Sweden to Give Courts New Power to Hunt IP Infringers

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "The Swedish Culture & Justice ministers are preparing to give new power to Swedish courts to let them force ISPs to give up subscriber IPs. The end goal is trying subscribers in court for copyright infringement. As the one-time home of the Pirate Bay, which is now internationally distributed, they face both US pressure and push-back at home. The Swedish arm of the Pirate Party is calling this move a 'sanctioned blackmailing operation', but hopefully the Swedish courts won't allow the IFPI to use as many tricks as the RIAA has in US courts."

Comments

Re:Illegal files? Illegitimate Requests!

[trawg]

Pirate bay provides links (or trackers) to files, those trackers/links are not copyrighted in any way and there's not law in Sweden that forbids such practice (unlike USA's DMCA). So, In Sweden doing what Pirate Bay does is not illegal AT ALL. That's fine - but that's not the point of the article. It sounds like they're giving up going after the Pirate Bay, specifically because there's no laws against its existence. They want to go after the people that are USING the Pirate Bay, and they're getting laws crafted to force ISPs to cooperate by giving up details of file sharers.

Re:Pirate Bay is law abiding!

[stubear]

Swedish copyright only protects works created in Sweden. The Berne Convention, an international treaty protecting copyright law worldwide which Sweden has agreed to, states that copyrighted works are protected by the laws in the country where they were created. This means that in Sweden it is illegal to distribute a work created in the US unless you have been given a license to do so. This also means that my e-mails are equally as protected as any other work regardless of technical merit.

Re:No, actually

[VGPowerlord]

The following is the entry for piracy from Merriam-Webster Online. Note the third definition.

1: an act of robbery on the high seas; also : an act resembling such robbery
2: robbery on the high seas
3 a: the unauthorized use of another's production, invention, or conception especially in infringement of a copyright b: the illicit accessing of broadcast signals

Re:Pirate Bay is law abiding!

[prxp]

The Berne Convention (...) states that copyrighted works are protected by the laws in the country where they were created. This means that in Sweden it is illegal to distribute a work created in the US unless you have been given a license to do so. I beg to differ. And since IANAL, here it is a quote from wikipedia about it:

The Berne Convention requires its signatories to recognise the copyright of works of authors from other signatory countries (known as members of the Berne Union) in the same way it recognises the copyright of its own nationals, which means that, for instance, French copyright law applies to anything published or performed in France, regardless of where it was originally created.

This use of the word piracy is not recent

[Valdrax]

Actually, piracy has actually been in use as a term to describe infringing on another's intellectual property rights for at least 180 years in American courts.

For an example, see Blunt v. Patten, 2 Paine 397, 3 F.Cas. 763 (1828):

In answer to a question from the court, whether the defendant had pirated from the drawings and papers, or from the engravings, he answered, from the engravings.
. . .
The act that secures copyright to authors, guards against the piracy of the words and sentiments; but it does not prohibit writing on the same subject. As in the case of histories and dictionaries.

Re:No, actually

[Valdrax]

piracy, n.
3. The unauthorized and illegal reproduction or distribution of materials protected by copyright, patent, or trademark law. See INFRINGEMENT.

"[T]he test of piracy [is] not whether the identical language, the same words, are used, but whether the substance of the production is unlawfully appropriated." Eaton S. Drone, A Treatise on the Law of Property in Intellectual Productions 97 (1879).

Black's Law Dictionary (2004)(citation abridged)

Re:Illegal files? Illegitimate Requests!

[Foobar of Borg]

Sir, your calm demeanor and carefully set forth logic are a wonder to behold. Let's go through this one at a time, shall we?

I see. I am a simpleton. Because I understand the law AS WRITTEN, and believe that the owners of property should have the right to use, sell or license their property as they see fit?

I understand the law as written as well. You are a simpleton because you do not ask the rather obvious questions "Why is the law written this way?" and "Is this law right and just?"

When was the RIAA convicted of "price fixing"? I know that 5 labels were found guilty of colluding with three store chains to set a MAP, but that's not the RIAA.

Here. That took all of two seconds on an internet search. You could simply have searched for the terms "RIAA price fixing" and you would have received numerous hits, but I guess you were too busy having your apoplectic fit.

You don't think copyright should be as long as it is; others think otherwise. In your oh-so-enlightened mind, that makes you God almighty correct and the rest of us simply simpletons who go along with the sheep. And if we don't agree with you we MUST be shills or trolls! Heaven forbid anyone disagree with such a towering intellect as yourself!

If you will actually bother to read what I wrote, I called you a shill or a troll because of the terminology you were using. You were talking about rights holders rather than artists. Also, the "others [who] think otherwise" are generally members of groups like the RIAA and others who stand to profit from eternal copyright. Copyright is a fiction, albeit a useful one if done properly. The purpose of copyright is to give a person legal rights for a limited time in exchange for the product of their creativity becoming publicly available after the time has passed. Or, to put it another way, instead of having artistic and inventive works be kept secret, the government grants legal rights so as to foster the developments of the creative arts. Again, the reason I called you a simpleton is because, while you may understand the law as written, you do not seem to begin to grasp *why* the law is there in the first place.

So, other than your PERSONAL feelings that copyright should be considerably shortened, what exactly is wrong with Sweden enforcing IP rights? What is wrong with the owners of the copyright enforcing their LEGAL rights?

Again, if you will actually bother to read what I wrote, I did not say that there is something inherently wrong with copyright itself. The problems are (at least with the RIAA and possibly will be with its Swedish counterpart) (1) how long should those rights last? and (2) how should one be allowed to prosecute infringers? If I think you stole something of mine, I am well within my rights to persue legal action against you. I am not within my rights to hack your computer to try to find emails of you bragging about it, nor am I within my rights to kick in your door, hold you at gunpoint, and search your house for it. Do you even begin to see the problem here?

And, by the way, your feet stink and your mother dresses you funny.