Rick Falkvinge, The Pirate Party
Judge Chris Hensen, who ordered the Dutch Pirate Party to censor all links to The Pirate Bay recently (something Techdirt calls Censorship Crazy), appears to have quite a bit of dirt in his baggage.
This morning, @Kanarieman pointed me to an article of my own from 2010: just under two years ago, another very strange case went down in the Netherlands. The same judge, Chris Hensen, ordered that
talking about file names was legally the same thing as
distributing the actual files so named, and ordered the discussion forum FTD shut down. Yes, a
discussion forum distributing no files was ordered to be shut down.
At its time, this case was decried as a blatant violation of free speech (but, alas, actually confirms that you can’t have the copyright monopoly and free speech at the same time).
However, something odd appeared in the aftermath. A brochure was discovered, where the plaintiff’s representative in the case – a professor Visser – offered commercial courses in anti-piracy,
together with the judge, Chris Hensen. The plaintiff and judge were running a commercial enterprise together, one that had a direct bearing on the subject matter of the case.
Let me take that once more, for this is truly mind-boggling: not only was the plaintiff and judge personally and closely acquainted,
the plaintiff in a controversial copyright monopoly case was running a commercial anti-piracy outfit together with the judge in the case.
Money was involved. Commercial interest was involved. The judge was, as it appears from this brochure for the quite expensive course, getting money. Shortly after the case. In a directly related matter together with the plaintiff.
That makes the judge not only corrupt, but textbook corrupt.
(
UPDATE: @LeHoax explains, “It’s not just any course they do together, it’s part of the Dutch bar association’s official training program for lawyers.” This is relevant to the context, of course, and mitigates the situation somewhat, but doesn’t detract from the fact that plaintiff and judge were together in a commercial venture on the direct subject matter – the plaintiff’s side,
piraterijbestrijding (fighting piracy), is clearly readable in the brochure.)
This judge, this
corrupt judge Chris Hensen, is the exact same judge Chris Hensen that has now banned
links to the Pirate Bay from a
political party, another equally crazy whackdown on fundamental freedoms of speech. But seeing this background, things fall better into place: the judge Chris Hensen was corrupted to begin with, and has been since at least 2010.
I can’t help feeling that this is getting ridiculous. From the IPRED champion in the European Parliament who was married to the Vivendi chairman, to the lead police investigator in The Pirate Bay case who got a job with Warner Brothers (a plaintiff) immediately on finishing the investigation, to the judge in the Pirate Bay case who was a member of the plaintiff’s pro-copyright organization, and now this – can’t the copyright industry fight for the monopoly ideas on their own merits, without needing biased, prejudiced, and corrupted officials?
UPDATE 2: There are several more interesting references, links, and facts surrounding this story over at the discussion thread on Hacker News. Also, there is a Dutch source that confirms the factual circumstances regarding the business relationship between plaintiff and judge in the FTD case.
(Footnote: before somebody points out that this would be libel or slander against the corrupt judge Chris Hensen, I am a licensed journalist in the Kingdom of Sweden, making this site run under constitutional Freedom-of-Press laws (Swedish: utgivningsbevis). This kind of whistleblowing against corrupt officials is what those laws were made for.)
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I just love this guy and all of the Pirate Party movement. Rick is the founder of the first Pirate Party and is a political evangelist, travelling around Europe and the world to talk and write about ideas of a sensible information policy. He has a tech entrepreneur background and loves whisky. -LBB