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Sweden Bans Copyrighted Downloading
Xiar Prime writes "Swedish lawmakers have made downloading of copyrighted material illegal, one day after an 11-nation piracy crackdown. Prior to the passing of the law, it was only illegal to provide copyrighted material, not download it." From the article: " The law was drawn up to bring Sweden into line with EU directives and is also part of a wider crackdown on net piracy. It comes a day after the US Attorney General's office announced an 11-nation operation to catch and shut down net piracy groups."
ATTENTION: People of Sweden.
You may no longer download the Linux kernel. As you will note in all the file headers, it is Copyright (C) Linus Torvalds and many others.
As you have a blanket prohibition on downloading "copyrighted" material (and not just "copyrighted material which does not permit you to download it or make it available for downloading"), you may not download the Linux kernel.
Will they be forced to shut down as a result?
To be fair to the submitted the title is actually pretty much word for word the one used by the BBC news website... "LATEST: Sweden fights rampant piracy by outlawing the downloading of copyrighted material."
--- Users are like bacteria -> Each one causing a thousand tiny crises until the host finally gives up and dies.
Before we go to such extreme measures, don't you think we should have a national debate on the right balance between citizens and copyright holders?
It looks to me that we're developing a hodge-podge of copyright/patent laws that has no policy thought and is simply a collection of knee-jerk reactions to what's news this week.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
I absolutely diagree with you on this!
As a general rule, the idea of charging people fines is a terrible way to punish the breaking of minor laws. I can't really speak for other nations, but in the U.S. - I see fines being levied as tax collection tools more than for any real interest in stopping the crimes they claim to help stop.
Where I live, you can almost tell how small a municipality is by how often you see the police sitting in one of the same sneaky places, spending most of the day looking for speeders. Larger municipalities with a bigger tax base don't *need* to pressure their police to hand out so many traffic tickets. They typically have more important things to do with their time.
The typical fine only punishes the poor. If you make enough money, paying a fine because you parked your car in a much more convenient place that happened to be a "no parking" zone is probably no big deal. Send off the money order and you're done. Might have been well worth the price of the ticket, really.
Nonetheless, making fines so high that even the rich get "punished" just makes it *impossible* for the poor to pay them - and that makes no sense either.
Crimes of "convenience" such as littering are going to happen whether the fine is $25 or $25,000. As another poster said, it's all about the would-be litterer's confidence level in not getting caught. In the case of littering, it only takes a split second to throw something out a car window - and especially at night, people probably won't ever see that you did it.
What would be better, IMHO, is in lieu of fines, order these people to perform community service. Make them pick up litter for a couple weekends. (Right now, we've got all these "adopt a highway" programs with volunteers - but seems unnecessary if you could make the people doing the littering do the cleanup instead.)
Actually the computer at the other end makes the copy and gives it to you, so basicaly the downloader is a holder of items they don't have a license to but the computer and hence it's owner is the actual breaker of copyright law.
The computer acts as an entity to itself that's why the government can't even ask you to run tcpdump if you've been hacked unless they get a supoena (if you did it on your own without them telling you, etc you can give them to the government and it will be admissible). I went to a SANS conference back in 2000 or 2001 that spoke directly about wiretaps and their legality.
Since the IP-number of a persons computer is considered private information and breaking the law can't render a jail sentence, it is illegal for the ISPs to hand out information about who a IP belongs to. This law will change nothing.
Your argument would only be valid if current implementation of copyright was a balanced contract between artists and consumers as it was in the beginning (when first copyright laws were adopted).
Copyright laws are not just for the creators, it is also for consumers. It is a social bargain struck to balance the need to protect and promote creativity while ensuring free exchange of ideas.
To achieve these goals, the original copyright was structured so that after a relatively short period of time (20years), the original work would be available free through public domain.
The problem is, while consumers are getting forced to accept more and more onerous terms where no work has joined the public domain in 100 years, the punishment for the infringement has goteen harsher and harsher; thus breaking the covenant orignially set.
Consumers have no incentive to abide by copyright anymore. They have no benefits whatsoever. To increase the punishment for infringement while doing nothing to balance the benefit, I would CERTAINLY agree with the sentiment that our right as consumers are dying indeed.
There is an additional point everyone should be aware of, since it concerns not only Swedish citizens, but most Europeans (more or less the same rules will be law in all EU countries during the coming years):
What really happens under the new law is actually hanging upon two earlier cases; one regarding UPloading (filesharing of one Swedish movie) and one case regarding Swedish law on databases containing personal data.
* The first case (a guy who is charged with uploading a movie) will decide the graveness of the crime. It's not yet decided by court whether he will be fined, or whether he will end up in jail.
If he gets the maximum jail sentence of two years (which he may well get, since it will be suspended anyway), the Swedish police authorities will have the right to search the premises of everyone that's suspected of a similar crime.
The results of such a search (the content of hard disks, CD's and so on) can be used for further charges against other persons.
* The second case is the charge (from several thousand people) against the Swedish "Anti-Piracy Bureau" (an organisation of large copyright holders, record companies and so on) that their continuing datamining - automatic searching for up- and downloaders - is against Swedish law.
The regulatory body, "Datainspektionen", has already decided that this activity is against the law, but of course this decision has been appealed.
In the worst case scenario, filesharing of un-authorized material (and we're not necessarily talking syndicated crime here, but basically the average user!) will be considered a rather grave felony.
In the best case scenario (of course, this depends on whether you're a regular user or a record company), filesharing will be considered a misdemeanor, more or less like speeding. Not allowed, but nothing that will destroy your life.
The basic problem - Angloamerican "copyright" vs. Swedish "upphovsrätt" is to complicated to even think about this late at night. This will prove to be a real hornet's nest...
If that's correct, and I can't provide a reference I'm afraid, then raming up fines will do nothing to slow unauthorised distribution of copyrighted materials.
And it seems unlikely that the penalty will be widely applied. There will be too many people who can't pay for a start. If the person being fined is going to have to pay it in pennies a week, it won't matter wether the fine is $100 or $1,000,000. Then there are the six year old girls and the grannies who don't understand tech and any nomber of other PR nightmares...
But what it will provide is a law that can be selectively enforced. There have been cases where unscrupulous types have planted child pronography on a rivals computer as a means to discredit them. We can imagine MP3s and DVD images being used to the same purpose.
Same holds true for Piracy... make the penalties so severe that nobody in their right mind will want to partake.
There's a historical parallel. The Agricultural Revolution in England led to a large number of displaced smallholders migrating to the cities to lead to work. Unemployment was high and crime soared. Ever harsher penalties for crimes were passed until almost every crime bore the death penalty.
It didn't work.
For one thing, juries were loathe to convict when the sentence was unjustly harsh. It also meant that otherwise petty criminals came to regard all laws with the same contempt. This is the origin of the phrase "might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb".
The penalty as deterrent idea didn't work in the 1800s and had unwanted, unforseen and undesirable repercussions. Modern law enforcement thinking, as I understand it, is likewise sceptical about deterrence-by-severity. And you know what they say about those who cannot learn from history...
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
I would like to draw your attention to the eighth ammendment of the US Constitution:
"Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted."
You see, our forefathers were smart enough to include such things just in case someone like you (or some of those already in power) decide to do something incredibly...stupid.
~X~
~X~