Swedish Supreme Court MP3 Ruling

Molander writes: "The Swedish HD (Supreme Court in Sweden) rules that making mp3's available for download on the Internet is equivalent to public broadcast. Link (in Swedish): link. This means that copying mp3's over the Internet is not the same as making a physical copy and giving it away. This also means that mp3's do not fall under the copyright laws but are covered by the public broadcast laws. The young man charged is therefore found not guilty of any copyright violations but may still be charged with paying broadcast fees to the copyright owners." This sort of ruling wouldn't really help in the U.S., since the music industry charges fees for broadcasting music as well.

Comments

Well, specifically,...

[Mendax Veritas]

...it sounds like an MP3 file itself could still be covered by copyright, but the act of putting it up on a web site, or GnutellaNet, or whatever, would be treated as a "broadcast" of that copyrighted material, and therefore downloading it is no different from listening to the radio, and does not constitute "piracy".

Sorry, wrong number!

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess Molander can't read Swedish very well. Since I am Swedish (born and raised in Stockholm, though now living the high life in a California software company), perhaps I can do a slightly better job of interpreting this court decision (even though IANAL).

It actually says that putting an mp3 file up for download is not the same as broadcasting. This is a rejection of the defense's argument in the case. It says that downloading mp3 files is a copyright violation, as the prosecutors argued. And this is the High Court, so there's no appeal possible.

I realize we can't all be Swedish (so sad for you!), but maybe if you don't know the language you should be a little less certain of your reading of it? You only make yourself look stupid, at least to those of us who actually know the language!

Would someone else please confirm this?

[raygundan]

I would very much *like* to believe the above post that claims that the article was mistranslated to nearly the exact opposite of its actual meaning. If anyone other Swedish-speaking people would like to confirm this, I would be very grateful.

Alternatively, if anyone can point me to a translation service that does any one of the following:

Swedish -> English
Swedish -> Spanish
Swedish -> Japanese

That would help me out as well. (Some americans
DO know other languages! :)

Do they really?

[Tiro]

Do the labels actually force broadcasters to pay to play? Is this actually enforced?

Maybe it is for Commercial Radio, but I <I>know</I> college stations and the like don't pay. Maybe this is simply because of their nonprofit status.

If this is true, couldn't website claim to be nonprofit, and get the same treatment?

Molander is right

[ja]

Sorry AC, whereever you are, but Molander got the translation right!

mvh // Jens M Andreasen

I was thinking the same thing....

[ferrocene]

I really can't believe labels charge stations for air play. If anyhting, I thought it was the complete opposite (from reading Courtney Love's essay posted somewhere on news.com and other places). If a top40 station had to pay for every song it played, it would be out of business or very poor. And if all the radio stations decided not to play music backed by such a policy, labels wouldn't make ANY money since this is their most successful form of advertising. From CLove, labels pay a 3rd party to promote music, and promotion usually implies free.

Re:I was thinking the same thing....

[jellicle]

There's a sliding scale. If you're a big fish (a radio station), the recording industry pays you to air the song, under the table, which is officially illegal. If you're a small fish (you want to play music in your store, or club, or what-have-you), then you pay the recording industry.

You ever heard some radio station play the same song 20 times in one day? Now you know why...

--
Michael Sims-michael at slashdot.org

Pfft, here's a quick translation

[Bj�rnen]

Preamble: I was born and brought up in Sweden by my English mother and Swedish father. Also, I don't feel very comfortable translating anything :-)

Not punishable, were the last thing said in the legal battle between the record companies and the young resident of Skövde that had collected links to mp3 sites on his homepage. The Supreme Court (Högsta Domstolen) says in its verdict that digital transport of copyrighted material in networks are not the same as spreading physical copies. The HD says that copying of music and sound bites on networks shall be seen as public broadcast. Such public broadcasts are not illegal so the HD dismissed the charges. The proceedings started september last year, the resident of Skövde has previously been acquitted both in tingsrätt and hovrätt two lower instances of law in Sweden. The charges has been amended/changed several times during the entire process. The prosecutor specifically wanted to bring up the question on whether the links could be construed/seen as participation in copyright infringement committed by either those uploading the mp3 songs or those downloading them. The prosecutor dropped the charges before the appeal to the HD and the appeal was instead made by the 11 involved record companies. The question on participation in copyright infringement was dismissed since it wasn't part of the original crime description. Wee bit strange sentence there. The record companies one remaining course of action is to demand STIM-money since their music has been performed on the net.

My comments in italic. Stim (short English summary) is the Swedish organisation that collects money for the artist and music companies when their music is performed in public, in other words broadcasted, played in hospitals, elevator music etc. I'm sure that there's an equivalent in just about all countries.

Troll Alert!

[LoonXTall]

Attention A. Coward: You said in this comment: This was just to see what happened if I posted a comment saying that everything in the article was wrong. Since the article references a Swedish court decision available only in Swedish, I might get away with it, at least until someone who can actually read Swedish comes along.

Give up.

-- LoonXTall

Why BS?

[Snaller]

Seems an accurate enough translation

--

Re:This would be great in the US!!!

[Tiro]

Interesting...
but because Napster claims no responsibility for the actions of its users, it probably would have a tough time justifying how all of its clients can claim protection under a liscence they buy :]