Today is only the second day in the trial against The Pirate Bay.  The Pirate Bay is a search engine website that allows people to search for .torrent files.  Torrent files contain a link to download all sorts of files including music, movies, and software.  For the non-tech savvy, think of it as a modern day Napster, but its not just music.  Prosecutor Håkan Roswall, did not adequately explain the function of DHT.  DHT allows for trackerless torrents so it does not necessarily mean that the screenshots they have provided as evidence belongs to The Pirate Bay’s tracker.

Fredrik Neij (TiAMO) asked Roswall to explain how BitTorrent actually works.  The prosecution misunderstood the technology and told the court that his evidence does not adequately show that The Pirate Bay’s trackers were used.  Roswall had to drop all charges that relate to “assisting copyright infringement.”  Now the remaining charges are simply “assisting making available.”

“EPIC WINNING LOL,” stated Peter Althin, a lawyer representing The Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde.

[via TorrentFreak]

Starting Monday the four founding members of The Pirate Bay, a search engine for torrent files will be going to trial.  The Pirate Bay is one of the most user torrent search engines on the Internet.  Through The Pirate Bay, millions of people have downloaded music, movies, and software.  The reason why legislators are pushing for a trial is because The Pirate Bay has made at least $140,000 from advertising revenue on their website.

Swedish prosecutor Håkan Roswall wants The Pirate Bay to be punished by returning any revenues made from their site.  Some of the Hollywood studios affected by The Pirate Bay wants about 93 million Swedish kronor back according to the MPAA. The music recording industry wants $2.06 million in damages returned as well.  This trial has been in the pipeline since Swedish authorities raided the servers that hosted The Pirate Bay’s search engine.

The trial will last roughly 13 days, but both parties anticipate that it won’t be settled in a district court given the complexity of the lawsuit.  A final verdict is not expected to happen for another five years.  The four people behind The Pirate Bay could be charged with aiding copyright infringement.