After Sweden's New Law, a Major Drop In Internet Traffic

iamnot writes "The new IPRED law came into effect in a big way in Sweden on April 1st. A news report has come out showing that internet traffic dropped by 30% from March 31st to April 1st. A lawyer from the Swedish anti-piracy agency was quoted as saying that the drop in traffic 'sends a very strong signal that the legislation works.' Is the new law, which allows for copyright holders to request the identification of people sharing files, truly curing people of their evil ways? Or perhaps it is just taking some time for Swedish downloaders to figure out the new IPREDator VPN system from The Pirate Bay."

Comments

Nothing will change.

[palegray.net]

People route around legislative roadblocks faster than legislators can build new ones. It's kinda what the Internet is all about.

Re:Nothing will change.

[Anonymous Coward]

Would be interesting to see the Swedish usage statistics for OneSwarm before and after IPRED.

Re:Nothing will change.

[Z00L00K]

I also suspect that it will be temporary and that the methods will change over time.

Let's see what it is in a month from now. However - it's spring time so you may get lower traffic if the weather is good and people starts to spend time outdoors. Some hackers may even have a life!

Re:Nothing will change.

[Anonymous Coward]

Before: 3
After: 5

Re:Nothing will change.

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if they can't route around it (or until they do), the summary may be right that this is a sign the legislation is working.

If I went round to every persons house, put a gun to their head, and told them I would shoot them if they kept sharing files, I think you would also see a dip in the stats like this.

Just because it works, it doesn't mean that its reasonable, proportional or fair. Luckily, like the gun example, the authorities/record labels will need to follow through with their threats. As soon as people realise that people aren't being shot for sharing, they'll start again. And if people are shot for sharing, there'll be protests on the streets. Not what any government wants.

Re:Nothing will change.

[Imsdal]

Ehh, no? I can't imagine the weather having much impact on Bittorrent traffic. It's not like you sit and watch the downloads after you have started them, do you? You start the download, then do something else (on or off the computer). There may be a summer reduction in Internet traffic due to students leaving campus, but I really doubt that has anything to do with the weather.

Re:Nothing will change.

[Razalhague]

I'd say the majority of people who go outside when the weather is nice also shut down their computers when they're not sitting in front of it.

Re:Nothing will change.

[the_one(2)]

As we saw when the government passed a law making it illegal to download MP3's there was a significant drop in Internet traffic as well. That didn't like very long either =) People are bit afraid of being caught at first but they soon realize that the chance is next to nothing.

Re:Nothing will change.

[Anonymous Coward]

You clearly don't know the sweedes, do you? ;-)

No but seriously, don't underestimate the impact of the weather for us sweedes. No joke. Whenever then sun pops out we tend to go do everything outdoors, just because we can.

Re:Nothing will change.

[Kokuyo]

Which makes absolutely no sense for heavy BT users.

Re:Nothing will change.

[Runaway1956]

Outdoors? I thought that a young man's thoughts turned to love in the spring time. Oh, wait - the girl has to be brought back TO the basement, right?

Re:Nothing will change.

[Anonymous Coward]

no, you would come to my house and before you pull your gun to point at my head you will have a bullet in yours.

People will fight back, they just have to figure out a way to do it first.

Re:Nothing will change.

[L4t3r4lu5]

Not if you keep her locked up under the stares.

Too soon?

Re:Nothing will change.

[commodore64_love]

I have my doubts this drop has anything to do with either Piratebay or the new law.

Usage probably dropped-off due to fears over Conficker, as people avoided using their internet on April 1 (including me), and waited to see if there would be any carnage. But never mind the truth. Politicians would rather grasp any straw no matter how flimsy, to justify their acts.

Re:Nothing will change.

[Imsdal]

I am a Swede. I can agree that when the weather is fine we try to be outdoors, but again, this does not mean that we shut down our Bittorrent clients. My computers run 24/7, all three of them.

Re:Nothing will change.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not soon enough - that joke is already stale.

Re:Nothing will change.

[HonIsCool]

Miljöterrorist!

Re:Nothing will change.

[LordKronos]

If I'm spending more time outside, that means less time inside, which means less time available to watch movies and use the computer, which means less reason to bother downloading movies, games, and apps (unless you are simply a hoarder).

Re:Nothing will change.

[travbrad]

Either that or one of the tubes got clogged.

Re:Nothing will change.

[Thorwak]

You're saying we only have 3 tubes in Sweden? :(

Re:Nothing will change.

[Anonymous Coward]

You're an american, aren't you?

Re:Nothing will change.

[castironpigeon]

I doubt it would work like that. Protests in the streets? I don't hear about a single street protest anytime a big tracker gets taken down, a **AA lobbies for some ridiculous new regulation, or ISPs voluntarily do something obviously unreasonable and unfair to their customers. We're going to bend over and we're going to take it. If we'd been fighting against regulation like this before, it wouldn't have gotten this far.

Re:Nothing will change.

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't say "Bittorrent traffic", it says "internet traffic".

While the wheather might not affect traffic from file transfers, it may well cause a reduction of youtube, online gaming and browsing traffic.

Re:Nothing will change.

[Znork]

the summary may be right that this is a sign the legislation is working.

Not really. If you look at the longer term statistics the actual situation is that in the last 6 months prior to the legislation coming into effect there was a massive drawn out flood of traffic, almost doubling ordinary levels. What's happening now is that it's falling back to what it was before.

So the only effect was that people started downloading like crazy just in case, in anticipation of an event of unknown consequences. That it's only dropped back to normal levels is more surprising really; with the previous levels of traffic one might assume that some may have material to last them for years.

Re:Nothing will change.

[relguj9]

Or people stopped browsing on April 1 because they realized every news article was a bs April fool's joke.

Re:Nothing will change.

[halcyon1234]

Usage probably dropped-off due to fears over Conficker, as people avoided using their internet on April 1 (including me)

Nah, man. It just goes to show that April 1st's Internet Reboot worked exactly like they said it would. It cleaned up a bunch of old websites that were clogging things up with their traffics.

Re:Nothing will change.

[MBGMorden]

I certainly haven't noticed it. Maybe 10% of the people I know turn off their computers when not in use. Whether or not they go outside when it's nice or not doesn't seem to make a difference there. Just me personally during the summer I get in a ton of fishing (even do local bass tournaments), but even when I'm out on the river my bitorrent machine is always on. If it has some video stuff to process my Mac is probably on too.

Re:Nothing will change.

[wooferhound]

first I wold have my stares
then I would lock her up under the stairs

Re:Nothing will change.

[linhux]

It surely does, especially as the daylight hours get longer as the summer approaches. People watch a lot of TV series and movies during the dark winter hours, and much less during the light and warm summers. Note that in northen Sweden, sun doesn't set at all during summer, while in winter the sun never rise. In the more populated areas, like Stockholm, it's not quite as bad but the difference in the amount of daylight is still very big:

http://www.visitsweden.com/sweden/Sweden-Facts/Worth-knowing-about-Sweden/Time--daylight-hours/

Re:Nothing will change.

[arndawg]

no a SERIES of 3 tubes.

Re:Nothing will change.

[Hatta]

If that were the case, the decrease in traffic would be seen everywhere. The IPRED law is only effect in Europe. (maybe just in sweden? I can't tell) So check the traffic in the US for 4/1, if it goes down too, then it's not due to this law. If it's unaffected, then it's probably due to this law.

Re:Nothing will change.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just Politicians? That also describes upper management at every compnay I have worked at...

Re:Nothing will change.

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't say for sure, but I can tell you with certainty he isn't French.

Re:Nothing will change.

[lxs]

"You start the download, then do something else"

You can do that? Boy, do I need a different BT client. I have to check each packet received by hand, and stamp each outgoing packet with the recipient's zip code.

Re:Nothing will change.

[dudeeh]

Only Sweden

Re:Nothing will change.

[flewp]

That's been my observation as well. Most people simply prefer to turn off the monitor when walking away for awhile. In fact, it seems some people seem to think turning off the monitor IS turning off the computer. For the rest of the people, they seem to just turn off the monitor because it's much quicker and easier than a full shut down then boot up.

Re:Nothing will change.

[rgviza]

> Some hackers may even have a life!

Hackers have no interest in commercial software. They write their own ;)

Re:Nothing will change.

[flewp]

In the middle of a snowstorm, and uphill both ways?

Re:Nothing will change.

[shutdown -p now]

But... but... think of all your precious unlimited bandwidth wasted while you're out enjoying free air! ~

Think of the bandwidth!

Re:Nothing will change.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you are spending less time indoors you have less need for something to watch. While you may not watch the downloads as they download you do watch them after and if you have several things lined up to watch you wont need to spend the effort to find some thing new. Also combine these new laws and the 16gig flash drives you can easily find this may be a good time to fire up that sneaker net. Just keep a few flash drives handy to pass to friends.

Re:Nothing will change.

[bzipitidoo]

There can't be many pirates. The globe is still warming!

And here they are trying to suppress piracy. Why do the Swedes hate the Earth?

Re:Nothing will change.

[traumamama]

Maybe something interesting will happen on Sept.19th-that's "Talk Like a Pirate Day"!

April 1st

[zombietangelo]

IMO April Fools Day is the worst day of the internet (especially for news). I, for one, was hardly on at all.

Re:April 1st

[Vectronic]

Exactly... a 24 hour period?

Slashdot has days where there are only about 70-100 comments on articles, does that mean people are against reading, or people don't like websites that start with 'S'?

Let me know at the end of April, if the amount is significantly lower than March.

I know quite a few people that were scared about Conficker that stayed offline too.

Re:April 1st

[malkir]

I think you nailed it, with the media being all over the 'worm attack' making it sound like nukes were going off, I'm sure many un-savvy web users just stayed offline.

Re:April 1st

[shoemilk]

Seriously, there's no more need to read on. 1 day does not meaningful statistics make.

Re:April 1st

[Znork]

Let me know at the end of April, if the amount is significantly lower than March.

It will most likely be significantly lower than March. This years March, however, was almost double last years March, so one might expect this years April to be more in line with last years April.

Look at the longer term statistics at http://stats.autonomica.se/mrtg/sums/Stockholm_GE.html and you'll note that the change in traffic isn't so much a drop as it is a return to normal after a massive 6-9 month spike. People aren't downloading less than usual, they have been downloading much much more than usual just in case.

Re:April 1st

[Anonymous Coward]

Based on the two year graph on that website it appears as though there's a small dip as the spring progresses towards summer. Although that doesn't explain the sharp drop, it's likely that traffic would slowly go down anyhow.

One possible explanation is that if the weather is getting nicer in that part of the world, people are spending more time outdoors and away from their computer.

There are probably several other factors at play as well. Other people have mentioned April Fools' Day and Cornficker being other good reasons for a sharp drop in traffic. Let's look back in a week to see if the traffic has rebounded at all.

very strong signal that the legislation works

[iminplaya]

Yep the bear patrol is working like a dream

Re:very strong signal that the legislation works

[wintermute000]

I want to buy your rock.

Re:very strong signal that the legislation works

[gaderael]

Why buy one lousy rock when you can buy this bridge I'm selling!

Re:very strong signal that the legislation works

[Idiomatick]

I don't have a rock but I have some magical snake oil that will cure any wound if you are interested.

I'd like to see...

[Tokerat]

...statistics on how much traffic ramped UP in the days and weeks before April 1st. I imagine that some where afraid of the new laws, and they where getting in some last-minute downloads before they had to cut the line and look for new methods to hide their traffic.

Re:I'd like to see...

[lordsilence]

Here, go ahead:

http://stats.autonomica.se/mrtg/sums_max/all_month_sum.png

This is the monthly summarized statistics for netnod. Does indeed look like a big drop at April 1st and pretty stable usage before.

Re:I'd like to see...

[rolfc]

Nope
Look at

http://stats.autonomica.se/mrtg/sums_max/all_year_sum.png

All the talk about filesharing must have spread the word. They could just as well try to sell air. ;)

Re:I'd like to see...

[SuperMo0]

But if you're looking for the weeks before, shouldn't we also be waiting for the weeks *after*? It's like when inspection stickers on cars roll over to the next month. You're bound to see people avoid driving their illegal cars to work until the weekend, when they can get it fixed. You'll see a drop in traffic for a day or two but that doesn't mean the change in speed limit affected anything. That weak analogy reminded me that my sticker just rolled over a couple days ago...

Re:I'd like to see...

[Anonymous Coward]

Take a look at the two year graph:

http://stats.autonomica.se/mrtg/sums/all_twoyear_sum.png

It seems that in 07 & 08 there were also drops in usage throughout spring & summer.

Re:I'd like to see...

[rsmith-mac]

That's a pretty regular usage if we're looking at a University (or something that feeds a Uni), which I suspect we are. You get growth starting around August when the kids arrive and start figuring out how to maximize their resources, a leveling off once they do maximize resources, a dip during the holidays, and finally followed by a return to previous stable levels. This is all against a slight slope in the curve, because bandwidth consumption is always rising on average.

There's nothing in the yearly graph that outright disagrees with TFA.

Re:I'd like to see...

[skrolle2]

You're looking at the bandwidth graph of all of Sweden, as measured by http://www.netnod.se/, not a single university.

Also, if you look at the two-year graph, http://stats.autonomica.se/mrtg/sums/all_twoyear_sum.png, you can see that the drop now down to 90Gbps only means that we're back at the levels of October last year.

Yeah, really effective, what a huge blow to filesharing in Sweden, how will it ever recover? Oh, let's wait half a year and it will definitely be back at the levels of late March again.

Re:I'd like to see...

[Lord Bitman]

what country could possibly look at a drop in overall internet usage as a good thing?

Re:I'd like to see...

[Eivind]

It looks stable only short-term. If you look at the graph for the last 3 years, then you see that the 30% drop is equivalent to putting bandwith-usage back where it was 9 months ago.

Nobody downloaded any illegal movies or music 9 months ago, right ?

Re:I'd like to see...

[nosound]

... speaking about statistics don't forget the membership statistics for the swedish Pirate Party: http://www.piratpartiet.se/partiet/medlemsstatistik-admin Notice any trend the last couple of days?

Re:I'd like to see...

[Anonymous Coward]

Think they noticed traffic went down for a Summer dip in April 2008?

Re:I'd like to see...

[Anonymous Coward]

compared to last year, that's a huge increase in traffic...

Re:I'd like to see...

[Anonymous Coward]

You are right, this will just cause the ISPs to request a bailout...

Re:I'd like to see...

[Anonymous Coward]

Peter Sunde claims that a similar drop ocurred on April 1st last year:
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=sv&ie=UTF-8&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http://hd.se/inrikes/2009/04/03/pirate-bay-naestan-oberoerd-av/

Re:I'd like to see...

[Xerolooper]

They could just as well try to sell air. ;)

I for one am glad for the air usage tax. Paid of course to the RAIA Regional Air Industry Association. Who would protect our air if they didn't. The government? pushah! Finally someone is doing something about the air shortage. I look forward to the new legislation which will only allow people to breath once every 3 minutes. I already have my bumper sticker "Don't Be an Air Hog" If you don't like it you can pay the higher cost "Air Hog Tax". These criminals who believe in sharing air are sick. Don't rich people who can afford to pay for it deserve more air.

They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Don't you see that the constant raising of stakes is simply going to end up fucking over everyone's civil rights in the end?

Cry all you want about the legitimacy of file sharing and how old media needs to adapt to the current technology, it's still legally questionable to "share" copyright works.

So now they make a law to get the names of users. You decide to start using VPN. They decide to outlaw VPN to certain IPs. You decide to use roaming servers. They decide to make filesharing software illegal.

Then everyone loses. Not just you guys who want to get your music and movies for free.

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[Captain Splendid]

Run away, run away!

Fixed that for you.

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[tick-tock-atona]

LISTER: You want to talk? Let's talk.
SIMULANT: You have no weapon?
LISTER: No. You have no weapon?
SIMULANT: No.

They walk towards each other.

SIMULANT: Guess what? (Pulls out hunting knife.) I lied.
LISTER: Guess what? (Allows pole to slide from the arm of his jacket.) So did I.
SIMULANT: But I lied twice. (Pulls out a handgun.)
LISTER: Smeg, I didn't think of that.

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Then everyone loses. Not just you guys who want to get your music and movies for free.

That's the point. Once the MAFIAA's tactics become so burdensome that they kill the net for everybody then they will have made an enemy of everybody and that is an unsustainable situation. My bet is on everybody, from the sound of it, your bet is on the MAFIAA.

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Just as my bet is on the handful of guys inside the G20 meeting and not on the thousands of idiots getting beat down outside, my bet is on the handful of guys getting laws passed and not the millions of idiots trying to avoid getting caught breaking the law.

