It's something we take for granted, but one of the major premises of our judicial system is that jurors cannot subject themselves to any information about the trial or its involved parties that isn't specifically presented to them by the plaintiffs or the defendants themselves. Back in the olden days, that wasn't such a huge problem, as good citizens on jury duty weren't likely to break off to head to the libary to research the intricacies of corporate law. Nor were they publishing their thoughts every few minutes to the greater world.

But that's exactly what may reverse a $12.6 million judgment in Arkansas because juror
Jonathan Powell was found to have Twittered details of the trial:

oh and nobody buy Stoam. Its bad mojo and they'll probably cease to Exist, now that their wallet is 12m lighter

So Johnathan, what did you do today? Oh nothing really, I just gave away TWELVE MILLION DOLLARS of somebody else's money.

This is just one of several cases used to illustrate the greater trend, and all involve direct access to Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia and other research tools. And unfortunately, there is no immediate solution, as judges can't define exactly what jurors cannot do (in the same way you can't tell a child to NOT eat that delicious bucketful of dirt).

The whole topic is something I never would have thought of, but indeed does make perfect sense. [NYTimes]

The two main arguments that the prosecution made were that the folks behind The Pirate Bay were responsible for allowing piracy to happen and that they're organized and rich.

As to the first point, prosecutor Hakan Roswall said that "a person who is holding someone's coat while they assault someone else is complicit in the crime."

And the prosecution repeatedly claimed that the people behind The Pirate Bay were pulling in $1 million per year via ads, a claim the defense has roundly denied. Peter Sunde says that the "prosecution claims 64 adspaces on TPB. But there's two to four. And they count the earned money on number of adspaces." More to the point, he says this of the prosecutor: "The old bastard's crazy." Glad they're keeping things civil!

Tomorrow, the defense makes its closing argument, and then this whole circus comes to a close. The prosecution is gunning for one year of jailtime, so we'll see what happens. [Ars Technica]

When defendant Fredrik Neij was questioned regarding the relationship Oded Daniel, an advertiser, had with the technical aspects of the Pirate Bay, he assured the prosecution that Daniel was not involved. "No, he's not good at that. He uses Windows, so…" said Neij. At which point all of the bloggers in the live feed room next door burst into laugher, which could be heard in the otherwise silent courtroom. Oh snap indeed.

So no huge legal developments, no run-ins with the prosecution over pizzas. Just another day in the life of the Torrent trial of the century.

But in other news, apparently the IFPI's website (the international RIAA-like org who is the plaintiff in the case) has been the target of sympathetic Pirate Bay hackers. Bay founder Peter Sunde was quite adamant about putting a stop to this, understandably.

Oh, and if you want to know what it's like inside the Bay's bus, this video from inside will do just that. Bonus if you speak Swedish.

Until tomorrow! [Torrent Freak, Pirate Bay on Giz]

Steven Diprose was sentenced to 180 hours community service, and has to pay £378 in Court costs. Michael Myers was ordered to pay a £500 fine. Mark Tugwell has to undertake 100 hours community service and has to pay £378 Court costs. The fourth uploader, James Garner was sentenced to 50 hours community service and also has to pay £378 Court costs.

All four were found guilty of uploading pre-release albums to the pink palace, but due to them being generally good kids and having good lawyers got them out of any really serious trouble.

Site administrator Alan Ellis, however, has yet to be sentenced. His case will appear before the court in March, but hopefully these lenient penalties will continue with him. [TorrentFreak]

Her appeal is going to hinge on jury instruction no. 15, which told jurors that she could be found guilty even if it couldn't be proved that anyone actually downloaded the tracks she was sharing. Whether or not just making something available counts as distribution is a murky issue, one that doesn't have a clear precedent.

As Thomas so eloquently explains on her MySpace blog (sigh), her lawyer laid it all on the table in a CNN interview:

During the interview, he was asked what the next step is. I figured he would give the same answer I have given many, many times already in numerous interviews; "we're still strategizing about what our next options are." Standard lawyer speak if you will. But surprise, surprise, my attorney announced, on national television, with the RIAA watching I'm more than certain, we're going to appeal!!! That's right, you read that correctly: WE'RE GOING TO APPEAL!!! I could have kissed Batman when I heard that.

He explained how we're going to take the RIAA's theory of making available and appeal it. He also explained how if we win, this would stop the RIAA dead in their tracks!!! Every single suit they have brought has been based on this making available theory, and if we can win this appeal, they would actually have to prove a file was shared and by someone other than their own licensed agent (read MediaSentry).

While Jammie's argument that some 1337 h4X0r was sitting in a tree outside her window and using her Kazaa account without her knowledge is a pretty weak one, the real insanity in the case is that number. What math did they use to make that number up? As Buchanan says, "I'd find her guilty and then assign a penalty of 24 cents, a penny for every track at issue." Wouldn't that set a precedent that would neuter the RIAA's lawsuits by devaluing the very product they claim is so ludicrously valuable? It seems to me that her argument as to being innocent isn't exactly watertight, but in the end the real decision will be made on how much the jury awards the RIAA. And I can't really imagine any sensible jury thinking sharing 24 MP3s is really worth $3.6 million. Stay tuned, we'll keep you updated. [Threat Level]