Slashdot Mirror
ISPs Dragged Into Swedish File Sharing Battle
paulraps writes "Swedish internet service providers may soon be required by law to take greater responsibility for unlawful file-sharing. Although rejecting the ludicrous idea of an overarching broadband fee which would be shared out among copyright holders, a government report published on Monday called for internet providers to be 'bound to contribute to bringing all copyright infringement to an end'. Under the proposal, copyright holders whose material is being shared illegally would be entitled to compensation from ISPs which did not ban users. Needless to say, the country's ISPs are not happy."
making roads take more responsibility for drunk drivers?
>>> 'bound to contribute to bringing all copyright infringement to an end'.
Does this mean they can donate to organisations that want to end copyright altogether ?
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Seems rather absurd way to deal with the problem to me. Why not make telephone companies responsible for policing wire fraud crimes then?!
Actually I'm not sure taxing users is necessarily ludicrous when compared to the artificiality of DRMing content. This is what happens with Universities, the BBC etc. - it rather depends doesn't it?
I'm worried about people stealing things from me, and the record companies employ people. If they don't take measures to prevent those people from stealing my property, I think I'm entitled to my share of a tax on the record companies in order to defray the costs of any thefts that might happen.
Making ISPs more "responsible" means increasing their costs, which can only result in higher prices for internet services that all of their customers will have to pay, including those who (e.g. out of respect for the law) would never engage in non-authorized "file sharing".
I don't personally like the idea of copyright fees for media, but I wouldn't call it ludicrous.. People as diverse as RMS and corporate folk have suggested it as a workable solution..
It's kind of sad to see people attach spit words to anything they disagree with, without telling us why...
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
So if ISPs will contribute one closed user account per year in order to bring copyright infringement to an end, will them overlords be happy? Why is it always that government reports do not use operational definitions. At one time in the report, the author talks about blocking "the subscriptions of people who use the internet to share copyright-protected material on a large scale." What does that mean, large scale? One song? Thousands of songs? One MB? Thousand MB? If you as author of a report talk about copyright infringement being a problem, without providing metrics, your report basically says nothing.
Now that we'll soon see the post office being held liable for every mail bomb delivered.
Hey, why not? It's exactly the same. They mustn't look what's inside and are liable for it.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Sweden is often portrayed as a very progressive (from the slashdot user's POV), permissive state with regard to P2P, copyright and internet issues, but will that last? Judging by what I read of the Pirate Bay's battles with the government there, it seems the current permissiveness is really just an accident, something the government really resents. And the government is the agent that can change laws, not the Pirate Bay or their supporters (unless they get some serious popular support that translates to votes at election time). So even if currently the Swedish government seems powerless to prosecute copyright infringers or Bittorrent tracker hosts, give them a little time and they'll remove the obstacles that prevent them from doing so.
Here in Belgium Scarlet telecom has recently lost a lawsuit issued by the belgian RIAA (SABAM). The judge has ruled that the ISP should ban P2P traffic, needless to say Scarlet has appealed against this bs decision. All other Belgian ISP's have received a letter treathening to sue them too if the don't cut off P2P traffic.
I'm sorry for my poor knowledge of English and i am currently fortifying my house out of fear for the grammar nazi's.
This is very dangerous for freedom on the 'net. The only way to "ban P2P traffic" effectively is to ban all traffic that can not be verified to be something else.
This means for example that ISPs would have to restrict ssh remote login to hosts on a whitelist.
Encryption, my friends. Govt can't censor what they can't read. And personally I believe it's ridiculous to equate a downloaded file to a lost sale - many of them wouldn't be sales, anyway. (Also check my manifesto for a more revolutionary opinion)
Actually, an overarching broadband fee which would be shared out among copyright holders
might be the most sensible way to deal with this whole mess. And not just in sweden.
Why not put in systems that measure, based on statistical sampling at some representative
routers, a rough idea of the number of copies of content item x,y, or z that are making their
way across the net at any given moment, then average that out over a week, say, and use
that figure to determine the weekly share of the copyright tax.
This is essentially a financial reward for providing popular content to the masses.
