Sweden Makes It Illegal To Take Photos In 'Private Environments' Without Permission

from the how-will-that-work? dept

Here on Techdirt we've had stories about how the ubiquity of digital cameras is changing the way we look at public events and art. But as has also become clear, the ability to take photos of more or less everything we see brings with it certain problems -- especially if what we see are police. So it was perhaps inevitable that the politicians would start to get involved, in order to "solve" some of those problems. Here's a rather extreme example from Sweden, as reported by TechHive:

Sweden's parliament has voted in favor of a law that bans taking pictures and filming in a private environment without first getting permission from people in attendance. Critics say the law is too ambiguous.

The Swedish Committee on Justice said the law, which goes into effect July 1, is needed since photographs or movies secretly shot in private settings can seriously violate an individual's privacy, and protection has been inadequate.

Well, that may be true, but it's hard to see how exactly this is going to work if you want to take a picture in a very crowded room, say -- how exactly are you supposed to get everyone that might be in a photo, to agree? Does it have to be in writing so that you can prove it? And what about if it's not a room, but still a "private environment"? Come to think of it, what exactly is that, anyway? From the article:

The law doesn't specify what constitutes consent or define a private environment. For example, what happens if a journalist invites a business executive to a reception in the journalist's home and secretly photographs the executive committing a criminal act, asked Maria Ferm, member of parliament for the Green Party, during the debate.

That underlines how this is likely to be used: to stop revelations of wrong-doing by public figures in private places. At least the new legislation is aware that this is an issue:

An exception from criminal liability is made if the act is justifiable in view of its purpose and other circumstances, and that provision includes journalistic work, according to the committee.

But until the exact limits of that provision are defined, along with what "justifiable" means, it seems inevitable that the new law will have a chilling effect on investigative journalism in Sweden. That's rather ironic, since you might expect that the abundance of digital cameras today would lead to the rich and powerful being caught out and called to account more often, not less.

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Filed Under: photographs, privacy, private environments, sweden

Why The Tech Industry Should Be Furious About NSA's Over Surveillance

from the it'll-hit-their-bottom-lines dept

We've already pointed out how some tech companies, including Yahoo!, Google and Twitter have fought back against overly intrusive attempts at government surveillance (though, they often lose), and there's been some discussion about how these companies are fighting to protect their users' privacy. There's a further reason why all of the tech industry should be speaking out against NSA surveillance. Beyond just being the right thing to do to protect your users' privacy, it's likely that it also improves their bottom line. We're already starting to see the fallout from the revelations of the NSA being able to scoop up data from various tech companies, and it's going to be harmful to their revenue.

Right after the initial NSA leaks came out, David Kirkpatrick quickly wrote about how the Obama administration appeared to be sacrificing the US internet industry in a weak attempt at trying to increase security (despite no evidence that it's actually done that). The global implications of the NSA spying aren't hard to figure out -- especially when looking at how many people around the globe use these services:

It's quite possible that Obama has undermined the effectiveness and attractiveness for political speech and protest of what have been the most potent communications tools for activism in history. Political and commercial opponents of the U.S. in every country as well as governments themselves will likely alert citizens to the potential that U.S. companies could pass their info back to US authorities. This will seriously conflict with these companies' aim to maintain their platforms as neutral global environments. It could dramatically slow their global growth.

[....] Do we really want to impair such powerful tools for spreading dialogue, political discourse, and U.S. values? Is it worthwhile to impair the extraordinary financial and commercial success of these great flagships for the American economy? Does Obama want Facebook et al just to be seen as tools of American power? That is certainly not the way the average user in Bolivia sees it. They see it as a tool of their own personal power, and they don't want governments interfering with that.

Further, he points out, this will likely drive users to foreign corporations, rather than American ones, as they strive to protect their privacy:

Don't believe there are not alternatives to the U.S. Net collossi. Companies worldwide are already relentlessly working on alternatives. The second largest search service worldwide is China's Baidu, with more than 8% of searches globally at the end of last year according to ComScore. Russia's Yandex is at close to 3%, more than Microsoft's own search product. In social networking, China's Tencent has had a stunning recent success with its WeChat product, which by some counts has over 450 million users worldwide, including many tens of millions outside China. Most major Chinese Internet companies have global ambitions.

