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.

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

[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

[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.

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: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.

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: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?

[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?