Pirate Bay Trial Watch Day 2: Half of the Charges Have Been Dropped

Good news, copyright bandits: due to an error by the prosecution in misunderstanding exactly how BitTorrent trackers work, all charges related to "assisting copyright infringement" have been dropped. Halfway there!

The mixup came when the prosecution attempted to tie several .torrent files to the Pirate Bay's tracking servers, which called for Bay co-founder Fredrik Neij to point out that, hey, that's not quite how it works. All of that evidence linking actual torrents to the Pirate Bay has now been thrown out, leaving only the charges related to "assisting in making available" copyrighted works.

The prosecution is shrugging this off, saying that it in fact "simplifies the prosecutor's case by allowing him to focus on the main issue, which is the making available of copyrighted works." Of course the defense is taking quite the opposite stance: On Twitter, the message from Bay honcho Peter Sunde is, appropriately, this: EPIC WINNING LOL.

Like Brian said after day 1, I guess I'm kind of conflicted about this trial too. But, when I'm fully honest with myself, of course I'm rooting for the pirates. Wave the flag, down with the RIAA, and all that. I'm also down with avoiding any scenario that could bring BitTorrent as a whole to its knees. We'll be following more news from the 13-day trial as it hits.

http://i.gizmodo.com/5154950/pirate-...e-been-dropped