Pirate Bay appeal pushed back to next summer

Published: 19 Oct 09 15:59 CET
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/22746/20091019/

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An appeal launched by the four men found guilty in the Pirate Bay trial is unlikely to be heard until next summer, a Swedish appeals court announced on Monday.

The Svea Court of Appeal has decided to delay hearings in the next phase of the trial of the four men behind the popular file sharing site.

While the appeal was originally scheduled to be heard in November, bias accusations against two of the judges set to rule on the case have made it impossible to keep to the original timetable.

The bias allegations may eventually be heard by the Supreme Court, which wouldn’t likely issue a final verdict until February, adding yet another wrinkle to commencing with the next phase of Pirate Bay trial.

And since the appeals court is already fully booked for most of the spring of 2010, efforts by Carl Lundström, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Fredrik Neij and Peter Sunde to overturn the district court’s guilty verdict won’t likely move forward until next summer.

“If you consider that we originally tried to hold the hearings in August and finally succeeded in getting them booked for November following a number of difficulties, and considering that the Supreme Court will likely issue a ruling in February or March, there is still a possibility that the hearings could take place just before summer,” appeal court judge Ulrika Ihrfelt told the Dagens Nyheter (DN) newspaper.

Attorneys for the Pirate Bay defendants accused Ihrfelt, along with appeals court chief judge Kristina Boutz, of bias because of their ties to organizations which support copyright holders.

While the bias charges were originally thrown out, the ruling was appealed and may end up before the Supreme Court.

As a result of the delay that would occur should the Supreme Court decide to review the bias allegations, the Court of Appeal has decided to postpone the trial now, giving the high court more time to review the case, even though it has yet to receive a formal appeal.

When the four defendants were found guilty in April, many observers said it would like take at least three years for the case to make its way through the entire judicial process, according to DN.

The case is expected to go all the way to the Supreme Court because of its precedent-setting nature: no one in Sweden has ever been found guilty of being an accessory to copyright violations via the BitTorrent file sharing peer-to-peer technology.

In addition, the stiff penalty handed down by the district court – one year in prison for each of the defendants, plus a collective fine of 30 million kronor ($4.3 million) – was seen as a reason for the defence to exhaust every appeal.

David Landes (david.landes@thelocal.se/+46 8 656 6518)

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21:14 October 19, 2009 by eZee.se
Personally, I'm surprised the cartels didnt push this to go faster… and I am also pleasantly surprised and happy that its been postponed because TPB boys get the extension time they had originally requested the court but were denied by the court (for no good reason).

Final result:

Site still running and serving: check

Trial appeal postponed: check

Cartels didnt win anything: check

Me downloading as usual: check

40% of Sweden downloading (By IFPIs own study) : check

Everyone giving the music/movie cartels the middle finger: CHECK
05:01 October 20, 2009 by crunchy2k
@eZee.se you forgot two...

RIAA, MPAA, BREIN, et.al. still behind in their social skills. CHECK

And technical knowledge. CHECK

I won't give them my middle finger, I use that finger to turn my machine on to share files. LOL
15:19 October 20, 2009 by spy
'Pirate Bay is sooo 2006'
18:18 October 20, 2009 by eZee.se
@Crunchy,

Hey! Be like me... one hand to start the system, second to give them the finger!

@Spy,

You could be right, but the music and film industries are soooo 1990s so it kinda still works for me being a decade plus more advanced than them ;)

besides, I think few people use TPB as their only source now, with me its a lot of private torrent sites, then back to TPB when i cant find something, it still is one of the best sites out there and also the 'cleanest' in filtering out dead/spam/virus links as well as child pornography (even when the industry uploads *their personal collection* and then tries to point fingers, before they can even point a finger at TPB... its filtered out and deleted.)

Besides which other site in the world gives the finger to the MAFIAA for so long (over half a decade) ? Their legal section has made the industry look like fools all over the world, for years. They have taken on everyone from Apple to the entire music and film industry, and have not lost but have costed the MAFIAA (hundreds of) millions? or more?

They are f*ing heroes.
16:33 October 21, 2009 by gerfmarquez
I can't access TPB since a couple of days ago.

=( Is someone else having trouble, I already checked with two ISP, I am from Mexico.

I thought that the servers were down.
14:41 October 22, 2009 by eZee.se
The servers are down...

guess they got drunk and tripped over the wires again :))

Dont worry, they will be back in a while... nothing can sink that ship (not to say that the MPAA and RIAA have not tried... and failed)
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