We may have to get over our high-minded view of our cultural tastes, when we see how
much of the take is going to the pr0nographers, but if that's the way it is, then that's
the way it is. Let's just hope the artists are being compensated fairly, and middle-persons
aren't taking the lion's share of the loot.
I think a system like this could support artists of all kinds quite well, without the need for
a corporate distribution channel, and it could also end the
police takedowns of 12 year old copy-criminal-masterminds.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
It's obviously a debate that is bound to generate some buzz, but how realistic is it? In my opinion, it is not a realistic plan.
- For starters, where do you draw the line? Is downloading one song enough?
- Who is going to pay for all the incredible amount of data processing?
- How often can one be 100% certain that it is in fact piracy?
- How are they going to disprove that an ISP isn't doing what's expected?
- How are the ISP:s expected to keep up with the fast pace of anti-anti piracy prevention methods?
- Why is the ISP supposed to police its customers, when it is clearly the police dep's job?
- How is this filter going to work and how will they make sure that the customer's privacy rights are preserved?
Good luck. It's probably a media stunt by some lawyer with a fat paycheck from RIAA.
Full Tilt
If so then all email must, by law be shut down. Now there is a solution to spam.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
Your content file would only be measured if you explicitly opted it in to the technical system for measuring,
say by providing a copy of it with a claim to copyright attached to a central web service for receiving
those claims. There would have to be a good way of verifying the copyright claims, and a dispute
resolution mechanism built in.
If you did not opt your content in, nothing would track its travels in some kind of disturbing orwellian fashion.
Users of such content would also be made aware of the general tracking of "commercial" content going on, but
in any case the tracking would be at central net nodes, and wouldn't provide insights into what individual
people/households were watching. At most, we might learn of a strange Bjork-fan cluster in Cleveland, or
something equally disturbing, but that's about it.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Let the fun begin...
It is fairly obvious that the Internet is the greatest anonymous theft tool there ever was. Today credit card fraud is covered by the merchant with the threat that if they don't eat the loss they will lose the ability to take credit cards. That seems to be enough of a threat - so they just eat the loss and pay for expensive fraud-prevention tools.
Music and movies cost someone money. Nobody I know pays, but I am sure there are some people that actually do pay. Sweden, and a number of other countries have ISPs that actively thumb their nose at "copyright enforcement" so I suspect this is a PR move only. Only with government apathy would they get away with it today and I believe Netherlands, Sweden, China, Russia and a bunch of other places look at it with the attitude that it is only a few rich Americans losing, so what?
Sure, how can they stop it? You can't prove piracy and you can't connect an IP address to a person. So law enforcement is powerless. So are other legal avenues. Maybe a ninja hit squad would help... or get the Jamaican mafia to help.
Face it, revenue for anything that can be shared on the Internet is about over. How much advertising does Adobe do? How many emails do I get advertising Adobe products for 10% of their list price? Of course all of that goes to Russian mob guys, but so what? If it costs 10% of everywhere else, don't you think people are buying there and saving their money?
Music is free today. Movies are getting to be free - anything popular is available for downloading, courtesy of our friends in Sweden again. Oh yeah, they are just "indexing" the material not actually doing anything like making it available or anything. Right.
I would imagine consumer internet connections costs in Sweden go pretty similarly as they do here in Finland (apart from the huge government subsidiaries in Sweden). The most common internet connection here is ADSL, in Sweden probably too (though they have a lot more government layed fiber). Whatever speed the customer picks costs the same amount to get running, but the margins for a high speed (=expensive) connection where a lot lower.
I used to work for an ISP, and at the time it took over a year for a customer with a slow ADSL subscription to break even and start providing some profit. If he had the fastest connection it was only a matter of months! If the government wants to cut of people with a lot of traffic nobody will take the fast connections. If they want to block bit torrent people will use something else. So I think it's pretty safe to say the ISP's will make sure file sharing continues one way or another.
^- I'm just happy I'm a customer on this ISP.
The purposed "law" sounds completely arbitrary, and out of touch with the modern society... People are doing lots of other things than sharing P2P, and this proposal would require the ISP to scan *all* users to be on the safe side, including those who use their account for nothing more than online banking and private e-mails. Hardly something that should ever even risk being scanned without a much better reason than someone file sharing the latest movie release of Superbad.
