Copyright Law

Pirate Bay, Record Companies Agree Appeals Court Judge Biased

By soulxtc

One of the judges on the Court of Appeals Council works for Spotify, a legal P2P music streaming service partly owned by the record companies suing the Swedish BitTorrent tracker site.

Swedish BitTorrent tracker site The Pirate BAy is scheduled to have an appeal of its conviction for copyright infringement heard this November, and already there seems to be a problem with getting a fair trial.

It’s already been mentioned how the initial judge in the trial, Judge Tomas Norström, is an active member of several pro-copyright groups, but that after review was decided he was unbiased despite the obvious conflict of interest.

Now it seems that one of the judges in the appeal trial also has a possible conflict of interest being that he works for Spotify, a legal P2P music streaming service partly owned by the record companies suing The Pirate Bay.

If said man is not judged to be biased and he did not see themselves as biased, he will be part of the courts’s team at the right time,” Court of Appeals Council Judge Ulrika Ihrfeldt told P3 News. “I would not say if there is a problem, but we have definitely considered it a factor which we must draw the attention of the parties, given that Spotify is a company that provides online music.”

She sent letters to each of the parties late last week notifying them of the issue and asking for their response.

Peter Sunde, former spokesman for The Pirate Bay, didn’t hesitate in criticizing the situation.

“Spotify sits there with the knife against her throat,” he told P3 news. “If their business model to work, they must be best buddies with the record industry. If they had a juror who worked there, but not convicted person they wish he would have problems in the future, it is obvious”

He also lashed out in his blog at the repeated inability of The Pirate Bay to get a fair trial, or at least one where a judge didn’t have a connection to the record labels suing it.

He writes:

Bias Spelled IFPI

Today we just got some new information about the appeal case. It turns out that one of the jurors in the appeal will be a person employed by Spotify.

Spotify, part-owned by the record companies that are the suing party, is a Swedish company that sells/streams music online.

Is it time to move the case from Stockholm now mkey? This is just ridiculous. Seriously, it?s more than just a farse now. We need to make up a new word. The process is not even close anymore.

Miraculously enough the record labels also agree that the judge in question should be replaced.

“It is wrong that one of the lay judges who will adjudicate the case has a connection to Spotify,” said Peter Danowski, lead attorney for the record labels. “There is conflict of interest, in my opinion”

As for the lay judge in question, he feels there is no conflict of interest.

With so much at stake you’d think he’d be a bit more objective and step aside, especially being that the case is what led the youth to mobilize en masse and elect 2 members of the Swedish Pirate Party to the EU.

Full post as published by ZeroPaid on September 23, 2009 (boomark / email).