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[Andtalath]

You see, what you're doing here is blaming the victim.
Yes, the victim.

Very few file-sharers have the capacity to buy the stuff they download, they are just tagging along in what is a part of their culture, a culture which the media conglomerate has built very effectively.

So, the choice is to be left out of the loop on everyday culture or pirate.

Also, do you honestly believe that most of the restraints from the government wouldn't happen regardless?
Governments want control, they will seize any opportunity to get greater control.

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[Thanshin]

Then everyone loses. Not just you guys who want to get your music and movies for free.

Funny how I see the exact same pattern but I interpret it as a good thing.

An arms race between government and the people that has the people as the ultimate winner? It's better than good.

The method of slowly pushing the commoners down and the rulers up doesn't stop with a reasonable and gradual struggle to make the situation more balanced. It stops when the commoners revolt, the powerful raise their armies against them and discover that those armies are too heavily outnumbered.

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[Bert64]

Actually, if you make filesharing software illegal it is only the legitimate users of it that lose out...
Downloading movies/warez/etc is already illegal, so those who do it are unlikely to be concerned about possessing another piece of illegal software to do it.

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[Hannes Eriksson]

IANAL, but there is a passage in the swedish constitution regarding right of speech (yttrandefrihetsgrundlagen, SFS 1991:1469, which I re-read for this reason, just a few days ago) that prohibits laws being passed to outlaw equipment used for sending or receiving radio programmes or any form of recording of text, images and/or sound. It leaves a small hole for laws that require a license send things wirelessly, but is quite strict on things passing through wires.

Banning VPNs or even torrents is as far as I can tell, against the swedish constitution.

You can read it yourself here: http://www.riksdagen.se/templates/R_Page____6316.aspx

Chapter 1, article 3 prevents banning ownership and usage, on grounds of content, of tools needed for reception and parsing a message intended for the general public.
Chapter 3, article 10 would relate to ISP (common carrier) content filtering.

Funny thing the swedish parliament has passed so many stupid laws in recent years, when the constitution contains so many Good articles!

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[Anonymous Coward]

If some of those "legislators" had half a brain cell, or half a heart between them they would do the opposite and pass a law making it *legal* to share media between people for no charge. They would strengthen laws criminalising those who are genuine pirates selling copies for money. But, as the previous poster points out those laws already exist ! Fight these idiots who are the real "pirates". They are using this issue to attack freedom and society.

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[Anonymous Coward]

It's like the WOT laws. Destroying the freedoms that soldiers give their life's to protect. Have we all lost our minds ? The legislators pass laws contradicting freedom laws in their own constitutions. Fileshares take it up the you know what when they should be raising merry hell for being compared to terrorists.

The legislators need to pass a law that makes sharing for no money *legal*. I wonder how many real pirates love this debate because it distracts from real money making pirate operations ?

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[dedioste]

Very few file-sharers have the capacity to buy the stuff they download, they are just tagging along in what is a part of their culture, a culture which the media conglomerate has built very effectively.

This could be true for poor countries, but i completely doubt that a twentysomething who spends 200 $ for a pair of shoes or goes to a club where entry and drink is 30 $ cannot shell out 10 $ twice a month for a DVD or a record (consider also that you can have old cd/dvd for a couple of bucks through ebay/online sellers).

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny thing the swedish parliament has passed so many stupid laws in recent years, when the constitution contains so many Good articles!

Sound familiar to any of you Americans?

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[RobotRunAmok]

Very few file-sharers have the capacity to buy the stuff they download, they are just tagging along in what is a part of their culture, a culture which the media conglomerate has built very effectively.

A dollar a song, Bunky. Or less. Two bucks for a video. There's your pop culture, reasonably priced. Listen to music for free on Pandora, or watch TV for free on Hulu. Your culture's all covered, Ace.

Oh, wait, you want PhotoShop and Dreamweaver for free? And free development tools are part of your culture... how again? Besides, your "culture" has already kicked out a response to this, it's called "Open Source Alternatives." Are they as good as the professional closed source originals? Usually not, but they're close, and they're free. Want better? Get a job.

I forget... what was your argument again? Oh, yeah: So, the choice is to be left out of the loop on everyday culture or pirate. And the funny thing about that is, wait until you have kids: you'll be praying to God every night that they somehow manage to avoid the "everyday culture."

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[richie2000]

watch TV for free on Hulu

"Sorry, currently our video library can only be streamed from within the United States."

You fail, Ace.

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. Let them eat cake.

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[discord5]

The method of slowly pushing the commoners down and the rulers up doesn't stop with a reasonable and gradual struggle to make the situation more balanced. It stops when the commoners revolt, the powerful raise their armies against them and discover that those armies are too heavily outnumbered.

Except that in this case people aren't upset enough to start revolting, and distracted by all the comforts of modern society. The few angry nerds are making big talk on the internet, but the common Joe flips the channel on his TV and probably doesn't even know about the problem.

Remember that it takes a lack of food and a lack of distractions to create a revolt. "Then let them eat cake" is something few politician will utter today. If anything, the past couple of years in politics have more than once proven that nobody gives a shit about their liberties.

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[RobotRunAmok]

I cannot for a moment imagine -- and would be embarrassed to admit to -- living in a country where I had to import my *culture* from overseas.

No, clearly, YOU fail. And you have my deepest sympathies.

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[Thanshin]

Except that in this case people aren't upset enough to start revolting, and distracted by all the comforts of modern society.

However, people take new comforts for granted really really fast.

I wonder what would happen if a politician created a law that blacklisted all porn.

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[Anonymous Coward]

We don't have a constitutional court in Sweden. Thus, the Swedish constitution or "Grundlagen" is, in practice, no more than a guideline.

The former chief of the Swedish military signal surveillance authority freely admitted to breaking the constitution by listening to cable signals It was up until recently forbidden to do so by the laws, and the constitution still forbids it (probably -- the constitution has not been changed). But that is a theoretical argument since there isn't any court that will rule based on the constitution.

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[DikSeaCup]

I read (paraphrasing):

"I can't afford it so I'll steal."

Which I knee-jerked to saying "How is that rating 'Insightful'?"

And then I had this flash that the same thinking is why the US economy is where it is.

When you steal/borrow what you can't afford, everyone loses in the long run.

Of course, that's an oversimplification of the respective situations ... but it was just weird how I went from "What you talkin' bout Willis?" to "That thinking is why the country is trillions in debt and my GFs retired parents might lose their house*" in the span of a second.

*(not because they borrowed too much, but because their retirement funds took a nose dive when everyone else borrowed too much)

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[lordholm]

The constitution of Sweden say what powers the state have and what fundamental rights the citizens have.

You cannot violate the constitution as a person, however the state can make laws that are not compliant with it. In which case the supreme court woud most likely decide that the laws are unconstitutional when they are tried in court and effectively nullify them through case law.

The lack of a constitutional court makes the process very long however, and it is not possible to ask a court to try the legitimacy of a law, except by having a concrete case of breach of the unconstitutional law and a lot of patience to have the case being appealed all the way up to the supreme court.

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[L4t3r4lu5]

I can't imagine living in a culture responsible for Everybody Loves Raymond.

You both have my sympathies; RobotRunAmok for the above, richie2000 for wanting it.

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[Anonymous Coward]

That section of the Swedish constitution is an implementation of fundamental laws part of the ECHR. A state in Europe may not outlaw communication or put restrictions on the free expression of individuals "regardless of frontiers", there are exceptions such as allowing a state to demand a license for TV-receivers and so on, but the content of the ECHR and EU human rights catalogue (that was supposed to be a part of the European Constitution till some people decided that they did not like to have their freedoms guaranteed by a supernational constitution); did contain those statements as well.

The point of them is that no state may ban any single means of communication, though they may regulate the use of the systems to a certain extent.

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[commodore64_love]

>>>A dollar a song, Bunky. Or less. Two bucks for a video.

$100 for the entire Billboard Hot 100 for 2008* unless you prefer lossless CDs like I do, then you'll be spending a whole lot more. $15* ~50 for last years movies on DVD == $750. ~$1000 for cable television. ~$500 for internet access..... pretty soon you have a statistic - "The average American carries $8000 in credit debt." Therefore I agree with the original poster when he said a lot of this media is not affordable. If people are going into debt to sustain the entertainment industry, something's wrong.

Worse - we are often forced to buy the same damn thing twice, such as when a standard changes (VHS to DVD), or because of draconian DRM that blocks us from moving our Cassettes/CDs to our Ipods/computers. So take some of the numbers I quoted and double them.

*
* I wish Billboard would work with the industry to release a yearly compilation. It would make it so much easier for us customers if we could just click "Buy Hot 100 for 2000" and thereby get all the popular songs that year, rather than have to buy all the songs separately. The internet does it, via torrents, so I don't see why the industry can't do the same on CD.

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[commodore64_love]

>>>I cannot for a moment imagine -- and would be embarrassed to admit to -- living in a country where I had to import my *culture* from overseas.

You just insulted the entire European Union -- 500 million people -- who voraciously import American music, movies, and tv shows. Nice job bro.

The fact of the matter is that western culture operates as a whole, and has for centuries with Italians listening to German Bach, and Germans listening to Italian Vivaldi, but record companies want to erect artificial barriers in order to stop this sharing between nations and the Euro-Canadian-American western civilization. It is the record companies that are in the wrong, and abusing copyright which was originally intended to PROMOTE the growth of culture, not stifle it.

In a truly operative copyright regime, Europeans could watch hulu.com, Americans could watch cbc.com, and Canadians could watch bbc.com without any limitation. And after a reasonable length, say 50 years, the media would become public domain.

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[commodore64_love]

>>>When you steal/borrow what you can't afford, everyone loses in the long run.

Bzzzz. The reason the U.S. economy is in the crapper is because people DID buy things they couldn't afford, using non-existent money (credit), and when that credit bubble burst the true value was revealed (market value dropped by half). It didn't have anything to do with stealing.

 

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[commodore64_love]

>>>if you make filesharing software illegal it is only the legitimate users of it that lose out...

No more Linux distributions or Warcraft upgrades via torrent? Nah. The law's not that dumb. But I do agree that criminals are not going to care - they'll just keep pirating DVDs/CDs like they've always done - underground and secretly. It's like when America had their War on Alcohol. People just kept drinking and it failed horribly.

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[commodore64_love]

>>>there is a passage in the swedish constitution...prohibits laws being passed to outlaw equipment

But don't you know? The Constitution is just a GUIDELINE from our ancestors, not an actual law. (Or so the politicians claim.) It may be ignored when its restrictions are inconvenient. It's called a "living" document which just means it's putty in the hands of the government and courts.

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[PMBjornerud]

Just as my bet is on the handful of guys inside the G20 meeting and not on the thousands of idiots getting beat down outside, my bet is on the handful of guys getting laws passed and not the millions of idiots trying to avoid getting caught breaking the law.

You're right in not betting on a mob.

When they become millions, however, you sit down and listen or risk getting lynched. Doubly so if you live in a democracy.

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[RobotRunAmok]

If people are going into debt to sustain the entertainment industry, something's wrong.

I agree. If they're such pop culture addicts, they should be getting their fix from the Public Library, getting the most from their tax dollars.

But it has nothing to do with the prices set by the entertainment industry for its wares. If Jobs had set iTunes downloads at $5.99 per song, it would have failed. He set it at $0.99/song, and it's a raging success. That's the price that the majority of people were willing to pay, and that's how markets work.

Worse - we are often forced to buy the same damn thing twice, such as when a standard changes (VHS to DVD)

No one is forcing you to do anything, sweetpea! My VHS machines still work fine. You upgrade consumer technology because you *want* to, not because you are forced to.

or because of draconian DRM that blocks us from moving our Cassettes/CDs to our Ipods/computers.

There's DRM on your cassettes and CDs!?! Wow, sounds rough on your world. See, here on earth, nothing prevents us from moving music from tape or CD onto our computers. Again, my condolences.

unless you prefer lossless CDs like I do, then you'll be spending a whole lot more OK, so you're an audiophile. It's always been an expensive hobby, even thirty years ago in the "analog age." Presumably you enjoy it, so God bless. But I'm sure you recognize that any audio encoded above 128 kps is targeted to a niche audience, and that elite hobbyist crowd should expect to pay a premium for the privilege.

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh oh, you'd better stop listening to The Beatles. And watching Doctor Who, Red Dwarf, etc etc.

The only reason you're not "importing culture" from other European countries is because you can't speak the fucking language. Berlin, Berlin is a fantastic comedy-drama. Sucks for you if you don't speak German, though.

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[h4rm0ny]

Most of the people I know would moan a bit but accept it if an effective method of stopping them file-sharing were found. The reason for the acceptance would be that most people I know willingly admit that it is wrong to download copyrighted materials without paying, but do it anyway. They wouldn't really begrudge copyright holders from trying to stop them so long as the fines are in proportion and the methods not too destructive.

It's only really online that I find this near-religious attitude (in places like Slashdot, predominantly US population) where people are determined to make any argument and split any term (the "copyright infringement isn't theft" brigade for example) to show that they're actually doing nothing wrong and that an industry that is described in more terms of vaudevillian evil every month is to blame for all their ills.

Oddly, I find the less hypocritical "I'm doing something a bit wrong but I'm not going to get caught" majority less irritating.

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[geminidomino]

>>>When you steal/borrow what you can't afford, everyone loses in the long run.

Bzzzz. The reason the U.S. economy is in the crapper is because people DID buy things they couldn't afford, using non-existent money (credit), and when that credit bubble burst the true value was revealed (market value dropped by half). It didn't have anything to do with stealing.

That would be the "borrowing" part of what the GP said...

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[RobotRunAmok]

You've missed the point of the original argument.

The OP was defending file-sharers with the pompous pretense that the poor, poor students who couldn't afford to download media on iTunes were somehow being culturally deprived. He was confusing -- either disingenuously or because he's an idiot -- culture and entertainment.

Europe doesn't import culture. It's got its own, and it's an old and lovely one, to be sure. What it does import from America is entertainment, which is a product of the American entertainment industry. No one is granting Hulu international distribution rights to their stuff currently because it runs counter to both existing contracts with overseas distributors as well as business plans that promise more revenue if the entertainment is distributed regionally. I know plenty of producers who just about break even with their costs via what they sell their domestic distribution rights for, and make all their profit on the international side.

THE BIRTH OF BABYLON 5 (the original notes from 1988)

Ya like B5? Do you think JMS could have made the same show if whoever was footing the bill could not count on X amount revenue from international distribution?

Entertainment is not culture. You know how I know this? Because I have a God-given right to my culture.

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[melikamp]

They decide to make filesharing software illegal.

Hahaha they are a hopeful bunch. If they want people to stop sharing files, they have to outlaw the most pervasive piece of file-sharing software ever, a little thing called OS.

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[Dog-Cow]

I just figure it's a moral issue. The only reason Copyright is mentioned in the Constitution of the United States is because without it there would have been less of a chance for the newly founded country to build its own culture. However, corporations have turned Copyright into a method for perpetual ownership. As this is not what was intended, I feel no moral obligation to support them.

I do not go out of my way to obtain what I want for free, but I also do not feel I am doing anything wrong when I do.

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[drinkypoo]

Don't you see that the constant raising of stakes is simply going to end up fucking over everyone's civil rights in the end?

Don't you see that when you run out of civil rights, your society becomes a pressure cooker which foments rage and riot and finally revolution? (I'm working on the alliteration for my upcoming movie, R for Revenge.)

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[Dog-Cow]

That's essentially the same process as in the US. You cannot ask the Supreme Court to try a law. You must instead appeal a specific case up through the system on the grounds that the law upon which the defendant was tried is actually unconstitutional.

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[drinkypoo]

I cannot for a moment imagine -- and would be embarrassed to admit to -- living in a country where I had to import my *culture* from overseas.

Nice Ad Hominem attack. Simple truth is that the whole world is gaga for American media. We're the best at making highly polished media and it shows. Too bad it's not generally content of high quality, but no situation is perfect. I'm looking forward to the oceans rising up and washing away LA. See you down in Arizona Bay...

In any case, American culture grew out of British culture and then received regular influxes of everyone else's, which is probably why it's the media most consumed worldwide. Something for everyone.

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[drinkypoo]

Entertainment is not culture. You know how I know this? Because I have a God-given right to my culture.

God doesn't make laws, so leave him out of this. He's not relevant.

