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Norwegian Lawyers Must Stop Chasing File Sharers

Posted by kdawson on from the media-sentries-no-more dept.

Skapare sends word from TorrentFreak that Norway's Simonsen law firm has lost their license to pursue file sharers. "Just days after Norway's data protection department told ISPs they must delete all personal IP address-related data three weeks after collection, it's now become safer than ever to be a file-sharer in Norway. The only law firm with a license to track pirates has just seen it expire and it won't be renewed." Skapare adds, "Sounds like Norway's government treats privacy seriously. Maybe they've been watching the abuses in the USA. More info on the Norwegian perspective in this Google translation from Dagbladet.no."

38 of 186 comments (clear)

  1. Half-right... by Chabo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Sounds like Norway's government treats privacy seriously. Maybe they've been watching the abuses in the USA.

    A bigger part of it is just that European governments take the privacy of their citizens very seriously.

    Except Britain, of course.

    --
    Convert FLACs to a portable format with FlacSquisher
    1. Re:Half-right... by T+Murphy · · Score: 4, Funny

      A bigger part of it is just that European governments take the privacy of their citizens very seriously.

      Except Britain, of course.

      I was under the impression the British government took privacy very - almost too - seriously. They even have those cameras set up to monitor private lives - ensuring no one's right to privacy goes overlooked or unwatched. How can the government know their citizens have privacy if the government can't watch?

      --
      My webcomic
    2. Re:Half-right... by dk90406 · · Score: 2, Informative

      True. Privacy has higher priority in many European countries, but the fact the Norway can clear the logs after three weeks, are a consequence of the *not* being members of EU. EU has issued data retention rules of one year. Some countries (like Denmark) has implemented the directive, others haven't yet.
      All in the name of war against terror, of course.

    3. Re:Half-right... by An+ominous+Cow+art · · Score: 2, Funny

      *cough*IPRED*cough*

      I recommend seeing a doctor, right away.

    4. Re:Half-right... by I+cant+believe+its+n · · Score: 2, Informative

      Almost; the EU Data Retention Directive calls storing user logs for at least 6 months.

      --
      She made the willows dance
  2. This is not over yet... by Sholmas · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The Minister of Culture has said he supports the outing of "pirates", and will support the so-called "pirate-hunters" in their application for a new lisence. Google Translate link: http://translate.google.com/translate?prev=hp&hl=en&js=n&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dagbladet.no%2F2009%2F06%2F23%2Fkultur%2Ffildeling%2Fteknio%2Ftrond_giske%2F6860130%2F&sl=no&tl=en&history_state0=

    1. Re:This is not over yet... by TheRealMindChild · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Which I don't really think is a bad thing in and of itself. If you can prove reasonably that someone downloaded MovieX, by all means, fine them 10x the going retail price. The trick is to go after people you KNOW committed copyright infringement. Not the maybe's. Not the torrent sites/Napster-like software producers.

      --

      "When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
    2. Re:This is not over yet... by verbalcontract · · Score: 4, Funny

      "Pirate-hunters" -- you are speaking of course about their age-old enemies, the ninjas?

    3. Re:This is not over yet... by bertoelcon · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "Pirate-hunters" -- you are speaking of course about their age-old enemies, the ninjas?

      Is this why we never hear of piracy reports from Japan. I just put two and two together and it now makes perfect sense.

      --
      Anything can be found funny, from a certain point of view.
    4. Re:This is not over yet... by hyfe · · Score: 3, Interesting
      Yes, but in the same article Ove Skåra from Datatilsynet (computer-watch.. government institution set up to help protect our privacy. They give out permits for surveillance cameraes and can give out legally binding rulings to companies who are in breach of privacy-laws) is quoted with saying:

      "- Da er et brev med en anbefaling på ingen måte nok. Hvis ikke det kommer noen nye opplysninger, vil jeg ikke tro at brevet gjør noen særlig forskjell, sier han. "

      (..since we recently had a meeting with the department concerning this..)
      "- A letter with a recommondation is by no means enough. Unless there is new information relevant to the case, I do not believe the letter will make any difference".