Kirkpatrick was focusing more on the consumer side, and the importance of using these tools for open and free communication. But the same issues clearly impact the business side as well. As CFO.com recently, noted, companies are gong to be a lot less trusting of US-based cloud computing companies because of these leaks. Exposing the key info to governments is a real risk:

At the end of the day, if you have mission critical data and information in the possession of a third party service provider - Cloud or otherwise – the assumption that your provider will be in full control over their environments may be drawn unto doubt. As a CFO, it is prudent to consider your next steps very carefully to ensure that your intellectual property and trade secrets do not become the assets of others.

Given the suggestions that the US government has used this surveillance as a form of economic espionage, these fears seem quite well grounded. Foreign companies are now going to be a lot less interested in using the services of American companies.

And this isn't a theoretical problem either. Sweden just issued a ruling that bars the public sector from using Google's cloud services. Meanwhile, India is already telling companies that they need to setup local servers rather than make use of US servers if they want to do business in India.

This issue is important on a number of levels, but technology companies, who rely on a global audience, should be standing up and loudly protesting the NSA's broad surveillance, because it's going to hit their bottom lines hard. The administration and the NSA are directly making it difficult for US internet companies to be global enterprises, at a time when that's exactly what we need. Is it really worth sacrificing one of the few growing and dynamic industries that the US has these days, based on some vague and unproven claims that the government "needs" all of this info? It seems like a massive cost for almost no benefit.

Filed Under: business, cloud computing, espionage, free speech, global business, india, nsa, nsa surveillance, privacy, silicon valley, sweden, trust
Companies: google, yahoo

Swedish Prosecutor Claims Registrar Of .se Domains An 'Accomplice' In Infringement Because Of Pirate Bay Domain

from the how-many-degrees-of-separation? dept

The concepts of secondary liability seem to go right out the window (along with basic rationality) when it comes to certain people freaking out about copyright infringement. The latest is that Swedish prosecutors are apparently threatening the registrar that manages the .se domain with some form of charges because the Pirate Bay (briefly) ran on an .se domain.

“The legal system has not been able to shut down the service after the previous guilty verdict against TPB,” IIS Chief of Communications Maria Ekelund told TorrentFreak.

“Therefore the prosecutor has opened a new case against both the domain holders and .SE. The prosecutor is accusing .SE of assisting TPB who are assisting others to commit copyright infringement.”

[....] “In the eyes of the prosecutor, .SE’s catalogue function has become some form of accomplice to criminal activity, a perspective that is unique in Europe as far as I know,” says IIS CEO Danny Aerts.

That seems fairly ridiculous when you begin to think about the implications of it. This is so far removed from any actual infringement, it's incredible. This is the scorched earth approach to dealing with copyright infringement, with no care at all for any possible collateral damage in holding totally unrelated parties, who happened to be used by a service provider who, in turn, happened to be used by some people to possibly infringe, as liable for that infringement.

Filed Under: .se, copyright, domain registrar, hosting, secondary liability, sweden
Companies: iis, the pirate bay

Swedish BitTorrent User Accused Of Sharing Beyonce Album, Hit By $233,000 Lawsuit From Sony

from the that's-justice? dept

Lots of news regarding file-sharing has come out of Sweden over the years, but as TorrentFreak points out, until now, there's never been a prosecution for alleged unauthorized sharing using BitTorrent. The current case is unusual in a number of other respects:

The claim is that on June 8, 2011 a man from Gothenburg shared Beyonce's album '4' in advance of its June 24 commercial release date. The case was made even more interesting following the revelation that the 47-year-old is a music industry worker.

