Swedish Officials Complained To US That Hollywood-Pushed IPRED 'Anti-Piracy' Law Did More Harm Than Good
from the nicely-done,-us dept
Back in May, we had reported that Swedish police were complaining about the IPRED "anti-piracy" law, noting that all it had really done was driven up the use of encryption, which had made their job more difficult. Separate from that, of course, have been numerous studies showing that the amount of file sharing in Sweden, after an initial dip, quickly surpassed what it had been before and continued to rise. Of course, this was all pretty predictable before IPRED went into effect, but thanks to Wikileaks, not only do we know that the US was heavily involved in pushing efforts like IPRED through, but that Swedish officials made these concerns known to the US, and it appears that the US didn't really care. The specific cable highlighted the concerns of Swedish officials:Swedish Police Enforcement officials are complaining that implementation of the IPRED has made it more difficult to solve crimes. Swedish Internet Service Providers are saving user information related to IP-numbers for a shorter period of time following the IPRED legislation.That same cable, by the way, also mentions how Larry Lessig spoke to the Swedish Parliament, and also reported on the latest (at the time) of the Pirate Bay trial.
Also, as previously reported (Ref A) the IPRED legislation might be doing little to stop the problem of illegal file-sharing as internet users now are using services which allow them to hide their IP-addresses.
Separately, I just realized that the cable comes from the US Ambassador to Sweden, Matthew Barzun, who actually probably has a decent grasp on many of these issues, as before he became a diplomat, he worked for many years as an executive at CNET. That said, it's still somewhat disappointing that the US did seem so instrumental in pushing these laws, that even the Swedes don't seem to like, which aren't helping, and are having other unintended consequences. What's really troubling is that the US still seems to support these types of laws elsewhere, even though they're likely to have the same results. Is keeping Hollywood happy really so important?
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Filed Under: copyright, encryption, hollywood, ipred, law enforcement, sweden
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Yes
well, if your livelihood depends upon it then the answer is yes, of course.
Apparently there are many congressmen and other hired lackeys in government who believe that their current, or at least future income, depends upon Hollywood approval, and they are doing their best to ensure they get it, the consequences for the rest of the country or the world be damned.
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It's a smear campaign against the Swedish government. The Guardian is the official media outlet for Wikileaks, and the timing could not be better for Assange.
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Er...yes? What have you seen from Assange that would suggest that he WOULDN'T have released a secret cable if that had been the case?
"It's a smear campaign against the Swedish government."
Hmm, it's more embarrassing for the US than Sweeden, isn't it? Kind of portrays the Sweedish government as victims of the big bad US empire, should such a thing exist....
"The Guardian is the official media outlet for Wikileaks, and the timing could not be better for Assange."
I...don't see how this is beneficial for Assange's personal situation at all. Maybe you can explain?
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A couple things ...
stop ... using ... all ... the ... multiple ... periods ... thats ... my ... thing ... ;) ;) ;)
We seem to have entered the first stages of being an empire and-or a police state. Govenment protecting money and not people. Its not us thats causing these problems its "(insert your favorite racial type or bad guy here)" that are the reason you are poor, stupid, and cant feed your family. Blatant disrespect for the agreed upon laws of society by the PTB (powers that be).
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..soylent green is people. On a horse.
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Yes, absolutely. First of all, all sorts of cables keep coming out, and this one is embarrassing to the US, not Sweden.
> It's a smear campaign against the Swedish government. The Guardian is the official media outlet for Wikileaks, and the timing could not be better for Assange.
The Guardian is also the only paper that published the full detailed allegations against Assange that show the charges really are about rape, and not about "sex with a broken condom," leading Assange to (somewhat ironically) complain about The Guardian for publishing such a "smear campaign."
Sorry, but if you knew anything about what was going on, you'd know this wasn't true.
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Assange pretty much gripes about anyone who says anything bad about him (tabloid schmucks, anyone?), but he always ends up going back to those same media organization to continue to build up the Cult of Assange.
After all, without them, he wouldn't have a 7 figure book deal. None of the other Wikileaks people do.
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That's right - FIVE news organizations already have the cables before they're publicly released.
Any other conspiracy theories I can debunk?
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The Guardian, on the other hand, appears to be on the payroll most days.
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Assange will need to face his charges no matter what, and for him to offer to suppress cables in exchange for making it all go away would be anathema to his soul.
They are playing up the angle that he is a bad bad man. Sadly these are just "charges" not convictions. But people want to parade the charges around to prove how horrible a person he is. This effort to spin these charges is to distract attention from little things, like the US taxpayers paying nearly 2 billion a year to a company that has been caught multiple times pimping children. That the government has acted to cover up this pimping several times.
The cables are fact, and other than bluster and chest thumping the Government has not disproven a single one of them. They try to distract people with the idea people might die because of what he did, we will face more problems with our allies, and a grand farce ensues. Yet we are still paying a company that thinks its perfectly ok to pimp and sell children and our government still works to hide this pimping.
Assange might have done something to violate the law in Sweden with these women, I dunno Swedish law enough to debate it. One is left to wonder how the case went from active to dismissed to active and being leaked in the papers as these cables came to light. Maybe a government somewhere exerted more pressure to get their way.
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The point isn't innocent of guilty, rather that the cable wasn't released before he got locked up in the UK, but after. Releasing it now stinks of vengeful actions, similar to his encrypted file he is distributing. "screw with me, and I will screw with you".
Assange is not a very nice man.
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Thanks pal.
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Business Ethics!
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Answer: Yes, as long as they have the money for those "campaign contributions".
Also, Mike, the RSS feed still needs fixing. The pound symbol in one article is the problem.
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Of course! Don't you know by now that the whole world revolves around the entertainment industry?
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