You do NOT have a right to your culture. Copyright law prevents this! Copyright is supposed to expire so that when things DO become part of the culture you can utilize and redistribute them. Unfortunately, copyright extensions have completely eliminated the whole fucking idea. The extensions were bought and paid for by the corporations whose profits you are so concerned about. They were neither desired nor voted for by the general public of any western nation. Understanding copyright law, and the fucking fucks whose media you don't think has become part of the cultural background? YOU FAIL IT!

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[mjeffers]

You see, what you're doing here is blaming the victim.
Yes, the victim.

Very few file-sharers have the capacity to buy the stuff they download, they are just tagging along in what is a part of their culture, a culture which the media conglomerate has built very effectively.

So, the choice is to be left out of the loop on everyday culture or pirate.

This is me playing the worlds smallest violin for all those poor file-sharers denied access to the latest Jonas Brothers CD or Wolverine movie.

You can't afford it, then don't buy it. Your rationalization for stealing whatever isn't nailed down because it's easy and available are complete bullshit. People with talent and skill work to create things you will never be capable of creating yourself. You derive enough enjoyment from them to take the time to steal them, you should be paying for them.

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[Mango Fett]

oh please! I'll start with a perpetually flawed argument just for grins: Am I a victim because I can't afford a Maserati with a hot stripper wife included?

To the real argument. I'm running low on cash, and Generic First Person Shooter #1138 has just been released. I've bought into the hype and want to play the game, but you know what? I have a hard choice to make - do I buy the game, eat for another week, wait until I have the cash to buy it and spend money on more pressing needs in the short term, or pirate it? I fail to see how "not wanting to or not being able to pay for something" qualifies one as a "victim".

Same argument applies to a movie or music. Surely, the movie is going nowhere and I'll be able to see it at some point in time. I'll be able to hear the music I like as well.

I'm all for exposing the ways of those damn media conglomerates, but your post reads more like "it's the company's fault for making we want it so much".

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[Amasuriel]

Hulu and Pandora are US only, and international versions rarely are ably to obtain content from all or even most the regular publishers.

As for the dollar a song thing, that's great if you only want one song. If you want an album its $10. If you want an album a week it's another phone bill, with the people that tend to want to consume the most (high school and university student) having the least cash.

I'm not agreeing that this is the reason for piracy or that it makes it valid, I'm just saying that to keep up with a few weekly shows and buy the occasional album ends up being quite expensive if you work at a grocery store or are just going to school; hell it can even get sort of pricey if you have a real job.

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[Aris Katsaris]

Clearly you live in such a parochial way that your culture is confined within your national borders.

Except that you obviously use the Internet. So you fail yet again from sheer self-contradiction.

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[Aris Katsaris]

"Europe doesn't import culture."

Everyone imports culture.

"Entertainment is not culture."

That's the most moronic thing you've said yet.

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[sumdumass]

Well, sort of. That was one of the reasonings for wanting the federal government to control copyright. The others is that a state could put a 50 year limit on copyright and another has a 20 year limit. So who's copyright terms would need to be honored?

The constitution was set up as a permissive device in which is specifically listed what the states surrendered to the control of the US federal government. Copyright was listed because knowing what you said would create conflict among the different states, it was logical to have one unified set of laws concerning it. So when the states ratified the constitution, they surrendered their rights over copyright.

Unfortunately, now the constitution seems to be viewed as something that simply restricts the federal government instead or something that gives it permissions to operate in limited ways. This has lead congress from asking can we even constitutionally pass a law like this to what is to stop us from passing a law like this. I think that's a turn for the worse and a prime reason why people think the government lost that "of the people, for the people, and by the people" feeling.

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[GargamelSpaceman]

Hmm, but even in first world countries twenty-somethings that spend 200$ for shoes or go to 30$ entry clubs are quite rare.

The media conglomerate has created a culture for them - the few - that the other far more common (poor) sort of twenty-somethings can not partake of without piracy. An undeniable fact is that nobody is hurt by piracy when that piracy does not result in lost sales. In that case, it's truely a victimless crime.

Of course there are some twenty-somethings who do spend 200$ on shoes and who could afford to buy their music. If these people pirate music they would have bought then there is an effect. However even these people when they pirate content they wouldn't have bought aren't hurting anyone.

Or are they?

Suppose X is only released under DRM making it a little more inconvenient to pirate, so nobody has bothered ripping it, and it's not available in a decent quality from p2p piracy channels, and that it's available legally for 20 bucks.

Suppose Y is available legally for 20 bucks, with no DRM, and is also available to pirate illegally on p2p.

Suppose X and Y can both fill the person's free time with entertainment.

The market price for content that will fill the twenty-something's free time with entertainment is 20 bucks. Their first choice is X. However, since they would not buy Y for 20 bucks given the choice to buy X for 20 bucks, they would not ever buy Y anyway and so pirate it. It fills their free time with entertainment, and now the maximum price they would pay for X is 5 dollars. In fact, if Y had been available for 15 dollars, they might have felt guilty and bought Y legally, were it not for Z also available to pirate illegally, and available legally for 20 bucks. Z is not so good as Y but it's decent. If it had been available for 10 dollars, then the twenty something might even have shelled out the ten spot to buy it valuing the money saved more than the difference in satisfaction between filling their time with either Y or X. It's a happy thing to the twentysomething that they were able to get their second choice Y for free since Y would have charged 20 bucks which they wouldn't have paid anyway.

Free entertainment that is available legally for free has the same effect. The only difference is that creation of that content isn't funded by the structure of copyright law as it is with free content that was free because it's been pirated illegally.

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[Anonymous Coward]

That's like saying you shouldn't protest because the state will clamp down on free speech.

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[BadAnalogyGuy]

the government lost that "of the people, for the people, and by the people" feeling.

And now it's gone, gone, gone.
whoa whoa whoa

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[Chad Birch]

Not that I'm the person you're replying to, but I'm in Canada and get exactly the same message on Hulu. Not exactly "overseas", considering I could drive to the US in less than 5 hours.

And the other free option you mentioned? Pandora? Let's have a look:
We are deeply, deeply sorry to say that due to licensing constraints, we can no longer allow access to Pandora for listeners located outside of the U.S.

last.fm also is extremely restricted outside of the US (we get 30 second clips where you get full songs), and even YouTube blocks some videos.

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[Anonymous Coward]

When they become millions, however, you sit down and listen or risk getting lynched. Doubly so if you live in a democracy.

As far as I know, most modern demoncracies have laws or judicial rules against "double jeopardy" . Therefore, you are far less likely to be lynched twice in a modern democracy, at least for the same offense. Of course, the rest of your arguement stands.

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[Anonymous Coward]

What's with all this "Ace" and "Sweetpea" bullshit?

You might have some points to make, and some might agree with them, but you still sound like an asshole.

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[Jesus_666]

IPRED has made the Pireate Party much more attractive. Somenone posted a link to their membership statistics page. Look at what happened after IPRED: A membership surge that doesn't look like it's over yet.

If the Pirate Party manages to become important enough to be considered for a government coalition you can bet that the other parties are going to re-evaluate their stance on filesharing. Getting into the government is more important to them than anything they might or might not believe in, so they'll consider a more filesharing-friendly stance.


In short: The handful of guys getting laws passed will win, but in Sweden that handful of guys might actually end up being on the filesharers' side.

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Lolz. You sure do live up to your nic.
"Everybody" is not just "the millions of idiots trying to avoid getting caught breaking the law" it is EVERYBODY.
I would have though you could do better than that seeing as how it was YOU who brought them all into the fold when you wrote that "Everyone loses." That was the entire point of your original post wasn't it? To show that it wasn't just "the millions of idiots trying to avoid getting caught breaking the law" who were going to suffer as a result, right?

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

I cannot for a moment imagine -- and would be embarrassed to admit to -- living in a country where I had to import my *culture* from overseas.

You are without clue. Only a handful of nations are able to produce domestic content that outsells Hollywood at the box office - South Korea, India and sometimes France. Maybe China too, but they do it by limiting the number western films "approved" for display to 25 or less each year.

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

I just figure it's a moral issue. The only reason Copyright is mentioned in the Constitution of the United States is because without it there would have been less of a chance for the newly founded country to build its own culture.

You might want to think again. For the first century or so, copyright in the US only applied to works by US authors. Thus copying works from other countries, or in the words of some zealots, stealing from other countries was highly encouraged by the original system.

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[Jesus_666]

I can't imagine not doing so. We live in a globalized world and there better be some kind of advantage to it. I want a decent science fiction show. Turns out that the USA has the best SciFi shows; the best Europe currently has to offer is Torchwood and I'd rather not spend my time with that. So I watch American SciFi shows. When I want quirky comedy I watch something Japanese, as they are best at that.

Each country has their own strengths. I think that the USA do accumulate the best actors while Japanese voice actors are head and shoulders above their global competition. Screenplays are all over the place. Germany (where I come from)... well, we have a couple decent bands and I hear we're pretty good at special effects.

I could definitely never subsist on German popular culture alone... but then again Germany never was without foreign popular culture since the end of WWII. We've always been fairly reliant on American music and later TV series - to the point where not too long ago it was considered somewhat daring for a German band to sing in German and not in English.

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[commodore64_love]

>>>He was confusing -- either disingenuously or because he's an idiot -- culture and entertainment.

No he wasn't. Culture and entertainment are closely linked, and often the very same thing. When you listen to Mozart, you're not being entertained, but also absorbing German-Austrian culture. Or vice-versa if you're an European reading Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn, that too is not just entertainment, but also a part of American culture.

>>>Because I have a God-given right to my culture.

False. You can't view the Mona Lisa without paying the museum entrance fee. Plus you don't have a God-given right to things you don't own. If the artist doesn't want to share his painting of the Mona Lisa, he doesn't have to. ----- Also you never really defined culture. If culture is not entertainment, i.e. not music or books or videos or paintings... what's left??? Very little.

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[commodore64_love]

>>>We're the best at making highly polished media and it shows.

Now *that's* embarrassing. "We can't build a decent car, and we import our clothes from China, but by gum we know how to make a great television show and grow fat* watching it on a Japanese-made flatscreen sets!" Yeah. Isn't that the same process that bankrupted Rome circa 420 A.D.? Too much entertainment; not enough productivity.

*
* about 90% of Americans age 30 and up are overweight (BMI>25).

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[Jesus_666]

However, popular culture is very much based around entertainment. European Popular culture is not defined by Vivaldi, Bach or Schiller. It's defined by Britney Spears, John Carmack and (let's add some German flavor) Til Schweiger*. And Schweiger high-tailed it to Hollywood as soon as he had the chance, as any sensible high-class actor would do.

What do we randomly quote in our conversations? Monty Python (admittedly European, even if the Brits won't admit it), Matrix, Star Wars. Local movies not so much because there's rarely one worth remembering lines from. Which language is taking over our culture to the point where many (if not most) TV ads randomly use it? American English. To the point where we sometimes find it hard to express concepts in our goddamn mother language.

Popular culture expects that Europeans are familiar with the American political system, the school system, parts of the legal system... Sure, we have our own culture, but it's by no means independent from that of the USA.


* I could have said "Arnold Schwarzenegger", but Schweiger was actually a popular actor before he went to the States.

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[Anonymous Coward]

While I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you, BMI is a load of crap.

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[commodore64_love]

>>>they should be getting their fix from the Public Library, getting the most from their tax dollar

I used to do that, but then I realized I was wasting a lot of money on gasoline.

>>>My VHS machines still work fine

Yeah until they die, and good luck fnding a new one. JVC, the owner of VHS, announced they are done making them. So you might have a huge VHS library, but no way to play it And of course if you want the latest stuff, like Wall-E, you need a DVD or Bluray player - it's not exactly a voluntary upgrade. You can't buy Wall-E on VHS.

>>>There's DRM on your cassettes and CDs!?

My example may not have been the best, but the point that DRM blocks consumers is still valid. Sony put anti-copy DRM on their CDs just a few years ago, and in the world of downloads just because you bought a song does not mean it's yours forever. Your PC dies, you try to copy the songs over to your new PC and it works, but you discover you can't play anything since the songs are still "registered" to the old PC. It's deliberately designed to suck more money by making you buy the same songs more than once.

>>>OK, so you're an audiophile.

Ok, so you're prone to ass-uming. I prefer lossless media because compressed AACs sound like crap on a 5-speaker stereo system. It doesn't mean I'm an audiophile - just that I hate compressed music.

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[commodore64_love]

What's with all this "Ace" and "Sweetpea" bullshit? You might have some points to make, and some might agree with them, but you still sound like an asshole.

QFT. "Arrogant" and "condescending" are the words I would have used. Like Simon Cow on American Idol.

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[commodore64_love]

Which is too slow. Washington D.C.'s ban on guns sat on the books for ~25 years before the SCOTUS finally declared it unconstitutional. IMHO a better approach is to give the States the power to review the laws themselves. The Constitution is a contract between the States and the D.C. government, therefore a State Supreme Court should also have the power to declare laws as unconstitutional or nonbinding upon its state.

An example: California makes marijuana legal for medical purposes. The national government declares "no it isn't". The California Supreme Court reviews the law and the constitution, and declares the U.S. does not have the power to overrule California law and marijuana remains legal within its jurisdiction.

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[cliffski]

hahahaha

I pity the poor little street kids in Rio who are innocently pirating Crysis. The game only runs on a $2,000 PC, yet somehow those poor kids could scrape together enough cash from begging in the streets to buy the PC, and the broadband connection, but cant afford to pay $35 for the game...

Get real. And to pretend that you 'miss out on everyday culture' because you can't steal it is just pathetic.
If I can't afford superbowl tickets should I be able to break in? After all, its just fascist mind control by an evil government if I can't right?

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[cliffski]

are the commoners going to make their own music and movies?
Pity, I kinda enjoyed the professional quality entertainment myself.

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[mdielmann]

The problem becomes, though, what do you do with all these 'criminals'? How many jails are you going to build to hold all of them, how much backlog do the courts have to sustain to process them, etc., etc., etc. And who gets all the money? RIAA et al? Do you not see a point where the government will say, "This is beyond stupid and is unmaintainable. Things have to change to something at all rational." And that's when things will change. Because people will vote for ANYONE who's willing to put in an option that's at all rational, once it affects enough people.
Or,to paraphrase Churchill, they'll "do the right thing, once all other alternatives are exhausted."

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[Anonymous Coward]

I primarily steal TV shows, and it takes me almost no time at all, which is all I'm going to pay for them. The tool I use also deletes the file after a specified period (once I've watched it), and it took me almost no time at all to do that part, too. So, given it costs me about 10 seconds per TV show to deal with all this. And some of them are barely enough to qualify as background noise. Barely. If they don't surpass that quality, I'm happy to spend the 2 seconds to remove them from my list. So, how much is that worth? $2 per show? I can buy all but premium DVDs for each season at that rate, and get the media, higher quality output, and all the extras. Something tells me they're charging too much for TV episodes. $1 or $1.50 would make more sense to me.

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[dhavleak]

You see, what you're doing here is blaming the victim. Yes, the victim.
Very few file-sharers have the capacity to buy the stuff they download.

If they can't afford something, why should they become entitled to it for free? Music and movies aren't required for survival. This isn't food/water/medicines/education we're talking about. Illegal downloaders are definitely not victims.

They are just tagging along in what is a part of their culture, a culture which the media conglomerate has built very effectively. So, the choice is to be left out of the loop on everyday culture or pirate.

The media conglomerate is doing it's job by creating a desire for their product. Every business strives to do that. Just because the masses have collectively decided that they want to steal stuff, doesn't make it okay.

Also, do you honestly believe that most of the restraints from the government wouldn't happen regardless? Governments want control, they will seize any opportunity to get greater control.

I don't think this is about control. Governments/copyrights holders/people have a serious and intricate problem on their hands here. People aren't willing to give copyright holders their due. Copyright holders turn to DRM / RIAA and other solutions that threaten to trample on our fair-use rights. And the government is caught between the two -- and is ill equipped (by virtue of never being technologically savvy) to make an intelligent choice.

In the end, DRM is actually the best solution. I'm not even half kidding when I say that. I mean DRM is like fluffy bunnies compared to these asinine 3-strikes laws and this particular law that says copyright holders can request IDs, etc. The challenge with DRM is merely interoperability, and safeguarding fair-use rights. From an engineering perspective, both problems are easily solvable. However, no media company would choose to do either. But that's where the government comes in. They could easily force the media company's hand in this matter. But the govt. sadly doesn't understand the problem, and can't possibly imagine the solution because they're just too non-technical.

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[Anonymous Coward]

No one is forcing you to do anything, sweetpea

 
Sweetpea, Ace, Bucky? Just who do you think you are RoboBoy?

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[Anonymous Coward]

So your solution is to just not do anything and whatever they say goes right?

