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Sweden's File Sharing Debate Becomes Mass Brawl
praps writes "When Sweden's Data board gave the film and games industry organisation Antipiratbyrån an exemption from data protection laws last week it seemed that file sharers were on the ropes. Then the music industry joined in with some punches of its own, saying it too will hunt those who share songs online. Suddenly, file sharers have the support of their ISPs, who are refusing to cooperate with the big industries - and it's game on." From the article: "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've previously reported on Swedish anti-downloading laws before.
I work for a webhosting firm and almost monthly we get calls from old dudes with fishing websites asking why they used 500 Gigs of transfer and got an insane bill last month. Invariably it's because their ftp password was "cat" or some nonsense and somebody dumped a copy of dreamweaver, or a ton of MP3s, etc. on their account and linked it to a pirate site. But the first time I saw this happen, it made me think: piracy in general can have more economic impact that you realize at first.
For example, when the above happens, we usually do a one-time refund of the bandwidth charge, which is often considerable, and I'm sure we're not the exception. That means we eat the bandwidth bill for that person. Now, consider that all webhosts are likely to do the same and I wonder what the economic impact is across the board?
Interesting how there are facets you don't even realize exist.
Sony ha
So the European equivalent of the MPAA/RIAA will have succeeded in shutting down file sharing of copyrighted material in Sweden only to see it pop up elsewhere in the world.
Actually, they have not succeeded in anything except that they are now allowed to store and process personal information about file sharers. Recently the data board classified IP-adresses as personal information, which meant they needed permission to store and process it without the users consent. They now have this permission. However, since it is now clear that they are subject to this law (called PUL, which means something like Law of Personal Information), they are also required to tell the registered person about the registration. In order to do this they need to know who has a particular IP, and only the ISP can help with this, but they refuse to cooperate. It is all very confusing and amusing to follow.
This is not a sig.
This idea that ISPs are being noble here is silly. They're doing what they do for the money as much as anyone.
Fact is, many people that pay for an Internet connection do so in part so they can swap music. Getting free
music is part of the value of that connection for them.
Now put yourself in the place of the ISP. You have customers paying you so they can have access to this free music.
Why would you want to stop this? You don't have to pay for the music yourself, but you get a financial benefit from it.
So I don't see anything heroic about these ISPs. Helping to make sure their customers can get free music helps
their bottom line.
Most of our tax revenue comes from personal income taxes. I have no problem with this but the myth that Corps pay most taxes needs to be put to rest.
The Wikipedia seems to disagree with you. So does FindLaw according to this passage:
The jury has the ultimate power to decide whether a person is guilty of a crime. As the "conscience of the community," jurors can free a defendant even if they think the defendant actually committed the crime charged. The name for this power is "jury nullification." It has always been a part of our judicial system.
When jurors nullify a law by acquitting a defendant who has obviously broken that law, judges and prosecutors can do nothing about it. A jury's not guilty verdict is final. Jury nullification rarely occurs, but when it does, it most often involves cases that have a political component (such as the refusal to convict draft dodgers during the Vietnam War) or that have harsh punishments the jury does not want to impose on that particular defendant.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.