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Swedish Pirate Party Threatened for Hosting the Pirate Bay
New submitter BetterThanCaesar writes "The Swedish Pirate Party and their ISP Serious Tubes have received a letter from 'The Rights Alliance' (formerly Antipiratbyrån, The Swedish Anti-Piracy Bureau), demanding they cease supplying Internet access to The Pirate Bay. Referring to the final sentence on the four Pirate Bay profiles, they threaten with legal action if access is not removed by February 26. On her blog, party leader Anna Troberg calls the letter 'extortion,' pointing out that (translated from Swedish) '[i]t is not illegal to provide The Pirate Bay with Internet access. There is no list of illegal sites that ISPs cannot provide access to.' (google translation to English)."
The letter sent (in Swedish). Update: 02/20 14:58 GMT by U L : richie2000 notes that hosting isn't quite right; they're just routing traffic to TPB: "We're not hosting TPB, we're just routing traffic to them. Just like an ISP. Serious Tubes routes traffic to the Pirate Party, so they're even more removed. But, last night, Portlane, one of the ISPs that routes traffic to Serious Tubes, was pressured into cutting their transit to ST, even if they were just a provider to a provider to a provider to TPB."
To be fair, it needs to be an option of last resort when you're faced with total financial obliteration for doing something that, while completely legal, an entity with large sums of money dislikes. The reasons that Colt's revolver was labeled "the great equalizer" are still evident today, even if we find the implications unpalatable. The modern legal system in most developed countries generally favors the clown with the deepest pockets, and can be a life-ruining experience for the average citizen; in those instances, "just shoot the fucker" may be the only recourse available to said citizen, and even the possibility of that can have far-reaching effects on the willingness of those with deep pockets to pursue matters to the point of financial ruin.
No, we're a party of civil rights.
We think it's wrong for private companies to spy on your Internet traffic and that copyright infringement should not render prison sentences. From this follows that it becomes impossible to enforce the copyright monopoly unless of course someone starts copying to sell - it's always much easier to follow the money. The obvious corollary to this is of course that it becomes legal to download songs and movies off the Internet. Like it already is in Spain, for example. And somehow, the Spanish movie industry flourishes. Coincidentally, a continued rise in file-sharing happens to correspond to increased sales of music and film in Sweden while movie theatres scored yet another record year. Obviously, they still get paid so your basic premise is flawed.
So, please tell me why we would give up our civil liberties because Hollywood wants to control how and when we watch movies?
Money for nothing, pix for free