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.

[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]

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.

[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.

[travbrad]

Either that or one of the tubes got clogged.

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.

[shutdown -p now]

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

Think of the bandwidth!

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

[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.

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.

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...

[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...

[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?

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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[Aris Katsaris]

"Europe doesn't import culture."

Everyone imports culture.

"Entertainment is not culture."

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

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

[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

[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

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...

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?

[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?

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

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.

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.

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?

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.

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!

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

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!

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.