      --
      "" How about taking the safety labels off everything, and let the stupidity-problem solve itself? """
    5. Re:This is not over yet... by omglolbah · · Score: 3, Informative

      Actually, the issue here isnt the logging in itself.

      It is that what is police business is now pretty much outsourced to a private entity. An entity with a very strong economic stake in said business.

      The ip addresses this firm has collected has for instance been used to demand personal information on users from ISPs. They want to have the right to acquire that sort of information -without- involving the courts. That is completely unacceptable. What makes this even worse is that what is currently happening and could become legal precedence in Norway is the practice of one private entity demanding information on the customer of another private entity against this private entity's will.

      The courts are the -only- entity that should be allowed to extract this sort of information. A private entity should not be given the rights of a court of law.

      I'd love to be more clear and eloquent in my writing but I've spent 12 hours in a hot metal box testing hardware :-p

  3. Or maybe they don't care... by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Maybe its not that they care so much about privacy that they don't care so much about piracy.

    The reason the US gets so butt-hurt about piracy is because hollywood dominates the entertainment business worldwide - there are only a handful of countries were domestic movies regularly outsell hollywood productions at the box office (mostly S Korea, France, India and mainland China and some of that is helped by quota restrictions on foreign productions), and my guess is that the number is even smaller when it comes to DVDs.

    Now I'm going to make a wild-ass guess that a lot of the locally produced works in Norway receive significant public funding. If true, that's also an incentive to ignore piracy because if tax dollars are paying for the creation then it isn't a big leap of logic to expect that the results are "owned" by the public too.

    So, from that perspective, it seems reasonable that anti-piracy would be near the bottom of the list of government priorities in Norway (and many other countries for that matter).

    --
    When information is power, privacy is freedom.
    1. Re:Or maybe they don't care... by causality · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Maybe its not that they care so much about privacy that they don't care so much about piracy.

      The reason the US gets so butt-hurt about piracy is because hollywood dominates the entertainment business worldwide - there are only a handful of countries were domestic movies regularly outsell hollywood productions at the box office (mostly S Korea, France, India and mainland China and some of that is helped by quota restrictions on foreign productions), and my guess is that the number is even smaller when it comes to DVDs.

      Now I'm going to make a wild-ass guess that a lot of the locally produced works in Norway receive significant public funding. If true, that's also an incentive to ignore piracy because if tax dollars are paying for the creation then it isn't a big leap of logic to expect that the results are "owned" by the public too.

      So, from that perspective, it seems reasonable that anti-piracy would be near the bottom of the list of government priorities in Norway (and many other countries for that matter).

      I've always felt that when govenrments worry about things like piracy and drug usage, what they're really doing is sending the message "we have an overabundance of resources and personnel which is why we can afford to worry about these things -- please reduce our size and power immediately." The message is quite clear but there are a lot of people who have difficulty interpreting it.

      --
      It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
  4. So, for the Norwegian Slashdotters: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    We've a few questions.

    1. What's the tech economy like over there?
    2. How long does it take to learn your language OR how English friendly is it?
    3. What's the average cost of living in your cities?

    Thanks in advance.

    1. Re:So, for the Norwegian Slashdotters: by Dionysus · · Score: 4, Informative

      1. What's the tech economy like over there?
      2. How long does it take to learn your language OR how English friendly is it?
      3. What's the average cost of living in your cities?

      1. It's OK. Mostly in finance and oil industry. Java (SOA) is heavily used.
      2. Business is basically English (even for Norwegian companies). My company has Swedes (lots), Sri Lankan, Englishmen, couple of Indians/Pakistani, French. Coding/documentation is in English.
      3. About like Bay Area.

      All that, and we get standard 5 weeks of paid vacation, paternity/maternity leave (husband/wife get to share how much they spend at home the first year), strong currency (relatively cheap to buy stuff when you travel), beautiful Swedish women.
      Minuses: a socialist government and Jante Law ingrained in the Norwegian psyche.

