Professor Roger Wallis testified in The Pirate Bay trial yesterday on behalf of the three defendants.  The cross-examination was the most heated one so far in the trial, with the prosecuting side trying to diminish the professor’s credentials.  At one point the exchange got so worked up that the court called a 10 minute pause, before which the flustered professor exclaimed “What kind of people are you?  God save Sweden!”.

Turns out there’s a story behind his short fuse with the prosecuting side yesterday – Wallis let it slip out that the record company and movie studio lawyers have been calling his university with insinuating questions trying to fish for discrediting information.  His wife had hardly been sleeping for the past couple days he said.

Right, his wife, that’s the key to this story.  At the end of the testimony, each witness is asked if they demand a compensation from the court.  Roger Wallis did not, except maybe if the court could be so good as to send some flowers to his wife.  The main judge replied that he was afraid that was out of the budget of the court.

Enter the internet.

An IRC channel and a campaign site was set up  immediately to send some flowers and other appreciations to Wallis’ wife!  No doubt spurred by the rather vicious questioning from the lawyer Danowsky, hundreds of people that had heard the testimony on the radio sprung into action.

As I write this, the registered gifts are up to SEK 42.121 and the Wallis couple have been interviewed for several newspapers about it.  (links on the campaign site).   Moving!

Wallis’ testimony contradicted much of what we had heard in court the day before about loss of revenue because of file sharing.  The professor was of the opinion – backed by research papers – that on the contrary, file sharing actually just moves the income from one place to another.  Maybe there’s a loss in CD sales, but it’s compensated in other areas by heightened interest in music.  He also got to highlight the fact that swedish cinema reported having their best year ever last year.  It’s rather baffling then, to hear Universal exec Per Sundin complain the day before about a loss of revenue which he absolutely 100% blames file sharing for. Oh internet, is there anything you can’t do?