That they're proposing to go the lengths like these, an online witch hunt comparable only to that of pedophiles that I can think of now, if not worse, really makes one wonder where things are heading... Protection of intellectual property at all costs, crossing the boundaries of privacy and raising a pretty much impossible mountain of efforts the ISP's have to climb.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
to run the computer there would be no online or computer piracy. They should go after the OS makers. Might as well control peoples food intake and make them too weak to think and have no enrgy to be able to use a computer..
Maybe BestBuy should require people to take polygraph testes to see if they intend to download files from the internet when they go there to purchase a computer/cd writer or a bigger hard drive. Then refuse to sell them the equipment if they fail.
If all music/movies were free then there would be no piracy. How about that.
Ridiculous
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
I think this is a fantastic idea. They should be very careful to spell out the terms, but provided that it's not an exhorbitant amount per person (say, 5 cents per month), think about the flip side of that deal: for say 5 cents per person per month (or whatever nominal fee they work out), copyright holders are paid. That means that all people are free to copy as much music as they want. No more need for sites like pirate bay to operate in the shadows.
I mean, surely the copyright holders don't want to be paid and give nothing in return at all. Right? Guys? ...guys?
but have you considered the following argument: shut up.
This is the end all, be all of centrally planned economies... its socialism at its best... those that blame either Adam Smith or "capitalism" or "free markets" don't realize that all this is the end result of the UNFREE markets. This has been the way socialism works... surprise, it ain't pretty.
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
Show the world that sweden was not unrightfully labeled as one of the foremost civil liberties countries.
Read radical news here
Am I the only one who's getting a little sick of copyright holders constantly trying to enforce their will on manufacturers, legislators, service providers, and the general public ?
In fact I'm starting to get sick of the whole concept of copyright itself, and so I ask: do we really need it ? If the "artists" can't make millions from a single recording, and if no one can build a multibillion dollar company around a singing and dancing cartoon mouse, do we really lose anything important ? And more importantly, do we lose more than we gain: the ability of everyone to freely participate in and expand popular culture without having to build a whole new world from scratch - and no, Disney, Rowling and company haven't done so, they've drawn from existing myths and stories for theirs.
Let us abolish copyright, kill the copyright cartels once and for all, and then freely enjoy the fruits of digital revolution. I assure you, art won't disappear, altought a lot of crap will.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
1. Find a IT story about Sweden
2. Post on Slashdot
3. ???
4. Profit!
Seriously - there seem to be a lot of stories from Sweden at the moment? I'm beginning to think that Lichtenstein and Andorra are not pulling their weight.
'k make up your own joke, I'm to tired.
One can't reasonably deny the importance of incentivizing content production and that means we need to pay our artists somehow. Now I think the current copyright system has *huge* inefficencies. It stops people from using the content they purchased in the ways they want, it restricts derivitive works, it stops people from using content they can't track down the copyright holder. In short it sucks.
Now it's an unfortunate fact about human nature that if you don't punish people for crime they tend to do it. If you don't like the RIAA or similar organizations suing filesharers nor do you like ISPs restricting their ability to share what do you to make sure that content producers are incentivized to produce? If people can share music and movies without consequence eventually even the people who now insist on buying the works they like will stop. Sure there will be a long list of justifications and explanations (ohh, I didn't like it that much, why should I pay when everyone else isn't, I'd pay if they just made it easier) but no one is going to want to be the sucker paying for their music when no one else is doing so. This leaves you in a bind so what are you going to do.
In my opinion the right answer is much like a broadband access fee but more extreme. Content producers ought to be compensated by the government proportionally to the popularity (and perhaps surveys indicating need/appreciation) in return for putting their work in the public domain (in that country). Sure there are inefficiencies in this scheme but much less than in the current situation. No one is denied content because they can't afford it no one is barred from making derivative works. The scheme proposed here isn't anywhere near this but it seems a good first step.
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
Actually, an overarching broadband fee which would be shared out among copyright holders might be the most sensible way to deal with this whole mess. And not just in sweden.
