Some refreshing political reading

If you're like me, sick and tired of ridiculous election banners and flyers that make absolutely no sense, and instead you want to read some serious politics, let me recommend "Det sovande folket" by Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt. Apparently not too easy to get hold of in your local book store, but luckily there's always the Great Library in Alexandria The Pirate Bay. You can download the book here.

The empire strikes back

Yes, the evil empire, in conspiracy with the Swedish police, has once again struck against a bunch of regular Joes, knocking down their doors, invading their privacy and seizing their computer equipment, which they will probably never see again. Why? Apparently because they were aiding in committing copyright infringement. The exact same and highly questionable "crime" the Pirate Bay guys were charged with: Providing the infrastructure that enables people to commit copyright infringement. They're not even suspected of committing the actual copyright infringement, a petty crime in itself.

One can't help but wonder when the 13% of all Swedes with an unsecured wireless router will be targeted by this utterly despicable mafia organization. If providing bandwidth through an insecure wireless connection isn't providing the infrastructure that enables people to commit copyright infringement, I don't know what is...

This is nothing but an embarrassment to the Swedish police conspiring with the criminals at Ifpi, and another dark day for the Internet freedom in Sweden. Shame on you.

Guilty until proven innocent

The mafiosos over at the record companies (yes, the usual "axis of evil", Universal Music, EMI Music, Sony Music and Warner Music) continue their crusade to make the world an insecure place to live. According to Dagens Nyheter, Dagens Industri and Svenska Dagbladet they insist that two of the Pirate Bay founders are still involved in the management of the site, and should be fined accordingly. Not only that, but they seriously expect that mere allegations should be enough, and that the accusers should have to prove their innocence! The witchburners of the 18th century would be proud.

Enligt skivbolagen har de två har brutit mot vitesförbudet "genom att delta i driften av fildelningstjänsten", och skivbolagen anser att bara det faktum att Pirate Bay fortfarande fungerar är tillräckligt för att de två ska anses ha överträtt förbudet - såvida de inte kan visa att de inte längre är delaktiga.

"So, you're not a witch, huh? Prove it, or you're obviously guilty and will be burned at the stake."

I actually had to read that last sentence a couple of times before I realized it was serious. The good old "guilty until proven innocent" tactics that most developed countries abandoned decades ago. You're kidding me. However I'm quite sure the court will continue to obey the entertainment industry no matter how seriously it violates basic human rights.

Rednex FTW

Never thought I'd say this, but after reading this article on Newsmill I've found a new respect for the Rednex-guys. Hell, I might even consider donating some money, just because they make such a great statement against the "axis of evil".

Public enemy number 1

Enemy of the Internet and the free world, Monique Wadsted, is taking the absurd rounds in the Pirate Bay farce one step further. She's once again used her comradeship with some rotten apples at Stockholm tingsrätt in order to get what is arguably one of the most bizarre court rulings I've ever heard of here in Sweden:

Nu tvingar Stockholms tingsrätt Pirate Bay att stänga ner. De har vänt sig mot personerna bakom sajten och har bestämt att de ska betala totalt 1 miljon kronor i böter om de fortsätter driva sajten.

Mind you it has not yet been established whether The Pirate Bay is illegal or not, and there is no proof that these two gentlemen are actually involved in the website anymore. I guess if I had a friend in that corrupt institution called Stockholm tingsrätt (or a lot of money to bribe one to be my friend), I could accuse Svenska Dagbladet's website of being illegal, and force them to shut down way before the case had actually been settled. Also, I could just point out a random person who I believed was responsible for running Svenska Dagbladet's site and make this person legally responsible for shutting the site down or pay the consequences. For instance, this person could be my nosy neighbor that I dislike. He'll never know what hit him.

Reminds me a lot of The Trial.
Mrs. Wadsted herself is obviously happy as a clam, as she has once more demonstrated the absolute power of the entertainment industry over the court of law, and the complete and utter contempt of basic human rights that this industry stands for. Money über alles.

