We’ve had a chance to hear from Fredrik Neij in the trial this morning.  Since I haven’t listened in to any trials before and my legal experience so far consists of scattered episodes of L.A. Law in the early nineties (lately I’ve been sharpening my legal senses with Law & Order), all I can add to the commentary so far today is that the prosecution comes across as fumbling around in the dark when they’re trying to establish intent from Fredrik.  Neij had to explain technical aspects to them that they really should have known from their investigations.  I would think the prosecuting side have a pretty good technical team behind them, so maybe something got lost in translation?

See, the way it works in the movies – and let’s face it, movies never lie – is that prior to the trial people tend to run heated simulations of these cross interrogations to prepare.  So far we’ve heard misunderstandings about the DNS system, disbelief that it is possible to run a site like The Pirate Bay as a hobby project and surprise that a site like The Pirate Bay can grow based on user demand and not as a specific plan to “expand the business”.

We got a few snide remarks from Neij too.  This one was particularily funny, given his reputed penchant for drinking and late mornings:

Prosecutor Håkan Roswall: You didn’t advertise for the site on MSN or such? Fredrik Neij: If I can’t be bothered to answer emails I’m not likely to go out and advertise for [TPB].

Roswall also dug himself deep into technical territory asking what format the site was transferred from the starting servers in Mexico to new servers in Sweden.  The rather dry reply from Neij:  “.tar.gzip”.  It sounded as if Roswall was hoping for Neij to stumble and reveal his supposed crime with that question. Fredrik Neij at the stand