Sweden Becoming Less Friendly To File Sharing

from the all-that-lobbying-pays-off dept

Despite having politicians who seem to actually understand the real issues at stake surrounding file sharing (hint: it's not a legal problem having to do with "pirates"), it appears that some in the country are getting fed up with the entertainment industry trying to portray Sweden as a "haven for pirates" thanks to the Pirate Bay (which isn't even hosted in Sweden any more). Earlier this year charges were filed against The Pirate Bay, even though it's still not clear if they actually violated any laws. And, now, some Swedish politicians are saying that ISPs should be required to cough up the information of those accused of sharing files. Oddly, this comes so soon after the EU decided that IP addresses are private info and various other countries in Europe have ruled that ISPs shouldn't hand over info, as user privacy is much more important than propping up the entertainment industry's business model.
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: file sharing, isps, pirate bay, privacy, sweden
Companies: pirate bay


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  1. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 14 Mar 2008 @ 6:54pm

    IP Addresses are private info?

    I guess in the same way your STREET ADDRESS is private. Private so long as no one looks.

    And there is no way the analogy can be anything different. If I want to give someone something, I either go to their home and hand it to them, or I use FedEx or the Post Office or UPS or whatever.

    The analogy being FTP for handing directly and E-Mail or other means for the later part.

    So I hope the EU counts street addresses and phone numbers as private information as well. Otherwise there are some gaps in their logic.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    who cares, 14 Mar 2008 @ 7:09pm

    The entertainment industry should stop bitching. Maybe with the loss of sales, American musicians will produce songs with the motivation not being Money, but heart and soul, the foundations of real music.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    The Mighty Buzzard, 14 Mar 2008 @ 7:13pm

    Re: IP Addresses are private info?

    True, who owns a house at a street address is public record but who might be renting it is not. Same with IP addresses that we sublet from our ISP who have themselves leased them from yet another party.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. identicon
    On the Copyright side, 14 Mar 2008 @ 7:49pm

    Go Sweden

    The Swedes are quite savvy with their programming skills. Perhaps they can come up with a model that protects the rights of musicians and respects the rights of consumers.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. identicon
    Hellsvilla, 14 Mar 2008 @ 8:39pm

    wait just a cotton picking minute!

    You mean to tell me there's more than one political party in Sweden? And not all of these political parties share the exact same views on all political matters?

    That's just unpossible!

    link to this | view in thread ]

  6. identicon
    KD, 15 Mar 2008 @ 3:49am

    Could be a different reason

    You wrote "... it appears that some in the country are getting fed up with the entertainment industry trying to portray Sweden as a "haven for pirates" thanks to the Pirate Bay ...".

    I'd say that it is much more likely that the reason for these politicians' actions is that someone has been threatening trade retaliation, or something similar, rather than that the politicians are getting fed up with their beloved Sweden being called a haven for pirates. Seems to me that Sweden has been called nasty names many times in the past, and it didn't bother them much then. Or were you just making a little joke?

    If some arm-twisting is going on, it would be good to publicize the details, in the interests of publicly shaming the bully. I realize you might not know the details at the moment.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  7. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 15 Mar 2008 @ 2:19pm

    seems that the EU is more "American" in their thinking lately
    the our own government

    link to this | view in thread ]

  8. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 15 Mar 2008 @ 6:12pm

    Re: IP Addresses are private info?

    Street addresses != Internet addresses. Do I really need to spell out the differences between owning a street address and "owning" a IP address?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  9. identicon
    Senator Ted™, Creator of Law, 15 Mar 2008 @ 9:53pm

    Why do you people get so excited by privacy? Everyone knows that you people are "the public" and therefore you have no right to privacy. Only us in the government have a right to privacy because information would let our enemies know what we are doing, and we can't have that, so we keep everything secret.

    Now go back to your TV and watch American Idle and stop asking questions.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  10. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 16 Mar 2008 @ 10:00pm

    Re:

    Nice, tell King George I said, "hi".

    link to this | view in thread ]

  11. identicon
    CassandraTaylor, 11 Jan 2009 @ 4:11am

    Easy vacation times now

    ThankYouAll@burntmail.com
    http://itshrunk.com/e150d1
    Please Help by Donating A Used Laptop or Selling your Used Laptop to her or Just Donate a few Dollars to help her buy any working Laptop this NEW YEAR
    HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!

    Merry Christmas

    Easy vacation times now

    We Wish You A Merry Christmas

    and A Happy New Year and A Seasons Greetings 2009!

    With a special gift for your Vacation holidays
    Delivered by postmail
    Better than internet gifts
    Easy vacation holidays
    no more high expensive hotels or guest houses too worry about
    Now vacation holidays in your personal tropical fully furnish house with no expensive of maintaining!

    Valued Tours
    Valued Stays
    Valued borders
    Valued Renters
    Valued Shoppers
    Valued your way access
    Valued helpers
    Valued Cleaners
    Valued Gifts
    Valued presentations
    Valued Special Moments
    Valued test drive vacation
    http://hotshorturl.com/sv23
    Send your email for reservation!
    A life time vacation dream come true!General_Information@burntmail.com
    my street address: "york house" golf club road, christ church, Barbados, west indies.HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!! special636_3@hotmail.com

    link to this | view in thread ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.