The Internet is for Porn

Yesterday was the second day of the infamous Pirate Bay trial. This trial will set a certain precedence for the rights and circumstances circling around the infamous torrenting communities, and whether the RIAA, the ADV, the MPAA -you know, all those fun companies- have the right to sue the innards out of online torrent tracking sites, its associates, and certain contributers (run, aXXo, run!).

Honestly, I even don't really like pirates in theory. I enjoy certain stories surrounding them -hell, Pirates of the Caribbean was fantastic, no lie- but the pillaging, raping, and plundering was never really virtues I tended to raise as high in my life.

In the epic battle against Ninjas vs. Pirates, ninjas will kick their asses (I still remember the '100%' I got in high school on that essay...).

Man, pirates are still kicking around right now jumping cruise boats and seizing Ukranian cargo ships. You know, all that jazz.

But I digress. I meant to continue with the fact that really, the only pirates I dig are the ones in the Pirate Bay. So I find it fantastic to hear that 50% of the charges being filed against the site's operators are being 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Due to serious shortcomings in the prosecution evidence, around 50% of the charges in the case are going to have to be withdrawn.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.

The flaw in the evidence was pointed out by Fredrik Neij (TiAMO), who requested to comment on Roswall’s explanation of how BitTorrent actually works. Fredrik said that the prosecution misunderstood the technology, and told the court that the evidence doesn’t show that the Pirate Bay’s trackers are used.

This has resulted in prosecutor Håkan Roswall having to drop all charges relating to “assisting copyright infringement”, so the remaining charges are simply ‘assisting making available’. “Everything related to reproduction will be removed from the claim,” he said.

The defense was happy to see that already half of the charges were dropped during the morning session of the second day. “This is a sensation. It is very rare to win half the target in just one and a half days and it is clear that the prosecutor took strong note of what we said yesterday,” said defense lawyer Per E Samuelson.

What rocks is this line:

“EPIC WINNING LOL,” Peter himself later commented on Twitter.

What kills me laughing is the fact that the prosecution had over 2 years to prepare for this case in gathering evidence. You'd think they'd last longer than one day. This is a consensus statement said by many following this trial.

I mean, despite the enormity of their implication in file distribution, it really seems that TPB will end off laughing this whole thing off and pay a "smack on the wrist" fee of a few thousand dollars, instead of the heavily implied hundreds of millions it's unintentionally(?) taken away from corporations and their legal affiliations.




LINKS:
1. Pirate Bay update: 50% of charges already dropped on second day of trial - http://torrentfreak.com/50-of-charges-against -pirate-bay-dropped-090217/.

2. 3rd day of trial: "If I have all this money they claim, someone has apparently stolen it from me” - http://torrentfreak.com/g-defense-090218/