      --
      Je ne parle pas francais.
    2. Re:So, for the Norwegian Slashdotters: by TheMaister · · Score: 3, Informative

      1. Soso. Opera's doing very nicely these days at least. :p Also, I think we're a leading force in micro/nano technology.

      2. Norwegian is kinda hard to learn as you can't learn it well by studying alone. It has so many ways of expressing yourself that wouldn't make any sense in eg. English. I guess it's the same for most languages, but Norwegian is considered a hard language to learn because of all the irregularites. Something we learn in school is "EVERY rule has an (many) exceptions." :p English and Norwegian is in the same language familiy though (Germanic). But hey, what do I know about learning Norwegian from scratch, as I'm a native speaker :p

      3. Expensive, in fact, VERY expensive, but the wages are pretty good (even if you don't have a high class job, you can still earn a lot), so I guess it evens out. Just avoid Oslo, as it's the #2 (or #1?) most expensive city in the world.

    3. Re:So, for the Norwegian Slashdotters: by orzetto · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Not Norwegian myself, though lived there 7 years. Possibly moving back in the near future.

      1. 1. Pretty good I would say. The country has had budget surplus for years and is not feeling the effects of the crisis as bad as e.g. Iceland. Estate prices actually went up 4% first quarter (most Norwegians do own their home, so it's a good indicator).
      2. 2. Norwegian is not as difficult as German but not as easy as French, many words are not guessable. Main difficulty is that everybody speaks very good English and practising Norwegian is quite difficult if you are not strong-willed. Also, most imported TV shows and movies are in original language (i.e. 90% English). Learning Norwegian also means you can read Danish and read/understand Swedish.
      3. 3. Insane, but you pay what you get for. Alcoholic beverages quite expensive because of local edition of prohibition never really being abolished. Foodstuffs are expensive because of protectionism, and quality is lacking (keep in mind I come from a country with high food standard, so I am picky; from the US it's probably still an improvement). Other wares (computer parts, internet connections, whatever could interest a slashdotter) are in line with most of Europe. However, salaries are pretty high for most standards. Note that the Gini index is quite low, i.e. as a sysadmin you will make more than in the US, but not as a CEO.

      You forgot to ask for:

      • Taxes; it's 25% VAT IIRC, plus about 25-30% on your income (that's for a typical engineering job, after all detractions are taken care of). In 2007 I made 458 kNOK (about $100k) gross as a C++ programmer and paid 29.5% in direct taxes.
      • Healthcare: Grand Old Socialist system. You pay 7.8% of gross income (that's already included in the figure at the previous point), when you go to the hospital you could have to pay a fee; anything beyond a certain amount (it used to be 1600 NOK / $250) is shouldered by the state, though. Dentists are for reasons unknown to me only private (and guess what, that's the part of the Norwegian health care that it expensive and broken).
      • Bureaucracy: pretty efficient. I live in Germany now and I think the Norwegians did a better job. Not boneheaded at following rules, result-oriented but not scruffy.

      So yes, it's a pretty nice place to be, unless you can't stand snow, rain, and socialists in power.

      --
      Victims of 9/11: <3000. Traffic in the US: >30,000/y
    4. Re:So, for the Norwegian Slashdotters: by The+Wannabe+King · · Score: 5, Informative
      That depends on how you calculate it. The income tax is usually about 30 % - 35 % for an ordinary income ($60k). The marginal tax rate is 47.8 % for income over $110k. In addition the employer has to pay a tax of 14.1 % of the employee's income that the employee never sees. It should probably be included. The VAT is a whopping 25 % (14 % on food).

      If you make a lot of money, and spend most of it on non-food, it is probably possible to pass 60 %, but that is rare.

      I would also say the numbers are misleading without some information on what you get. Norway, like the rest of Europe, has universal heath care so there is no health insurance to pay, no matter what preconditions you may have. The taxes also include unemployment benefits, a pension plan and 100 % pay for a year if you can't work due to illness. Comparing tax rates without accounting for insurances you absolutely need to have is not fair.