Because the album in question was a pre-release version, the Swedish prosecutor says he believes a heavy punishment could be handed down. As if that weren't enough, the label concerned -- Sony Music Entertainment -- has said that it intends to seek damages in a civil case:

In a submission to the Gothenburg District Court, Sony said that its business has been negatively affected by the leak on a number of fronts. The label says it has suffered damage to its marketing strategy, sales revenues and has also incurred additional costs. Sony adds that its relationship with Beyonce has been damaged and the artist's reputation hurt.

For all of the above Sony say they will claim 1.5 million kronor from the man, which is roughly $233,000.

But as various studies have suggested, rather than hurting Sony, it's just as likely that this leak helped make the official launch even more successful than it would have been. Similarly, it's hard to see how Beyonce's reputation was hurt by such a leak, since the more passionate the fan, the more pleased they would be by obtaining early access.

Anyway, the figure of $233,000 seems plucked out of the air, as is so often the case in this evidence-free area. Or perhaps it was inspired by the most famous damages imposed for unauthorized sharing of music, those against Jammie Thomas, who was fined $222,000 in her first trial (which then went up to $1,920,000 in the second trial, and to $1,500,000 in the third trial.) The fact that her sorry saga is still dragging on is an indication that even if Sony wins the current action, there are likely to be appeals against such a disproportionate and blatantly punitive figure.

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Filed Under: bittorrent, copyright, file sharing, lawsuits, pre-release, sweden
Companies: sony music

Swedish Pirate Party Stops Hosting The Pirate Bay, But Intends To Sue Anti-Piracy Organization For Unlawful Coercion

from the whac-a-mole dept

Last week, we wrote about how the Hollywood-backed Swedish anti-piracy organization, "Rights Alliance," was threatening the Swedish Pirate Party with criminal charges for hosting The Pirate Bay. It didn't stop there, however, also going after some of the connectivity firms further up the chain, moving beyond mere secondary liability (TPB) and tertiary liability (the Pirate Party) to a ridiculous and astounding quaternary liability for a company providing connectivity to the Swedish Pirate Party, which hosted a part of The Pirate Bay, which is used by some individuals to infringe on copyright. Still, getting involved in any such legal fight is difficult, so The Pirate Bay and the Swedish Pirate Party have moved The Pirate Bay's connectivity yet again, such that it is hosted by the Spanish Pirate Party and the Norwegian Pirate Party. Spain and Norway are two countries that have resisted attempts to censor sites like The Pirate Bay.

However, even if the Swedish Pirate Party is no longer hosting the site, it is clear that it is not happy about this turn of events, and suggests it is planning legal action for "unlawful coercion" against the Rights Alliance:

"The Pirate Party has a board meeting in a few days. I will recommend the board to file a police report against the Rights Alliance for unlawful coercion," Troberg says. "It is important to determine precisely how forgiving the system is to those who try to abuse the judicial system to silence others."

Given how law enforcement has treated The Pirate Party so far in Sweden, it seems unlikely that much would come from such an action, but that just highlights a big part of the problem.

In the meantime, this continues to show the ridiculous whac-a-mole nature of the entertainment industry's war on TPB. The site isn't actually "hosted" by these other Pirate Parties, but rather it is widely distributed. However, there does need to be a few key places where it connects clearly, so that people can find it. And that, it appears, is the role that these Pirate Parties will take on. And, while that's happening, it would appear that some other Pirate Parties around the globe are gearing up to be able to take on similar duties, should it be needed.

All this for one ancient site that hasn't changed or innovated much in years. It's kind of incredible. Peter Sunde, The Pirate Bay's former spokesperson has insisted, for years, that The Pirate Bay should be dead already, not because of Hollywood's continued attempts to take it down, but because other sites should have innovated far beyond what TPB has offered. Of course, I'd argue that Hollywood itself has had multiple opportunities to do that innovation, but instead has focused on attacking TPB and trying to cut off what consumers want, rather than figuring out ways to help provide the public what they want. It's been a decade long case study in exactly how not to deal with disruptive innovation. And this story shows no signs of changing any time soon.

