There is so much unproven bullshit and downright deception in that article that this is the first thread I've flagged in a year and a half.
1st. No one has been charged, tried, and found corrupt.
2nd. Was this association before, during, or after the court case? There really is a difference between those three.
3rd. What is this "association"? The judge's name is part of the lower category with a dozen other names. Does this mean he's in the same building?
4th. Even this article is starting to claim (in edit/update, forced by a commenter) that this "commercial" course was some type of an official bar course where the two parties were perhaps picked by the bar (as in, they didn't pick each other).
5th. The article keeps on mentioning that this judge ruled "file names" to be illigal. Right, because taking the URL and breaking it appart before posting it on a warez site clearly turns everything around and makes the forum a place for a purfectly legitimate discussion of "file names". The author seems to be outraged by this.
1st, corruption is like "being a dick" in that you don't have to have been found guilty of it in a court of law in order for it to be true.
2nd, corruption is corruption. Does it matter when? Before, during, after, it's still sketchy as heck. Any judge in possession of their mental faculties should think twice before creating the appearance of impropriety. I don't care if it's an official course - find someone else!
3rd, and 4th, granted.
5th, Right, because having a link to a file (and nothing more!) is somehow infringing anything. The affected server had no infringing content on it. I'd be outraged too. The idea that search engines and other sites should have to be censored despite not doing anything wrong is insane - equally insane is the idea that I can construct an anchor tag that will get me in trouble with the law.
Equally sketchy is the fact that this particular judge always seems to preside over BREIN's cases.
That's two strikes, and he seems reeeeeaaallly eager for a third.
"I don't care if it's an official course - find someone else!"
If you read http://webwereld.nl/nieuws/66177/ftd-vonnis-is--schokkend--e..., you will learn that Arnout Engelfriet (who more or less invented Internet law as a separate subject of study in the Netherlands) states that he, in his role of council for the defense, did not think that the judge needed replacement because the circle of Dutchmen knowledgeable of the matter is so small that it is impossible to find a knowledgeable judge who hasn't had some contact with someone from BREIN.
So, if you claim corruption, you should include mr. Engelfriet in it.
He disagrees with the rulings, too, but that is a different subject.
"equally insane is the idea that I can construct an anchor tag that will get me in trouble with the law."
Not all countries follow US law; freedom of speech carries lower weight in some of them. For example, one cannot publish "Mein kampf" in the Netherlands (AFAIK, the current stance is that a scientific edition might be legal)
Ahh, I didn't know that about Engelfriet, so thanks for the link. If there's truly not that many judges, I suppose their hands are tied. Still, there's that "Ehhhhhhh...." feeling associated with the whole thing, regardless. Some of that is irrational.
As far as freedom of speech, I find the instance you mentioned to be equally insane.. but given the choice between the USA and the Netherlands, I'll still take the Netherlands (or almost any other European country) every time, despite being a US citizen.
No, it's normal for judges to teach courses on law. As someone studying law, I much prefer classes where a judge teaches or participates as a guest lecturer or panelist. Judges who are expert in a particular area of law often end up trying similar cases, and even if judges are randomly assigned (depending on the judicial system) a judge with established expertise will be noted mainly for his/her rulings in that area of expertise.
I have no idea about the merits of these particular cases or the quality of the judge's legal reasoning. It might be terrible. But Falkvinge isn't making legal arguments about why the judge is wrong, he's relying on people's ignorance of the judicial system to whip up opposition where none exists. Politicians always like to beat up on judges, and there is always a ready audience for populist bullshit.
In the original Dutch news report (linked to in the OP article), a third party lawyer observes that this was known about already but was not considered worthy of challenge. Recall again that the classes in question are aimed at lawyers; this is a very different situation than if they were teaching or consulting to copyright holders. Any legal class on copyright would also address matters like defenses to complaints of infringement and so forth.There's no reason to assume the class caters exclusively towards plaintiffs' attorneys.
All that said, I don't know anything about Dutch legal ethics in particular, and I might have misunderstood or mistranslated the information about the classes in question.
1st. No one has been charged, tried, and found corrupt.
2nd. Was this association before, during, or after the court case? There really is a difference between those three.
3rd. What is this "association"? The judge's name is part of the lower category with a dozen other names. Does this mean he's in the same building?
4th. Even this article is starting to claim (in edit/update, forced by a commenter) that this "commercial" course was some type of an official bar course where the two parties were perhaps picked by the bar (as in, they didn't pick each other).
5th. The article keeps on mentioning that this judge ruled "file names" to be illigal. Right, because taking the URL and breaking it appart before posting it on a warez site clearly turns everything around and makes the forum a place for a purfectly legitimate discussion of "file names". The author seems to be outraged by this.
And it goes on and on...