In a move that remains highly dubious and potentially suicidal for many politicians some small sections of Swedish society are still pushing for US style extortion laws that make it easy to falsely accuse folks of filesharing and for them to be bullied into a "settlement", extortion in plain speak.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/11/14/sweden_closer_to_antipiracy_law/Resistance to a new anti-file sharing law dubbed by some as the Pirate Hunter Act is mounting in Sweden. More than 22,000 members have joined a group called Stoppa IPRED ('Stop IPRED') on Facebook, which has bombarded Swedish parliament members with protest mails. Youth organisations and all of the centre-right political parties have condemned the law as well.
Last month, Sweden's Council on Legislation (Lagrådet) - composed of Supreme Court and Supreme Administrative Court Judges - indicated it has no reservations against a law which would make it easier to hunt individuals suspected of illegal filesharing.
Under the proposed law, which would be introduced next April, copyright holders can request information such as IP addresses from ISPs if they suspect internet users of illegal file sharing. With a court order they would be able to directly contact copyright infringers and seek monetary damages.
Pirate Party vice-chair Christian Engström told online magazine The Local that record companies can send letters out to internet users at random and demand any figure they like. "If you do not pay, they will take you to court."
I think its clear to most here that if this law is passed then its because a few important hands will have been "greased" with a pay-off to help ensure it a smooth ride as happens in the US. No on in their right mind would vote for such anti social and morally unsound laws so lets hope those backing this scheme are exposed in public and hopefully before they do a "leading-light" liberal country serious damage.
