By all accounts, the Newzbin vs. MPA (20th Century Fox, et al.), should be going exceedingly well. If Alan Ellis' OinK Pink Palace, one of the most popular BitTorrent sites, beat the rap, surely Newzbin could right? There are significant difference in the cases - Newzbin is facing civil charges (promoting copyright infringement), while OinK confronted criminal (conspiracy to defraud based on donations). But the similarities between the two sites, and the results of this case, will go a long way in determining legality of indexing content in the UK.

At first, things appeared to be going well for Newzbin - updates to the site indicated that the judge was fair and was going to hear things out. But then things went wrong for Newzbin. On the Day 3 update, the Newzbin legal team indicated that internal troubles, including administrator Caesium having a meltdown on the witness stand, had caused a trial delay. Ok...no big deal right? Just dust yourself off and charge back into the thick of things and conquer the enemy, right? Yeah...

Unfortunately the latest update doesn't shine such a picture. In fact, if anything, things appear to be going worse for the Newzbin team. Here's the latest from Newzbin:

"A refreshed Caesium finished cross examination today.

"There have been/are huge procedural complications caused by Newzbin's internal issues and this may cause delays in the case being concluded this week.

"It would be fair to say that the picture painted in court of Newzbin has not been an entirely positive one. Whilst it is hard to double guess Mr Justice Kitchin, Newzbin may have some difficulties in the near future. Caesium was accused of lying massively and repeatedly under oath and 'concocting' a phoney defence: 'Bollocks' we said, a technical latin legal expression, but nonetheless a problematic accusation.

"We may be being paranoid, but at the moment our hunch is that things are looking less positive for us than last week. We hope we are wrong."

Our concerns about the lack of detail and updates are double edged. On one hand, we're a bit surprised that Newzbin's legal team would give any indication of their hand whatsoever - why let the Plaintiffs know they're getting the better of you at all? Conversely, the updates from Newzbin may just be a smokescreen since there are no alternative reports available. Are they really doing this bad? It's impossible to know in the short term, but we'll keep you up to date if/when Newzbin decides to comment.

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