Sweden to Give Courts New Power to Hunt IP Infringers

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "The Swedish Culture & Justice ministers are preparing to give new power to Swedish courts to let them force ISPs to give up subscriber IPs. The end goal is trying subscribers in court for copyright infringement. As the one-time home of the Pirate Bay, which is now internationally distributed, they face both US pressure and push-back at home. The Swedish arm of the Pirate Party is calling this move a 'sanctioned blackmailing operation', but hopefully the Swedish courts won't allow the IFPI to use as many tricks as the RIAA has in US courts."

Illegal files? Illegitimate Requests!

How can they call this a legitimate request [cdt.org], given the recent outrages by the companies involved [slashdot.org]?

Shame on Wired for repeating the propaganda phrases, "illegal file sharing" and "piracy". It's not against the law in many countries and sharing should not be considered damaging or wrong anywhere. Giving someone a copy of a book is not the same thing as feeding them to the fish. I'm used to better things from Wired than this.

Re:

You can sugar coat it all you want, if you are unauthorized to redistribute content, and you are doing it, what you are doing is Piracy. It also happens to be illegal in many countries, including the one we discuss here, where there are copyright laws tha

Re:Illegal files? Illegitimate Requests!

if you are unauthorized to redistribute content, and you are doing it, what you are doing is Piracy.

      No, piracy also involves a certain degree of wooden legs and parrots and hoisting "Jolly Roger"'s and broadsides and cutlasses, etc.

      How come if you come to my house and I put on a CD you're allowed to hear the music, but GOD FORBID you hear the music by any other means including internet radio which now has to pay god knows how many million dollars for "rights".

      The RIAA is about GREED pure and simple. Please provide verifiable documents that prove that ONE SINGLE ARTIST has seen ONE PENNY from the RIAA, who apparently fight in their name. In fact many musical groups ENDORSE "piracy", even in their song lyrics (example Molotov:Yofo; Radiohead, etc), because they are fed up of being ripped off by studios.

      Please stop bleating like a sheep and start using your brain. The "cost" of distributing "n" copies of music is now almost ZERO. Why do you insist people still have to pay $15-$20 for a "CD" or $.99 for a "song"? Middlemen add nothing to economies. They are parasites pure and simple.

Re:Illegal files? Illegitimate Requests!

How come if you come to my house and I put on a CD you're allowed to hear the music, but GOD FORBID you hear the music by any other means including internet radio which now has to pay god knows how many million dollars for "rights".

Convenient how you failed to mention that it *WOULD* be illegal if you burned a copy of the CD for your friend.

The "cost" of distributing "n" copies of music is now almost ZERO. Why do you insist people still have to pay $15-$20 for a "CD" or $.99 for a "song"? Middlemen add nothing to economies. They are parasites pure and simple.

The record companies can sell their products for whatever price they want to. Just like any other company. They make outrageous profit selling CDs for $15 each, but that's not illegal, and as long as people keep buying them for that price, they'll keep doing it.

Re:Illegal files? Illegitimate Requests!

The record companies can sell their products for whatever price they want to. Just like any other company.

However, the market is being distorted by the copyright monopolies. For most kinds of product, a competing vendor could sell cheaper product that is adequately substitutable - due to copyright monopoly law, doing that is classed as "piracy" for some types of information pattern expressed in a physical substrate.

That is _why_ the companies can get away with charging so much money and still stay in business - they've got the government giving them monopolies, usually under some socialistic "help the starving artists" lie.

Personally, I support the abolition of copyright law. They (the copyrightists) have apparently decided to make it a stark choice between communications liberty and enforcement of copyright. If they say "well, we won't release anything if we don't get our copyright monopolies", I say "Fine by me!". Everyone's freedom of communication is simply more important than their monopolies or their ability to make a profit. It's not even all artists that would be hurt - it's that subset of people that are only happy if they get a distribution monopoly. We can simply do without their "art".

Remember, the term "intellectual property" is a debate-framing tactic designed to make you think that copyrights and patents and such are "like" physical property and therefore similarly worthy of protection.

MOD PARENT UP

Parent is insightful and informative.

"Intellectual Property" is a Propaganda term (oh wait, they get offended if you call them propagandists-- they want to be called Public Relations.)

