem to have convinced technologically impaired police men that the servers are filled with copyrighted materials. This is a severe misuse of tax money".

"At the same time, several other pages residing on nearby servers have been shut down. It is here we find their most severe violation. Antipiratbyrån apparently tricked the police into shutting down their antagonists, Piratbyrån."

"For three years, Piratbyrån has worked for an open debate on copyright and patent issues. We are very disappointed in the fact that the movie industry doesn't want to face us in a debate, but instead tries to trick politicians and law enforcement into criminalizing their opponents and a great part of the swedish people."

"In practice, this means nothing to the file sharers of the world. There are thousands of other pages and networks where they can acquire what they want. People will only move on to the next place. File sharing is like a hydra; chop one head of, and two new grow back up in its place."

Piratbyrån was started in the summer of 2003 in order to shine light upon and discuss copyright issues. Piratbyrån suggests that copyright in many cases has played its part, and instead of protecting artists is currently hindering creativity as well as supporting the few. Since its founding, about 60 000 people have registered as members on the site, where they debate in the forums and exchange tips. Piratbyrån has also held speeches in riksdagen, started several campaigns and founded the world's largest bittorrent tracker, The Pirate Bay.org
*** *** *** End of translation

Notes
The part about criminalizing a large part of the swedish population refers to the new copyright law that was taken into effect Juli 1st, 2005. Before that, downloading files was legal due to the way fair use was implemented (a loop hole, you could say). It was, however, illegal to upload copyrighted files even before then. Antipiratbyrån is the swedish version of the MPAA (maybe even the swedish section of the MPA?).

Conclusion
As you've read, not only The Pirate Bay was taken down. Piratbyrån's site was a popular meeting place for swedish pirates, and was of course inconvenient for the industry. There have also been unverified claims that other web sites and servers have disappeared, all of which were hosted at the same place as The Pirate Bay and Piratbyrån.

The Pirate Bay has been shut down.

2006-05-31T17:36:00.000+02:00

Today, the swedish BitTorrent tracker The Pirate Bay was shut down. It claimed to be the world's largest tracker, and was internationally known for it's disrespectful stance against industry lobbyists and lawyers.

Ok, we all know that. Now, why did I create this blog?

Well, my name is Snild Dolkow, and I live in Sweden. I think what happened today is wrong. I noticed a bit of confusion among non-swedes, and I thought I would try to translate most of the interesting articles I can find for you. Right now I'm thinking it will be a link to the original post in Swedish, and then my translation of it, as well as a conclusion if I feel something needs to be explained about the swedish law or our culture. I'm not an expert in law or anything, but I hope my work will be useful and appreciated.

Addition: Oh, and I'm not really well-versed in English political/legal lingo, so if something doesn't really add upp, use your imagination. Or post a comment. Comments are good.