I don't know about you but I'm willing to fight for what I believe in and take whatever steps are necessary. If it means an escalating war, so be it.

Doing nothing is what got Americans into the shitty position we are in now. Ah, the life of the corporate serf.

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[mgblst]

No he is right, you aren't supposed to enjoy culture. Nobody enjoys the opera, ballet, art galleries, etc....

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[lessthan]

you sit down and listen or risk getting lynched.

No you don't, you just pull out a new shiny or retire and "consult."

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[Wildclaw]

Insightful my ass.

Copyright is the idiotic idea of trying to increase the number of works of arts produced by deliberatly decreasing the total amounts of copies produced.

It is a total loss for society, anyway you look at it. Who care if more works of art are produced when the total spread of all works of art combined is decreased. Oh, don't bother answering the question. I know who. And I have no respect for any of you.

And don't try to take the moral highground. If you don't want people to copy stuff, DON'T FUCKING PRODUCE IT IN THE FIRST PLACE. I don't care how much skill and talent you have. If you can't make money on something without resorting to threating people with guns (a.k.a. law enforcement), then you should go and do something more productive. We don't care if work of art XXX don't get produced, because without the threat of goverment on us, we have access to far more art than we have in a capitalistic society where you get nickle and dimed. And as for those producers who remain, they get rewarded as there is less competition from monopoly exploiting assholes.

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[Wildclaw]

The market price for content that will fill the twenty-something's free time with entertainment is 20 bucks

Market price? Stop kidding yourself. You can't have market prices on IP products. You know the whole supply & demand thingy. It only works if there is an actual limited amount of supply.

You can have a market price on the first copy of any specific work of art. But beyond that, it is a complete and utterly regulated non free market.

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[Wildclaw]

If they can't afford something, why should they become entitled to it for free? Music and movies aren't required for survival. This isn't food/water/medicines/education we're talking about. Illegal downloaders are definitely not victims.

They sure as hell are victims. Their culture is robbed from out of under them by destructive laws that reduce the total spread of art for the purpose to further the traditional rich capitalistic interests.

Only an naive fool falls for the sweet talk about copyright creating more works of art. Economics says otherwise. Copyright at the best can create more variation, but the cost is that the total amount decreases due to inefficency of distribution.

Just like privatising all water supplies may give you more unique suppliers, but the over all amount of water supplied will go down.

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[Wildclaw]

other parties are going to re-evaluate their stance on filesharing

The problem is that noone trusts the other parties any longer. They lied in the last election to keep the pirate party down. But now all their lies, both regarding integrity and file sharing have been exposed. It is going to be much more difficult for them the next time around.

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[dhavleak]

They sure as hell are victims. Their culture is robbed from out of under them ...

You might choose to use the word culture to describe pop music and movies - and you would be right - but calling it culture doesn't change the facts. Stealing is still stealing. They are most certainly not victims.

... by destructive laws that reduce the total spread of art for the purpose to further the traditional rich capitalistic interests.

I did not advocate or defend such laws. I specifically stated these laws (three strikes, and the one from TFA) are bad and encroach on our freedoms.

Only an naive fool falls for the sweet talk about copyright creating more works of art. Economics says otherwise. Copyright at the best can create more variation, but the cost is that the total amount decreases due to inefficency of distribution.

You don't need economic theory here. It's a simple question of right and wrong. Artist creates work and licenses it according to certain terms. Procuring it for free, when the artist expressly forbids it, is stealing. Market efficiency takes a backseat to simple right and wrong.

Just like privatising all water supplies may give you more unique suppliers, but the over all amount of water supplied will go down.

Not a valid analogy. Nobody creates water. Water cannot be digitally reproduced. In any case, as I stated above - the issue here is not economics. The issue is not market efficiency. The issue is not about improving our selection of music or movies. The issue is plain and simple theft.

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[Wildclaw]

Procuring it for free, when the artist expressly forbids it, is stealing

No, it isn't. I can't steal something that you don't own. The artist only owns the copies that he posess. All other copies are owned by other people.

The issue is not about improving our selection of music or movies.

Improving the selection by reducing the total spread. Idiocy.

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[dhavleak]

No, it isn't. I can't steal something that you don't own. The artist only owns the copies that he posess (sic). All other copies are owned by other people.

And how did you get ownership then? Riiight - bit torrent conferred upon you the right to rip off the artist.

Improving the selection by reducing the total spread. Idiocy. I repeat - the issue is not about improving our selection of music. Read it again.

Re:They pull a knife, we pull a gun

[GargamelSpaceman]

Market price is a loaded term. Perhaps I should have said 'budget' to mean the price the twenty something is willing to pay for entertainment. And for a specific piece of content, the market price is set by the monopolist ( copyright owner ) so as to maximise revenue. Since the product costs nothing to reproduce this price would be zero were it not for the existence of the monopoly.

However the specific piece of content must compete with other content that can satsify the needs of those who demand entertainment. Only those who value the work you've created far above others are at your mercy. Those who are less obsessed are less apt to pay exorbitant prices. If the potential entertainment market consists of ten people, and all ten would buy your cd for one dollar, but one would buy it for eleven dollars, then you are better off charging eleven dollars, denying the other nine access, and selling only one copy.

It seems to me that eleven dollars could be collected if the nine paid one dollar, and the one obsessive fan paid two dollars. Then eleven dollars are collected, but more people are happy. I don't know how this could be set up so as to happen though..

Not fun anymore

[castrox]

I, and I bet many others with me, don't think it's fun anymore. While a good many proceeds to download songs, movies and TV series using other protocols than e.g. torrents, there are those that recognize that it's not a sustainable situation. I stopped downloading questionable material the 31st of March.

Legislation will get worse and worse to the point where we are all under constant surveillance. We don't need to give "them" any more leverage to these draconian laws. We are in our right to fileshare on a personal level - that is, with friends and family. Let's stop filesharing with "strangers" and we're untouchable.

There's a huge discussion on obfuscation techniques and VPN solutions for consumers -- they're ignoring the upcoming EU directive on mandatory requirement to keep logs. Ergo, when anonymisation services keep logs, you're no longer anonymous.

I for one have "given up" my habits completely. I play by the rules set by the industry. If they cannot offer me what I want (unencumbered digital music), then I simply do not buy from them.

I also enjoy Spotify a great bit - the only thing I really miss is a service that lets me download TV series.

Lastly, the only torrents you'll see on my system is OSS like Debian and Ubuntu ISO:s.

(Yes, I am Swedish.)

Re:Not fun anymore

[jchillerup]

I play by the rules set by the industry.

Fight for your digital freedom, join the EFF *now*.

Re:Not fun anymore

[Anonymous Coward]

Good for you for doing what you think right and all, but my opinion is that these industries are on an all-out campaign to keep their stranglehold on the "industry" of entertainment, milking as much money as they can possibly get their hands on, so I really don't give a damn what they think is fair. They want to bend me over, I'm going to chase them around and bend them over instead, if I can.

Re:Not fun anymore

[iminplaya]

Legislation will get worse and worse to the point where we are all under constant surveillance.

You are such a pessimist... Must be those long winters

Re:Not fun anymore

[Kjella]

Legislation will get worse and worse to the point where we are all under constant surveillance. We don't need to give "them" any more leverage to these draconian laws. We are in our right to fileshare on a personal level - that is, with friends and family. Let's stop filesharing with "strangers" and we're untouchable.

Why? Do you think your rights will be protected if you bend over? Do your think they'll let you file share with friends and family? Hint: DRM, anti-DRM laws and other crippleware. Sharing with my friends that again share with their friends only leads to to six degrees of Kevin Bacon before everyone from me to the Pope has it. They will not stop until such a thing as private communication is brought to an end. If you are Swedish you should know about FRA, IPRED, that just recently Aktuelt showed another proposal from the government to give SEPO access to FRA surveilance and so on. Already the EU directive on telecommunications is supposed to keep tabs on everyone you're in contact with, as you say laws are being put in place to shut down all anonymizing services, open access points and so forth. And this doesn't bother you? You just want to play along "by the rules", in your own words? You want to do the same when they require that everything you do be decrypted and passed through their proxies so they can be sure you're not a vicious file sharer too?

I would say: fight it. The Pirate Party has increased massively in size the last six months and keep reaching new heights. They're now chasing Folkpartiet in membership counts and is Sweden's second biggest youth party - if they keep going like they have in the last months they'll be the biggest soon. This is pretty much a whole generation saying "we want file sharing". If you're Swedish, help them out in the EU election in June - Europe needs someone to speak up against all the Orwellian laws showing up all over the place. Because it will not get better by itself, it'll only get worse. I've decided to donate to them even though I'm in Norway, noone here seems to have the balls to stand up to the EU, which has become the place to pass all the unpopular laws and for national politicans to just throw up their hands and say "we must".

Re:Not fun anymore

[purpledinoz]

The worst thing that can happen to the music and movie industry is the people completely ignoring them. Clearly this is happening for the parent, and it's happening to me. I find myself downloading less and less, buying less and less, caring less and less.

Re:Not fun anymore

[Anonymous Coward]

What if you can't get the content you want, even from onlines stores, in the country you live in?

I live in Estonia but was raised in America and if you go to the local music store, its crap, only pop/rap/crap that I don't like. I can't find the music I like here to purchase. I don't have a credit card so I can't purchase online since PayPal won't accept Estonians for whatever reason so to get the music I want, I have to torrent it.

Next up, TV shows. I am a huge fan of The Office and a bunch of cartoons but they just don't show them here on TV and of course don't sell the DVDs either and the free watch your shows online services only work in America so what in the world can I do? With all the fun region coding I would have to go to somewhere like the UK, buy a DVD player and the DVDs there and bring them back just to watch the stuff. No, if they won't offer a legal alternative then yes, I will torrent it.

Re:Not fun anymore

[dpx420]

You fail to realise that the worst-case laws that outlaw all anonymising software, open wifi access points, p2p software, and the introduction of total internet surveillance will happen ANYWAY, EVERYWHERE in the world. Only when this situation has been suffered for many years will the pendulum start to swing the other way with a change in culture and peoples tolerances, possibly even revolution. The sooner the dystopia starts, the sooner it will end.

Re:Not fun anymore

[rastoboy29]

You are a damn fool if you think that will work.

These people don't understand reason.  The correct answer is "fuck 'em".

Re:Not fun anymore

[master_p]

I wonder why all filesharing is not encrypted by default. Then your ISP wouldn't know what you download.

Re:Not fun anymore

[dargaud]

I also enjoy Spotify a great bit

OK, yet another music provider. Why not. Let's take a look to see if they have some stuff I may like... well as usual with those services you can't even run a search to see their selection. Next!

Re:Not fun anymore

[naasking]

There's a huge discussion on obfuscation techniques and VPN solutions for consumers -- they're ignoring the upcoming EU directive on mandatory requirement to keep logs. Ergo, when anonymisation services keep logs, you're no longer anonymous.

Anonymity doesn't matter if traffic is encrypted. You have no idea what two people may be transferring to each other, so how can you possibly charge them with anything? Just because they can track who is using encrypted transfers means nothing.

Re:Not fun anymore

[drinkypoo]

I stopped downloading questionable material the 31st of March. [...] Legislation will get worse and worse to the point where we are all under constant surveillance. [...] I for one have "given up" my habits completely. I play by the rules set by the industry.

You are no longer a person. You are now a tool of the industry. I guess you've never heard of civil disobedience, or the adage that freedom isn't free. I hope you pass away quietly in your sleep like you're hoping for, but I suspect the truth is more that there will be no one to speak for you when they come to get you. (This comment brought to you by irony - it's not like I'm marching in the streets.)

Re:Not fun anymore

[Anonymous Coward]

If they cannot offer me what I want (unencumbered digital music), then I simply do not buy from them.

THAT is the solution to the problem, NOT illegal file sharing.

Money talks. Politicians listen to money. In fact, if yours are like ours, MONEY is the ONLY thing they listen to, which is why lobbyists bring suitcase loads of it to washington to bribe the politicians. They call it "campaign contributions". Ya, right.

Re:Not fun anymore

[Ngwenya]

I'm in Norway, noone here seems to have the balls to stand up to the EU, which has become the place to pass all the unpopular laws and for national politicans to just throw up their hands and say "we must"

You miss the point of the EU. It's one of the most successful policy laundering institutions in the world (WIPO is another).

The EU isn't punting the Orwellian crap: the national governments push it to the EU, knowing that it will be as popular as a rat sandwich to their domestic populations. So, once it gets bullied, cajoled and pushed through as an EU directive, those same governments turn around to their electorates and say "Oh, we have to do this now, it's an EU directive, and we ain't got no say in the matter".

The Data Retention Directive, for instance, is a creation of the UK government. When introducing the legislation to Parliament, they specifically said that it had to be done because it was an EU Directive. No mention that it was their EU directive.

Bastards.

--Ng

Re:Not fun anymore

[Hemogoblin]

Unfortunately, even if everyone stopping pirating today, legislation will still get worse and worse. The fact that pirating is possible at all still gives enough incentive to special interest groups like the RIAA (and Sweden's equivalent) to continue lobbying. In fact, it will be even easier for them, since the only thing holding back the politicians is the fact that there are at least some people fighting back.

Despite what we wish in our hearts, politicians never look out for "the common good". You have to give them an incentive to look out for your interests, and if you don't, they will cater to whoever does the most to get them re-elected. Since we can't match industry's campaign money, all we can do is try to organize as many people as possible to make things politically unacceptable. Don't roll over, fight back damnit.

Re:Not fun anymore

[Jerry]

If they cannot offer me what I want (unencumbered digital music), then I simply do not buy from them.

THAT is the solution to the problem, NOT illegal file sharing.

Money talks. Politicians listen to money. In fact, if yours are like ours, MONEY is the ONLY thing they listen to, which is why lobbyists bring suitcase loads of it to washington to bribe the politicians. They call it "campaign contributions". Ya, right.

Re:Not fun anymore

[castrox]

Whoah, that's quite some hostility. I'm sure you'll understand where I'm coming from once you read my comments and get a cool off break.

As someone else articulated: The game is rigged? Don't play the game.

I'm a fierce freedom activist. But continuing to support the media industry by filesharing their works (they do "own" them after all -- that's the current law -- let's respect it for a moment) is really a bad idea. My hope is that a sort of "open source" market will develop as people reject "the industry".

It's sad to see people like you, completely blinded by rage towards the media companies, attacking constructive ideas and the people behind them.

Don't play the game. Simple as that.

Re:Not fun anymore

[Tuoqui]

Blah blah blah blah blah

This is what I see when reading the message.

Freedom is never given. Freedom is only taken at the end of a gun barrel. The only difference is which side of the barrel you are on.

Re:Not fun anymore

[drinkypoo]

As someone else articulated: The game is rigged? Don't play the game.

The game is life. Someone is telling you what you are allowed to listen to, what you are allowed to look at. Don't like it? Kill yourself. Otherwise you have to live here and deal with it. You think the only valid way to do that is to opt out completely. I disagree. The hostility isn't just for you, but you have to eat your fair share because every time someone says "I'm going to do as I am told" we all get a little weaker. By knuckling under and doing as you are instructed to do, you are becoming part of the problem. You make those who would be disobedient stand out a little more and for what? The illusion of freedom! You think you chose to do as you were told? That's a lot of shit. You were browbeaten, frightened into compliance and we are all the less for it.

Do not go gently into that good night. To do otherwise is to make yourself the enemy of those who will not go. Again, this only sounds melodramatic to those who will have no one left to speak up for them.

Re:Not fun anymore

[castrox]

I understand your critisism but I disagree that the best option to fight for our apparent right to download music is to simply ignore that media companies will bring your ass to court, fine you into oblivion and then in some weird way you win.

You cannot win this battle by filesharing copyrighted works unless you mean that once all file sharers are economically obliterated, there will magically not be any consumers left and the politics and market will (again) magically change?

I don't understand the master plan here. Feel free to enlighten me - I enjoy this conversation (see my e-mail if you're unwilling to post all twists and turns to slashdot). I for one won't hope for your premature death.

How are "all" affected negatively by my actions (and I don't mean this to be a statistical rebuttal)? If I and all the rest continue to download, what exactly will happen? Will they change the law so that once again, the media companies cannot ask for IP-address to identity resolutions? At what price? You're not asking for little, are you.

You see, the only way for that plan to have an effect is to actually wind up in court. If you continue to fileshare their crap and manage to dodge their radar you haven't accomplished shit! So in other words, you want me to sell my car, move to a smaller apartment, dress like a hobo and eat noodles every day. Wow, you're a brave guy, aren't you. Please don't lecture me on civil disobedience when you're taking jack risk.