– I somras fick vi ett förbud mot Black Internet och nu har vi fått ett förbud mot Fredrik Neij och Gottfrid Svartholm säger Monique Wadsted, som företräder Hollywoodbolagen juridiskt i rättegången om The Pirate Bay.

Democratic (Banana-)Republic of Sweden

The chance of the guys behind Pirate Bay ever getting a fair trial in the "Democratic (Banana-)Rebublic of Sweden" look slimmer than ever. As if a corrupt police investigator and a legally incompetent judge wasn't enough in the first trial, two of the judges in the upcoming trial, Kristina Boutz and Ulrika Ihrfelt, are involved in entertainment industry lobbying organizations. Which is perfectly fine by Svea hovrätt, even though they contradict themselves quite a bit:

Samtidigt konstaterar dock rätten att SFIR, som Kristina Boutz är medlem i, ser efter rättighetshavares intressen och rättigheter.

Trots det har det "inte framkommit några konkreta omständigheter som tyder på att SFIR har ett särskilt intresse av utgången i just detta mål eller att SFIR engagerat sig i de konkreta frågor som ska prövas i målet"

I guess you'd have to be on the entertainment mafia payroll to get the reasoning. One of the defendants, Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi, sums it all up pretty well:

"Men det var ju såklart inte oväntat, det verkar finnas en lag §13.3.7 som säger att "i tillfälle pirate bay anmäler för jäv, så stämmer inte detta. Jäv får enbart utdelas i tillfälle målsägande sidan så bestämt"

By default any claim by the defendants is completely ignored by Svea hovrätt, and everything put forward by the claimants is instantly accepted - no questions asked. It's pretty obvious who's calling the shots, to say the least, and I don't really see the point in hosting another mock trial wasting a lot of tax money when we'll just get a default ruling for the claimants anyway. I have to say I'm completely fascinated by the fact that this miscarriage of justice is so blatantly being carried out here in Sweden. I mean, had it been Congo or Iran or something, but Sweden?

The farce continues

The Court of Appeal in Stockholm have managed to get hold of a Spotify employee, Fredrik Niemelä, to be one of the lay judges when the Pirate Bay trial is to be tried again. As we all know Spotify is partly owned by the very same record companies who are part in this trial, so any moron would see that Mr. Niemelä ought to be disqualified at once. Except himself, of course:

– Jag har noga övervägt min anställning och kan inte se att det finns risk för jäv. I så fall skulle ingen som någonsin arbetat med försäljning kunna vara nämndeman i ett misstänkt stöldfall, säger han till SvD.se.

I'm sorry? You're saying you wouldn't consider it a problem if you were an Ica-employee and were set to be a lay judge in a trial where Ica was a party? There's no chance of you being biased with your employer sitting on one side of the courtroom? I'm impressed.

After the scandals surrounding the first trial you'd think the Court of Appeal would spend just a little extra time making sure none of the judges was on the entertainment mafia's payroll.

*Update 2009-09-24: Seems like there's more than just a Spotify-employee amongst the judges... I'm fascinated by how impossible it seems to be given a fair trial with unbiased judges here in Sweden. What is this, a banana republic?

Voddler - a fiasco in the making

Voddler is supposed to be a kind of Spotify-like service, only for movies and TV-series. This is all good, but according to the article in SvD, Voddler will be burdened by the same antique release window system invented by the movie industry that is killing the DVD market and causing people to illegally download US-released movies and TV-series that won't hit European theaters for months:

Alla filmer kommer alltså inte att finnas i gratisversionen och filmer kommer även att kunna flyttas från gratisvarianten till premiumvarianten och vice versa. Baserat på filmbolagens så kallade releasefönster kommer filmer även att kunna försvinna helt i perioder.

Seriously, who's gonna pay for a premium account?

