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.

Comments

Makes me laugh.

[dada21]

Every lawsuit against people not judged to be criminals by their friends and family is just another mark against the recording and film industries. You know what they say about business: anger one customer and they tell 10 friends.

These lawsuits go beyond anger, they financially hurt customers. For every $10,000 they receive in settlements, they could be losing multiples of in lost future business.

My luddite parents discovered P2P because of some news article about these suits in the U.S. They were blind to Napster since its inception.

I wasn't surprised to see Limewire on my dad's PC a few months ago. This is a guy who never touched a mouse until 2003.

You can stop a river with a boulder when it is still a 6" trickle. Yet the boulder does not one bit when the river is a torrent.

In the long run, ISPs who share privilege information will go out of business. I hereby amend my previous position: "Information that hurts no innocents wants to be freely accessible."

Perhaps it's time for a compromise.

[91degrees]

How about these concepts as a starting point; These are simply ideas that in my opinion are not too controversial.

We want to ensure its's possible to make a profit from creative works.
People will copy data.
Sharing between friends is not going to bring down the music/movie/software industry.
Online file sharing should probably be discouraged, or at least not strongly encouraged.
Awarding disproportionately huge damages against file sharers is not a just solution.
A distinction should be made between small scale copying for free, and large scale copying for financial gain.

When we have the government siding strongly with the media cartels, and disproportionate penalties for file sharers, as well as the invasion of privacy by a private organisation means that people loserespect for the law. This is generally speaking a bad thing. m'kay.

Most people agree that copyright is largely a good thing. Most people also have no qualms about using pirated software. I'm sure we can find a compromise.

PB

[loconet]

PB, based in Sweden, has some fun to read legal threats from Microsoft, Dreamworks, EA, White Stripes, etc. along with PB's responses.

Should be normal

[houghi]

In Europe a lot of countries have stricter privacy laws then elswhere. If anybody except law askes for information with my provider and they give it, I have won my case, because the evidence was not recieved in a lawfull way.

I could even sue my provider.

Now if they just forward the mail, I can just ignore it and wait for a lawsuit, wich brings me back to step one above.

In Belgium, if you just fileshare and not sell, there is a pretty big chance that they will put your case at the bottom of the pile. The law in Belgium already once told them they would not go after each and every file-sharer. They will spend their time with people who try to make money with it.