    5. Re:So, for the Norwegian Slashdotters: by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 2, Informative

      Because a native might provide information on the secondary taxes not listed on that page.

      It is a great page, but it doesn't come close to the total tax load.

      In the US, the stated tax rate is 28% on the page.
      In reality, it's much higher.
      So I know that the rate on that page doesn't include.

      Social security Taxes (7.5%) -- except for rich people.. who it can be .1% or less (esp if they structure their income as dividends)
      Employer portion of social security (7.5%) -- except for rich people.. who it can be .1% or less (esp if they structure their income as dividends)
      Sales Taxes (5-8%-- higher some places)
      Metropolitan bus service taxes (1%)
      Gasoline taxes (low because they forgot to index for inflation)
      Property taxes
      cigarette taxes (now more than the purchase price of the cigarettes in many states)
      alchohol taxes (usually over 10% but under 50% of the purchase price)
      Car taxes (usually fairly low)
      Telephone taxes (higher than the bill portion of my land line)
      Electricity taxes
      Water Taxes (not the water bill- the tax portion usually phrased as a sewer fee)
      Mud taxes
      Trash collection taxes ...
      There are over 50 common taxes the last time I saw the list.
      ---

      Our tax system is regressive on people in the middle-- about $20k to about $80k.
      While they are highly aggressive against people below $20k- they also have tax credits for them which mitigates the hit a bit.

      ---

      Then when you include corporate taxes which corporations usually pass straight through to the consumer, the rate is almost always over 50% tax load.

      They've just found a lot of ways to hide it.

      Just like in our last election, they had bills to "vote yes to give permission to sell 50 million in 10 year bonds to cover police pension funding, old people, children, new schools, free beer for everyone"... when what it really meant was "vote yes to raise taxes by 50 million dollars over the next 10 years so we can give out these benefits".

      --
      She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
    6. Re:So, for the Norwegian Slashdotters: by Eccles · · Score: 2, Informative

      You forgot Medicare taxes (2.9% of income?) too.

      --
      Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
    7. Re:So, for the Norwegian Slashdotters: by causality · · Score: 2, Informative

      A company can't just raise prices without decreasing demand, except for in extreme edge cases.

      In isolation, no. However, taxes have a unique status among all other expenses: they tend to affect all companies equally. So if you make widgets, and your tax rate increases, so does the rate of all other companies making widgets. Result: price of widgets increases by some margin. The supply-and-demand scenario you mention does not apply here.

      It'd be nice if you would address this before being so quick to declare a "fail".

      --
      It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
  5. Election year by Ost99 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Don't expect this to be the last word on the matter, the politicians just don't want to rock the boat right now.

    The Minister of culture has openly supported the vigilante tactics of the "pirate-hunters", but this is probably not the right time of the 4-year election cycle to do anything drastic.
    During the last election the same man promised to re-legalese file sharing. The statement was retracted only days after a surprising high turnout of young voters won him and his party the election...

    --
    ---- Sig. gone.
  6. It's not fair! by Locke2005 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The most beautiful women in the world, AND they protect pirates!?! Damn, I wish I were Norwegian!

    --
    I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
  7. How do I Immigrate? by NukeDoggie · · Score: 2, Interesting

    How do I immigrate to Norway from US? Sounds like the place to be!!! I'm in IT, and have pretty fair skills, Siebel, VB, some web, java, C etc also Cobol and other dinosaurs and assorted relics...

    1. Re:How do I Immigrate? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Instructions

    2. Re:How do I Immigrate? by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 3, Funny

      Critical oil industry application skills would be a help. Or saturation diving experience.

      . . . and if your idea of Christmas Dinner is a blow-torched sheep's head, you're in: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smalahove

      "I got dibs on the tongue!"