Unfortunately it seems as long as you want to stay on friendly terms with the entertainment mafia, you're going to have a poor, defective service. If you, on the other hand, decide to give the customers what they want, expect to be persecuted prosecuted by an industry that makes its own laws. It's really a lose-lose situation.

Field trip to China

The brilliant newspaper The Local, bringing us Swedish news in English, has been censored by the Chinese government because of an article deemed to be inappropriate.

The brilliant website The Pirate Bay, bringing us all kind of culture from all over the world, has been censored by the Swedish government because certain links on the website are deemed to be inappropriate.

Unfortunately the Swedish government, relatively new to the world of Internet censorship, have not yet developed sufficiently sophisticated methods to actually keep "inappropriate" websites out of sight for long. I would suggest Swedish politicians take a field trip to China to study what they do there.

The Pirate Bay regarding Stockholms Tingsfel

Speaking of the Pirate Bay censorship scandal, the TPB crew's press release is simply hilarious.

Shooting a duck with heavy artillery

So, the entertainment mafiaa and Stockholm tingsrätt have taken a major step in killing the free Internet in Sweden and turning it into a one-way pay-per-view channel, all in the name of stopping a few copyright infringements. More or less like using heavy artillery to kill a duck.

How well have they succeeded? Pretty well when it comes to contradicting existing laws and setting a new and bizarre precedent.

Not so well when it comes to actually stopping The Pirate Bay:


Much like the use of heavy artillery would cause a lot of damage without necessarily hitting the duck, it took The Pirate Bay only a few hours to get online again, and yet a few hours for DNS-servers around the world to get up to date with their new IP-addresses. A minor inconvenience. However, the damage inflicted on the free Internet in Sweden by Stockholm tingsrätt and that damn mafiaa may very well be irreparable. Good job, you absolute morons.

A lesson in irony

Today's lesson in irony:

The ISP Black Internet pulls the plug on The Pirate Bay, making it inaccessible for Internet users.

The Internet users pull the plug on Black Internet.

Personally I don't see how one is worse than the other. Both these acts of sabotage harm a lot of innocent people, cost a lot of money and threaten the infrastructure of the Internet. Of course the ones who should really have their plugs pulled - big time - are the mafiosos of the entertainment industry and the ever-so-corrupt and incompetent Stockholm tingsrätt.

I never seem to repeat this often enough: Stop feeding this monster. Let it crawl under a rock and die for the benefit of the entire free world.

The free Internet is dead in Sweden

Stockholm tingsrätt have, by ordering the censorship of a website that has not been proven illegal, once again proved they are not only criminally incompetent, they are also setting a new precedent when it comes to Internet censorship in Sweden. In short, they're choosing the totalitarian approach, where "unwanted" websites are closed at will, joining the ranks of freedom loving and friendly countries like China, North Korea and Iran - with the exception that in the case of Sweden it's not at all about ideology, it's all about money.

From now on it appears any powerful organization or corporation can get a court order to block the access to websites they feel are a threat to their business. The free, uncensored Internet we've been used to in these parts of the world has just been replaced by a corporation controlled censorship system.

Kverulant.se puts the whole spectacle into perspective by showing how this mindless court ruling could impact the Internet.

If my blog is gone tomorrow at least you know what's happened.

Oh the stupidity...

The American entertainment mafia industry is on a roll. Now they're summoning the guys behind The Pirate Bay to court again, this time apparently because the site is still fully operational, with links (being a key word here...) to torrents containing copyrighted material.

In line with their tradition they want the Swedish court to administer ridiculously high fines to the alleged crew behind the site (the fact that these guys claim they have no influence over the site anymore doesn't matter), if, and I quote, "their TV-series and movies are available for download (from The Pirate Bay)":

Bland annat Disney, Universal och Columbia Pictures vill att kraftiga böter ska
delas ut om deras tv-serier och filmer går att ladda ned.

