How Sweden Dismantled Many Of Its Online Civil Rights At The Orders Of US Content Industries

from the sad-to-see dept

People who talk about copyright policy and some of the things going on around the globe, often talk about how various governments' decisions appear to be direct-on-order from Hollywood and the legacy US entertainment industry. And, to some extent, that sounds crazy conspiratorial to think that Hollywood and the MPAA would be so involved in domestic policies that impact innovation around the globe. But as some are noting, this "nutjobby" theory is now actually looking like clear fact, at least in the case of Sweden. This has all come out thanks to the State Department cable dumps, which basically show that pretty much Sweden's entire strategy in pushing through bad laws that take away civil rights and privacy online were direct from the US entertainment industry, weakly laundered through the US State Department, who merely passed along Hollywood's orders to the Swedish government... backed up with the threat of trade sanctions. What's really amazing is that the diplomats in the State Department never seem to consider whether or not they should be protecting a few big entertainment companies, rather than the best interests of citizens around the globe. It's such a short term view, as well, because wiping out civil rights elsewhere will come back to haunt the US. But as long as the MPAA's members keep getting paid...

Filed Under: civil liberties, civil rights, copyright, diplomats, sweden

Dear Sweden: Will You Tax Hard Drives And Give Me A Cut Every Time Someone Visits Techdirt?

from the tax-and-spend dept

We've discussed in the past the ridiculousness of attempts by various countries to put a levy on blank media just in case you might copy something onto it that was covered by copyright. Apparently Sweden is now gearing up to go through this same fight, as the entertainment industry is demanding a blank media levy. As Rick Falkvinge points out at the link above, this is not (as some believe) a blanket license to infringe. The fee people pay is only supposed to cover legal copying. But, of course, if it's legal, then that probably means the work was already paid for. Why should the person who paid for it have to pay again? And, that doesn't even get into the fact that many people buy storage devices that are never used for such copying. But they still have to pay the tax.

The whole thing sounds like a joke, but I feel like I should demand my cut, just to point out the ridiculousness of it all. After all, every time someone in Sweden opens up a page on Techdirt, they're making a "legal copy" on their hard drive. So, where's my cut? According to Google Analytics, last month we had over 12,000 page views from Sweden. Clearly, I deserve a cut for each of those.

While my claim above is obviously silly, it's no less silly than the claims of others. Why should one particular set of content providers get to set up a system like this, and how is the distribution manged? How much do we think will actually go to content creators? And where does it stop? If music and movie companies get a cut, what about book publishers? And news organizations? And blogs? Where do you draw the line? The problem is that as soon as you draw any line in such a case, you're setting up a system that others will demand to be a part of. It's just a bad idea all around.

Filed Under: blank media, levies, sweden, taxes

60 Year Old Swedish Man Gets Sentenced To 'Conditional' Two Years In Jail For File Sharing

from the punishment-=-crime? dept

While yesterday we wrote about how a Swedish court acquitted a 15-year-old for file sharing some movies, today a court gave a 60-year-old man two years of conditional jail time along with a pretty large fine. The "conditional" jailtime appears to be like a form of probation, where if he meets certain criteria, he might never spend time in actual jail, but it's still quite a sentence.

As Rick Falkvinge notes in the link above, even if this guy never sets foot in jail, the Swedish court has now established a ridiculous precedent for what file sharing can get you in terms of jailtime. Copyright issues like this should, at most, be a civil issue, rather than a criminal one, and it seems like a very dangerous move by Swedish law enforcement to start trying to sentence people to jail over something done so widely. When the punishment does not match at all with the real "harm" of the crime, people respect the law even less. I'm sure the supporters of such a move think that this will help with "education." There's almost no evidence to support that. Ridiculously punitive punishment does not do anything to stop infringement.

Instead, it seems likely that a ridiculous ruling like this merely helps undermine the respect that citizens give to copyright law.

Earlier today we compared a discussion on whether or not the punishment fit the crime for copyright infringement in France. Falkvinge provides a similar set of info for Sweden. This guy was sentenced to two years and a big fine. What other verdicts have come out recently in Sweden?