      --
      Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
    3. Re:How do I Immigrate? by Kjella · · Score: 4, Informative

      Before we scare away all the nice people, it's a traditional christmas dinner but not the most typical. Top three are pork ribs, Pinnekjøtt and Lutefisk. A minority has also adopted the english christmas turkey, smalahove is probably around 5th place. P.S. If you read anywhere that Pizza Grandiosa is popular for christmas, it's for the kids that don't want the wierd stuff :D

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    4. Re:How do I Immigrate? by AliasMarlowe · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Top three are pork ribs, Pinnekjøtt and Lutefisk.

      Advice: avoid lutefisk. It's nasty, very nasty.
      In fact, in the nastiest dish in the world competition, Norway powered into second place with lutefisk. It was judged more repulsive than Scotland's haggis, but less disgusting than the Swedish entry, surströmming (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surstrmming, even the Swedes have to drink a bottle of vodka before eating it).
      Boiled sheep's eyes or raw sea-slugs taste a lot nicer than lutefisk or surströmming. I speak from actual experience.

      --
      Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
  8. Well.. by hyfe · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Full disclosure: I'm Norwegian! As somebody who has spent a fair time abroad, I'm growing to like Norway more and more. We're just, well, sensible. The ISP's don't censor, don't log and don't do crappy shit. They all do subscribe to a voluntary kidporn DNS-filter though. I actually downloaded the list of wikileaks once, switched to opendns (whom we all should avoid) and checked it out. I really, really regretted it. There really was childporn there. Anybody getting of on that shit needs to have their dick cut off. Either way, the ISP's are upfront if they're selling internet with usage limits (mainly due to strong Norwegian customer protection, companies aren't allowed to fuck you over), and everything just generally works. Not that that stops most norwegian from bitching about everything though. Bitching is kinda the national past-time. Seriously, I'm a big believer in the "freedom to not be fucked over". I definitivly enjoy not being screwed over, and I really do think more people should subscribe to it :)

    --
    "" How about taking the safety labels off everything, and let the stupidity-problem solve itself? """
    1. Re:Well.. by Daemonax · · Score: 2

      Anybody getting of on that shit needs to have their dick cut off.

      That's perhaps a bit harsh. I know a couple of guys that get off over anime drawings of young looking girls. The stuff revolts me, I find it incredibly repulsive... But we talked about why it is that they like younger looking females, and we all agreed that the most plausible explanation (we could think of) was that attraction to younger females was at one point in our evolution quite favourable due to much shorter life spans. If you were going to breed, you did it when you were young. This of course selected for those that were attracted to young females.

      I still find it repulsive, but the fact that it's cartoon drawings they get off on (I don't know if they go further, they claim they don't), and that I can understand why some people may be attracted to younger females due to the above... Well I just wouldn't go as far as saying they need their dicks cut off, or need to be punished just because they're considered sexual deviants. As long as they don't harm another human I'm willing to live and let live.

  9. Yarrrrr... by petrus4 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm currently sitting here listening to an mp3 of the Symphony of the Seas, from the old album Hooked on Classics, along with mental flashbacks of the scene where the Jolly Roger was raised during Pirates of the Carribean.

    As this article refers to a victory for piracy, it is a good opportunity to issue a collective, impassioned scream of defiance against the very concept of intellectual property; to remind ourselves of who the enemy is, and why they must, and eventually will, be entirely and unrelentingly destroyed.

    WIPO, RIAA, MPAA, and other related organisations, you are recognised as institutions which perpetuate the toxic mentality that making money is, in itself, more important than being alive to spend it. In our ongoing war with you, it is we, the greater public of this planet, who have the will of God on our side. We will have justice. We will have vengeance.

    You are going to be removed from human memory.

    1. Re:Yarrrrr... by brit74 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Those of us who are creators are very alarmed by statements like this. You might as well tell me that I don't deserve to get paid for all the stuff I create - no matter how great it is. Is it really a good idea to undermine the ability of digital creators to even earn a living? Without intellectual property, I end up spending years working on stuff and essentially giving it away to the world - while my mortgage company comes and pounds down my door. Why am I not entitled to a small amount of protection in the marketplace, so that I can earn a living from my hard work?

    2. Re:Yarrrrr... by brit74 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      entitled to a small amount of protection

      "Small"? Really?

