Pirate Bay trial: Hang on, let's try again

Having had to throw overboard the more serious half of its charges, the prosecution in the Pirate Bay trial has now changed its remaining charges once again:

According to Wired.com, the original charge read:

The Pirate Bay consists of three sub-components: an index portal in the form of a website with search functionality, a database with related directory containing the torrent files, and a tracker feature. The tracker feature creates a 'peer-to-peer' network of users who want to share the same file. All components are necessary for the users of the service to share files between them.


The last sentence has been dropped, indicating the prosecution was unsure that it could prove all of the points in the original charges, according to Swedish legal experts.

Prosecutors also changed the phrase "provide the ability to others to upload torrent files to the service" to "provide the ability to others to upload and store torrent files to the service", according to TheLocal.se.

Is this entirely fair? Why not just allow the charges to be changed to "The Pirate Bay had a logo with a boat on"? That would be even easier to prove, surely?

That the prosecution have had their panicky moment today suggests that the star witness, John Kennedy of the IFPI, hadn't performed as they'd hoped. He'd even been ticked off by the judge for trying to turn the trial into a political soapbox (not like there isn't a political element to the prosecution in the first place).

Half the Pirate Bay charges dropped already

The second day of the big Pirate Bay trial, and the prosecution have already dropped half of the charges against the team.

It turns out the prosecution was using evidence that didn't actually prove anything:

The flaw in the evidence was pointed out by Fredrik Neij (TiAMO), who requested to comment on Roswall’s explanation of how BitTorrent actually works. Fredrik said that the prosecution misunderstood the technology, and told the court that the evidence doesn’t show that the Pirate Bay’s trackers are used.

This has resulted in prosecutor Håkan Roswall having to drop all charges relating to “assisting copyright infringement”, so the remaining charges are simply ‘assisting making available’. “Everything related to reproduction will be removed from the claim,” he said.

It doesn't look very good for the prosecution that - having had all that time to prepare its case, you might have thought that it would have at least checked exactly what it had evidence of.

The Pirate Bay team are, naturally, delighted. But there are still half the chances hanging over them.

R Kelly trial: Defence concludes "It wasn't me" defence

We're a bit confused about the R Kelly defence team at the trial - we could understand adopting a 'it wasn't me on the video' line, or a 'the video has been altered to make it look like me' approach. But can you really say "that doesn't even look like me, and it's been altered to look like me"?

We'll find out soon - the defence team have rested their case after concluding with what seemed to be a session pitching for the best animated short at next year's Oscars:

Defense expert Charles Palm made the clip from a section of the sex tape at the center of the case, using special effects to illustrate how easy it is to digitally manipulate video. The defense hopes Palm can successfully refute the evidence of prosecution expert Grant Fredericks, who said that the tape could not have been digitally altered. Parts of the media have dubbed this the "Little Man Defense" or the "Wayans Defense."

The clip showed the couple on the tape having sex in what the state says is the hot tub room at Kelly's former home. Their bodies slowly become transparent, then slowly reappear. Then their heads slowly disappear until their two headless bodies are romping. At one point, the man on the tape - his head intact - appears to be having sex with a headless woman.

The heads come and go "like ghosts" on the manipulated tape Palm said.

Much hangs on a mole which may or may not appear on the man's back in the video. Prosecution belief is that it's Kelly's mole; the defense suggests it's "artefacts on the recording" which come and go.

R Kelly trial: PI claims witnesses solicited bribes

Jack Palladino, who is some sort of top-drawer celebrity private investigator - turned up in Chicago today for his part of the R Kelly trial. He'd had a meeting with prosecution witness Lisa Van Allen - last week, she told the court that he'd taken the opportunity to threaten her; today, he suggested that, actually, what happened was the she and her fiance had attempted to blackmail R Kelly using him as the go-between.

Although, apparently, not by actually directly asking for money. Because that would have been tacky, and this whole story is about class:

According to Palladino, Brown solicited the bribe by mentioning a $300,000 book deal Van Allen potentially had to tell the story of her life with Kelly.

"I didn't believe there was a book deal. The $300,000 was a coded way to get money from my client," Palladino said. The investigator said he unequivocally told Brown that Kelly would not pay them anything.

On cross-examination, prosecutor Bob Heilingoetter noted that neither Brown or Van Allen had ever explicity asked for money.

"I'm trying to figure out where this extortion is, except somewhere between your ears," Heilingoetter said.

But Palladino testified the two repeatedly said they wanted to do what was best for their family and urged the investigator to talk to Kelly.

Interesting note: Palladino got paid fifteen grand just for flying to Atlanta and having the conversation with the pair. It might have been cheaper for Kelly to have paid off the blackmailers. If that is what they were.

R Kelly trial: Thieves and fraudsters

It's been cross-examination time for Lisa Van Allen in the R Kelly trial, with the defence getting her to reveal she pinched Kelly's watch. That the watch was a stupidly expensive US20,000 is neither here nor there; as Van Allen left Kelly's room, it wasn't there, either.

The defence asked her why she'd not mentioned this theft before, which makes you wonder how long Sam Adam Senior has been studying law. Why do you think someone would not volunteer details of their own crime, Sam?

Adam also got Van Allen to admit she'd had relationships with two convicted fraudsters, although this might not have been such a smart move, either - one of those men, Damon Pryor, is a last-minute surprise witness sprung by the defence. Undermining the credibility of your own witness is an interesting approach.

Kelly denies charges related to child pornography; the case continues.

Turning the wheels of justice - slowly

The Sun-Times is watching the R Kelly child porn trial with more attention to detail than, frankly, many of us could stomach, but it's turning up some rare gems.

They're still at the jury selection stage, with one otential getting himself excused through his grasp of reasonable doubt:

"Child pornography is immoral, people. R. Kelly may have led the Taliban to attacking us on 9-11, but you can't prove it."

For this reasonableness, he was allowed to go home.

[Thanks to Jack B for bringing the blog to our attention]

Snow show for Kelly

R Kelly didn't make it to Cook County for today's hearing into the child porn charges: he blamed the harsh winter in America, although the real reason was Utah police discovering his driver hadn't been recording details of his driving hours and enforcing an eight-hour delay before letting the Kelly tour bus out of the state.

It's not entirely clear why Kelly couldn't have found another way out of Utah - it's almost as if he wasn't that keen to turn up in court.

The judge has warned he'll be issuing a warrant for Kelly if he doesn't turn up tomorrow.

Here we go again, then

The judge in the Phil Spector trial might be ruing his firm line on not accepting a manslaughter verdict from the jury; with them unable to decide on murder, he's had to declare a mistrial and is now thinking what to do. He'll announce his decision on October 3rd.

As you survey the circus, it's worth remembering that Lana Clarkson is still dead.

Spector jury hung

The jury in the Phil Spector trial has told the judge they're in deadlock; however, defence requests for a mistrial verdict were rejected. Instead, three jurors were given more guidance on the difference between 'doubt' and 'reasonable doubt', with the jury being called back to court on Wednesday morning.