Educating Håkan

And Peter. And Henrik. And Monique.

Get It Try It

Tomorrow's the fun day. This one was going to be bad and everyone knew it.

Today was the day for the closing arguments for the prosecution and plaintiffs in the trial of The Pirate Bay.

These generously salaried suits worked three hours and twenty minutes.

Things started off with state prosecutor Håkan Roswall. He was expected to take two hours but took only one. Of the four on his side of the case he was the one who came closest to trying to use facts. But even he wobbled from time to time.

Bushisms

A common tack for all four - Håkan Roswall, Peter Danowsky, Henrik Pontén, Monique Wa(d)sted - was to dismiss the evidence of the defendants with a simple 'but we know that's not true'. Which brought back to mind scary pictures of Dubya commenting on the reports of Hans Blix on Saddam's WMDs.

'Oh but he's got them alright!'

Same thing here. And a dark thread through all of Roswall's arguments - heard loud and clear - was that he clearly thinks the Internet itself is evil.

He started by comparing visiting file sharing sites with ringing up friends to borrow films and music. It takes so much longer with the telephone. Having no better than a telephone and a telephone book to contact people is enough to thwart file sharing. Then along comes that blasted Internet and ruins everything.

Big Evil Thing™

Time and again Roswall tried to paint a picture of supreme evil 'out there' - on the Internet. It wasn't The Pirate Bay, it wasn't the individual file sharers - it was the Internet itself. Big Evil Thing™.

Monique Wa(d)sted played right into this. Time and again she described The Pirate Bay as 'an entire piracy industry', 'a gigantic piracy factory' and insinuated the TPB people were evil because they'd attempted to create 'a nice user friendly design' for their site. Which must be news to them and everyone else inasmuch as they describe their site layout as 'shitty' and admit they don't know beans about site design.

Monique Wa(d)sted had a number of other gems to spit out. She accused the TPB people of being really evil because they'd translated their site into 'a terrifying number of languages' and because the site praised contributors. Finally she told the court that the TPB people weren't mere accessories to a crime but were the actual perpetrators of a crime - even though no crime has yet been established.

Children of the Danowsky

Peter Danowsky immediately tried to discredit Roger Wallis again, slipping in things like 'he's a thirty percent professor' and of course using the Bushism 'Wallis' research says conclusively [so and so] but we know it just isn't so'.

Another gem from the Danowsky was 'Wallis says [so and so] but we have our own experts and they know better!'

Rather unique closing arguments to say the least.

Precedents & Prison Sentences

Swedish law does not recognise precedents and yet the three plaintiff counsel repeatedly cited earlier cases to prove their points and justify their claims. Of course they want mountains of dollars.

Håkan Roswall asked for one year prison sentences for all four defendants. Danowsky and Pontén went along with that. But one year wasn't good enough for Monique Wa(d)sted - she told the court she wanted 'a prison sentence that hurts'.

Reflections in a Torrent

One can't help reflecting on what kind of people Roswall, Danowsky, Pontén, and Wa(d)sted are.

Of Wa(d)sted we know she got involved in all this five years ago on behalf of Microsoft. We know she arranged for members of the Stockholm police force to take a leave of absence so they could work for (and be paid by) Warner Bros.

Of Roswall we know he has a history of pursuing people even after he realises he's made a mistake and the people are innocent: better to crush them than to lose face is his motto. Damn the ethics.

Of Pontén we know he mercilessly harassed Roger Wallis before the latter's appearance in court, trying at all costs to find a way to smear this defence witness.

Of Danowsky we only know of his behaviour in the courtroom. We know how the court has sanctioned his behaviour on several occasions, how he badgers witnesses such as Neij and Wallis, and how he works so so hard to come across as authoritative in a phony baritone (whilst Wa(d)sted fakes an upper crust - and very shrill and irritating - accent).

None of these people are the kind you'd have to dinner. They might be the kind you'd willingly try to suck up to and exploit but you'd never ever regard them as your friends.

And the world they all live in is so remote anyway. On at least two occasions the court reminded Roswall that his understanding of how BitTorrent works - despite nearly three years to prepare his case and despite his own description of himself as an 'expert on computer crime' - was not correct until the trial actually began and Neij and Svartholm could show him where he was wrong.

And his answer to the court? 'OK but we don't have to go through that again today do we?'

So speaks an expert on computer crime.

The Bottom Line

The bottom line? None of us want to live in a world where Roswall, Danowsky, Pontén, and Wa(d)sted reign supreme. None of us want to live in a world where Kennedy is in charge of organising things. And most of us shudder at the thought of what the children of these people must have to suffer through.

Theirs isn't a world anyone wants to be a part of.