Finally, the way you DO win this battle is on the political arena. Now, you might not be Swedish and so you cannot vote on the Pirate Party. I am and I surely will. Meanwhile I participate in protests and educate friends and family (and co-workers).

Re:Not fun anymore

[parla]

I use torrents for: - TV-shows - Music that is not available for digital purchase in my country - Legal stuff (OS images etc.) Movies are no good anyway, and Spotify covers my music needs for the most part. (I too, am Swedish)

Re:Not fun anymore

[RAMMS EIN]

I don't know how the law works in Sweden, but, in the Netherlands, it's like this (disclaimer, IANAL, but I have read the laws):

1. The author of a work gains certain exclusive rights to it. This means that you, if you are not the author, may not do these things, unless you obtain permission from the rights holder.

2. There are other things you are allowed to do, even if you are not the rights holder.

3. Notably, if the work comes on a medium (for example, music that comes on a CD), unless the work is a computer program, you are allowed to make a copy for personal use, or have someone make a copy for you. You do not need to own the medium (e.g. you can borrow a CD from a friend and make a copy).

4. If the rights holder takes "technical measures" to prevent you from doing certain things, circumventing such technical measures is a criminal offense.

Taking this all together leads to a very interesting situation. Downloading a movie from the Internet counts as making a copy for personal use and is perfectly legal. Using DeCSS to decrypt a DVD that you bought so that you can watch it circumvents a technical measure and is, therefore, a crime.

I encourage everyone to play by the rules, and I also encourage everyone to know what the rules are.

I wonder...

[jchillerup]

... how they're going to stay online. The service itself has to be hosted somewhere where they won't have too much hassle with the constant influx of copyright complaints. The *AA companies will then be able to kill two of birds with one (or the cardinality of the userbase with one stone) by just getting whatever details about IPREDator they need and taking them to court for their illegal downloading. We have to remember: while The Pirate Bay remains legal, the illegal downloading has always been, and I'm very interested in details as to how they keep this service running in any country if they claim responsibility of their users' actions.

Anonymous networks

[Anonymous Coward]

Traffic in the I2P network is up 30%. I suspect there's an increase in other networks as well.

Re:Anonymous networks

[pipatron]

I sure hope you realize that traffic in the I2P network will show up in the "normal" network traffic stats, right?

This is great!

[bigge111]

Legislating against both the technology development and society development is a great way to keep back humanity. Congratulations Henrik Pontén, you've succeeded to stomp on the break of humanity's accelerating steps of knowledge. At least for a couple of days. If you're lucky perhaps even for a week! You're the greatest! Now, please run along and forbid axes so we can go back to using rocks...

30% drop *in Sweden*

[wilsoniya]

not a 30% drop in all net traffic.

From TFA: Internet use in Sweden dipped by 30 percent on Wednesday...

Re:30% drop *in Sweden*

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretty sure it says that in TFS, too.

Or at least on the title bar for this window.

More about the IPDRED law

[broothal]

Read all about ipred.

So your point is?

[castrox]

I fail to see your point. Downloading stuff that the authors seems to completely hate you for is somehow Freedom?

No. That's a childish approach. With freedom comes responsibility. Now, I think the industry is behaving like a rabies dog but they're within their rights to disallow us to copy their material without giving them a krona.

Freedom is to being able to NOT BUY INTO THEIR SHIT. Accept their rules since it's in fact codified, but refuse to participate in transactions with them unless you're offered a FAIR DEAL and things YOU ACTUALLY WANT.

Re:So your point is?

[jchillerup]

Fair points which I certainly agree to. I rest my case, however: I will not let lobby organizations like the MPAA or RIAA have more power than any other company in the world. If they start acting like the police, some authority should stop them instead of making their lives easier.

Re:So your point is?

[pimpimpim]

So, we are all like you and all stop filesharing. It's not like the surveillance will stop all of a sudden, enough alternative reasons to extend the surveillance will come up. Current german minister wanting to censor child porn websites, etc.

It's a bit naive to think that these regulations are related to the actual behavior of the population, there just needs to be an excuse that sounds reasonable enough to most of the population to accept it.

Re:So your point is?

[bigge111]

I disagree to some extent. It's in many cases not the "authors" who hate you for downloading the material. In England for example, 140 artists has organized to let their fans download their material peer-to-peer (artists including Radiohead, Peter Gabriel, Annie Lennox and Robbie Williams). As for Sweden, one of the most popular artists, Håkan Hellström, is used in the record companies arguments to forbid filesharing, when in fact Hellström himself at numerous occasions has said that he rather see people downloading his music for free than not beeing able to listen to him to the extent they want to. So freedom in this case is NOT turning against the artists or authors. (Writer Marcus Birro said in his radio program Karlavagnen that if people read you texts for free, then maybe you can do something else to earn your living, as long as you get the message out there. Like having your own radio show, perhaps?) I think the truth is that the record companies see a future where they are disposable. And if they continue to criminalize their onwn customers instead of adobting to the new techdriven "set of rules" in society, they will be. But it seems as for now they actually think it's more convinient to legislate than finding new business models.

Re:So your point is?

[h4rm0ny]

He's not alone. For everyone who posts something, there are usually a lot who don't but think the same. I am very much against some of the measures that are being proposed for combating piracy, but I recognize that people's behaviour in such widespread copyright infringement has provoked such measures and given a certain amount of legitimacy to them. The GP is right - this isn't sustainable and if it progresses, it's just going to wreck aspects of the Internet for all of us and, sadly, damage the ability of artists to sell their material without having to depend on a big label to manage it for them.

Re:So your point is?

[Jurily]

Now, I think the industry is behaving like a rabies dog but they're within their rights to disallow us to copy their material without giving them a krona.

No, they're not. They're trying to sell air based on laws that originally regulated a privileged few among themselves. In the days where not everyone could afford a 'copying machine' it was perfectly okay. Things have changed, laws essentially didn't. I, for one, oppose any law that criminalizes a significant portion of the population without any benefit whatsoever in return. Intellectual Property doesn't exist. Get over it.

Freedom is to being able to NOT BUY INTO THEIR SHIT. Accept their rules since it's in fact codified, but refuse to participate in transactions with them unless you're offered a FAIR DEAL and things YOU ACTUALLY WANT.

I accept their rules as soon as they stop writing new ones when not enough people are breaking the existing ones.

Re:So your point is?

[Anonymous Coward]

I feel the same way but take the opposite approach.

I love music. I used to purchase at least a couple of albums a month. I have hundreds of them. Now there's no way in hell I'm giving them a dime. The only time I buy music now is from completely independent artists. The rest get pirated.

When someone bullies you, you're saying to just run away from the bully. They're buying laws and corrupting our society. You're saying to just accept that and to do as they say as they destroy art and culture.

Re:So your point is?

[martin-boundary]

The GP is wrong. The only thing that can wreck the internet (in your part of the world) is *you*. Specifically, it's people like you who refuse to protect the internet from censorship. The reason is irrelevant.

Have you forgotten about the terrorists? They are just as good a reason for censoring the net than filesharing, or X numbers of other lame excuses. If you want the internet to be free from censorship in Sweden, you have to fight by imposing your will on your politicians.

At the moment, you and the GP have battered wife syndrome, you are saying it's us, if we change then the politicians and other bad people will have no reason to do this to us..

Guess what? Your internet will be censored unless you stand up and say no. That means, not accepting simplistic demonizations of filesharers, and not accepting the travesty of copyright that now exists. Your culture is being taken away from you *today* through stupid international copyright extensions. Death of author + 70 years means you don't get to read a book freely, your children don't get to read freely, your grandchildren don't get to read freely, and on and on. When your kids ask you what you did to make the world a better place, what will you say to them?

Re:So your point is?

[h4rm0ny]

I am one of the original founding members of the Open Rights Group in the UK and I've several times debated with my elected representatives about protecting various freedoms on the Internet. I don't have "battered wife syndrome" and I do take active steps to try and protect my freedoms. I don't know anything about you, but there's a good chance I've done more than you have to try and keep the Internet free. But that doesn't mean I need to disregard facts that seem inconvenient. Wide-spread piracy provides a powerful justification for attempts to stop it. And I don't know of any methods of stopping it that don't have the rights of innocent people stepped on as collateral damage, or that don't allow an opening for the government to insert a little scope-creep for political purposes. So in addition to fighting against infringements of my freedom, I (like the earlier poster) point out the flaws in the arguments of piracy proponents who are provoking a lot of these measures for the sake of not paying for music or movies or books.

Re:So your point is?

[h4rm0ny]

P.s. So stop being so obnoxiously self-righteous saying the problem is "people like me". And stop shifting the scope. Did I say anything about extending copyright terms? No I didn't. You introduced that particular straw man.

Re:So your point is?

[Anonymous Coward]

Accept their rules since it's in fact codified

Slaves used to be required to "accept the rules" also. That doesn't make it right. How about let's CHANGE the damned rules. Copyright law wasn't handed down by Moses. Government is supposed to be a tool of the people, not a weapon to be used against them.

Re:So your point is?

[javilon]

Freedom is to being able to NOT BUY INTO THEIR SHIT. Accept their rules since it's in fact codified, but refuse to participate in transactions with them unless you're offered a FAIR DEAL and things YOU ACTUALLY WANT.

Well, that depends of your definition of fair deal.

It is like in the wild west movies, where one person is the owner of everything that exists in a village and you need water to drink but he charges you an arm an a leg for it. You can choose not to buy water from him, but it is not very practical. Is it a fair deal? I don't think so.

The same thing goes with the music industry. They have until not very long kept an iron grip on distribution. They achieved this using morally questionable practices and the only thing that changed that situation is file sharing. Now, they want to legislate their way into going back to the previous situation where "fair deal" is defined by them. And this legislation they are buying has some side effects, like having to spy on regular citizens traffic.

Re:So your point is?

[Anonymous Coward]

When your kids ask you what you did to make the world a better place, what will you say to them?

I downloaded so much porn, that it hurt my penis to watch it all...

Re:So your point is?

[Mr2001]

Wide-spread piracy provides a powerful justification for attempts to stop it. And I don't know of any methods of stopping it that don't have the rights of innocent people stepped on as collateral damage, or that don't allow an opening for the government to insert a little scope-creep for political purposes.

I do: legalize what the pirates are doing. Abolish copyright.

"Piracy proponents" aren't provoking these measures; the bloated copyright-based industries are. Try directing your anger at the people who are pushing for more and more restrictions on communication and technology, not the people who want to share information and be left alone.

Re:So your point is?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a bit rich for an artist who sells off his copyright for a profit to then go and say he doesn't mind people taking it for free. Ofcourse, they don't, they've already got their money by selling the rights to their work.

Re:So your point is?

[h4rm0ny]

"Piracy proponents" aren't provoking these measures; the bloated copyright-based industries are. Try directing your anger at the people who are pushing for more and more restrictions on communication and technology, not the people who want to share information and be left alone.

Take a look at the link I posted to the organization I financially support. You will see that one of our activities is opposing copyright term extension in Europe, briefing MEPs and the media on the subject. What have you done to fight "people who are pushing for more and more restrictions on communication and technology" ?

As to "bloated copyright industries" why do you omit the many small labels and artists and writers and game producers and others who also depend on copyright to be able to sell their work for whatever price they can find accords with public desire for their work? The Internet has provided the first opportunity in a long time to subvert giant music labels by letter artists connect to their public directly and en masse. And you want to take that opportunity away from them?

Re:So your point is?

[PMBjornerud]

In the days where not everyone could afford a 'copying machine' it was perfectly okay. Things have changed, laws essentially didn't.

The laws changed. In the opposite direction.

Culture is spread around the earth in a fraction of a second. Music, movies and games are changing so fast and produced in such amounts that most is forgotten after a year.

Copyright? Extendened to a century and more.

Re:So your point is?

[thuerrsch]

At the moment, you and the GP have battered wife syndrome

Or should we call it Stockholm syndrome? Jokes aside, you're damn right. It's never really been about filesharing, child porn, terrorism or whatever. All of these are just excuses for governments and the corporatist forces behind them to reassert their powers to levels last seen decades ago, before the freedom movements of the 1960s changed the world. The internet is a prime battleground because of its fundamentally anarchist structure. Goverments need to get their grip on it in order to regain control over society as a whole. That's what it's really about.

Re:So your point is?

[Richard_at_work]

Intellectual Property doesn't exist. Get over it.

Intellectual property exists as much as any other property does - remember, its the same style of artificial laws that restrict my ability to take your car, house or other property. The argument that you lose something physical when I do that does not change the fact that its still an artificial restriction.

Re:So your point is?

[Mr2001]

Take a look at the link I posted to the organization I financially support. You will see that one of our activities is opposing copyright term extension in Europe, briefing MEPs and the media on the subject.

I'm glad you contribute to that, sincerely, even as an American. I'm not trying to get personal, I just don't think pirates (or piracy proponents) deserve the blame you've given them.

As to "bloated copyright industries" why do you omit the many small labels and artists and writers and game producers and others who also depend on copyright to be able to sell their work for whatever price they can find accords with public desire for their work?

The artists don't depend on copyright. Their present business model does.

It's based on treating information as if it were a consumable product, like candy bars to be copied and sold in millions of identical packages. That's not a natural or efficient way to treat it, and that's why we have draconian laws, DRM fiascoes, constant lawsuits and so on.

The Internet has provided the first opportunity in a long time to subvert giant music labels by letter artists connect to their public directly and en masse. And you want to take that opportunity away from them?

Not at all. I want to give them an even greater opportunity to connect to their public directly and en masse -- by working for their fans.

Musicians aren't factories churning out identical copies of music, they're performers and writers who do a project and then move on to the next one. What they provide isn't a good, it's a service. And most people who provide services for a living get paid based on how valuable their skills are and how long they work, not how many widgets they move.

The internet makes it possible for communities to fund large projects: look at online political fundraising, or even open source software (funded in programmer-hours). You don't need copyright when your fans can commission you to make the original recording.

Re:So your point is?

[Jurily]

The argument that you lose something physical when I do that does not change the fact that its still an artificial restriction.

If I figure out how to copy your car for free, with equipment available pretty much everywhere, making thousands of copies almost as fast as making a single copy, should I be verboten to do so by reinterpreting existing laws to keep the factories' profit margins?

Re:So your point is?

[Hemogoblin]

I agree, it's not the authors that hate file-sharing. Essentially, file-sharing is advertising for the authors, "paid for" by the music labels. Muscians in general make most of their money from performances and concerts. I read somewhere that only 4 out of the top 50 top-revenue-earning-artists made more money from selling cds than from performing.

For some proof, there's a similar artist coalition in Canada called "the Canadian Music Creators Coalition"

Until now, a group of multinational record labels has done most of the talking about what Canadian artists need out of copyright. Record companies and music publishers are not our enemies, but let's be clear: lobbyists for major labels are looking out for their shareholders, and seldom speak for Canadian artists. Legislative proposals that would facilitate lawsuits against our fans or increase the labels' control over the enjoyment of music are made not in our names, but on behalf of the labels' foreign parent companies.

- CMCC

Here are some of their interesting press releases:

Montreal, January 30, 2007 - Nielsen SoundScan numbers released January 17th show that Canada's digital download market grew more than any major market in 2006. This exciting news has the Canadian Music Creators Coalition asking: 'Why are the record labels still pushing for ways to sue Canadian music fans?'

- link

And I'll throw one last link in:

And then in 2008, Canada again outperforms U.S. in digital sales, and Industry Canada commissions a study which shows a positive correlation between file sharing and music purchasing. CMCC argues against anti-circumvention legislation. link Michael Geist

Re:So your point is?

[Anonymous Coward]

The idea of copyright is to encourage the development of creative works by giving the creator a temporary monopoly on distribution rights in order to recover their investment. That digital distribution costs are negligible is irrelevant; the creator is still entitled to recover his initial investment of time, money, and other resources. Unfortunately, "temporary" has turned into "perpetual"; that is the real problem here. Because of that, I am not opposed to the idea of pirating things after a "fair" amount of time. For instance, I don't think it's right to download the latest DVD releases; however, I feel something 5 or 10 years old is fair game. The original term was 14 years, which in this day and age I think is more than fair.

Re:So your point is?

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that these industries consider anyone not buying their shit to be getting it illegally somehow. Even if they have no way to prove it, see no evidence of it anywhere, THOSE BASTARDS MUST BE GETTING OUR HORRIBLE SHIT ILLEGALLY SOMEHOW. And thus the lobbying of the legislation continues, usually with mandatory monthly payments to the industries "just in case we can't catch you" where the payments increase upward more and more after the initial "fair starting point" is determined all the while if you're caught downloading somehow you're still completely liable, etc etc.

