Sweden To Outlaw File Sharing, Crypto Breaking?

Martin Kallisti writes "The Swedish Department of Justice has today proposed a bill to be put into effect, if it passes Parliament, on the 1st of January, 2004. It is in accordance to EU directives, but will also criminalize the downloading of material from the Internet without the explicit permission of the copyright holder. Furthermore, it will become illegal to break cryptos, circumvent copy protection (mod chips et al), copy books, and as I understand it, use software that is designed to help with any of these tasks, and many other things." An anonymous reader points to an English-language article about this Swedish EUCD proposal, which also mentions a hefty $4 levy on blank digital media such as CD-ROMs.

Comments

Good

[MisterFancypants]

It is about time a government started taking intellectual property rights seriously. I hope this same attitude will take hold in the US, where we are in danger of the creative people who bring us movies and records going bankrupt due to all of the digital pirating of their content.

pr0n

[eniu!uine]

This isn't going to affect Swedish porn is it?

Re:pr0n

[coupland]

This isn't going to affect Swedish porn is it?

Dunno, could undoing a bra stap be considered a circumvention technique?

Obl Simpsons

[Hogwash McFly]

And there'll be file sharing barons who'll send you your Britney Spears audio tracks in an iPod stashed in a bowling ball that rolls through a series of underground tunnels, with the authorities none the wiser

un enforceble

[jr87]

there is no possible way for them to enforce this.Even if they did I could imagine the headline... 1/3 of population rounded up in latest crackdown on downloading.... story at 11

New Business Plan!

[mrklin]

1. Hoard CD-ROMs now.

2. Sell in Sweden after 1/1/2004.

3. Profit!!!

Re:New Business Plan!

[Chairboy]

Hey... you gave all the steps. You're SUPPOSED to leave one blank, or else it looks real. A legit, profitable business model has no place on slashdot.

Shame on you....

Re:Good for different reasons

[mackstann]

Who is "we"? It's not the US, because in the US, you could just be hauled off under the patriot act.

(c)

[NanoGator]

I hereby copyright this post. I expressly forbid these words from being read anywhere inside of Sweden.

Man I can't wait to see how many people end up in jail now.

Re:Cracking Down

[Anonymous Coward]

Are they Cracking Down?

Perhaps.

Are they Downing Crack?

More likely.

Just wondering for anyone that knows - how is the Computer/IT market in Sweden? I know there's a relatively large number of upstanding Swedish folk online, per capita, but can they outweigh the vapid bunch of lobbyists and quasi-luddites backing this legislation?

Ryan Fenton

Re:Yowza!

[EverDense]

What a great idea! Imagine, indie bands having to pay $4 per blank CD for the privilege of
recording their own original music without a label.

Sounds like a GREAT PLAN to me.
Hopefully it will kill off the next ABBA, before they even start.

Levy

[heli0]

$4 levy on blank digital media such as CD-ROMs.

So I assume blank DVD's have a levy of $28 since they store ~7x the data?

Now a spindle of 100 CDR's will be $420 instead of $20?

Will a spindle of 100 DVD-R's be $3000?

I suppose I will have to begin importing DVDR's instead of Heroin into Sweden now.

Was to be expected ..

[AftanGustur]

It is a nation of blondes after all..

P2P not outlawed

[mcbridematt]

Read carefully. It says it's illegal to get files without the permission of the copyright holder. So in other words, P2P porn will still be legal in Sweden