Legal Niches

Pirate Bay Seeks Retrial... Judge Has Ties to Copyright Groups

By gamepolitics

Although the operators of popular BitTorrent site The Pirate Bay were convicted in a Swedish court last week, their lawyer is demanding a retrial.

As reported by the Associated Press, Attorney Peter Althin said that new information shows that the judge in the trial, Tomas Norstrom (left), is a member of several anti-piracy groups. Of his plan to seek a new trial, Althin said:

I will point that out in my appeal, then the Court of Appeal will decide if the district court decision should be set aside and the case revisited.

While Judge Norstrom denied any improper influences, Pirate Bay defendant Peter Sunde said that the case had become a "farce."

Meanwhile, ZeroPaid names three pro-copyright organization which Judge Norstrom belongs to and cites a comment by Eric Bylander, Associate Professor of Procedural Law at the School of Gothenburg:

It is very clear that [Judge Norstrom] never should have taken the case.

Full post as published by GamePolitics.com on April 23, 2009 (boomark / email).