• Severe negligent homicide, six months.
• Rape, one year and four months.
• Sexual abuse of a child, ten months.
• Armed robbery with a firearm, one year and nine months.
• Homicide by strangling, six months.
• Aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, ten months.

When you make the punishment way out of line with the crime, you're not doing yourselves any favors. You just make people respect the law even less...

Filed Under: file sharing, jail, sweden

Swedish Teenager Turned Over To Police By School Headmaster For File Sharing Acquitted By Court

from the one-part-of-this-is-absurd dept

Last week, there was a lot of attention to criminal charges brought against a 15-year-old kid in Sweden, after his school's headmaster turned him over to the police after discovering some downloaded films and file sharing software on his computer. It did seem absurd to charge him with a crime, rather than civil infringement, but that's what happened, and the prosecutor in the case seemed almost gleeful about the possibility of convicting the boy of a crime. Except... it took just a few days for the court to acquit the boy. The ruling involved a head judge and three "lay judges." From my understanding of the Swedish judicial system, "lay judges" are somewhat (though not exactly) akin to a jury in the US (Swedes feel free to chime in and clarify). There was apparently a split among the lay judges, with two voting against conviction and one being in favor. The split resulted in acquittal. The prosecutor, rather than recognizing the sheer absurdity of the case, instead insists that it's "absurd" the kid was acquitted, and now vows to appeal. Because there's nothing more important than convicting someone of a crime for sharing a couple movies. Honestly, if Swedish prosecutors wanted to draw more support for the Swedish Pirate Party, I don't think they could have picked a better strategy.

Filed Under: acquittal, copyright, crime, school, sweden

Swedish Appeals Court Increases File Sharing Fine By A Factor Of Six

from the this-isn't-helping dept

Earlier this year, we wrote about a guy who was found guilty of file sharing 44 songs in Sweden, but after the court realized that the actual "harm" done by the guy was minimal, he was fined about 2,000 kronor, a total of about $300 -- or approximately $7 per song. If you think that there needs to be some punishment for file sharing, then this at least seems reasonably in line and proportional to the offense. Of course, Swedish prosecutors appealed and not only sought to increase the fines, but also asked for jailtime for the guy. Talk about disproportionate punishment! Thankfully, the court turned down the jail time request, but it did increase the fine more than six times to 13,000 kronor or about $2,000. This is, still, a lot less than similar cases in the US, but it still seems way out of line for any "harm" done.

Filed Under: copyright, file sharing, punishment, sweden

Swedish Government Helps Fund Documentary On The Pirate Bay

from the nice-of-them dept

Even as some in the Swedish government -- at the urging of US diplomats and the US entertainment industry -- continue to look for ways to shut down The Pirate Bay, it appears that the Swedish government is funding part of the documentary on The Pirate Bay. This is from the same movie that was able to raise some money last year via Kickstarter. To be honest, getting some government funds isn't that strange. The various Scandanavian countries tend to have pretty strong government support for the arts. When I was there about a year ago, many of the discussions I had with artists was how the situation there is quite different than in the US in that almost every filmmaker or musician expects to get some kind of government funding at some point or another. Still, given the controversial nature of The Pirate Bay within Sweden, it's still worth noting that the government was still willing to support the documentary.

Filed Under: documentary, funding, movies, sweden
Companies: the pirate bay

Swedish Court Fines File Sharer About $300 For Sharing 44 Songs

from the nothing-to-see-here... dept

While US courts have been awarding tens of thousands of dollars per song for the few people found guilty of unauthorized file sharing, many people have noted how utterly ridiculous those awards are, in comparison to any actual harm. It appears that a court over in Sweden appears to agree. A man who was charged with sharing 44 songs has been fined a much smaller amount, specifically, 2,000 kronor, or about $300. It actually comes out to just about $7 per song.

It will be interesting to see how the industry reacts to this one. After all, they've been going around praising the IPRED anti-piracy law in Sweden for the last two years now. Will we suddenly start hearing about how Sweden "doesn't take piracy seriously" and then there will be a new push for even stricter laws?