Yes, it is a good idea and it does work. The thing is that in Sweden, we already have these fees in place. We have Svenska Filminstitutet, Film i Väst, subsidies from the EU, Kulturrådet and dozens of other regional and national institutions in place to support movie makers, music artists and writers. We pay lots of money in taxes to subsidize the movie industry because it is very hard to make profitable movies in Swedish. Each movie gets many millions in subsidizes from the state which is the only reason why people still make movies here.
That's fine by me, quality often not profitable. But it is not ok when these same people decide to turn the backs on the people that, in reality, feed them and demand even more money. I think it is my moral right to download every Swedish movie I want, for free, I already payed for it. There should be some kind of rule that each company that complains about file sharers is banned from receiving subsidies, see how long that lasts.
Football Odds
Can P2P traffic be made to look like "something else"?
I'm betting it can - easily!
No sig today...
I just watched the webcast of the hearing of Cecilia Renfors' findings. In summary:
* A law would only concern itself with uploads.
* ISP's would still be prohibited to "spy" on usage. I.e. they would not be able to lawfully determine that infringement is going on or to log such activity.
* A copyright holder would be able to initiate a court hearing with the intent of forcing the ISP to cut off or otherwise limit the offending usage.
* It seems that the ISP would not be forced to give the actual identity of the user behind the offending usage -- only to cut them off their service.
* In the court proceedings, the copyright holder and the ISP would negotiate in the absence of the offending user.
Seriously, it's hard to see how this could ever work. In case of a notification of abuse from a copyright holder, the ISP is limited to further notify the user of this event. The ISP would not get a permit to log detailed usage simply because a copyright holder thinks it has a case.
Effectively, a simple workaround for ISP's to protect service subscribers would be to
* Force DHCP IP reassignments randomly to foil third party surveilance.
* Notify users when a case is initiated. Since the ISP cannot lawfully spy prior to the notification, the user will be able to take steps at that point to limit personal risk.
The real danger is for ISP's and not users. One part of the proposal basically says that IF (a copyright holder asks an ISP to limit a user) AND (the ISP refuses) AND (the court later sides with the copyright holder) THEN the ISP may have to pay damages for the infringement. Since the ISP will not be lawfully able to present evidence (because it requires spying), the copyright holder would be able to generate infringement evidence randomly and no one could reasonably question it.
You'd understand the ISP's are a bit mad right now.
If the media companies are serious about having a flat fee and allowing free and legal sharing of copyrighted media, I'll go along with it. I would happily pay a monthly fee for access to all copyrighted material, as long as DRM of any kind was banned and I, as a producer of high quality MIDI music, were entitled to my cut as well.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
... the lingerie industry will be required to impose a pantyhose fee, to be shared out among banks and shop owners.
Then go directly to jail when they claimed responsibility for the spam
in order to get paid.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Is the government agency that is going to collect that money. The Netherlands have a similar 'non-profit' agency that collects the extra levies on CD's, DVD's, hard drives, MP3-players (and everybody knows by now that mass-importing it from Germany is cheaper), it's called Stichting Thuiskopie, and recently the government noticed that they are collecting money but hardly (better yet, not at all) distributing that money among neither artists, media producers nor 'cultural' projects.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
How exactly is that ludicrous? If you paid a 15-20% surcharge on your ISP fee to download anything and everything anytime and the money went to artists on a straight popularity basis (easily monitored at the network level), all kinds of good things would happen.
The devil is in the details. A good system would render record labels and TV networks obsolete so they would fight it. But it's a great solution.
The EFF has suggested something similar, a $5/month Voluntary Collective Licensing Fee. Making it voluntary is fantasy (and I say that as one of a handful of people who actually gave money to FairTunes each time I made an MP3 for friends). Making it a percentage of broadband cost (so someone on DSL pays less than broadband, and dial-up less still) is fairer than the subscription model Rick Rubin proposes in the NYTimes article, and making it compulsory makes DRM irrelevant.
=S
I just want to say that I read this as "ISPs Dragged Into Swedish Fish Sharing Battle," and for a split second was prepared for the most awesome thread of the last five years.
If the RIAA and MPAA manage to kill the internet, the PC industry will die an almost complete death. Can you imagine what would happen to world markets if PC sales suddenly plummeted 80%? Then again, most folks seem willing to put up with any use of government force as if it were nothing. The jack boots cannot be too far behind.