Any evidence is admittable under Swedish Law. In fact the only stipulation about evidence is that is should be relevant, but that is often ignored.

The recording industry AND the movie industry getting up to dirty tricks and circumventing laws?

I can hardly believe it.

Next you'll be telling me that Gates & Ballmer aren't benevolent humanists, operating in pure altruism!

Be still, my beating heart...

I don't understand Swedish law, but it has been said that although the evidence may be inadmissable, it may be enough to indicate probable cause or something to that effect, resulting in the evidence being outed legally.

As someone else also spotted on TPB's blog, MediaDefender were using AVG Free on their e-mails, which is in contravention of their licence due to its being used commercially.

I had to laugh at the transcript of the conversation with the attorney where they are discussing how the breach occured, too ironic ;p

Unlike the recent garbage the defendents have recently pinched out.

"I can hardly believe it.

Next you'll be telling me that ..."

The news is not that they're crooks. The *news* part of the story is that they got caught red-handed. Do try and keep up.

Folks,

For what it is worth, it is a relatively well known fact that the NYS AG office has long standing history of attacking IT companies and extorting money from them for ridiculous reasons. I know this because a friend of mine's company was just in the midst of being "blackmailed" by the NYS AG (They decided NOT to pursue the case, no evidence of a crime or fraud).

Usually the NYSAG's office looks for targets that don't want publicity and can afford the fines.

Good luck trying to get money out of Pirate Bay in any case, but how about the fact that the NYSAG is an obvious accessory to the Federal Crime of Wire Fraud, which opens them up to using the RICO act AND COULD be prosectuted under the Patriot Act!!!

umm... ever hear of the term sarcasm. Do try and keep up. ;-)

@ Ted

I got a good chuckle from that... good show.

as for the RIAA/MPAA/IFA/etc... the search engines are there to help people find stuff. If you use the search engines to find the trackers that are hosting the illegal material, you can shut down the trackers and get the users that are uploading these files. Shutting down the search engines just makes martyrs out of the search engines and more will pop up. It's a novel concept to actually go after the criminals isn't it. oh wait... they don't want to go after themselves, since they too are criminals extorting money from all their artists... err not paying their artists their due. *digresses into rant about criminal/mob type activity committed by the major music/motion picture labels*

*tosses 2 cents in the jar*

As I understand it (I am English but I live in Sweden) under Swedish law any evidence, not matter how it was obtained, is admissible. The judge will be made aware of how it was obtained and this may or may not affect the case, that's up to the judge. If the evidence was found to have been obtained illegally then a completely separate case will be opened to deal with this and the parties that obtained the evidence may be prosecuted. The successful or unsuccessful prosecution of whoever obtained the evidence can in no way affect the outcome of the other case where the evidence is being used.

Go TPB! and three cheers for Media Defender-Defenders! its high time these extortionist who hide behind the law get a taste of their own medicine...

Have fun defending all the law suites that come from this...

Media Defender-Defenders... i'm itching to see your next release!!!!

If the details regarding Swedish law are correct, and BTW they also have a function of their law called ministerstyre which makes it a very serious offence for any corporation to attempt to interfere with proceedings, which should prevent these companies from lobbying the process, surely The Pirate Bay have a legitimate case.

If so, there seems to be very little preventing them from prevailling.

Maybe this will at long last bring the whole question of 'fair use' and 'piracy' to a head.

Evidence is admissable regardless of how it was obtained, as long as the evidence is credible.

Thanks for your comments, Jason - nice to know someone's receptive to irony & sarcasm out there.

And before the deluge telling me it's childish; I know.

(But it can be extremely satisfying)

Whenever you privatize law enforcement (or the military), abuses inevitably follow.

The companies that pay Media Defender are not paying them to play by the rules, they are paying them for results.

The way it work in the US seems to be when company "bends" the law to make $100 million and they end up paying maybe $10 million in fines *if* they ever get caught.

If actual computer crimes were committed (not just talked about) they should be criminally prosecuted. If they were just talked about them maybe we should see some conspiracy charges!

I don't like computer vandalism, and it should be treated the same whether its for fun or corporate profit.

---

Also I think it is highly likely that any damage directed toward those violating intellectual property laws also spilled over to innocent parties.

Free software is often distributed via p2p or ed2k, DDOS attacks often affect more than the intended targets and viruses spread.

Is it just me or does the Swedish Court and Judiciary system sound like an awesome one! Im a Canadian/US citizen and these sorts of court cases would never fly over here, mainly because the courts arent out for the interest of the people but for corporations.

But my hats off to MediaDefender-Defender for all the work they've done. Fighting the system, IN the system is a great way to show how illegal their own methods are and to either bring them to justice or to make them shut up. I dont think they'll be shutting up anytime soon so getting some form of justice seems the way to go.

"Is it just me or does the Swedish Court and Judiciary system sound like an awesome one!"

I agree... It sounds like Sweden still knows what laws and governments are there for.... The people.

I'm not saying the big businesses are evil and shouldn't be given legal rights, but they certainly shouldn't count for more than an individual or a small organisation.

Who wouldn't want to follow the unraveling of this story...

W3 r in u b@se, k1ll1ng @ll ur D00dz....hehehe...

Defender - someone who defends.

Media defender - someone who defends media, whatever that means. Media Company Defender might be a more appropriate title for this bunch of criminals.

Media Defender Defender - someone who defends Media Defenders. That is surely actually the opposite of their intent. Perhaps they should engage their brains before trying to adopt a soundbite-friendly title.

Complaints about the quality of someone's work is not a valid excuse for stealing it. On the other hand, we live in an instant access, on demand, immediate gratification world; so if you can't provide the public with what they want, in the format they want, when they want and at a fair price, you shouldn't really be suprised if they take it for themselves.