I'm not saying people shouldn't avoid industry shit. I know I avoid a vast majority of it and have opened to the realm of indy musicians, web comics, creative commons users, etc. However you do NOT stop trying to raise your voice of displeasure wherever possible. Otherwise the above will be hammered through your respective governments before you realize what happened.

Re:So your point is?

[Anonymous Coward]

I will not let lobby organizations like the MPAA or RIAA have more power than any other company in the world

And what, pray tell, do you think the EFF is?

Re:So your point is?

[alexo]

>> I will not let lobby organizations like the MPAA or RIAA have more power than any other company in the world
> And what, pray tell, do you think the EFF is?

Unfortunately, they were suspended.

Re:So your point is?

[ynef]

Actually, Sweden does censor the Internet for its citizens as a protection against child pornography.

Interestingly, this was used once in an attempt to shut down the Pirate Bay, because it was accused of "hosting" child porn -- yet the accusation did not indicate what torrents were believed to be of that kind. This means that all the Big Media people have to do is to just point at a site and scream "child porn" to shut down a site here in Sweden. Lovely.

Re:So your point is?

[Tuoqui]

The thing is this is the only way to win is by file sharing.

1) If you dont file share then they win. (People go and buy the crap, thus fattening up their pockets to make them a more effective lobby group)
2) If you dont buy then you lose. (The media groups go 'omg look at those pirates they're costing us millions and billions in profits!')

Even if you organized a boycott the fact is many of these companies are way too big. I mean you want to boycott Sony that means no Playstation, No TV's, etc... they probably have cell phone divisions and what not. They basically make profit no matter what you buy because they have so many different companies under them feeding them that it's impossible to boycott a company to the point where you can make them hurt anymore.

Re:So your point is?

[Burz]

I have to disagree with you for once.

Like the black markets in the former Eastern Block, people's willingness to 'copy anyway' serves to de-legitimize the justifications (obscene copyright terms) for police state behavior. It is one of the ways that people stand up to a political or corporate class hat has developed a lust for dominance and punishment.

The main reason I know your argument is weak is because it doesn't hold up to the experience of the war on drugs: There is simply no end to how small an incursion the present establishment will try to prosecute people for (captains of industry, heads of state and their most vociferous line-towers excepted, of course).

The sentiment "They won't have a reason to spy/criminalize if you don't give them one" also bears a mirror-like resemblance to "People with nothing to hide have nothing to fear".

Quite sincerely, I am suggesting that you re-examine your stance or resign from the ORG.

Re:So your point is?

[cliffski]

If the stuff is 'crap' and other people buy it, what the fuck do you care?
Does it really offend you SO MUCH that people like different movies to you, that you intend to push the business making them out of business, to both
1) punish people making movies for other people and
2) punish people who happily paid to see them.

If you don't like stuff made by certain companies don't buy it.

I don't like folk music. But I don't try and kill off the folk music industry, because I'm adult enough to understand peoples tastes vary.

It doesn't matter what powers the RIAA have to prosecute you if you steal their stuff, because as someone who hates their stuff, you arent going to be pirating it.
Right?

Re:So your point is?

[skeeto]

Freedom is to being able to NOT BUY INTO THEIR SHIT.

In many countries we don't even have that choice. They extort money one way or another, such as a musician having to pay other people royalties for playing his own original music or paying a blank media tax. That Ubuntu ISO you burned? You probably paid the music/movie industry royalties for it.

but they're within their rights to disallow us to copy their material without giving them a krona

They only have that right because we the people gave it to them. We did it to encourage them to make lots of stuff. And it is only supposed to be temporary. The deal is broken now, so I don't have to uphold my half of it. I copy as I please, thank you.

Re:So your point is?

[cliffski]

By 'information' do you mean 'hollywood movies'?

if so.... get some fucking perspective.

Re:So your point is?

[Jurily]

The idea of copyright is to encourage the development of creative works by giving the creator a temporary monopoly on distribution rights in order to recover their investment.

Thank you for proving my point.

Re:So your point is?

[Mr2001]

By 'information' do you mean 'hollywood movies'?

I mean "data". Files, numbers, abstract patterns, some of which encode Hollywood movies, or songs, or software. Copyright is a way of pretending that you can own a pattern, or limit access to a number, and since that's not now numbers naturally work, it requires all sorts of draconian measures to enforce -- you have to restrict communication in order to have copyright.

Re:So your point is?

[martin-boundary]

(sorry for the late-ish reply)

I'm not being any more self-righteous than you when you accuse the pirates of ruining your argument. If you could stop torrents with a magic switch, who would you be accusing next? There's criminals using the internet for scams, there's the previously mentioned terrorists and childpornographers, there's hackers, and malicious viruses doing damage to computer systems, there's robots snooping private files, there's people posting rumours and slander, etc.

You know all that. There's no end to the number of other complaints against the internet. It is not a strawman to point them out when your proposed solution is to scapegoat groups of people.

What makes your argument in this thread weak is that it is completely shaped by the accusations from the copyright lobby. Your response, when faced with a claim that sharing movies and songs is a huge problem that causes irreparable damage to society is to simply accept it at face value, and wish that the filesharers would just stop.

Where is the actual evidence for these sorts of claims? How would one even go about measuring the overall effects scientifically? And how do you propose to convince people to change their ways, and if you can, how many people are we talking about anyway?

Re:So your point is?

[martin-boundary]

What inconvenient facts are those? That wide-spread piracy provides a justification for (presumably) politicians and lobby groups? Or do you have other facts (statistics, etc) to share?

By all means, let's all stop doing anything that somebody somewhere could use to justify something. Politicians and lawyers are really very stupid after all, and if we don't give them a reason, they will be unable to think of any on their own.

When you say that you're pointing out flaws in the arguments of piracy propononents (n.b. piracy or filesharing?), what I've heard so far is that pirates don't want to pay for movies or music. That's what the RIAA are accusing people of. Is the existence of an accusation a flaw in the defense?

Re:So your point is?

[Wildclaw]

No, freedom is not about being able to do stuff that others agree with. Freedom is about being able to do stuff that others disagree with. Of course, most western people seem to have forgotten that, or never understood it in the first place.

Sometimes freedom clashes with the freedom of another and in those cases we need he law. But the law needs to weigh the relative freedoms closely and not allow the more important freedoms to conquer over lesser ones.

Re:So your point is?

[cliffski]

if you want to encourage people to create movies, you need to pay them. people do not work for free.
what part of this theory confuses you?

Re:So your point is?

[Mr2001]

if you want to encourage people to create movies, you need to pay them. people do not work for free.
what part of this theory confuses you?

Actually, as a Slashdotter, you ought to know that lots of people do work for free. But that's beside the point, because people don't need copyright in order to get paid.

Anyone who doesn't work to work for free can simply refuse to work until someone has agreed to pay him for his time; that's what happens in every other industry that doesn't have something like copyright to prop up an inefficient, unnatural business model. What part of this very common economic arrangement confuses you?

Re:So your point is?

[Richard_at_work]

Why shouldnt you be? Theres still an initial investment to be recouped, regardless of the fact that *you* never made that initial investment in the creation of the original.

Just because its free to *you* doesn't make it *free*.

Ah, bad science and statistics....

[subreality]

sends a very strong signal that the legislation works.

Or it might be an indicator that the legislation has a chilling effect on free speech and fair use.

Re:Ah, bad science and statistics....

[bigge111]

It may also be a boost for material not published by big companies but by artists and writers themself. At least I hope so. The record company belongs to the old economy and is not really needed any longer, which I think a lot of artists will realise in the near future. If there is something good coming out of this, it is that even the artists themselves is becoming more and more aware of the possibilities for them with the new technology. We may see more diversified art, more niched and less mainstream, when the big companies get cut off. After all, their role is mainly to provide the economic resources, which is less and less needed today since technology gets cheaper and cheaper.

Re:Ah, bad science and statistics....

[Meneth]

sends a very strong signal that the legislation works.

Or it might be an indicator that the legislation has a chilling effect on free speech and fair use.

Which is the way it's supposed to work...

According to its designers, the MAFIAA, anyway.

Re:Ah, bad science and statistics....

[thomasdn]

sends a very strong signal that the legislation works.

Or it might be an indicator that the legislation has a chilling effect on free speech and fair use.

I think, unfortunately, that means exactly that the legislation works...

Organized boycott

[bigge111]

Honestly, somebody should organize a boycott for one week when nobody downloads a single byte of music, movies, tv series etcetera. Not "legal" nor "illegal" (unsigned bands and "legally free" material excluded). Let those companies that pisses on their on customers be totally dead for one week. Make it a global manifestation, then maybe they will wake up from their slumber and accept that customers of today don't care for yesterday's business models and that they actually have to be so creative that they say they are. Why not make it a week when you take some time to discover some great undiscovered bands?

Re:Organized boycott

[Tuoqui]

How about just not going on the internet at all for a week and not buying anything that isnt a necessity (food and shelter, you should have enough clothing to last you a week). That might have a bigger effect on the legislators.

Yeah, it works.

[hyfe]

Of course it works. In Norway there has been serious talks (like, not only nerds in basements) about not routing traffic through Sweden anymore. I don't know if anything came out of it, but I'm willing to bet it's affecting long-term plans on where to build pipelines.

The bill doesn't just cover traffic to/from swedish households, it covers all traffic entering and leaving the country.

Re:Yeah, it works.

[Anonymous Coward]

IPRED is not the same thing as FRA. IPRED doesn't affect the Norwegians :)

Re:Yeah, it works.

[broeman]

There has been the same talks in Denmark too, since much of our traffic runs through Sweden. Many companies are afraid of espionage if the data came into wrong hands (see UK as an example of government stupidity). Of course they cannot use it against us in a legal matter (yet), but I don't like to see my IP address in a Swedish government database.

Re:Yeah, it works.

[Ztream]

I think you're talking about the FRA law, allowing domestic wiretapping of all data traffic. This article is about IPRED, which makes it possible for copyright holders to request customer information from ISPs given IP addresses suspected of copyright infringement. Or something like that.

WB ( heart ) TPB?

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of that drop was everyone dropping the WB/TPB love-in April Fools joke torrent!

Traffic down 30%, sales up by...?

[richie2000]

The arguments for implementing and enforcing this law is to "encourage legal alternatives". So, after a 30% drop if file-sharing traffic, we'd expect to see a 30% increase in sales of CDs, DVDs and e-books. Or, there is no correlation between downloads and lost sales, just as a bunch of scientific reports suggest.

Anyone care to wager that this purported increase in sales will not, in fact, happen?

Re:Traffic down 30%, sales up by...?

[Anonymous Coward]

The increase in sales will never happen, and then the industry will push for IPRED 2.0...

Re:Traffic down 30%, sales up by...?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're going to make this argument, please do it correctly. Firstly, a 30% drop in file-sharing traffic is not equal in content to a 30% increase in legal distribution. The assertion that it is is simply wrong. Secondly, correlations do not have to be 1 to exist. Not every non-download need translate for a correlation to exist.

Please, for your own sake, make arguments that are at least representative of reality. The constant assertions that opposition to piracy is a strike against freedom, or that 'intellectual property' shouldn't exist do not help your cause. Like it or not, message control matters. Am I asserting that you should all sit down and shut up, because the adults are talking? Well, no. If you want to see change, you have to convince people. And the community is pretty terrible at that.

Let me elaborate. Consider the 'you wouldn't steal...' campaign. It's effective - at least for now. There's no opposition, no calm source for a counterargument. If some curious person ends up here, and promptly runs into fragments such as 'imaginary property', 'information wants to be free', and, of course, 'MAFIAA', there's a chance they'll feel like I would if I ended up at Free Republic. Presentation... is relevant.

Incidentally, I find the 'coward' part of the anonymous username more than a little amusing in this context.

Re:Traffic down 30%, sales up by...?

[Toonol]

I suspect everybody was downloading everything they could right up until March 31st, and that a part of the decline on 4/1 was just a return to normal volume.

Re:Traffic down 30%, sales up by...?

[pipatron]

Incidentally, I find the 'coward' part of the anonymous username more than a little amusing in this context.

Yes, funny how you would think that, since you are hiding under the cowardly "anonymous" veil all while bashing on the named parent, which argument you didn't understand and misinterpreted.

Re:Traffic down 30%, sales up by...?

[richie2000]

*woooosh*

The point was that this correlation does not exist, yet it is touted as fact by the copyright-huggers.

Re:Traffic down 30%, sales up by...?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone care to wager that this purported increase in sales will not, in fact, happen?

In my case, same as with most people I know, the opposite will happen. We will buy less music, movies and games due to this. Obviously, we are not many enough to be statistically relevant, but hey, it's a piece of fact, regardless.

Re:Traffic down 30%, sales up by...?

[sponga]

What about Itunes?

You can buy music on the internet now, if you haven't heard.
Maybe Apple will have a say in this.

Re:Traffic down 30%, sales up by...?

[Anonymous Coward]

Consider the 'you wouldn't steal...' campaign. It's effective

It is?

Really?

Everyone I know (not just nerds, honestly) thinks it's ridiculous and knows very well the difference between theft and copyright infringement. I would be amazed if a campaign suggesting that copying a song is directly equivalent to stealing a car was effective.

Re:Traffic down 30%, sales up by...?

[richie2000]

Sadly, IPRED 2 is already in the works.

Well, considering the date of the traffic drop...

[SuperMo0]

I know I avoided pretty much the entire Internet like the plague April 1. It really is quite the annoying day to be online, what with Youtube going upside down or whatever. Does it explain all of the 30%? Probably not. Does it explain some of it? Probably. I could be ignorant about whether Sweden celebrates April Fool's, but...

Hogwash

[aoheno]

300,000 people lost their jobs in March and immediately canceled their Internet connection with service continuing through March 31.

Traffic increased 30% at libraries and Internet cafes.

The law had no effect.

Re:Hogwash

[Anonymous Coward]

Citation?

Re:Hogwash

[Anonymous Coward]

300,000 people lost their jobs in March and immediately canceled their Internet connection

Can you prove this, or are you just talking out of your ass?

It would really surprise me if it's true - because a) it's unlikely that all of them would do exactly the same thing, b) an internet connection is not that expensive, c) internet connections are utterly vital to jobseeking in Sweden, and d) the cost of large-scale use of internet cafes (20-30h over a month) can easily exceed the monthly cost of an internet connection. What you postulate therefore looks not only unlikely, but also relies on a mass amount of people all acting illogically.

I find people who state with ultimate certainty what may only be true in their own heads both funny and sad. It's quite common in Sweden, a sick society and a sick culture.

Re:Hogwash

[Imsdal]

Can you prove this, or are you just talking out of your ass?

It is completely the latter. Unemployment is expected to rise in Sweden (like in most of the western world) but it hasn't happened yet to that extent. And even when unemployment rises, internet subscriptions won't drop by much.

Re:Hogwash

[I cant believe its n]

I find people who state with ultimate certainty what may only be true in their own heads both funny and sad.

I agree.

It's quite common in Sweden, a sick society and a sick culture.

:p

Not conclusive stats

[Anonymous Coward]

The stats do not include the major ISPs (Telia, Tele2, Telenor) but instead only the minor once using the Netnod nodes. Sure you can draw some kind of image from this but it's far from complete.

Or Or

[future assassin]

Wouldn't it be funny if sales of music dropped even more now that people don't sample before they buy. Other wise they'll just blame is on some new fangled technology that they now need to also make illegal because since there was no increase in sales people must have moved onto this new secret technology to steal even more music.

fascism

[michalk0]

this law is just another evidence, that in essence, all forms of state eventually evolve into the same socialist-fascist tyranny that feeds on individual liberties [to justify...] and private property [..and support its function].

Re:fascism

[Wildclaw]

socialist-fascist tyranny

Just call it for the Authoritanism that it is. Mixing in left-right economics in it is just what those in power wants. The left blames the right. The right blames the left. And meanwhile the Authoritarians in power who are mostly left-right agnostic laugh as noone pays any real attention to them.

Re:fascism

[michalk0]

the problem is the state itself. Both wings follow the same agenda at the end.

Re:fascism

[mjwx]

the problem is the state itself.

So Anachy is the solution? Hey at least its better then no government at all.

Just use Tor

[whyqazmailinator2]

I read somewhere to use Tor. Naturally and basically enable on the client encryption (will add significant overhead, and it will you download WILL be slow), obviously install privoxy and tor. Configure your torrent client to use http through privoxy (127.0.0.1:8118) and to too use sock 5 to tor it self (127.0.0.1:9050). Cheaper way of anonymity.

