All Producing Infringing Copies Charges Have Been Dropped By The Prosectors Of The Pirate Bay

Prosecutors dropped half of the charges in the landmark trial of The Pirate Bay file sharing site Tuesday, leaving observers stunned and prompting questions about the government's preparedness in the long-awaited criminal proceeding.

"I will drop all charges that relate to producing infringing copies and will hence restrict the prosecution to the act of making works available to the public," prosecutor Hakan Roswall announced at the opening of the second day of the trial. "When I talk about making something available to the public I mean making available torrent files."

At an intermission, Roswall refused to clarify the change of heart to reporters. "As you can see I have a lot of other things to think about," he said. "There will be new adjusted charges distributed on paper tomorrow, Wednesday."

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It remains to be seen whether facilitating making torrent files available is enough to commit the criminal act of assisting in copyright infringement.

"Absolutely not," claimed Rick Falkvinge, the leader of The Pirate Party. "If they can claim that facilitating for others to publish a torrent file, which contains no copyright protected information whatsoever, then this shows that they want to shut down the internet for good."

The only thing left is the making available charges, a phrase we've heard a lot of here in the US legal system dealing with copyright cases.