TPB: What They're Not Telling You

Reading between the lines you can't even see.

Get It Try It

There are a lot of things - both good and bad - about the trial of TPB that aren't being spelled out. Here again for the record.

• Nobody's been 'jailed'. Nobody's going to jail. And certainly not for one year. If murderers with 14 year sentences get out after two years they'd certainly not keep the TPB people in for more than a few months. Tops. Or as brokep put it earlier today:

  Don't worry - we're from the internets. It's going to be alright. :-)

• Neij and Svartholm aren't registered as living in the country anymore but that doesn't mean they're not in Stockholm hanging out at their favourite watering holes and living it up with their friends as per usual.

• Svartholm was convicted of something else in the same verdict. Something to do with possession of 'dangerous substances'. He was busted twice. The first time the police backed off but the second time they took his explanation as an efterhandskonstruktion - something he made up after the fact.

• The likely reason the four TPB people were tried as a 'team' is it's only the Wasa billionaire Lundström who has any money and if the 'team' as a unit are required to pay the fine then Lundström can get hit by the entire sum. And then Wa(d)sted and her friends can pick up a few more million for themselves.
  
  

• None of the monies the plaintiffs manage to collect will go into the hands of the artists whose rights have supposedly been infringed. It's never worked that way and it never will. Wa(d)sted and Kennedy and the US mafiAA'll always find a way to cook the books, citing 'technical consultations' and of course that greatest of them all: tidsspillan - loss of time. They actually ask to get paid for doing nothing and the courts approve it.

• The money Kennedy and Wa(d)sted and the mafiAA use to intimidate you comes from your pockets. It's the revenues they've enjoyed by virtue of the fact you've been such a good customer. This is more reason then ever to stop buying things from them. If they run out of funding their lobby work will dry up too. And we can all go back to living normal lives again.

• Håkan Roswall dismissed the legality of a case against TPB over four years ago. TPB haven't stolen or tried to steal anything. And to accuse them of being accessories to a crime the courts have to first rule a crime has occurred. It's not enough for someone from Henrik Pontén's office to testify he's seen a crime taking place - there has to be a court ruling.

• But there's more: for the very concept of 'copyright' as Hollywood likes to think about it is not recognised in the EU or in Sweden. Technically speaking the US entertainment industries don't have copyright on anything according to Swedish law. And you can't try anyone for infringing on copyright when the plaintiffs aren't recognised as holding any copyrights.

• The reason Carl Lundström isn't a member of TPB is his legal advisers told him to stay away. They didn't tell him TPB was illegal - they told him it might later be construed as being illegal and Carl couldn't take a chance. Carl has a prior - he was involved in a scuffle outside the rock club Engelen in Stockholm's old town. He couldn't risk another brush with the law. He got off with a villkorlig (suspended sentence) the first time.
  
  

• The fact they keep talking about their internationella åtaganden should be a clue enough. They feel a lot of pressure to succumb to the IP lobby just as France and other countries. But where other countries tell Hollywood to stuff it lilliputian Swedes chose yet again what they perceive for the moment as the easy way out - without telling the people of course.

The trial of The Pirate Bay is an excellent example of how ugly stupid companies motivated only by their greed and inertia want to prevent people from sharing music, movies, or anything on a purely altruistic basis.
 - Moscow Street Pirate Party