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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.
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."
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.