Filed Under: hosting, norwegian pirate party, spanish pirate party, sweden, swedish pirate party, the pirate party
Companies: rights alliance, the pirate bay

Anti-Piracy Group Threatens Pirate Party With Criminal Charges For Hosting The Pirate Bay

from the well,-that-could-get-interesting dept

For a few years now, the Swedish Pirate Party has provided some hosting services to The Pirate Bay, arguing that attempts to take it down would amount to political censorship. It appears that theory may finally get tested. According to TorrentFreak, the Swedish anti-piracy group "Rights Alliance" has sent a letter threatening to take legal action against the Pirate Party if it does not stop hosting the site.

In the letter, which also targets bandwidth provider Serious Tubes, the group cites last year’s Supreme Court rejection of The Pirate Bay case as a precedent that hosting providers can be held liable for providing Internet services to file-sharing sites.

“With that decision, it was finally determined that not only those who operate illegal file sharing services, but also the Internet providers to such illegal services are committing a criminal act,” the Rights Alliance writes.

The party is figuring out how to respond. They note that, given how the original TPB trial played out, even if they believe they're strongly in the right under the law, the courts seem to toss all logic out the window as soon as someone mentions "but, piracy!" So they are reasonably concerned that a fair trial on the merits of the case would not come from this. However, it would certainly be an interesting trial, and might certainly call more attention to the issues that go beyond just the initial TPB trial. This is clearly getting into significant questions about secondary liability, especially over products that have significant non-infringing uses, and where the site itself is not hosting any of the infringing content. The whole thing remains a witch hunt by people who don't seem to understand the technology. A lawsuit against a political party may serve to highlight just how crazy this witch hunt has become.

Filed Under: hosting, liability, pirate party, sweden
Companies: the pirate bay

HBO's One Attempt At A Standalone Digital Service Sucks

from the surprise-surprise dept

In my recent post about the fragmentation of online television, there were a few aspects and details I left out because they seemed worthy of a separate, closer look. One is the oft-forgotten fact that HBO does indeed offer one lonely digital-only subscription service... to customers in Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Norway. That program was announced last year and seemed like a promising step for the notoriously cable-dedicated HBO—but the customer feedback is coming in, and the results are not encouraging:

A list of complaints include HD content is (was?) only available on Samsung Smart TVs, meaning you were only given SD quality when streaming through your computer or any other device. Same goes for surround sound and 5.1, which are only available through the Samsung TV app. Other complaints I've heard includes buffering problems with the Widevine plugin (at standard definition), and lack of Apple Airplay support. The product is available as iOS and Android apps, but Xbox and Playstation apps are still said to be under development.

The online UI is nice to look at but was poorly designed; initially HBO only allowed you to search for TV shows by alphabetical letter. The results were underwhelming and exaggerated how little content HBO was offering.

...

It should be noted that you're not given access to the full back catalogue, several classics are not available such as Deadwood and Oz, which apparently have some copyright restrictions.

Some might claim it's still a good deal at €9.95/month, considering most people can't access any of these shows legally without a full cable package. Of course, Netflix only costs €7.99/month in the region, and has a larger selection, which makes the price a little less impressive. Then there's the fact that HBO initially promised much, much more:

• Every episode of all HBO series available online
• All new episodes available within 24 hours of the US premiere, with local subtitles (dubbing is rare in the Nordics, foreign TV shows and movies are usually subtitled in the local language)
• Works on practically all devices: smartphones, tablets (Android, iOS), computers (Windows, Linux, Mac), video game consoles (PS3, Xbox), Samsung Smart TVs and Blu-ray players, and Sonera IPTV service
• Full HD 1080p picture quality
• Surround sound

Compare that to the list of complaints, and you realize HBO isn't doing a great job of living up to the expectations it created. Then there's the other truly insane catch: customers are locked into a 12-month contract, after which they must give 3-month notice for cancellation. Yeah. Moreover, the terms stated that simply logging into the service once waives your ability to cancel it because you're not satisfied (despite using the service being the only way to know if you are satisfied). After facing significant criticism for this move, HBO backtracked and offered subscribers the chance to use the service until the end of this month without a longer commitment—but only those subscribers who also signed up for the HBO Nordic newsletter. Classy.

