Swedish Antipiracy Law Goes Into Effect... Internet Traffic Drops
from the coincidence? dept
A new antipiracy law went into effect in Sweden on Wednesday, allowing copyright holders to demand the IP addresses from ISPs if a court finds that there's evidence of illegal activity -- and, as News.com notes, internet traffic took a major dip in Sweden, though it's not entirely clear if the two things are connected (though, it notes a similar dip occurred, back when The Pirate Bay was taken offline a few years ago). Not surprisingly, some audio book publishers wasted no time in trying to use the law, filing lawsuits to get information on certain file sharers. Sweden, as many of you know, has had very consumer-friendly copyright laws for quite some time. The departure from this (and the introduction of other new laws that are being pushed) has come from massive international pressure, usually starting with the American entertainment industry. It will be worth watching how the country reacts to increased and more draconian copyright rules.
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Filed Under: anti-piracy, copyright, identification, laws, sweden
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sad day for Web Freedom
i see the future.
in the future people can snitch on their friends for media rights infringements and get cash rewards. Probably what that civilian military Obama's been talkin about.
doesn't matter Internet2 is going to come out and force users to give up their anonymity once and for all. Then there will be an underground internet where true freedom exists but will be attacked by computer hackers working for the Obama civilian brigade.
all of this fuss, just because i want to watch the simpsons without messing with my bunny ears, or submitting to the beast that is cable tv. All because marketing departments at fox want to keep on making a bagillion dollars a second for commercials. The Scribes sure made a fuss when the printing press came out and they weren't able to horde all the information any more. Newspaper companies are dying now and tv stations will follow in the next 10 years. Its inevitable. You CAN NOT STOP THE MAD CR4zY 1337 C0D3rs AND H4x0rs and dont under estimate them. i think the pirate bay has a BACKUP PLAN if the sh!t goes down in Sweden.
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Re: sad day for Web Freedom
You seem to see a retarded future... Go figure...
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Please correct me if I'm wrong.
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Tor is a great thing and the same technology can be used areas outside of the mesh coverage to link up to it.
But as restrictions from isp's become tighter and tighter simply using tor will be fine, but running a tor server/relay as a resident might become difficult to do.
both options have their difficulties as far as coverage bandwidth and latency goes, but a true grassroots network infrastructure would be a beautiful thing to see come into existence.
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The positive thing that comes out of this is that there is judicial review. Before an ISP is forced to potentially identify someone (which with dynamic IPs isn't as clear cut as you might think), a court will have to be satisfied that there is evidence. Seems like they have just formalised actions that a copyright holder could have taken anyway. At worst it is now cheaper (but not free) to go down that path.
This is much much better than has been proposed elsewhere, where the industry wants ISPs to actively spy on their customers without judicial oversight or without evidence terminate customer service after three (possibly unfounded) accusations.
Personally I think it sounds like a good compromise.
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Depending on the nation, it might be illegal to disseminate copies, but not to simply make them. In the US as you may be presuming, it has never been illegal to make copies.
This whole thing is pointless, Sweden gave in to the copyright cops on this one.
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You can make all the copies you want for your own use, but the intention of mass copying isn't just for backups, now is it?
Sweden didn't give in to anyone - they just stopped giving criminals a place to hide. If the activity is legal, then who cares? It's only an issue because underlying the whole thing is a crime.
infinite distribution, done infinitely illegally.
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Matt clearly stated that it is not illegal to MAKE copies and your example is DISTRIBUTING those copies.
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sydney
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Re: sydney
that was rantastic. I don't think I've ever seen such an incoherent argument so brilliantly expressed
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So let's go. All of us. Let's join them! However, we have to make a pact: Our efforts must involve the Swedish Bikini Teams we encounter, and solving their problems. This should be easy as most problems not involving copyright, but properly sizing bras we encounter. After all, 70% of women don't wear correctly sized brassieres. And we can share proper sizing and removal procedures for the young'ins.
Let's make Techdirt an adult site.
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Or maybe they're simply trying to avoid being unethically (illegally?) flagged as a file sharer.
You never did answer me if you pay royalties for images used on your website.
Be lucky you don't live in Sweden, you hypocrite.
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Don't you have to get to school already? You don't want to be late for class.
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Please point me to the answer regarding your web hosted images.
As for the school comment, done with that. Which is why my replies to you are received with returns of insults, failure to take responsibility, and ignorance.
If you're trying to call me a child, do so. But we both know who the real child is here.
At least I've been educated. What's your excuse?
See you at the flagpole at 3pm. Sharp.
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Apr 1st
It is indeed sad to know that yet another country has decided to bend over and take it in the rear from the copyright holders.
Money talks and yet more polluticians have been bought out.
Huge percentage of people there oppose the laws and yet the government passes it anyways.
When will the governments around the world actually start representing the people instead of the rich copyright mongers?
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The real question ...
Did sales of the copyrighted material show a major increase?
I suspect not. Amateurs. They passed the wrong law. Forcing people to purchase copyrighted materials - that's where the money is.
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Niggers all of you
Kill all the god damn niggers and their forms of law.
Piece of shit society we live in needs to end as soon as possible
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Re: Niggers all of you
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When Finland introduced the same kind of law they saw a temporary drop of internet traffic of one third. After three months the internet traffic was back to normal and rising again. It's quite likely we'll see this in Sweden too.
Allen said: "The positive thing that comes out of this is that there is judicial review. Before an ISP is forced to potentially identify someone (which with dynamic IPs isn't as clear cut as you might think), a court will have to be satisfied that there is evidence. Seems like they have just formalised actions that a copyright holder could have taken anyway. At worst it is now cheaper (but not free) to go down that path."
In practice the court will only lend its credability to the system without actually contributing anything. The rights owners will present a couple of screendumps saying that file sharing of this copyrighted work was done from this IP address at this time. The court has no way of knowing whether this is true or not and a screendump is easily falsified. So either it can choose to only trust some rights holders giving us unequality of the law or trust almost everyone or nobody. The court doesn't need proof that a certain person did anything, just that a file was shared from a certain IP address.
When the right holders have gotten hold of the identify of the person who pays the internet connection bill they will send a letter saying things like: "pay up or we'll take you to court where you'd have to pay eight times as much" (an offer you cannot refuse).
Albert Nonymous brought up the most important thing. Can we now expect a corresponding increase in sales? (surely cutting down people's culture consumption can't be the goal).
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fuck anti-piracy
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