The term "Piracy" is ALSO a manipulative tactic on the act of non-profit

Copyright is necessary (danger: groupthink error)

Personally, I support the abolition of copyright law. They (the copyrightists) have apparently decided to make it a stark choice between communications liberty and enforcement of copyright.

If musicians were the only people making copyrighted works, then your position might be reasonable. Not all musicians care about copyright, and we can do without the "art" from those who do. But copyright also provides the only way to fund things that are extremely expensive, but also necessary.

Take software engineering for example. There are specialist software programs that are the product of many thousands of man years of engineering. These have been very costly to develop, but with the "no copyrights" model, they are worth no more than the cost of reproduction. The Linux-style "give it away for free" approach simply doesn't work for programs that are (a) very complex and (b) not widely used. I'm thinking of music composing, CAD, EDA and 3D design tools here; no doubt there are many other examples of very complex programs that are only required by a small number of people. In a world without IP, who will pay for the R&D cost of these programs? Is it reasonable to expect them to be written for free, by free software guys, when there is so little demand for them? Conversely, is it reasonable to expect anyone pay for them if they can be legally pirated? Would your business pay $10k for an essential program if the Pirate Bay would legally give it to you for $0?

There are other sorts of IP. Chip designs, for example. If there is no copyright, an unscrupulous fab owner can steal a design from Intel or AMD and start making identical chips. The chips will be cheaper because Intel and AMD won't see any profit from them, and the costs won't include the substantial R&D cost of designing the chips in the first place. Intel and AMD would go out of business if this type of piracy was legal. And yet that is exactly the model advocated by the "imaginary property" crowd today: if it's information, then it can't be property.

My point here is that if this truly is the information age, then we must have the notion of information as property. It is not just the MPAA and RIAA who are affected by theft of information; it is every software engineer and everyone else who is trying to make a living by selling information. Even free software programmers are affected, since IP law also protects their work from being stolen (GPL violations, etc.). The "sell concert tickets", "sell ads", "make it into a service" and "ask for donations" business models just don't apply to every case. Make no mistake, we all need some form of IP law.

No, actually

Piracy is acts of robbery on the seas. What you are doing when you share files is infringing on copyright. I don't know why the term piracy was co-opted in popular press for copyright infringement, but as far as I can tell, there's no basis in law. All the law I find relating to copyright infringement, that's what it is called. The reason that I press this issue is that piracy is still very much a real issue in the world. In the US people are very shielded from it because nobody fucks with the Coast Guard (to fire on a Coast Guard ship is an act of war), but in much of the world it is still a very real problem.

Also I would say the argument of "Morals have nothing to do with it," is pretty stupid. In the US at least, laws must be just. It isn't simply an abstract concept, it is actually codified in the Constitution. Lower laws must conform to higher level laws, and all laws must be just.

Well it can be quite fairly argued (and indeed is in some RIAA cases) that copyright law is unjust. It has two major constitutional problems:

1) The whole reason Congress is allowed to make copyright law is the Constitution grants it. One of the lines in Article I Section 8 reads "To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;" Ok, great, however like most of the powers granted in the Constitution to the government, there are limits. It doesn't say Congress has the right to do whatever they want with regards to IP. It says that they may secure an exclusive right for a LIMITED amount of time, and the reason they may do so is to promote the progress of science and art.

Ok well it seems current copyright law runs afoul of both. For one, I don't think that "Life plus 70 years," which is the current US copyright length, is what is meant by "limited time." It seems that is far too long. Then there is the fact that the whole reason is to promote science and art, where it seems that the currently lengthy copyrights are used to suppress it. Companies hold on to copyrights, refusing to release the work or allow derivatives. For example companies go after sites distributing copies of old console games, despite the fact that the companies themselves have long since stopped selling those games and indeed refuse to do so anymore. They just sit on the copyright, and stand in the way of using it for any progress.

2) All punishments must be fair, as per Amendment 8 which reads "Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted." In the case of copyright infringement, the part we are interested is "nor excessive fines imposed." The statutory damages seem to run afoul of that. $150,000 per incident of statutory damages? Are you kidding me? It is quite literally more than you'd get had you physically stolen media containing a copy of the work.

