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

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.

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.

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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[Aris Katsaris]

"Europe doesn't import culture."

Everyone imports culture.

"Entertainment is not culture."

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

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?

[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?

[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?

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....

[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.

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: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: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.

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

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.