Preamble: I was born and brought up in Sweden by my English mother and Swedish father. Also, I don't feel very comfortable translating anything:-)
Not punishable, were the last thing said in the legal battle between the record companies and the young resident of Skövde that had collected links to mp3 sites on his homepage. The Supreme Court (Högsta Domstolen) says in its verdict that digital transport of copyrighted material in networks are not the same as spreading physical copies. The HD says that copying of music and sound bites on networks shall be seen as public broadcast. Such public broadcasts are not illegal so the HD dismissed the charges. The proceedings started september last year, the resident of Skövde has previously been acquitted both in tingsrätt and hovrätt
two lower instances of law in Sweden. The charges has been amended/changed several times during the entire process. The prosecutor specifically wanted to bring up the question on whether the links could be construed/seen as participation in copyright infringement committed by either those uploading the mp3 songs or those downloading them. The prosecutor dropped the charges before the appeal to the HD and the appeal was instead made by the 11 involved record companies. The question on participation in copyright infringement was dismissed since it wasn't part of the original crime description. Wee bit strange sentence there. The record companies one remaining course of action is to demand STIM-money since their music has been performed on the net.
My comments in italic. Stim (short English summary) is the Swedish organisation that collects money for the artist and music companies when their music is performed in public, in other words broadcasted, played in hospitals, elevator music etc. I'm sure that there's an equivalent in just about all countries.
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I was astonished to see so many people overreacting on this subject. Sheesh, CmdrTaco please clarify the @!#@$ editorial. Please?