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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."
IMO April Fools Day is the worst day of the internet (especially for news). I, for one, was hardly on at all.
...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.
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
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.
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.
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.
Fight for your digital freedom, join the EFF *now*: http://www.eff.org/support/
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.
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?
Money for nothing, pix for free
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".
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
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.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Before: 3
After: 5
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.
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.
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
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
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.
Fight for your digital freedom, join the EFF *now*: http://www.eff.org/support/
You are a damn fool if you think that will work.
These people don't understand reason. The correct answer is "fuck 'em".
expandfairuse.org
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.
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.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
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?
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.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
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.
mmmm...forbidden donut
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. :)
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.
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)
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
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.
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.
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
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.
"I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
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.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
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.
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.
bit torrent was once a minor, geek-only tool, but now it is used by everyone and his dog.