Filed Under: copyright, file sharing, fines, sweden

Swedish ISP Will Automatically Encrypt All Traffic To Protect Privacy Under New Data Retention Laws

from the how-it-all-works dept

When Sweden first put in place its IPRED law, which required ISPs to hand over identifying info on people accused of file sharing, one of the first ISPs to respond was Banhof, who immediately put in place a new policy to delete all log files. Now that Sweden is pushing forward with a data retention law that would require ISPs to keep log files, Banhof has taken things up a notch by encrypting all traffic on their network via a VPN. That means that even if it keeps logfiles, the information will be effectively useless. Honestly, I'm surprised that more ISPs haven't done something similar and pitched themselves as focused on protecting privacy. It's difficult to see how Swedish politicians can really respond to this. They can't exactly order ISPs not to encrypt traffic. Just think of the mess that would cause. So, as the US starts looking (again) at data retention laws, they might want to consider what's happening in Sweden.

Filed Under: data retention, encryption, sweden, vpn
Companies: banhof

Once Again, More State Dept. Cables Show Swedish Copyright Enforcement At The Behest Of US

from the but-of-course dept

There's absolutely nothing surprising at all about the following, but Christian Engstrom (one of the two European Parliament Members from The Pirate Party*) highlights yet another leaked State Department cable that shows that many of the copyright enforcement efforts of the Swedish government were in response to a six point checklist given to the Swedish government by the US Embassy (English translation from the original Swedish -- though at the end of the Swedish post the original cable is available in English). The six point check list passed on by the embassy was almost certainly originally from US industry lobbyists. There's nothing in this that is even remotely surprising (and hints of this had already leaked previously).

What really gets me about this is why do countries like Sweden even really care about the Special 301 Report, which is used as the main "stick" by the US Embassy. As we discuss every year, the US Trade Rep (USTR) each year puts together a silly "Special 301 Report" which lists out who's been naughty and who's been nice on intellectual property issues... according to US industry. The list is widely regarded as a joke by many -- including within the US government. I was once at a copyright conference where people from the US Copyright Office openly mocked the Special 301 Report as being a meaningless joke. In part, that's because it's not based on any hard science or actual data at all. Instead, it's written mainly based on what US industry says are problem countries... with a review from US diplomats stationed in those countries. The "leaked" cable is the US embassy in Sweden weighing in on the 2009 report.

Of course, getting on that list is somewhat meaningless. All it really means is that US diplomats will put more pressure on those countries to fix and/or change the situation in that country -- which is exactly what the cable shows the US embassy was already doing in Sweden. What I don't really understand is why Swedish officials caved so easily. Canada has been in the same position for years, with US industry making up completely bogus and totally unsubstantiated claims about how Canada is a "haven" for copyright infringement, despite the fact that Canada's copyright laws are much more stringent than the US's in many ways. While some Canadian politicians have pushed for new copyright reform, the attempt two years ago that was almost certainly written by US industry got shot down. However, what's really interesting is that Canada responds each year to the Special 301 report by noting its ridiculously flawed methodology and pointing out that it's purely a political list, and not one to be concerned about.

What's unfortunate is that Sweden did not do the same, but that its government pretty much folded. Of course, what's amusing is that the undertones of this cable, and previous cables on this issue suggest that Swedish politicians know that the public absolutely does not support them in pushing this "made in America" approach to copyright law. But, for whatever reason, they still seem to feel compelled to follow through with it. What I don't quite understand is why that is? I would guess the concern is trade sanctions by the US against Sweden, which is the undercurrent of all of the Special 301 threats, but at some point the Swedish government should stand up for itself and not be bullied in such a manner.

* I normally do not list out political parties of politicians on this blog, as it tends to drive the discussion in a political direction, rather than on the facts of the article. However, when I did this last time with a Pirate Party MEP, I was falsely accused of trying to "hide" the fact. So I'll mention it here, in part, because (after thinking about it) I don't think mentioning the Pirate Party leads to the same sort of political mudslinging that naming a major party creates.

Filed Under: copyright, diplomacy, special 301, sweden, us

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.

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.

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.

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?

Filed Under: copyright, encryption, hollywood, ipred, law enforcement, sweden