King Kong defence
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The King Kong defence is a legal strategy employed by Carl Lundström's attorney while defending him in The Pirate Bay criminal proceedings in Sweden in 2009. The quote, translated from Swedish, was "The person responsible for uploads [of copyrighted files] might as well be a user named King Kong in the jungles of Cambodia".[1] This was an illustration of the fact that Lundström had no idea who uploaded what and could not be prosecuted for assisting copyright infringement if he had no contact with the person committing the copyright infringement and it is required by the prosecutor to show a connection.[2]
Argument
"Has Carl Lundström encouraged King Kong in the jungles of Cambodia to commit a crime?" (Swedish: "Har Carl Lundström uppmuntrat King Kong i Kambodjas djungler att begå brott?") "The prosecutor must show that Carl Lundström personally has interacted with the user King Kong, who may very well be found in the jungles of Cambodia." [3]
Lundström's attorney, Per E. Samuelson, is in this case referring to a real user named "KingKong" whom he hypothesised could be located in Cambodia. The attorney used this scenario in an attempt to illustrate that Lundström had no control over the actions undertaken by The Pirate Bay users. Samuelson used the King Kong expression three times during his talk. His main objection was that although the prosecutor had said that the accused would be tried individually, during his talk the prosecutor had not once referred to them individually, but always as "them", "they" or "Pirate Bay". The defence was making the point that the persons behind The Pirate Bay could not be held collectively responsible for a crime committed by those who are actual identifiable individuals that upload the copyrighted material, for example, called King Kong.
Carl Lundström cited[4] the EU directive 2000/31/EG[5] from June 2000 that is incorporated into Swedish law which makes it clear that service providers are not responsible for the contents of information passing through the site and, furthermore, that one cannot reasonably expect service providers to be aware of these contents. He also cited the fact that Pirate Bay traffic - the .torrent files - does not consist of copyrighted intellectual property.
Popularisation
The term "King Kong defence" was quickly popularised by use in online blogs, micro-blogs, file-sharing news feeds and media in reports on the Pirate Bay Trial.[2] A reference has been made to how the King Kong Defence reminds them of the unbeatable Chewbacca Defense meme.[1] Newspapers immediately pointed out how the term already had acquired its own article on Wikipedia.[2][4]
See also
References
- ^ a b enigmax (February 18, 2009). "Day 3 - The Pirate Bay's 'King Kong' Defense"". TorrentFreak.com.
- ^ a b c Swedish: Internet hyllar King Kong-försvar On Metro accessed at February 18 2009
- ^ Schofield, Jack (18 February, 2009). "Pirate Bay Day 3 -- King Kong and the Beatles". The Guardian.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ a b Norweigan: Spilte ut «King Kong»-kortet on iT Avisen accessed February 18 2009
- ^ European Parliament, Council (2000-06-08). "Directive 2000/31/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council". Retrieved 2009-02-19.
(42) The exemptions from liability established in this Directive cover only cases where the activity of the information society service provider is limited to the technical process of operating and giving access to a communication network over which information made available by third parties is transmitted or temporarily stored, for the sole purpose of making the transmission more efficient; this activity is of a mere technical, automatic and passive nature, which implies that the information society service provider has neither knowledge of nor control over the information which is transmitted or stored.
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External links
- "Dag 3 - Advokat Per E Samuelson sakframställning för Carl Lundström - 24Direkt | SVT Play". Svtplay.se. Retrieved 2009-02-18.