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Legalize File Sharing, Say Swedish MPs
CrystalFalcon writes "In the past week, the file sharing debate has exploded in Sweden, with numerous mainstream politicians finally having understood the issue. Last week, seven Swedish MPs wrote a prominent opinion piece saying that fully legalized file sharing is not just the best solution, it's the only solution. Now their number has increased to 13, and the issue continues to grow. Good summaries at TorrentFreak and P2P Consortium. Original opinion piece in English here."
Actually they recently criminalized _buying_ sexual services. Selling therm is still legal, though.
sudo ergo sum
I'm sorry, but your statement has no basis in fact. Sweden is the world's third largest exporter of music.
That's wrong, Sweden produce, percentage, most international music of all countries in the world. Why Sweden is in the front of the filesharing debate is because we have the highest internet and computer use in the world. Every home in Sweden have at the worst a ADSL-link connected.
FTA:
That's not the same as the synopsis:
Now, I RTFA and it reads to me that he feels that the media/IP industries will never be satisfied with what the state does and that he doesn't feel it's the states place to police the Internet. Both of these are admirable and sensible statements, in line with what many people actually think.
But I really don't think he is advocating Sweden as some sort of torrent haven as some posters seem to be suggesting.
A thistle is a fat salad for an ass's mouth...
"...little IP..."
Ahrem... just because the country barely has 9 million people doesn't mean they have little IP. The cool thing with Sweden is that it has IP where it matters and LOADS of it.
ABB, Ericsson, Tetra Laval... I could go on.
That you got 5 mod points is insulting.
As much as I would love to see this go through, the numbers make this look like a fringe movement to me. There are 349 members of the Riksdag (Swedish Parliament) and the article says only 13 MPs have come out in favor of this. Even though this originated from a member of the leading party, it is still a long ways from becoming more than rhetoric.
I'll definitely be keeping my eyes open for updates on this, though.
Sure it does, if said speed limits are artificially low. There's a stretch of highway in my town where the posted limit is 55 and the average speed is 70. There isn't an abundance of accidents due to this higher speed and even the cops won't bother pulling you over until you exceed 70. So why is it posted 55?
Many speed limits are set artificially low. They should be raised.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
However, you incorrectly extrapolate and assume that all countries on Earth have the same problem. Yes, money influences politics all over the world, but rarely is the correlation as blatant and endemic as in the US. From what I can see of politics in some other countries (Canada and Sweden, for instance), politicians are more directly "afraid of voters" and no amount of campaign contributions can save them from voter opinion.
I'm not sure whether the fundamental difference lies in the laws related to campaigning, or whether it's a subtle difference in voter expectations, but the end result is that in some countries, the political process is co-opted by financial interests far more than in other countries. (Can someone more knowledgeable comment on this?)
This "money buys votes" issue is one of the biggest problems in the U.S., in my opinion, because it is the worst kind of scandal: a scandal that has become so commonplace and out-in-the-open that people consider it normal and don't even try to fight it anymore. But it should be clear that "money buying votes" is NOT democracy, and anyone (company or politician or voter) accepting such a system is ruining democracy. (This issue of "institutionalized corruption" is something that Lawrence Lessig has now turned his efforts towards.)
(Note: Yes, I'm aware that the illegal raids on the Pirate Bay's servers occurred because of a "money talks" intervention from U.S. interests. Clearly the Swedish system was subverted by money in this case. But one should also note that the fallout from that was severe...)
Argh. I knew I should have checked the facts before making assumptions. The Canadian DMCA *would* have been ridiculously bad, but it didn't get passed.
Actually he did use it correctly. It's like the difference between come and go or here and there. You use emigrate when you are in your native country and immigrate when you are in the destination country.
Prostitution is a funny case. Often, the "seller" is in a position of peculiar weakness compared to the "buyer" and "broker" (pimp). If buying and broking is illegal but selling isn't, then the prostitute has immunity from prosecution, giving him/her a great deal of negotiating power they wouldn't normally have.
Debates over the existince and quality of Swedish pr0n aside, http://www.migrationsverket.se/english.jsp is the central site for Swedish immigration information, although you may wish to contact your local embassy/consulate for more situation-specific information (as I discovered when I called to get the exchange rate to use for calculating the application fee and was told there was a separate site for US applicants that I should have been looking at for those details instead).
The claim is that many hookers are not selling sex out of their free will, and that given an alternative, they would stop selling sex. Thus, the legislators did not feel like coming down hard on a group that already has a difficult time.
"Property taxes refer only to real estate property"
Total and utter BS. Educate yourself.
Have you never heard of the Personal Property Tax? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Property_tax
"In the United States, another form of property tax is the personal property tax, which can target
* automobiles, boats, aircraft and other vehicles;
* other valuable durable goods such as works of art (most household goods and personal effects are usually exempt);
* business inventory;
* intangible assets such as stocks and bonds.
In some states, it is permissible to separate the real estate tax, into two separate taxes--one the land value and one on the building value. (See Land Value Taxation.)
Personal property taxes can be assessed at almost any level of government, though they are perhaps most commonly assessed by states."
Hey, that sounds like an interesting idea. As long as the tax is high enough to deter companies from keeping the property indefinitely.