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"Sweden has become the paradise for pirates," said Henrik Ponten, a lawyer with Antipiratbyran, a Swedish antipiracy organization financed by the movie and games industries.Antipiratbyran said it believed that about 15 million movies were downloaded last year in Sweden, which has a population of nine million. And a recent survey found that almost one-tenth of all Swedes used file-sharing networks to download music, movies and computer programs during the first three months of 2005. In the third quarter of 2004, there were almost 7,000 warning letters sent per million Swedes, compared with a little more than 2,000 in Spain, about 1,500 in Germany and only about 300 in the United States. The reasons for the Swedish situation are manifold. Sweden has, with Denmark, the highest percentage of households with access to a home computer in the world, about 70 percent, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. What industry observers agree is the most important reason Sweden has ended up on the front lines of illegal downloading is the rapid spread of broadband Internet access. (Editorial notice: I object to this as what is being insinuated here is that swedish folks are breaking the law and the article makes it plain they are not )Sweden might not have the world's highest penetration of broadband - the kind of fast Internet access that allows fat files like movies to be transferred quickly - but the quality tends to be very high. According to a recent report, Sweden has the best optical fiber network in Europe, and multi-megabit connections are becoming both cheap and common. In parts of the country, a 10-megabit connection costs less than €20, or $25, a month, and 100 megabits less than €40. More typical elsewhere in Europe are single-digit-megabit connections.
A controversial proposal before the Swedish parliament recommends introducing tougher laws against downloading and sharing copyright-protected music, films and games.But, writing with fellow members of parliament Hillevi Larsson and Tasso Stafilidis, the justice minister now says that those rights must be balanced against the rights of individuals to use the material they have paid for."When the copyright is strengthened, it is extra important that this doesn't reduce the options to to copy legal material for private use, through the copyright owners "locking" material with copy blocking," they said on SVT.
Sweden has passed a law banning the sharing of copyrighted material on the Internet without payment of royalties, in a bid to crack down on free downloading of music, films and computer games. The law, which was approved by a large majority in parliament, will go into effect on July 1. Those who violate the law will be ordered to pay damages.
The war on illegal file-sharing has stepped up a notch in Sweden, with 200 people having been reported to the police for breaking copyright laws for exchanging games and films online.The development marks a change of approach for Sweden's anti-piracy group, Antipiratbyrån (APB). The organisation has sent out 400,000 warning letters in its controversial battle with file-sharers. But in response, over 1,000 people have reported APB to the Swedish authorities for breaking personal data laws by collecting IP addresses of suspected miscreants.
Sweden has outlawed the downloading of copyrighted movies, games and music in an attempt to curb rampant piracy. About 10% of Swedes freely swap music, games and films on their computers, one of the highest rates in the world. With no law banning file-sharing, Sweden had become a hotbed of piracy where films, music and software were readily swapped. But experts believe the law will change little and that Swedes will remain rampant downloaders.
A 28 year old from Västerås will make Swedish IT history on Tuesday as the first person to be tried for file sharing. The outcome of the case will have a great impact on Sweden's battle between determined file sharers and the anti-piracy organisation, Antipiratbyrå, (APB).The man is to appear in court accused of having a copy of the Swedish film Hip Hip Hora on his computer which he allowed others to download. He admits having downloaded the film but denies that he distributed it to others online."I hope and believe that he will be found not guilty," said his lawyer Torbjörn Persson. "The evidence is very weak. If he is given a fine it will, in principle, be impossible to investigate this kind of crime."If the court simply fines the 28 year old, it will mean that police cannot in future raid homes or request information from internet service providers about customers suspected of file sharing. The most serious penalty the man faces is a suspended sentence - which would deem the crime serious enough to justify more active police involvement.
Film and music companies can once again start to collect information about people who spread copyrighted material over the internet.The Swedish Data Inspection Board (DI) has ruled that industry organisations such as the Swedish Anti-Pirate Bureau (APB) and record industry group IFPI can collect the IP addresses of people who spread films, computer games and music against copyright laws.DI had earlier ruled that APB and IFPI’s methods broke privacy laws, as they were collecting personal information without permission. It had also decided that collecting information about illegal spreading of material was forbidden because only government authorities are allowed to keep registers of criminal offences.Now, DI says that both organisations can have an exception from the law, and will therefore be allowed to re-start collecting information about file-sharers IP addresses.“The organisations’ collection of IP numbers does not constitute an undue infringement of personal integrity,” DI argued in a press release.
