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THE PIRATE BAY

Pirate Bay judge faces new bias allegations

Several leading Swedish legal experts have called for a retrial in The Pirate Bay case as new details emerged supporting allegations of conflicts of interest against the presiding judge, Tomas Norström.

Published: 11 May 2009 12:55 CEST
Pirate Bay judge faces new bias allegations

The copyright protection organisations in which Norström is a member take a standpoint on the issue and actively lobby for tougher legislation within copyright law, according to a report by Sveriges Radio (SR).

The Local reported on April 23rd that Tomas Norström is a member of Svenska föreningen för upphovsrätt (‘the Swedish Copyright Association’) and sits on the board of Svenska föreningen för industriellt rättsskydd (Swedish Association for the Protection of Industrial Property).

These memberships automatically make him a member of the international organisations ALAI and AIPPI.

The president of AIPPI, Thierry Mollet-Vievill, confirmed in an interview with SR that the group represents “copyright owners and their lawyers” and argued that the law must be followed.

“We try to fight against the infringement of copyright legislation and piracy.”

The chairperson of ALAI (Association littéraire et artistique internationale), Victor Nabhan, confirmed to SR that the group is a lobby organisation.

“When a new law proposal is under consideration ALAI issues a comment. In that sense we are a lobby organisation…We try as far as we can to protect the individual interests of the copyright holder.”

Nabhan confirmed that his views are representative of the association, including its Swedish branch, and that all its members should share them.

According to experts interviewed by SR, many of whom elected to remain anonymous, the new details support arguments in favour of a retrial.

“The confidence in the legal system demands that the appeals court regards this is as a conflict of interest, and that means that the appeals court must order a retrial in the district court,” said Eric Bylander, a legal expert at Gothenburg University told SR.

The judge in the case, Tomas Norström declined to issue any further comment on the details saying only that it was for the appeals court to consider the issue.

The four men connected to The Pirate Bay were convicted of being accessories to copyright infringement by a Swedish court on April 17th.

Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Peter Sunde and Carl Lundström, were each sentenced to one year in prison and ordered to pay 30 million kronor ($3.56 million) in damages. They have all appealed their convictions.

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PIRATE BAY

Sweden now owns Pirate Bay domain names

The Swedish state became the unlikely new owner of two domain names used by The Pirate Bay after a court ruling on Tuesday.

Published: 19 May 2015 14:31 CEST
Sweden now owns Pirate Bay domain names
The Swedish state now owns two Pirate Bay domain names. Photo: Vilhelm Stokstad/TT

In its ruling the Stockholm district court awarded Sweden the domain names piratebay.se and thepiratebay.se. 

The case marked the first time a Swedish prosecutor had asked for a web address to be wiped off the face of the internet, Dagens Nyheter reports. 

“A domain name assists a website. If the site is used for criminal purposes the domain name is a criminal instrument,” prosecutor Fredrik Ingblad told the Swedish daily earlier this year. 

Sweden’s Internet Infrastructure Foundation, which controls the Swedish top level domain .se, opposed the prosecutor’s move to prohibit any future use of the two Pirate Bay addresses.

The court agreed that the foundation had not done anything wrong and conceded that it could not force the group to block certain domain names, Dagens Nyheter reports. But by awarding the addresses to the Swedish state the court effectively ensured that they will not be sold on to another owner. 

The file-sharing service was temporarily knocked off line in December after police seized servers hosted at a data centre in a nuclear-proof bunker deep in a mountain outside Stockholm.

But seven weeks later the resilient file-sharing behemoth was back on its feet and Tuesday’s ruling is unlikely to knock it off balance for long, as the court cannot prevent The Pirate Bay from continuing to run sites on other domains.

The Pirate Bay, which grew into an international phenomenon after it was founded in Sweden in 2003, allows users to dodge copyright fees and share music, film and other files using bit torrent technology, or peer-to-peer links offered on the site – resulting in huge losses for music and movie makers.

In 2009 four Swedes connected with The Pirate Bay were found guilty of being accessories to copyright infringement by a Swedish court. 

They were each give one-year jail terms and ordered to pay 30 million kronor ($3.6 million) in compensation.