Slashdot Mirror
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."
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. This game will continue because, like all forms of covert smuggling operations, the excise tax charged by these organizations are viewed by the consumer as onerous and overpriced. If the music and film industry were to reduce their taxes, just as England did in the mid-18th Century, they will find that compliance increases and smuggling declines to nominal levels.
You can say the same thing about prohibition. Once you create a black market for a product through legislation or exorbitant pricing, it is impossible to put smuggling down permanently.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
That seems like exactly the right thing to do to me, actually. Not that I think that copyright infringement is something that necessarily should be allowed, mind you, but if somebody's done something wrong, then it's the job of the police to investigate - not private companies'. And the fact that Antipiratbyrån seems to have planted evidence in the past (search for it, I'm too lazy to look up the story; Slashdot covered it) just shows again why this is important.
What's more, it's not immediately clear to me why it would even be legal for an ISP to give out data about customers to a private company that asks for it, without (I presume) the customer's knowledge or consent. Not that I know a thing about Swedish law, of course, but that sounds like exactly the kind of thing that could result in class action lawsuits and the like, so if I was an ISP, I'd definitely err on the safe side here and only hand over customer data to the police, not private companies, and only when ordered to do so by a court of law.
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
That's a stupid statement.
... If the owner of said item wants it to be.
.50 to a another schmuck, and then .50 to the musician.
Music, information, entertainment should be free!
Musicians don't make music to just give it away (some do) but they also need to eat. I have no problems handing over some cash for a CD I like.
What I don't like doing is handing over 25.99 for a cd, and having 23.99 go to a label,
That's what I don't like.
But running around saying it all should be free is ridiculous. Remember, making that cd you listen to, or that mp3 you just downloaded, took time, took money and is someones lively hood.
It's like stating all car repairs should be free!
oogly boogly!
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.
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
PB, based in Sweden, has some fun to read legal threats from Microsoft, Dreamworks, EA, White Stripes, etc. along with PB's responses.
[alk]
The music industry would like you to pay every time you listen to your CD.
Having you buy another one if you break it is still waaaay off this objective, but rest assured that they will do everything in their power to get there.
Same with the movie industry of course.
So, enjoy your free re-listening while it lasts.
In my opinion, Scientology is a cult you should avoid.
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.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
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.