It's no real surprise that HBO's first attempt at a standalone online offering is a disaster. HBO approaches the internet with extreme trepidation, but revolution requires gusto. Digital distribution—especially when it comes to competing with piracy—is a go big or go home endeavor. Or... go halfway, and watch your customers go elsewhere.

Filed Under: denmark, digital, finland, norway, sweden, television
Companies: hbo

PayPal Freezes Funds Of Famed Swedish ISP Twice

from the fool-me-once... dept

I have to admit I'm a bit surprised they relied on PayPal in the first place, but PRQ, the famed Swedish ISP created by two of the guys behind The Pirate Bay, and which (as you might imagine) was known for standing up for its users against legal threats, has had its PayPal account frozen twice for unclear reasons. Apparently PayPal had been working just fine for three years, and then suddenly the account was frozen. Employees contacted PayPal, who told PRQ to just set up a second PayPal account for users to use until they sorted things out, and then they'd merge the two accounts. Instead... they froze the second one as well. Of course, if you follow stories involving PayPal, this is hardly uncommon. It seems to happen all too frequently with many sites that use it. PayPal works hard to try to minimize fraud, but it seems to have a super itchy trigger finger to completely shut down sites with no warning and little process for appeal. Relying on it as a sole payment offering seems to be asking for trouble.

Filed Under: freezing funds, isp, paypal, sweden
Companies: paypal, prq

Swedish Appeals Court Says Web Designer Is Responsible For Copyright Infringement On StudentBay

from the scorched-earth-policy dept

It's really amazing how fearful people who don't understand technology are of anyone who has any connection to file sharing, no matter how remote. Over in Sweden, an appeals court has overturned a lower court ruling absolving a web designer of any liability for designing the StudentBay -- a torrenting site for educational material -- and decided that because he designed the site, he must be liable for what users did on the site. This goes beyond secondary liability into some sort of weird tertiary liability. It already seems odd to blame the operators of the site for actions taken by its users, but now we're holding the graphic designers responsible too? It's a sort of scorched earth policy from people who don't seem to understand how the internet works, and who just seem to want to "destroy everything." Of course, the end result is that anyone with half a clue just thinks the judicial system is a complete joke. That doesn't seem useful for anyone.

Filed Under: liability, scorched earth, sweden, web design

Swedish Pirate Party Sues Banks For 'Discriminating' Against Wikileaks

from the standing? dept

Earlier this year, we noted that a court in Iceland had ordered Visa to start accepting donations to Wikileaks again. There's been some cat and mouse games as the various payment processors, under pressure from US officials, cut off the site a while back. The latest, however is that the Swedish Pirate Party itself has pressed charges against Swedish banks for discriminating against Wikileaks.

The charges were filed eariler today with the Swedish Finansinspektionen, the authority which oversees bank licenses and abuse of position. This follows an earlier initiative from the Pirate Party to regulate credit card companies on the European level in order to deny them the ability to determine who gets to trade and who doesn’t.

“The blockade is a serious threat against the freedoms of opinion and expression”, says the Pirate Party’s Erik Lönroth, who has been preparing the formal charges. “It must not be up to the individual payment provider to determine which organizations are eligible for donations. At the same time, these charges will bring clarity as to whether the bank regulations of today are sufficient, or if regulations need to be tightened to protect freedom of expression.”

I don't quite understand Swedish law, so it's not entirely clear to me how the Swedish Pirate Party has standing in which to bring these charges. However, it looks like "charges" basically mean asking the relevant regulatory body to investigate whether the actions are legal. Given how much power a very small number of payment companies have over what can and cannot accept money online, it would be nice for there to be some rules against discrimination. Of course, an even better answer would be to create more services that can accept payment...

Filed Under: payments, pirate party, sweden, swedish pirate party, wikileaks