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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."
People route around legislative roadblocks faster than legislators can build new ones. It's kinda what the Internet is all about.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
IMO April Fools Day is the worst day of the internet (especially for news). I, for one, was hardly on at all.
Yep the bear patrol is working like a dream
What?
...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.
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.)
Fight for your digital freedom, join the EFF *now*: http://www.eff.org/support/
... 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.
not a 30% drop in all net traffic.
From TFA: Internet use in Sweden dipped by 30 percent on Wednesday...
I can't remember the last time I forgot anything.
Read all about ipred.
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 bill doesn't just cover traffic to/from swedish households, it covers all traffic entering and leaving the country.
"" How about taking the safety labels off everything, and let the stupidity-problem solve itself? """
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
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*
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].
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.
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!
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/
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.
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.
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.
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!
Res publica non dominetur
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?
April 1st, does everyone not bother getting on the net because most news articles are april fools jokes?
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
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.
Connection closed by foreign host.
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. :)
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
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.
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)
Scare people off-line, and business loses. ISPs, stores, phone companies, etc.
---- Booth was a patriot ----