So it seems that the current situation may well be unjust, immoral, and thus it certainly DOES matter. I hate this idea of "The law is the law." Ya well, guess what? The law can and should be changed. It was the law at one time that you could own slaves, certain humans were seen as worth less. That was actually right in the Constitution. That doesn't mean it was right. It is silly to simply point to a bad law and say "Well that's the law so there."

Re:No, actually

The following is the entry for piracy [merriam-webster.com] from Merriam-Webster Online. Note the third definition.

1: an act of robbery on the high seas; also : an act resembling such robbery
2: robbery on the high seas
3 a: the unauthorized use of another's production, invention, or conception especially in infringement of a copyright b: the illicit accessing of broadcast signals

This use of the word piracy is not recent

Actually, piracy has actually been in use as a term to describe infringing on another's intellectual property rights for at least 180 years in American courts.

For an example, see Blunt v. Patten, 2 Paine 397, 3 F.Cas. 763 (1828):

In answer to a question from the court, whether the defendant had pirated from the drawings and papers, or from the engravings, he answered, from the engravings.
. . .
The act that secures copyright to authors, guards against the piracy of the words and sentiments; but it does not prohibit writing on the same subject. As in the case of histories and dictionaries.

Re:Illegal files? Illegitimate Requests!

I have not authorized you to read this copyrighted post.

Police, please arrest RedK (112790). Thank you.

Re:Illegal files? Illegitimate Requests!

Care to give an example? Even in countries being famous for copyright infringement it's forbidden by law (China comes to mind).

Of course there is the right for private copies in some countries, but as some poor RIAA representative put it during Napster's peak: "Ok, it makes a difference wether you share some music with your close friends or thousands of 'friends' over the net."

Just a little sidenote: Many countries have a problem with the sheer flood of indictions coming from *AA lawyers*. I see this as the true reason for legislation to change the rules by either: Giving the copyright holders direct access to the names of those pirating (making it an issue for civil-law), or by introducing a minimum level of damage before the jurisdiction is allowed to act. Of course I prefer the latter, but AFAIK no country had the guts to go this way yet. The UK and France are pretty close with the idea of simply blocking access for those infringing, but I somehow doubt that this will get popular.

*Just a little example from Germany: Over here content creators can't get the name behind an ip-address. So they indict, which leads to the following actions: The state's prosecutor knows it's not worth the hassle, but he has to investigate the identity of the other party - the file will usually be closed after this. The lawyer requests access of records and sends a monition to the person behind the ip-address. In this document he/she offers to drop all civil charges in exchange for a sum which is at a price point significantly lower than anything you would spend in court. For this reason 99% are settled this way, but it's still not a cheap deal for those affected. The problem with this system is that some lawyers send thousands of such requests automatically to one single prosecutor, thereby bringing the legal system to a grinding halt. Therefore legislation has seriously considered to introduce an exemption, below which prosecutors don't act.

Re:Illegal files? Illegitimate Requests!

Care to give an example?

Sure. You don't need a license to distribute anything that is in the public domain.

Re:Illegal files? Illegitimate Requests!

Pirate bay provides links (or trackers) to files, those trackers/links are not copyrighted in any way and there's not law in Sweden that forbids such practice (unlike USA's DMCA). So, In Sweden doing what Pirate Bay does is not illegal AT ALL.

That's fine - but that's not the point of the article. It sounds like they're giving up going after the Pirate Bay, specifically because there's no laws against its existence. They want to go after the people that are USING the Pirate Bay, and they're getting laws crafted to force ISPs to cooperate by giving up details of file sharers.

Re:Illegal files? Illegitimate Requests!

Yes it brings to mind Saddam Hussein's mock trial. One judge was removed in response to his refusal to refer to 'the accused' or 'the defendant' as a tyrant. Whilst in a normal court if a judge called an insane serial killer anything other than the defendant the whole trial would be setback. There seems to be a tendency to label things black and white in recent times. That combined with the un-Americanism of questioning the rules builds quite an interesting layman's lexicon.

Sparkle and Fade

Pirate Bay will fade just as every other p2p system has before it... WinMX, Kazza, Limewire, Napster, FTP, IRC... Wait is IRC still going? It's been so long since I was on there downloading Dreamcast images...