Last week the IFPI, along with the games and film industry body, Antipiratbyrån (APB), was given the right to register the IP addresses of individuals found to be sharing copyright-protected material.But any satisfaction that the organisation derived from it will have vanished this week, with the news that APB must inform people that their IP address is being registered.Only the file sharer's ISP can link the IP address to the person. If the ISP receives a request for such information from the police, they cannot refuse it, but a few calls from TT revealed that requests from APB would be ignored."We don't send out warning letters to our customers on anyone else's behalf," said Jan Sjöberg, the press officer at Telia Sonera Sweden.
Stockholm - A 28-year-old man was sentenced Tuesday to pay a 2,000 dollars fine for violating a new Swedish law against file sharing over the Internet. The man admitted in an initial police interview that he had distributed a popular Swedish film over the Internet, but retracted the statement in court. The district court in Vasteras, west of Stockholm however ruled that he was guilty. The decision not to hand down a jail sentence was partly motivated by the defendant's statement that he did not profit from his actions. The case was the first of its kind in Sweden after a ban against file-sharing of copy-righted material that was introduced in July. File-sharing is popular and some estimates suggest 800,000 people have engaged in it .
Swedish file sharers have got together to form their own political party.The Pirate Party (Piratpartiet) said that it is tired of being deemed a criminals and terrorists by the system for sharing a few measly files for no financial gain or loss to anyone.In its manifesto, here, which is in Swedish, the party says that it is against seeing the developing world starve because the developed world refuses to share its intellectual property.Its massage is that corporations are engaging in racketeering in the developing world and a few power hungry individuals and greedy corporate entities are infringing on privacy and integrity. Piratpartiet says that it will strike out immaterial law, ignore WIPO and WT, and annul any further treaties or policies that hinder the free flow of information. They will refuse to allow data retention nonsense based on terrorism claims or failed RIAA business models.
A lot's happened since Piratbyrån went offline. Pirate parties have spread to France, and to some surprise, the United States. Since The Pirate Bay raids of May 31, the Swedish political organization “Piratpartiet” have enjoyed considerable success, as it numbers have grown to near 8,000 members. Although Piratbyrån (The Bureau of Piracy) is not a political entity analogous to Piratpartiet, it carries considerable weight throughout Sweden. As one of the many websites that were forced offline during the May 31 raids, Piratbyrån nevertheless continued its work. The Bureau of Piracy helped organize pro-piracy demonstrations in Gothenburg and Stockholm, while continuing lectures on copyright issues (basically anything that didn’t require an Internet connection.)Unlike the Piratpartiet which seeks political office (and influences policy through such offices), Piratbyrån is more a grass roots organization which focuses on education and open debate.
Johan Linander, a member of the Swedish parliament for the Center Party writes that a new law, based on EU directives, has been proposed by the Ministry of Justice. This law makes it possible for “copyright holders” to demand customer info tied to IP addresses that allegedly infringe copyright.So, in effect, if this bill is passed, Swedish legislation has given room for a situation where special interest groups can demand personal information from companies to conduct their own private investigations.
Sweden's consumer rights agency on Wednesday said it and other rights groups in Scandinavia will meet Apple Computer to discuss their complaint that the U.S. company's popular iTunes service breaches consumer laws.In June, the consumer agencies of Sweden, Denmark and Norway jointly wrote to Apple alleging that customers had to waive fundamental rights, such as the free use of legally bought products, to download music from iTunes.Norway's consumer rights agency has said one of its main concerns was that iTunes limited customers' right to freely use legally acquired products by implementing software to protect downloaded files from illegal copying and distribution.
The Swedish Pirate Party (Piratpartiet), led by a charismatic 34-year old IT specialist Rickard Falkvinge from Sollentuna, has released their manifesto for the national election to be held on 17th September. The party hopes the manifesto will encourage voters to elect members of the Pirate Party to seats in the Swedish Parliament“The right to privacy is a corner stone in an open and democratic society. Each and everyone has the right to respect for one’s own private and family life, one’s home and one’s correspondence. If the constitutional freedom of information is to be more than empty words on a paper, we much defend the right for protected private communication,” the manifesto declares. “The arguments for every individual step towards a monitoring society may sound very convincing, but we only have to look at the recent history of Europe to see where that road leads.”
They get my vote