Talk about shooting the messenger. These decadent, incredible retards have still not grasped the concept of the BitTorrent technology. No movies are available for downloading from thepiratebay.org, they're simply acting as a search engine, much like Google (oh no, did I just commit a crime?). And they're not the only ones severely technologically impaired:

Männen bakom The Pirate Bay har tidigare blivit stämda av fyra svenska
skivbolag, Universal, EMI, Sony och Warner.
Även de vill att Stockholms
tingsrätt ska bötesfälla de tre männen och Black Internet AB om företagens verk
går att ladda ned från sajten.

Oh, the stupidity...

I particularily enjoy the fact that they would like to fine The Pirate Bay's ISP! Going after the providers of infrastructure is brilliant, as it opens up a whole new world. Telia could be sued because their phone lines has been used to plan a crime. Vägvärket could get sued because their infrastructures, the roads, cause fatalities. The possibilities are endless, and grotesque.

I'll give them one thing though, the lawyer representing them, notorious gold-digger Monique Wadsted, is probably spot on when she says she's confident the court will rule in favour of herself and her clients:

Advokat Monique Wadsted tror att chanserna är mycket goda att tingsrätten kommer
gå på hennes och filmbolagens spår.

When the mafia entertainment industry says jump, the court jumps, no matter what the law says. They've demonstrated this on a number of occasions, completely undermining the justice system and the public's faith in it.

Contribute to stopping this madness. Stop bying DVD's and CD's. Stop going to the movies. Stop feeding this monster.

Retarded journalism

Realtid.se published an article today about artist Ayesha Quraishi, who has just filed for bankruptcy. Sad news, of course, but what impresses me is the author's bold statement that "The Pirate Bay - and Skatteverket (the Swedish equivalent to the IRS) broke Ayesha Quraishi's record label":

Pirate Bay – och Skatteverket knäckte Ayesha Quraishis skivbolag.

Say what??? Are you sure The Pirate Bay isn't in fact responsible for the entire financial crisis, for the Iraqi war, and for the polar caps melting?

Of course, the journalist - being the pro he is - has done extensive research:

Efter första cd-skivan Jade Fever 2004 gav hon ut uppföljaren The Lobby på egna bolaget Aqueen Enterpisez för två år sedan. Men skivan var snabbt uppladdad på Pirate Bay.

Ah, yes of course. Someone placed a tracker to her album on The Pirate Bay. Oh dear. Nevermind the experts and artists claiming file sharing gives little known artists a boost and is good for the economy, they're just full of it anyway.

Just for the heck of it, I did a quick search, and sure enough, I found both her albums, however there were no seeders, meaning no one is sharing it:


So, the journalist is assuming that because there's a link to an album on The Pirate Bay, even though no one is sharing it, no one will buy the CD either, and the artist will instantaneously be thrown into bankruptcy. Sounds like someone has been spending too much time with fat, lying record label execs, or just smoking too much pot.

Pirate Bay goes Napster

Unless this is some well choreographed stunt, it appears the Swedish company Global Gaming Factory X will be buying The Pirate Bay, and turning it into a 100% legit paysite (probably meaning DRM-infested MP3's, poor video streaming and everything else you expect from a website under the control of the entertainment industry). The purchasing price is apparently 60 million SEK, which is kind of strange considering GGF's financial situation...

I think it's fair to guess that the entertainment mafia industry has finally realized that all the corrupt judges, policemen and politicians in the world can't shut down the website, and decided that "if you can't beat them, buy them", and that they're the ones providing the money to finalize the deal.

So, what will happen to The Pirate Bay, which is today one of the hundred most visited websites in the world? Well, do you remember Napster? No? Exactly.

Censorship here, censorship there

The Chinese government shut down the search engine Google.com yesterday, as it makes it possible for the Chinese population to do searches on topics the Chinese government dislike. Dutch copyright organization Brein wants to shut down the search engine The Pirate Bay, as it makes it possible for the Dutch population to do searches on topics the Dutch copyright organization, and presumably also the Dutch government dislike.

Since when is China a role model for Europe when it comes to censorship?