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Shhhhhhhh. IRC is nothing more than a series of chat rooms :)

Re:

Shhhhhhhh. IRC is nothing more than a series of chat rooms :)

If by "series of chat rooms" you mean, "seedy underbelly of the internet". You would be correct sir, although I've heard places like DALnet aren't populated with such, ahem, extreme content these days.

Offtopic I know, but I've always wonder why the recor

Pirate Bay is law abiding!

Pirate bay doesn't disrespect any of Sweden's Copyright laws. In Sweden (unlike in the US) it is not forbidden to provide a link to a copyrighted material, even if this link connects you to a potential infringer (trackers have the same interpretation). Also, in order to be protected by copy right law in Sweden, works must have a certain level of artistry and/or technical merit. Simply the fact that you have written a piece of (crap) text doesn't entitle you to any copyrights over the text (say, like an email message), it's gotta be something really relevant, that you've put some effort in creating.

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Swedish copyright only protects works created in Sweden. The Berne Convention, an international treaty protecting copyright law worldwide which Sweden has agreed to, states that copyrighted works are protected by the laws in the country where they were cr

Re:Pirate Bay is law abiding!

The Berne Convention (...) states that copyrighted works are protected by the laws in the country where they were created. This means that in Sweden it is illegal to distribute a work created in the US unless you have been given a license to do so.

I beg to differ. And since IANAL, here it is a quote from wikipedia about it [wikipedia.org]:

The Berne Convention requires its signatories to recognise the copyright of works of authors from other signatory countries (known as members of the Berne Union) in the same way it recognises the copyright of its own nationals, which means that, for instance, French copyright law applies to anything published or performed in France, regardless of where it was originally created.

From TFA:

Mar 14, 12:33 PM EDT

Sweden Pursues Illegal File-Sharers
...

Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc., MGM Pictures Inc., Colombia Pictures Industries Inc., 20th Century Fox Films Co., Sony BMG, Universal and EMI have until Feb. 29 to file claims for damages in the case.

So, is that Feb 29 of this year, or in the next leap year, or is this article HOPELESSLY OUT OF DATE? Did they file it or not?

IP address and legal privacy

While Europeans are coming to view IP address as protected personally identifiable information, they are also inventing more and more legal justifications for collection and use of IP addresses [blogspot.com].

Re:lol

That is true, however the downloading of a torrent might soon be considered 'intent' and authorize search/seizure if your PC and all your backup media.

Its a lot easier to deny a random search/download on something like the ed2k network as you don't know what you are getting until its there.. With the torrent from a well documented place like PB, its pretty much clear what you were doing.

What needs to be done is complete plausible deniability, like is offered on FreeNet with its encrypted local store and communications, but with some sort of multi-homed downloads so it doesn't take months to get a file. ( of course that doesn't help you if you have CDs full of the stuff for backup and you get raided. )

Re:lol

This whole discussion is coming down to two basic points. 1) what they are doing is illegal, and 2) the law which makes it illegal is unfair.

The purists are just reinforcing the first point, and telling the pirates that the correct action for them to take is not point 1, but to deal with point 2 instead.

The pirates are using the reality that the industry and government are rigged such that it's not possible to fix point 2, to justify point 1.

I believe that most people that consider this situation will come to the same conclusion. You should not break the law even if the law is unjust, so long as you have the mechanism to get the law fixed. Once those efforts ("the system") fails to work in the favor of justice and fairness, then you have at least some moral standing to break the unjust law.

it's a bit like rebellion. Most people agree that trying to try to overthrow your government is a bad idea, so long as you the people have the ability to affect change. Once you have come to the conclusion that you cannot fix what is broken, it's time for revolution. Read the preamble to the constitution.

The same thing is happening here with copyright that happened every time there was a revolt in the past. People are "mad as hell and not going to take it anymore." And most sensible people can stand back and observe the situation, and agree that yes, they are breaking the law, and yes there is some justification to their actions.

Tightening the laws and controls never fixes these sorts of problems. (you cannot fix the problem by addressing point 1) As long as a significant injustice remains, there will always be a faction fighting for change. (you must address point 2) The examples are too numerous to mention, and exceptions all but nonexistent.