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A Swedish prosecutor says Big Six studio efforts to nail a man they say shared a movie online may have effectively slammed the door in their faces.A Swedish appeal court yesterday ruled it couldn't hear a case against a 27-year-old man who'd been fined the equivalent of 80 days' salary by Sollentuna district court for breaking copyright laws, says The Local."He admitted making the Swedish action film 'The Third Wave' accessible to others through a file sharing programme."But not only did Hollywood's Antipiratbyrån fail to move the court, "I interpret this as a clear decision that individual file sharers, if they don't earn money from file sharing, won't get anything more than a fine," the story has prosecutor Håkan Roswall saying."That means we can't trace IP addresses, which means that we can't trace private file sharers."The question of punishment, "is decisive in determining how police and prosecutors may investigate file sharing," says The Local. "If only fines are imposed, then the crime is not so serious that IP addresses, each computer's unique identifier on the internet, can be requested from internet service providers."The prosecutor also wants the punishment reviewed, "and appealed against the judgement," says the story, adding:"After Wednesday's decision in the high court, he said that a change in the law would now be required if legal proceedings were to be brought against individuals."
The majority of young people who will be allowed to vote for the first time this September during national elections are in favour of file downloading - despite the fact that it is illegal.The youngest voters, those aged 18-20, say the law prohibiting file sharing is wrong and is a cultural phenomenon, according to a May poll conducted by the Swedish paper Sydsvenskan and Temo Synovate survey.File sharing could be a hot topic come election time. Only the Centre Party and the Green Party voted against the anti-file-sharing decision in Parliament last year.Internet downloading has united the political right and left in Sweden. Support is strongest among the Liberal Party, the Moderates and the Left Party, Sydsvenskan reported.
Sweden could introduce a charge on all broadband subscriptions to compensate music and film companies for the downloading of their work, while legalizing the downloading of copyright-protected material, justice minister Thomas Bodström has said.Bodström told Sydsvenskan that he could consider tearing up legislation passed last year that made it illegal to download copyrighted material. He said that a broadband charge was discussed by Swedish political parties last year, but the Moderates and Left Party rejected it. If they have changed their minds, he is willing to discuss any new proposals they might have, he said.The Left Party said yesterday that they wanted to scrap the current law because it had not reduced illegal file sharing. The Moderate Party has said that the whole area of copyright law should be overhauled to make it clearer, more effective and adapted to technological developments.Bodström said he had not been approached directly by the Left Party or Moderates, and had only read about their proposals in the media.
Those who investigate copyright crimes should go back to school for a crash course in how to better deal with illegal file sharing, the Swedish Police and prosecutors have recommended.Such investigations should also be concentrated to those international prosecutors in Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö, as well as police with similar capabilities in the same locations, the recommendation said.
David sez, "Apparently, a company in Sweden is offering file-sharing insurance - they'll pay your fines if you're sued by the RIAA. The /. submitter translates the link as follows: 'For a mere 140 SEK ($19 USD) per year, they will pay all your fines and give you a t-shirt if you get convicted for file sharing.'" I have no idea if these insurers can be trusted with $19/year, but it actually sounds like a pretty plausible business model. If you count up all the file-sharers on the net, and divide it by the all the fines and settlements ever paid to the RIAA, my guess is that it's way less than $19/year,