Re:Just use Tor

[yuna49]

Tor was not designed for the type and levels of traffic BitTorrent generates. Using it for torrents squeezes out people who actually need to remain anonymous. Widespread use of Tor for torrents would be a disaster for freedom.

Please don't recommend Tor.

And when sales don't go up

[Anonymous Coward]

or even go down, will they say this is proof that piracy is NOT a problem?

Unlikely.

VPNs are irrelevant

[wintermute000]

IPREDator and any other VPN or tunnelling solution is moot.

Only a small proportion of the file sharing population have the nous to sort it out.

If they drive off the majority of the file sharers, their job is done. The tech underground will keep swapping files like they always have done, its getting the masses off browse and click bittorrent that's the main objective.

Re:VPNs are irrelevant

[AbRASiON]

You raise an excellent point, which briefly made me think, awesome - no matter what I'll still be able to get what I need.

Thing is, I think that torrenting, burning, unraring, playback has made many many 'dummy' users much smarter than they ever would be on a machine previously.
Furthermore, they have a taste for it now, if they find torrents are shut down, they will ask their geeek friends what to do instead.

Re:VPNs are irrelevant

[Anonymous Coward]

You ignore history. Bit Torrent, when it first came out was only used by the "tech-savvy" file sharers. Now it's main stream. IPREDator VPN is now only used by "tech-savvy" file sharers, but it will someday soon be mainstream.

Re:VPNs are irrelevant

[Anonymous Coward]

bit torrent was once a minor, geek-only tool, but now it is used by everyone and his dog.

So why is 1 download 1 lost sale?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the argument over Jammie's $220,000 fine for 24 tracks: an uncountable number downloaded and that is an uncountable loss to the recording industry.

In that case, 1 download is 1 lost sale.

If this IS the case, then 1 unmade download is 1 gained sale.

Your comment is wrong.

Re:So why is 1 download 1 lost sale?

[Colonel Korn]

That's the argument over Jammie's $220,000 fine for 24 tracks: an uncountable number downloaded and that is an uncountable loss to the recording industry.

In that case, 1 download is 1 lost sale.

If this IS the case, then 1 unmade download is 1 gained sale.

Your comment is wrong.

Well they're actually claiming in Jammie Thomas' case that one download = 9167 lost sales.

Will Magnatune et al. notice?

[catman]

It's been a long time since I bought music in a store, but I find myself looking with increasing interest at what Magnatune offers. Currently downloading a Bach album ...

My dilemma is this ...

[MartinSchou]

I like certain TV-shows. "Heroes" is one of them.

It's currently in its second season here in Sweden. But I don't have a TV, nor do I have the time to watch it when it's on the telly. Oh, and it's in regular TV-quality. The iTunes store sell the TV-show though. But not in the Swedish store. They don't sell ANY movies or TV-shows in the Swedish store.

I can buy the first two seasons on DVDs (and maybe blu-ray, not sure), but since most of the people I talk with on a daily basis are from the US, I can't really talk about the TV-shows - it's like being more than a year behind with the news. Current events aren't really all that current.

I've seen the first season on DVDs. It's a cool show. I'd like to keep up with it. I'm more than willing to pay the I think 35$ an HD quality season costs on iTunes, but aparently my money aren't good enough for these people (I doubt it's Apple's decision).

Browsing through the US store I see lots of shows I'd like to watch and buy. Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog being one of them, but again, that's only available in the US store. That makes no sense though, as I can buy it on Amazon, and it's not like that show will ever be syndicated - what TV-network would buy a 3 episode show with a total runtime of 45 minutes?

Hell, I'm willing to pay two dollars to watch an episode of something, just to see if it's any good.

Essentially my dilemma is as follows:
I can break the law by making a fraudulent claim that I'm in the US and buy the stuff I want. I'm sure this is illegal in other ways than the fraud bit.
I can break the law by downloading the shows I want to watch and sample new stuff
I can buy a TV, wait a few years for my local networks to hopefully pick up shows that I'll find interesting and then watch it.

I don't really want a TV - partly because I am then forced to pay a yearly tax on it, partly because I don't really watch it. I had a 42" plasma from janurary 2008 to august 2008, and I think I watched a combined total of 4 hours of TV on it, the rest was gaming and watching movies.

I don't really want to break the law. I don't mind paying to support the production costs of the stuff I like, I don't mind paying to support a distribution system I like. But aparently I'm not the kind of person, "they" want to cater to.

"They" could learn a LOT from The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. I can watch their shows within a day of them being aired with no restrictions. They used to have embedded ads in their commercial breaks (not a problem), but they stopped that a while back, probably because the ads were aimed at a US audience. The Daily Show is even syndicated in Denmark - the broadcaster manages to put subtitles on it and show it with a two day delay, so it's not like there isn't a foreign market for it either.

My point is this:
"They" have no aparent interest in selling their stuff to me. My money obviously isn't good enough for them. If that's the case, why the fuck do they care if I download their stuff? It's not like it's a lost sale - they obviously do not want to sell it to me!

Re:My dilemma is this ...

[KeX3]

Oh how I want to mod you +5 ForTheWin. But that might be because I share the same predicament. I can't buy, I can't catch it on TV. I suppose the only way to catch show X is to buy a satellite receiver and subscribe the the channel show X is on, which is what they want me/you/everyone to do. Apparently they haven't realized that the time when people paid for 24h/day programming when they want 1h/week is over. Either they give me the ability to see the show I want, in the Late Night/South Park/Colbert Report way, or they give me the ability to buy and download the episodes after (or at) air-time - no matter where I'm located, or I'm going to pirate the hell out of their stuff and they'll never see a dime in either sales or ad-spots coming from me. Time to freshen up on Big Bang Theory. It's not here in spain, and if it by some miracle happened to be, it would surely be dubbed into incomprehensible jibberish.

Re:My dilemma is this ...

[KeX3]

/. comments need the google mail 5-second rule.

Always annoying when writing a big post and forgetting to select "Plain Old Text". Bleh. Incomprehensible mess is the end-result.

Re:My dilemma is this ...

[bradley13]

Or another anecdote: there is a movie we want to watch. No rental store in the entire country seems to have it. No shop in the entire country has it (it came out on VHS and was apparently never put onto DVD). I can't rent it, I can't buy it - so I downloaded it via a torrent. This is similar to the Google kerfluffle about out-of-print books. If the rights-owners can't be bothered to keep a work in the market, then the work is comparatively worthless to them. They really have no ethical basis to complain when the work is distributed by someone else in some other way.

Re:My dilemma is this ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I like certain TV-shows. "Heroes" is one of them.

You have my deepest condolences. Be strong and you will get through these tough times my friend.

Re:My dilemma is this ...

[Anonymous Coward]

they obviously do not want to sell it to me!

That's their prerogative.

Re:My dilemma is this ...

[TheDarkMaster]

+5 is not enought to this guy.

Re:My dilemma is this ...

[relguj9]

I like certain TV-shows. "Heroes" is one of them.

It's currently in its second season here in Sweden. But I don't have a TV, nor do I have the time to watch it when it's on the telly. Oh, and it's in regular TV-quality. The iTunes store sell the TV-show though. But not in the Swedish store. They don't sell ANY movies or TV-shows in the Swedish store.

Errm... If you really want to keep up with TV shows, just go to that network's website, they keep the recent episodes up on free streams... Hulu also streams many many recent episodes of network TV shows.

http://www.nbc.com/Heroes/

www.hulu.com

They don't block these sites in Sweden do they?

Re:My dilemma is this ...

[MartinSchou]

They don't block these sites in Sweden do they?

Well, Sweden isn't located in the US, so both NBC and Hulu blocks me. Well, NBC might allow you to see stuff if you're in Canada.

Re:My dilemma is this ...

[yuna49]

They don't block these sites in Sweden do they?

Yes, they do.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081003030102AATdW2Q
http://www.ghacks.net/2007/11/06/access-hulu-from-outside-the-united-states/

Television programming is distributed across the world in a complex staged operation. Producers like Universal have contracts with broadcasters around the world for the carriage of their programming. Most US shows are not available overseas for months or even years after their initial telecasts in the States.

The global perspective of the Internet does not extend to the long-standing business practices developed by the television industry over decades. Just the fact that television programming is available on websites owned by the networks themselves is a revolutionary change in the industry. Since the inception of broadcast television in America, network-affiliated stations relied on a combination of their monopoly over network content and local news programming to remain profitable. Now the networks have decided to compete directly against those very affiliates by abolishing their monopoly over distribution. For this to occur on a global basis, the networks will have to compete against their distributors across the world. I'd guess we're talking just a few years, but it could take a decade.

Re:My dilemma is this ...

[yuna49]

Just a clarification. I used the term "networks" in the last sentence meaning the large conglomerates that now control both television programming and distribution like NBC/Universal or Disney/ABC. It wasn't always so.

Re:My dilemma is this ...

[Anonymous Coward]

why was this modded interesting?

You feel left out b/c you can't watch the latest tv? Poor baby ... find a more interesting circle of friends that have something better to do and talk about than tv programs.

You are letting the media define your culture. You say you don't have a tv - great! Find other people that also don't have a tv. Start a band, form a meditation/yoga group, proselytize for your favorite religion, paint, bicycle, travel, educate people about the importance of free speech and open access to the internet - define your own culture and leave the corporate bastards out of it! Stop whining about tv and DO SOMETHING ELSE!!!

Re:My dilemma is this ...

[Blakey Rat]

I have a serious question, and I'm not trying to flame, I'm just curious.

The UK has a healthy TV/film industry, as does Japan, China, France, Germany, Australia, Mexico, Canada, and probably a dozen more countries I can't think of right now.

Why doesn't Sweden? I mean, why would you even be slightly interested in a show designed for American/Canadian audiences in English only?

Anyway, I just think it's really weird. As an American, I don't think "oh it's tragic you can't get US TV easily in Sweden," I think, "it's tragic Sweden (apparently) doesn't produce its own TV."

Re:My dilemma is this ...

[relguj9]

Ah, that sucks thanks for the info.

So you'd probably have to pay for some service to get your IP masked to a US IP. There are some services that aren't too expensive, relative to buying a DVD set at least. I'm not sure on the legality of it, but I'm sure you wouldn't get in trouble.

There may even be some publicly accessible VPN's that have the bandwidth, I'd look into it if I lived outside the US.

Re:My dilemma is this ...

[Laglorden]

That's (using a vpn or proxy) probably just as illegal in "their" eyes as downloading the content.

Re:My dilemma is this ...

[Laglorden]

Sweden do have a healty TV/film industry. Problably produces as much TV/film per capita as the US or UK, but still it's not a large country and since we can enjoy UK & US stuff in addition to our own, why shouldn't we be allowed to buy this?

Sweden is (was at least a couple of years ago?) also the third most music exporting country in the world (after US and UK). Britney Spears first album is really Swedish and so on...

So, it's not a matter of "pirate it because we don't produce anything ourselves".

Re:My dilemma is this ...

[relguj9]

I think the "their" in this case being the state since NBC hasn't licensed those shows there. I doubt the TV industry and advertisers would mind at all.

Re:My dilemma is this ...

[MartinSchou]

The short answer is "we do make our own TV, but it's really not worth watching".

The long answer is REALLY long:

The talent pool isn't nearly as large, nor are the available budgets.

If instead of Sweden you look at Denmark, Norway and Sweden as a coherent group (very similar culture and languages), we have 19.5 million people (and probably no more than that who understands the language) and a GDP of about 800 billion US dollars.

Compare that to the US: 309 million people, 14,000 billion US dollars. (GDP/capita is 10% bigger)

Since English is spoken and understood by close to two billion people, it's also easier for English TV-shows and moves to sold to other countries. This along with the MUCH bigger GDP allows for bigger budgets in movies as well as TV-shows. It also means your productions do not have to be aimed as broadly as possible just to cover your expenses.

Personally I have enough problems stomaching regular high profile series from these countries, because the acting is about par with bad day time soaps in the US. We do have some gems inbetween, but they're few and far apart in my opinion.

A Scandinavian SciFi show? "The Møøse, The Viking and The UFØ" ...

AS for why I would be even slightly interested in a show aimed at US/Canadian audiences? Because I'm not a xenophobe, worried that my frail mind will be warped and wither away if I see something from outside my own little sphere of independence. I watch French movies if they're good, even though I need subtitles (yes, I can read, and I can read fast enough that subtitles aren't an issue). Same with German, Japanese, Mexican etc. Plus our culture has embraced the American push for cultural imperialism.

As for the countries you mentioned:
UK - 60 million people, language understood by about 2 billion
Japan - 127 million, language understood by about as many, completely different culture
China - 1,300 million people, primary language (Mandarin) understood by about 800 million, completely different culture
France - 65 million people, language understood by about 175 million, hate the British and American cultures quite a bit (from what I understand)
Germany - 82 mllion people, language understood by about 185 million, don't really do subtitles as that would take up the entire screen - as such they do dubbing which sounds horrible and thus own productions are better
Australia - 21 million, language understood by about 2 billion
Mexico - 110 million, language understood by about 330 millon people
Canada - 33 million, language understood by about 2 billion (English)/175 million (French)

None of these compare to Scandinavia that well. Population wise Australia comes close, but then the language pulls it WAY out in front.

The most "fair" country I can think of off hand to compare Scandinavia to would be The Netherlands. 16.5 million people, about 22 million speak the language. GDP is 675 billion US dollars. And can't think of a single Dutch movie or TV-show I've ever seen (though I've heard of Big Brother, and I believe that was a Dutch idea).

Re:My dilemma is this ...

[Blakey Rat]

Because I'm not a xenophobe, worried that my frail mind will be warped and wither away if I see something from outside my own little sphere of independence. I watch French movies if they're good, even though I need subtitles (yes, I can read, and I can read fast enough that subtitles aren't an issue). Same with German, Japanese, Mexican etc.

Dude, relax. I'm not trying to insult or imply anything, I was just asking an honest question.

Anyway, I like watching foreign films, too. I guess I'd just assumed that if 80% of my entertainment options were foreign films, they'd be easier/quicker to obtain legally.

Re:My dilemma is this ...

[Jherek Carnelian]

Other than France - who do it with quality or possibly jingoism - and China - who do it with censorship - none of those countries have a domestic film industry that outsells hollywood imports at the local box office. In fact, only two other countries in all of the world can claim that -- India with their dirt cheap to make and hugely prodigious output of bollywood musicals and south korea with their peculiar knack for drama (and until just recently, mandatory domestic content laws for theaters).

Just keep watching that traffic...

[Jugalator]

We've seen these things happen before after new legislation, but now watch the traffic slowly increase back again (and possibly beyond) previous levels in the coming few months. :-p

Counter-productive

[castrox]

Of course it bothers me with the slippery slope that is the surveillance legislation orgie, but this story and my comment is not on those issues.

I'm already a Pirate Party member.

What I realize is that continuing to fileshare copyrighted works is COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE to the cause.

By the way, I really am Swedish.

Re:Counter-productive

[Kjella]

What I realize is that continuing to fileshare copyrighted works is COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE to the cause.

Has is really ever been the case that stopping to do something has been productive in legalizing it? I'm happy to hear good examples, because I can't think of any. In at least 99% of the cases it's been "We're doing it, we don't think it's wrong, now change the law". Not "Ok now we've all stopped doing it, can we legalize it now?". All you'd get is more bullshit on how that should happen any day now while the support and recruitment goes away until you can be ignored again.

Re:Counter-productive

[Trinn]

This same issue comes up when it comes to people talking about rectifying the laws with regard to drug prohibition, everyone* basically says "Well if you use drugs, you aren't allowed to talk, you're just making the problem worse". I agree, when a large portion of the population is already doing something anyway, its time to revisit the law.

*of course the 'everyone' I mention here doesn't actually represent everyone, they're just the loud voices against legalization/decriminalization who would rather people with actual experience in the relevant areas aren't allowed to speak because they would undermine the position of the prohibitionists.

Re:Counter-productive

[Anonymous Coward]

You think if people stop filesharing, The Man will stop?

No, they'll say "look! this is evidence that our draconian measures are successful at reducing theft of imaginary property!" and if you're lucky they won't use it as justification to restrict your rights even more. But if filesharing picks up again you can be damn sure they'll be clamouring for more laws, because they were so successful before!

The solution is to change the bastards, not change the people.

Hasn't been anything out there for weeks

[Anonymous Coward]

No one downloads music anymore because they've got all they want. No one is downloading movies recently because they've also caught up on all the latest offerings and frankly there is nothing worth watching at the moment. Hasn't been anything out there for weeks. Why?

