Swedish Court Gets One Right: Won't Shut Down OpenBitTorrent

from the about-time dept

With the movie industry's lawyers recently demanding that ISP Portlane shut down the OpenBitTorrent tracker, claiming (without any evidence) that it was just a rebranded version of The Pirate Bay's tracker, it seemed possible that the Swedish courts would roll over again. However, in a bit of a surprise, the court has pointed out that it's a big stretch to hold the ISP liable without more evidence, and has refused to order the shutdown of OpenBitTorrent. Nice to see that the courts don't always just accept what the movie industry says without further examination.

Filed Under: bittorrent, openbittorrent, sweden
Companies: openbittorrent

Are Entertainment Industry Tactics Working?

from the or-is-it-a-dead-cat-bounce dept

It's been somewhat amusing over the last day or so to see a bunch of our usual critics all submit the same exact story with some sort of triumphant "I told you so!!!!!" (usually in less friendly language). It's a report that music sales are up in Sweden following the strict anti-piracy law that went into effect earlier this year. The claim is that this is proof that the RIAA/MPAA/IFPI/BPI/etc strategies work. To them, this is clear, irrefutable evidence that draconian measures to crack down on unauthorized file sharing really does make people buy. That would be quite interesting if true, but our friends employed by these companies might want to wait a bit before breaking out the champagne over a dead cat bounce.

First, there are some who are questioning the actual numbers. So far, the only numbers have come directly from the IFPI, who hasn't provided much in the way of detail (and have a long history of publishing questionable, fact-challenged numbers). In fact, the very lack of detail would likely indicate that there are extenuating circumstances here. And, when we're talking about Sweden, it has to also be noted that services like Spotify (which dragged the labels kicking and screaming into the modern world) were just launched at the very end of last year. So, it could be that it was one of these more modern services that helped convince people to buy music rather than any crackdown. But, of course, the bigger question is whether or not any boost is sustainable. It was reported that there was a drop in file sharing after the Swedish IPRED law went into effect (though, again, many argue that the "drop" was simply because more people started using encryption and those who measure file sharing traffic had no way to deal with it, so pretended they all stopped). Yet, it didn't take long for the traffic numbers to bounce back up.

And that's the issue. If your entire business model is based on whacking people with a stick and telling them what they can't do, you may get brief moments of compliance, but at the first chance they get to go back to a more consumer-friendly system, they will. So while our friends in the entertainment industry will likely misread this situation into believing that its strategy of pissing off pretty much everyone makes business sense, let's wait and see how this works out in the next year or so. Dead cat bounces can fool lots of folks, but there are very few industries that succeed by basing their future on such things.

Filed Under: anti-piracy, copyright, dead cat bounce, music sales, sweden

Swedish Pirate Party Gets A Second EU Parliament Seat

from the progress dept

When the election results first came in for the EU Parliament back in June, it initially looked like the Swedish Pirate Party would get two seats, though it was later downgraded to just one. However, it looks like they're back up to two due to a recent treaty agreement. This means that Amelia Andersdotter will be joining Christian Engstrom in the EU Parliament, representing the Pirate Party and the rights of consumers. I've seen Amelia speak in the past, and, like Christian, I think she does an excellent job explaining the position of the Pirate Party and the civil rights issues it represents.

Filed Under: amelia andersdotter, christian engstrom, eu parliament, pirate party, sweden

Court Tells Pirate Bay Founders They Can No Longer Work On The Pirate Bay

from the yeah,-that'll-work dept

You can't say the entertainment industry isn't persistent in their attempts to shut down The Pirate Bay (though, a portion of the site's popularity can be attributed to their neverending campaign against the site). While the industry won its lawsuit against four of The Pirate Bay's founders earlier this year, the ongoing appeals process is taking too long for the industry -- and the court had not issued an injunction against the site, so it's still running (though, plenty of users have since bailed out due to concern about the failed attempt to sell the site). Still, the entertainment industry has been trying a bunch of different ways to shut down the site in the meantime. Initially it got an ISP serving the site to stop, which caused a brief downtime. However, the latest, as pointed out by brokep, is that the industry appears to have convinced the court to bar two of the defendants -- Gottfried Svartholm-Warg and Fredrik Neij -- from doing any work on the site (Google translation from the original, so would appreciate any detail corrections if the translation isn't accurate).

It's difficult to see what this accomplishes. Brokep points out that the two aren't involved with the site in the first place, and don't live in Sweden any more as well, so it's not clear what this does. On top of that, even if they were involved, it's not like others wouldn't quickly take their place anyway. The whole crusade continues to be a massive waste of time and resources by the entertainment industry for no clear gain.

