Anti-Piracy Bureau of Sweden Planted Evidence

American Sweden writes "Concerning the bust at the Swedish ISP Bahnhof on March 10, IDG Sweden is reporting that Bahnhof has posted their findings of an internal inspection. It seems as if the Anti-Piracy Buereau of Sweden and their infiltrator "Rouge" had a good deal of involvement in supporting the busted FTP server not only with hardware but with so called "warez" as well. The blog of Lars Backlund has a translated version of the interview conducted in the report of Bahnhof." P2PNet.net has a breakdown of the relevant details as well. From the article: "As it turns out, APB (or, rather, their hired informer) supplied the servers and uploaded copyrighted materials. So that's why they were so sure to find stuff, they put it there!"

Comments

people want to jump to the wrong conclusion

[Auckerman]

So some guy sets up a warez server in a computer lab. At least one of his friends that he has known for four years gets involved. For some reason, guy decides to busy his own warez server. Suspicious, yes. Worth investigating, certainly. Entrapment, probably not, unless it can be shown that he set up and maintained the server under the auspices of the legal authorities.

Re:Sigh

[tomhudson]

So, we're supposed to get angry at all anti-piracy groups now because this one planted evidence?

I mean, that's really the point of posting this. If GPL authors can go after GPL violaters, copyright owners can go after infringers.

So what you're implying is that it would be okay to secretly insert GPL code into a non-GPL project, then sue to have the project opened up. After all, that's the same as planting evidence.

That's NOT what the GPL is for. Submarining shi[tt] is wrong, whichever side does it.

Mind you, I can see the NEXT PROFIT MODEL:

1. Stick your mp3 collection on company server
2. If you're laid off, threaten to rat them out at $150,000 a song
3. P-R-O-F-I-T (sung to the tune "I want Money!")

In the US, the ISP could sue for damages

[mveloso]

In the US, the ISP could sue for damages, and there's a good chance the APB would settle for a large sum.

Can they do that in Sweden? Or are they just going to get a "so sorry, we'll be sure it doesn't happen again (until next time)?"

Re:Found _something_

[torpor]

I find your lack of faith disturbing.

Re:A New Excuse.

[hkmwbz]

No. In other words, the entertainment industry's representatives are pretending to be on a moral high ground, always having their rights violated, and the evil file sharers are giving them a hard time.

The fact is that these people are not on a moral high ground. They do data mining, illegal monitoring of online activity, entrapment, illegal entry, and so on, and still they keep complaining about a bunch of kids swapping files.

Trying to lobby for fascism and using illegal methods to terrorize individuals and trying to scare people into submission is far more serious than file swapping in my book.

The way to deal with file swapping is not to lobby for laws that take away rights from the consumers. The way to deal with it is to adapt to the market, not set up cartels and do massive lobbying to choke the market until it behaves the way the megacorporations want it to.

Re:Sigh

[NanoGator]

"So, we're supposed to get angry at all anti-piracy groups now because this one planted evidence?"

As opposed to not letting them know this behaviour won't be tolerated?

Illegal Activity?

[ThisIsFred]

Uh... According to their own admission, the "opposition" hijacked a domain belonging to the Antipiratbyrån. That's about the only illegal activity going on here that I see. This doesn't help the cause.

Re:Hmm...

[DavidTC]

Entrapment for the police means they have no case. They can't arrest people for stuff the police encouraged them to do.

'Entrapment' for private citizens is just simply 'breaking the law'. It's no more entrapment than driving a getaway car is entrapment...it's just a crime, period. Doesn't matter if you were going to turn them in or not.

FYI

[gagge]

Again, APB (Anti-Piracy Bureau) is not a law-enforcement bureau, it's not connected to the government in any way. It's a lobby organisation for the film and music industry. Strangely, they get the police to do whatever they tell them, they even appear on site at the same time as the police during busts. The police even recommended on their website that piracy crimes should be reported to APB, not the police.

why "piracy" is not theft

[N3wsByt3]

The IFPI/RIAA is fighting a lost cause. And I think they know it.

First off all, I have difficulties with their acclaimed 'stealing' of music. As far as I know, stealing implies that the one that has been stolen has been derived of something. When you take a copy, you do not take the original away, thus they have not 'lost' anything. They might claim that they loose money when ppl d/l music, but even that is far from certain. Not only is it not shown statistically to have had that effect (they didn't even show a correlation thusfar - see aussie music-news - let alone a causality). Furthermore, in an individual case, they would have to show they actually lost revenue. Which is far from said, because I sure know some guys who d/l music, but would NEVER have bought that music if they were unable to d/l it. So, how did the RIAA/IFPI loose revenue, exactly? And if they didn't lose anything, how can the term 'stealing' apply?

It would still be copyright-infringement, ofcourse, but that's another matter. I think maybe it's time we went beyond our current system of copyrights and walk into the era of cyberspace. With the industrial revolution, patents and copyrights knew a high flight, maybe it's time to let it leave and try something new? Maybe something in the lines of this: fairshare (http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/*checkout*/ freenet/website/pages/fairshare.php?rev=1.1).

And don't worry, contrary to what the RIAA claims, musicians will not starve to death, and music-making will not stop. We had music long before we had copyrights, and we will have music long after copyrights have vanished from the scene.

And lastly, it's something that *can not* be stopped. P2P progs and their development act as organisms that follow the darwinian rules of survival. When Napster was 'killed' by the RIAA, immediately others (like kazaa) took over, being more resistent to attacks from the RIAA&co. Whenever kazaa will be shut down, others again will take over. When endusers are targeted, systems that protect the user will become dominant (like FreeNet).

It really is a lost cause. But then again, they are not truelly battling for the survival of musicians (as I said; they will survive, just as they used to do), it's for their OWN survival they are fighting. There is no way in hell they are going to keep the giant profits that they have been gathering for the last decades.

But ultimately, they will have to do what P2P systems are already doing: adapt to the new circumstances (and forget about the former levels of profit), or whither and die.