Like the polls

[emj]

25% said they would stop file sharing if IPRED became reality, and it seems they did.. :-) There's a huge build out of broadband in Stockholm and Sweden right now, lots of people are getting 100mbps. So things will change, especially with tech like One swarm that will multiply the bandwidth.

Re:Like the polls

[nospam007]

There's a huge build out of broadband in Stockholm and Sweden right now, lots of people are getting 100mbps.

So they can rent a 10$ a month server in Tonga, install utorrent on it and stream the downloaded stuff via VPN with 100mbps?

Nice!

Re:Like the polls

[cybe]

So they can rent a 10$ a month server in Tonga, install utorrent on it and stream the downloaded stuff via VPN with 100mbps?

Or just do as many I know, buy an account at a commercial Usenet host with SSL tunneling support and no logging, and just leech on..

Also, it is no surprise the traffic volume drops if people just grab what they need from usenet instead of keep seeding torrents for foreign peers to maintain quotas on regtrackers.

Re:Like the polls

[L4t3r4lu5]

You forgot the first rule.

Re:Like the polls

[Anonymous Coward]

If all you care about is the very latest releases, Usenet is fine. For everything else, it's useless.

Re:Like the polls

[Celc]

The didn't say for how long, I'm betting they'll fall back into old patterns when they stop being scared or they've figured out where to get a good VPN.

Re:Like the polls

[Inda]

I get 9 months retention. How exactly is that recent?

Plenty of people will post if your request it.

It's good to share.

Re:Like the polls

[Mister Whirly]

The first rule of Fight Club is never talk about Usenet.

Re:Like the polls

[CarpetShark]

25% said they would stop file sharing if IPRED became reality, and it seems they did

And that unusual correlation alone is enough to make it questionable.

They will just switch excuses i think

[Anonymous Coward]

how about the following:

terrorism

child porn

IP woes

I think that a surveillance state is being pushed on us a combination of benevolent idiots and/or power freaks. downloaded content, much like the vcr (Boston strangler) and the phonograph(derided as a subversive tool of communism) will be both a threat and a benefit to content providers, but it is feared by the dominate media powers that be as it is seen to be disruptive enough to break up the status quo.

I'd take a guess and say that these laws are more about content control and political intimidation rather than about any legitimate sense of copyright/ patent/ trademark protection(I hate the vague term "IP") . The stuff I listen to you wont find on a top 40 list or on any radio station in my area. This whole " download equals lost sales" idea has had it validity questioned in several studies that I am too lazy to look up at the moment. iirc, there was one by Alan Greenspan and other groups ,several antedotes by independent musicians, and some other vague thing that I would remember if I wasn't so tired.
At least in the United States, copyright was originally seen as a needed evil to spur creation of culture and ideas. one of the great ironies of the pro IP groups, such as Disney, is that many of the works that they established themselves on would have been out of reach had current IP laws been in effect. Hollywood existed as a way to escape copyright/trademark in the rest of America. America's early industrial success happened to its extent because many early American factories were clones of British ones that several men had memorized.Take a look at canals and their lobbying when they were starting to be replaced by the railroads to see how excessive market protectionism can interfere with the evolution of the economy. I fear that excessive control of our culture for business interests has lead our culture to be sterilized, inefficient, and decadent. To be somewhat fair, I believe that limited IP laws in terms of scope and length can contribute to culture. I personally would have that defined as 15-25 years depending on the pace of the medium, its ingenuity and relevance to its field in general. Infringement should be scaled as portion to the offense, uploading a CD for noncommercial purposes should have less consequences than assault or stealing a copy for a store in my opinion.

Getting back to your post, I think that IP theft is the excuse for the rise of the surveillance state in the wold, not its reason. governments are increasingly starting to see their citizens as children and servants to be monitored and controlled. I think that the excuse changes, but the agenda stays the same.
  rant's over. My sense of entitlement is getting the better of me, so I leave it as an exercise to a karma whore to find the specific examples for me, and for a media shrill to refute my fatigued rants.

loss of 1/3 revenue?

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if Hollywood will help replace the loss of bandwidth sales to SE ISPs....

Correlation doesn't imply Causation..

[prayag]

However,
http://xkcd.com/552/

the so called "anti-piracy agency"...

[cybe]

Just to clarify - Sweden does NOT have an government agency for dealing with intellectual property crime!
The "anti-piracy agency" referred to by the article is just the direct translation of the name "Antipiratbyrån", a private organization with the stated aim to "protect the rights of the artists and publishers".

The Antipiratbyrån is more like the infamous US company MediaDefender, doing the hands-on dirty work of the MPAA/RIAA special interest organizations.

Shema Jisrael, Adonai Elohemu, Adonai Echad!

[Anonymous Coward]

>Or perhaps it is just taking some time for Swedish downloaders to figure out the new IPREDator VPN system from The Pirate Bay."

Does not help. The USA has warned Sweden it will stop selling advanced AMRAAM air interceptor missiles to the Swedish Airforce if media piracy persist. This large drop in Sweden's defensive capabilities would threaten the security of all swedish and scandinavian citizens' safety and security, due to increased threat of a russian invasion. (Currently the russian airforce has no countermeasure against the hi-tech AMRAAM missiles, but they can defeat swedish Gripen fighters if swedes have only the short range Sidewinder missile available).

The USA is staunchingly pro-Israel and understands that widespread media-piracy undermines the financial basis of the majority jewish-run global film and music industry. This would threaten the economic stability of Israel and the jews are more important for USA than the swedish, who have a nasty pro-nazi past anyhow.

Hear o' people of Israel, the Blessed One is your true and only God!

It's the thought police

[LowTechSwede]

This is the thought police gaining entry to our homes.

This should not be confused with discussions over IP. That is a totally different issue and I have strong views on that as well :-)

What is happening here is that private organizations gain the same or more rights that the police have to track net activity of private citizens. The possibilities for abuse are endless...

The sane counter measure would be for everyone to set up at least two anonymizing accounts: one for all their net activities that may leave traces of their real identity and one for everything that should be traceless.

Enough encrypted traffic on the net will make it impossible for the powers that be to single out the traffic they have an interest in. Widespread use of anonymizers will also stop the argument that these services exist for file sharing alone.

The tired old argument that "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear." is a truly bad one. There is a good poem about this:

Als die Nazis die Kommunisten holten,
habe ich geschwiegen;
ich war ja kein Kommunist.

Als sie die Sozialdemokraten einsperrten,
habe ich geschwiegen;
ich war ja kein Sozialdemokrat.

Als sie die Gewerkschafter holten,
habe ich nicht protestiert;
ich war ja kein Gewerkschafter.

Als sie die Juden holten,
habe ich geschwiegen;
ich war ja kein Jude.

Als sie mich holten,
gab es keinen mehr, der protestieren konnte.

translated:

When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

Then they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
I did not speak out;
I was not a Jew.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out for me.

By Martin Niemöller
(from Wikipedia)

Finally, it is time to let our politicians know that they are treading down the wrong path, it's indeed a slippery slope.

Re:It's the thought police

[Anonymous Coward]

Hence, according to Niemöller, the only people who "speak out" belong to one of the four groups: Communists, Social Democrats, Jews and Trade Unions.

These days it's the Social Democrats who come for people.

My 2 cts.

[lixee]

I have to admit that I stopped downloading my favorite TV shows on April 1st. The legislation scared quite a few people, and we're adopting a wait-and-see policy. But plenty of people I talked to didn't change their habits when it comes to bittorrent. Being in a student dorm, every room's got its own internet connection. I approached my "koriddor-mates", and they were split on the issue. Then, I proposed getting rid of our connections to keep just one for the entire floor. We can then share it (it's a 100Mb line), absorb the cost of a VPN (it's not much, but you know how every penny counts for students) and save plenty. Whose loss is it? The ISP who's going to lose five customers!

Re:My 2 cts.

[Anonymous Coward]

Then, I proposed getting rid of our connections to keep just one for the entire floor.

Oh yes, the ENTIRE FLOOR?! I'm sure they can't find you then! You are so hidden in the crowd!

Re:My 2 cts.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's essentially why a local ISP here in Australia is arguing in favour of file sharing. Basically most of our ISP costs are pay-per-GB, so the biggest file sharers are their most profitable customers.

30% vs. (100 - 30)%, your math fails.

[jonaskoelker]

So, after a 30% drop if file-sharing traffic, we'd expect to see a 30% increase in sales of CDs, DVDs and e-books.

Let's assume that file-sharing covers 1% of all media consumption and direct sales the remaining 99%.

A 30% drop is to 0.7%, so sales increase to 99.3%, a whopping 0.[recurring:30]% increase over what it was, or .3% in absolute terms.

Your numbers seem to work if it's 50:50 instead of 1:99. If you want an absolute (not relative) increase by 30%, then you need it to be 100:0, i.e. everything is file-shared. That doesn't make sense--who seeds?

Re:30% vs. (100 - 30)%, your math fails.

[richie2000]

The point is that a 1:1 correlation between downloading and lost sales does not make sense outside the MAFIAA board rooms. Yet, this is the stated driving motivator behind the law...

Or

[w0mprat]

April 1st, does everyone not bother getting on the net because most news articles are april fools jokes?

Encryption overhead

[SpeedyG5]

Wouldn't the added encryption, actually cause an increase in overall bandwidth. I guess some people haven't fully switched over to the new system yet.

Re:Encryption overhead

[Anonymous Coward]

Why??? Yeah, in some encryption systems messages would need padding, but that is negligible in most cases.

What would cause increase in bandwidth is if you run something like onion routing, since more messages needs to be sent.

But, encryption in itself would not really have any significant effect.

Please don't

[Anonymous Coward]

People who set up Tor servers basically do it because they feel it's important to be able to connect anonymously, and they have to pay for all the bandwith that connectors use. If ten people download that 16gb game before the host gets fed up and shuts down, that could mean 16000 people can't download that 1mb webpage.

Post should be modded -1 Troll.

[Anonymous Coward]

Your post should be modded -1 Troll.

Are you saying that the 30Gb/s is 'free speech'? People have suddenly stopped making forum posts or blogging to the tune of that overnight? Why would they? Bizarre.

Are you saying that the 30Gb/s is 'fair use'? Although perhaps the view of a minority, it's not commonly seen that pirating games is fair use.

If the drop in traffic is neither free speech nor fair use, why do you blithely claim it as a likely possibility? Do you have a license to be an idiot?

Re:Post should be modded -1 Troll.

[subreality]

Your post should be modded -1 Troll.

I am not a troll just because you disagree with me.

Are you saying that the 30Gb/s is 'free speech'? People have suddenly stopped making forum posts or blogging to the tune of that overnight? Why would they? Bizarre.

Are you saying that the 30Gb/s is 'fair use'? Although perhaps the view of a minority, it's not commonly seen that pirating games is fair use.

Free speech and fair use aren't limited to forum posts. Free speech and fair use *are* frequently squashed by legislation ostensibly not targeting them. I have personally chosen to say many things anonymously because I am not willing to deal with a remote but real possibility that I'll be dragged into court to prove I'm not a terrorist. Some things I have chosen not to say at all, not because they are illegal, but because lawyers commonly hold them to be within striking distance of poorly written laws.

If the drop in traffic is neither free speech nor fair use, why do you blithely claim it as a likely possibility?

*Something* changed overnight. They have made two unprovable assumptions: First, assuming that it was the legislation that changed the bandwidth usage; second, that the legislation only affected its intended target. My assertions are plausible, though no more provable or sound than theirs. My intent is to point out the fact that their logic is faulty.

Do you have a license to be an idiot?

Hello, I'm from slashdot! My license number is right next to my name. Good to meet you. :)

Only a temporary effect

[Thorwak]

The same (short term drop in traffic) was seen in Finland (a neighbour country) when they implemented their IPRED1 law. A few months later however the traffic was back to "normal" again, and P2P traffic continue to rise.

Maybe there's another explanation

[Anonymous Coward]

I always start downloading the 28th if I still have traffic volume left for that month.
I don't know about the traffic volume plans in Sweden, but I can imagine the bandwith usage dropping 30% overhere every month

Re:Maybe there's another explanation

[Thorwak]

The most common is definitely flatrate in Sweden, at least on DSL and Cable. 1 GB / month is common on 3g, but who would use that for serious P2P anyway...

This explains it...

[dimethylxanthine]

...There was just one new story on ./ in the last 3 hours.

---------------
Patience has its limits. Take it too far, and it's cowardice.

Rag

[Anonymous Coward]

The Local is the biggest rag in Scandinavia. It's a joke locally. Don't believe anything they print. They probably shilled the article here anyway. Drive up impressions.

All they do is copy articles from the real (Swedish) papers. That's all. They hardly speak or read Swedish themselves and invariably get the stories all wrong.

Even ex-pats in Sweden know better than to trust that rag.

Re:Rag

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah see this.

http://www.second-opinion.se/so/view/310

It was all bullshit. Told ya.

Re:Rag

[Anonymous Coward]

NetNod also said traffic at The Pirate Bay did NOT go down yesterday. That's another think the media didn't want to tell anyone. They all took the bulletin from TT and then hacked away whatever Pontén said he didn't like.

Pontén deserves to rot in hell.

If conficker IS a deterrent..

[denis-The-menace]

If Conficker proves to be a deterrent then it's a question of time before the MAFIAAs create some worms of their own.

Imagine a worm that targets torrents or torrents apps because, after all, that all torrents are used for. (/sarcasm)

Re:If conficker IS a deterrent..

[commodore64_love]

The MAFIAAs of the world already do that - setup fake torrents that contain nothing but empty data. I recall downloading an episode of Rome, and I wondered why I was able to get a 350 megabyte file in just a few minutes. Turned-out it was a playable video that was completely black and only 5 minutes long.

Re:If conficker IS a deterrent..

[maxwell demon]

The episode obviously played in the dark ages. :-)

Re:If conficker IS a deterrent..

[Anonymous Coward]

I am starting to see that on newsgroups as well.

create your own!

[whistlingtony]

Yay! Glad to see there are those out there that feel as I do. The game is rigged? Don't Play.

Buy used CD's.

Even better, go to a shop and get an instrument. Learn to play. Make your own music. We've gotten too lazy. We consume, but we don't create. Get off your arse and create some culture.

Good point

[castrox]

You make a good point, Kjella. I agree with you that my approach is not going to legalize filesharing copyrighted works without permission from the authors/rightsholders.

My point is that by stopping so called piracy, the market will find a way to provide us with services that we can accept. This is my sincere hope.

The Swedish law we're discussing basically boils down to that copyright owners can request the identity behind an IP-address from an ISP with permission from a court. If the artist gives permission, people can fileshare all they want. Again, this is what I hope will happen as the industry keeps chasing its customers.

Waitwait

[Idiomatick]

So we have an amazing useful piece of technology. A law gets passed. Usage of said technology drops 30% and we are supposed to PRAISE this achievement? You know what else would work? Make broadband illegal, just only give out 56k connections. It is enough to browse the web with why would you want more? Unless you are a criminal. This is bullshit. I hope pyratbyran WINS the next election.

Re:Waitwait

[NeoSkandranon]

Make broadband illegal, just only give out 56k connections.

Suddenly newsgroup usage would surge for some odd reason...

Re:idiot moderator

[commodore64_love]

Get used to it. Slashdot moderators routinely subtract points to drop people to (0) or (-1) and thereby make them invisible. It's a form of censorship (in my humble opinion) and has little to do with the actual merit of a post.

Re:idiot moderator

[drinkypoo]

Get used to it. Slashdot moderators routinely subtract points to drop people to (0) or (-1) and thereby make them invisible. It's a form of censorship (in my humble opinion) and has little to do with the actual merit of a post.

Don't I know it. The point of my comments is to raise awareness. The powers that run Slashdot are uninterested in dealing with abuse of moderation; there even used to be a request to report abuse in the FAQ, which AFAICT is not there any more (but I am willing to be proven wrong - just too lazy to check again to try to prove a negative.) So if I want anything to happen, I have to make it happen myself. Unfortunately, the only weapon I have is bitching and complaining :(

30% drop in internet business

[nurb432]

Scare people off-line, and business loses. ISPs, stores, phone companies, etc.

Mod Up

[FrameRotBlues]

Unfortunately, now the constitution seems to be viewed as something that simply restricts the federal government instead or something that gives it permissions to operate in limited ways. This has lead congress from asking can we even constitutionally pass a law like this to what is to stop us from passing a law like this. I think that's a turn for the worse and a prime reason why people think the government lost that "of the people, for the people, and by the people" feeling.

+100. This is the best thing I've read all day. Thanks for that.

in some way this could be good

[cunnilingus]

/me happy - i hope this will spark developments of such services like tor, etc - it will be faster (more users using) and improved (due to more feedback from users).