Has The Pirate Bay Lost Its Appeal… Or Should We Not Trust The NY Times?

from the fact-checking? dept

Someone just alerted me to a NY Times story claiming that the guys behind The Pirate Bay have lost their appeal of the verdict that found them guilty. That would be big news (and it may very well happen). However, I can’t find anything else to support it. The NY Times credits the Hollywood Reporter, whose only recent article I can find on the subject merely claims that the TPB guys failed to get the case thrown out. But digging deeper, the only information I can find is that the District Court, which made the original ruling has told the Appeals Court that there was no bias. That’s not surprising — of course the District Court is going to say it wasn’t biased and that its judge wasn’t biased. But I haven’t seen anything that says the Appeals Court has ruled one way or the other on the issue. It looks like the reporters at The Hollywood Reporter and the NY Times may have gotten confused about the difference between the District Court and the Appeals Court — and assumed that because the District Court claimed the judge wasn’t biased, the Appeals Court had ruled that way. Now, it may well come to pass that the Appeals Court does rule that way, but I haven’t seen any reports of that yet, and given how news has spread about this case, you would think such reports would have been out there.

But, you know, it’s the professional reporters at the NY Times who fact check stuff. We bloggers just make up innuendo and rumor. Surely, they couldn’t have gotten the story wrong, right?

Filed Under:
Companies: ny times, the pirate bay

Rate this comment as insightful
Rate this comment as funny
You have rated this comment as insightful
You have rated this comment as funny
Flag this comment as abusive/trolling/spam
You have flagged this comment
The first word has already been claimed
The last word has already been claimed
Insightful Lightbulb icon Funny Laughing icon Abusive/trolling/spam Flag icon Insightful badge Lightbulb icon Funny badge Laughing icon Comments icon

Comments on “Has The Pirate Bay Lost Its Appeal… Or Should We Not Trust The NY Times?”

Subscribe: RSS Leave a comment
40 Comments
Mike Masnick (profile) says:

Re: Re:

Someone has to have the story first, and yes, it would be big news if the one appeal used is thrown out.

Yes, someone has to have the story first, but others would have it soon after. No one else seems to be mentioning it — including the TPB folks.

Furthermore, the NYT piece credits the THR piece, but that article (from yesterday morning) does not appear to be accurate either.

stat_insig (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:

Well… everybody can make mistakes. I still rely on major newspapers and websites to provide me with facts. Blogs play a complimentary role by providing some facts (ignored by major houses), but I wouldn’t rely on that.

Major News Providers: 90% fact (good accuracy) + 10% commentary (except in the case of FOX where it is 25:75).
Blogs: 5% fact (fair accuracy) + 95% commentary.

Sometime commentaries posted on the major news websites are confused for facts and that is quite disturbing!! (Eg: http://egan.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/10/an-innocent-abroad/?scp=1&sq=foxy%20knoxy&st=cse ).

Mike Masnick (profile) says:

Re: Re:

Yes, I already linked to that piece in the story. But I believe they got it wrong. They seem to be saying that the court ruled that way, but no one else is saying that. All of the stories have said only that the District Court said there was no bias… not the Appeals Court.

I think it’s a case of the supposedly “professional” reporters at the NYT and THR getting the story wrong.

Perhaps there’s new info on the story, but I’m not seeing ANYTHING out of any Swedish sources.

It feels like a big game of “telephone” where THR misread the story from Monday in Sweden and then the NYT misread the THR story.

M says:

You are correct NY times has not checked thier sources.

Living in Sweden I follow this very closely. The current situation is that they have said the Judge was not biased. The matter of appeals is acording to Swedish media a process that could take up to a year. My reconendation to anyone following this is to google translate http://www.dn.se This is Swedens largest respected newpaper.

timstevens (profile) says:

C'mon, the NY Times wrong...again?

Is this the same NY times with Krugman the foaming Bush inquisitionalist and Nobel Laureate, Dowd the permanently single, yet still hot for an old broad columnist-babe and Rich, the hate everything old white-dude curmudgeon?

To think that the NY times, which coincidentally is virtually bankrupt (lousy business plan) would get a story completely wrong.

So, if your product (news and information) is suspect, why would anyone believe their spin, er reporting?

Hephaestus (profile) says:

Went to the pirate bay and ....

… to see what it was and had this downloaded onto my machine ….

[DEFAULT]
BASEURL=res://ieframe.dll/dnserror.htm
[InternetShortcut]
URL=http://www.zeesearch.net/go.php?track_url=aHR0cDovL2MyNi52YWxhcnkuY29tL3BjbGljay52YWxhcnk/Yz0zNzk2MTI3Ny0yYWRjLTRhMDctYTNkOC0yY2QxOGJkZTMyNjA=&keyword=jobs+in+my+area&bidvalue=0.003441&xmlprovider=valary&display_url=&action=redirected
IDList=
IconFile=http://www.zeesearch.net/favicon.ico
IconIndex=1
[{000214A0-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}]
Prop3=19,2

Anyone know what it is?

Pete Austin says:

NYT Still Wrong (3 Days Later)

This seems to be the accurate version:
“According to the Stockholm District Court, Judge Tomas Norström was not biased and therefore that component of the Pirate Bay appeal has failed… The appeal will continue with other grounds being submitted to the Court of Appeal, however, this was always one of the strongest components of the appeal.”
http://www.itwire.com/content/view/25575/1239/

Mike Masnick (profile) says:

Re: NYT Still Wrong (3 Days Later)

This seems to be the accurate version: “According to the Stockholm District Court, Judge Tomas Norström was not biased and therefore that component of the Pirate Bay appeal has failed… The appeal will continue with other grounds being submitted to the Court of Appeal, however, this was always one of the strongest components of the appeal.”
http://www.itwire.com/content/view/25575/1239/

Nope. That IT Wire report gets it wrong too. It’s confusing the district court, who claims that judge wasn’t biased, with the appeals court, who needs to rule on it. That part of the argument has NOT failed yet. The appeals court simply has not ruled on it.

The district court gave its opinion to the appeals court, and the appeals court is still considering the matter.

Saying that that part of the appeal “failed” is flat out incorrect.

Add Your Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Have a Techdirt Account? Sign in now. Want one? Register here

Comment Options:

Make this the or (get credits or sign in to see balance) what's this?

What's this?

Techdirt community members with Techdirt Credits can spotlight a comment as either the "First Word" or "Last Word" on a particular comment thread. Credits can be purchased at the Techdirt Insider Shop »

Follow Techdirt

Techdirt Daily Newsletter

Ctrl-Alt-Speech

A weekly news podcast from
Mike Masnick & Ben Whitelaw

Subscribe now to Ctrl-Alt-Speech »
Techdirt Deals
Techdirt Insider Discord
The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...
Loading...