Filed Under: copyright, fredrik neij, gottfried svarthold-warg, lawsuits, sweden
Companies: the pirate bay

So Much For That 'Education' Campaign: Fewer And Fewer Swedes Think File Sharing Is 'Theft'

from the people-don't-believe-things-that-are-obviously-untrue dept

The entertainment industry continues to insist that its antipiracy campaign is largely an "educational" campaign to get people to realize that file sharing is evil and "theft" from content creators. Of course, pretty much anyone who thinks about it in any amount of detail recognizes the difference between "theft" (something is taken and the original owner no longer has it) and "copying" (you made a copy, but the original owner still has his or her original). Apparently a new study in Sweden suggests that the entertainment industry is badly losing its battle to convince people that file sharing is "theft." The study shows that a rapidly decreasing number of Swedes thinks of file sharing as theft, down to only 30% from 38% just a year ago. Time to rethink that education campaign. Perhaps, next time, don't start with the assumption that most people are too clueless to recognize the obvious differences between theft and copying.

Filed Under: education, file sharing, sweden, theft

Swedish Court Backs ISP In Not Handing Over Data On Accused 'Pirate'

from the nice-to-see-some-sanity dept

Earlier this year, Sweden put its anti-piracy IPRED law into effect, and earlier this summer we noted that the ISP ePhone was refusing to give up a user's IP address, and appealing a court ruling ordering it to do so. The details of the specific case suggested a unique circumstance, involving a server that supposedly contained infringing material -- but which was never made public. It was always behind a password and thus, Ephone argued, there was no infringement. While the lower court disagreed, the appeals court has overturned the lower ruling, saying that probable cause for infringement had not been shown. Given some of the recent rulings in the Swedish court system on copyright issues, it's nice to see a court not just accept the entertainment industry's claims on some of these things...

Filed Under: copyright, ipred, sweden
Companies: ephone

Universal Music Prevents Popular Play From Showing In Stockholm, Despite Not Having The Legal Rights

from the copyfraud... dept

As the major record labels and their lawyers and lobbyists run around the globe demonizing anyone for any sort of copyright infringement, we keep hearing stories of how they falsely claim rights over music for which they do not hold them. We recently covered the story of Edwyn Collins and his inability to offer free downloads of a popular hit song -- because Warner Music Group put in a copyright claim on the song. Reader Marius points us to a similar situation, over in Sweden. Despite theaters in Sweden being covered by a license agreement on musical performances by STIM, the Swedish performing rights collection society, apparently some music publishers claim that theaters still owe more money.

In one case, Universal Music (I assume its publishing arm...) threatened a theater because a popular play (that had toured without incident all over Europe) included a part where a Simon & Garfunkel record was playing in the background. The theater owner actually wrote a letter to Paul Simon to find out what his complaint was -- and received a response saying that Universal does not represent Paul Simon's music in theater contracts. Now, it's possible that there was some misunderstanding (language, cultural or legal), but this sort of thing seems to be happening more and more. When the theater owner informed Universal of this, Universal apparently retracted its demands for payment -- but the theatre company putting on the performance had already decided not to risk doing the play.

It's difficult to see how anyone comes out ahead in such a scenario. The Swedish public doesn't get to see the play or hear the music. Paul Simon doesn't get to attract new fans. Universal Music doesn't get anything other than a lot of ill will from the theater community. Why even bother at all?

Filed Under: licensing, music, paul simon, plays, sweden
Companies: universal music

Pirate Bay Appeal Lay Judge Employed By Spotify?

from the a-bit-of-bias dept

There have been all sorts of questions about unfair bias in the Swedish trial against The Pirate Bay and its founders, and the latest claim is that one of the "lay judges" on the appeal is employed by Spotify, currently a music industry darling trying to set up a licensed, authorized online music streaming system. Given that Spotify could reasonably see sites like The Pirate Bay as somewhat competitive, and that it counts major record labels among its ownership, it's hard to see how allowing an employee to be on the lay judge panel (sort of, but not really, the equivalent of a jury) is even close to fair.

Filed Under: bias, copyright, lawsuits, sweden
Companies: spotify, the pirate bay

Pirate Bay Appeal To Be Heard By Judge Tied To Copyright Group As Well

from the well,-that-seems-fair... dept

As The Pirate Bay gears up for the appeal of its trial in Sweden, it's worth noting that the judge chosen to hear the trial happens to be the same one who was removed from reviewing the fairness of the original trial because she happens to belong to the same pro-stronger copyright group as the original judge. How is that fair?

Filed Under: bias, copyright, sweden, trial
Companies: the pirate bay

Swedish Regulators Say The Word 'bank' Not Allowed In Any Domain Names... Except If You're A Bank

from the no-bankrate.se? dept

It's quite common for regulators around the world to insist that no company can call itself a "bank" unless it's an official, regulated bank. In fact, that's often why you see companies (including holding companies of real banks) that use the word "banc" instead of "bank." It's to get around such regulations. However, it looks like regulators in Sweden have gone a step further, telling the Swedish domain registrar, that it can't even allow any domain name to be sold with "bank" in it, unless it's sold to an official bank (found via Michael Scott). Of course, the whole thing seems ridiculous. There are plenty of legitimate reasons why a site might want to use the word "bank" in a domain name without being a bank themselves. A domain could be a site about banks, a service site like Bankrate or simply contain a surname like Banks -- which shouldn't confuse too many folks.

Filed Under: bank, domain names, sweden