      Yes, small.

      And you should always offset your mentality by the fact that you didn't create anything in a vacuum. The creation might have been written down by you, but it was created by all of society, in an abstract sense.

      I see what I'm doing as "value added". My years of work are the "value added" part.

      Besides, you could easily apply those same concepts to "real" property. Take land-property as an example: the earth was here long before humans. Therefore, any attempts to put up a fence and call this "mine" or "yours" is wrong. The farmer sells crops - but he didn't construct the seeds ex-nihilo, he didn't sit down and design the genetics, he didn't create the sunlight or the soil. Therefore, farmers should not be entitled to sell crops. They should not have the benefit of laws that prevent people from taking them without paying him, because he was not 100% responsible for creating the food. And your car? It's made mostly of glass and metal. The metal was pulled out of the ground. The glass is made from sand. It's all from the earth - not created by man. Therefore, land-property, food crops, and anything made of glass and metal cannot be "property" - because no one constructed them in a vacuum. Once you bring in "value added", suddenly cars and crops become legitimate property. The same goes for the digital world.

    3. Re:Yarrrrr... by brit74 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      1. I didn't setup the copyright system, so don't blame me for "[fucking] us over".
      2. I'm not defending the excessively long copyright lengths that we see. Personally, I think ten or twenty years is plenty. What I'm arguing about is the idea that copyright lengths should be eliminated, or filesharing legalized. What those things do is effectively reduce copyright lengths to 0 seconds. Heck, I've toyed with the idea of putting my own work under a much shorter copyright length (like a 14-year founder's copyright) or something shorter. Why would I do that? Simply because I don't agree with current copyright.

    4. Re:Yarrrrr... by Mr2001 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Once you bring in "value added", suddenly cars and crops become legitimate property. The same goes for the digital world.

      Not quite.

      A car is legitimate property because it can only be in one place at a time. If I take your car, you don't have it anymore. As the owner of a car, you have the right to hang onto that car until you voluntarily give it up, so if I want it, I'll have to pay you (or convince you some other way).

      Information doesn't work that way. You can keep your copy of a song, program, etc. and use it however you like even while someone else is distributing copies: their use can't possibly conflict with your use. It makes no sense to apply the concept of ownership to something like that; it's unnecessary at best, and dangerous at worst.

      You're right about creating things in a vacuum, though. A farmer owns his crops not because he designed them from scratch at the molecular level -- he didn't -- but because they grew out of seeds, soil, fertilizer, and water that all belonged to him already. Likewise, a car company owns the cars they make because those cars were made from steel and other materials the company already owned, and a car buyer owns his car because he got it in a voluntary exchange: the money he paid for the car was compensation for the car maker's loss of that car.

      Along the same lines, if I learn some information (say, someone sends it to me over the internet) and use it to rearrange bits on my hard drive, the hard drive still belongs to me. If I then want to describe that pattern of bits to someone else (say, send it to them over the internet), I believe I'm entitled to do so: surely I have the right to share facts about a chunk of metal I own, right?

      --
      Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
  10. A good start... by jd2112 · · Score: 2, Funny

    I recommend that the backup alarms be removed from all ambulances in Norway as the lawyers will most likely go back to chasing ambulances...

    --
    Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
  11. Re:Hopefully they aren't storing this on a Linux b by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    If I ever find you, you son of a bitch, I will pummel you within an inch of your life with magic missiles until you beg for mercy. Perhaps if my mood at the time feels chaotic evil I will cast chromatic spray upon you for the coup de grace. You should beware because I am much more powerful than a lowly level 5 dwarf. Huzzah!

  12. The summary is wrong. by IrquiM · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The "pirate chasing"-lawyers got a temporary license in 2006 for doing exactly that while we were waiting for new laws.

    That license is now expiring (This autumn) and they're not getting a new one. Not because they want to protect the privacy of Norwegian citizens, but because temporary is temporary.

    Now, read my last sentence again please.

    (Still though, Norway's a good place to live - can recommend it to everyone!)

    --
    This is blinging