Sweden judges back Pirate Hunter Act

Resistance to a new anti-file sharing law dubbed by some as the Pirate Hunter Act is mounting in Sweden. More than 22,000 members have joined a group called Stoppa IPRED ('Stop IPRED') on Facebook, which has bombarded Swedish parliament members with protest mails. Youth organisations and all of the centre-right political parties …

[Anonymous Coward]

I just don't get it

How do they calculate that they lost 60% revenue due to filesharing? They must be averaging the amount of music downloaded online and then working out the cost per song/album. The problem here is that most people that I know who download music now haven't bought music/films in the last ten or more years, so really they haven't lost revenue at all. Agreed there may be some revenue lost, but surely nowhere near 60%?

[Mark]

We all hold copyrights

I have copyright over the heading there.

Can I ask for an ISP to tell me the details on some hot swedish tottie because I suspect her of copyright infringement?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wot? No Abba?

"Yesterday, several members of the Swedish entertainment industry came out in support of the new measure, including musician Per Gessle, actor Mikael Persbrandt and Sweden-based British film director Colin Nutley."

Who they?

[Anonymous Coward]

Goodness gracious me

Indian!

Can't wait because Google Earth coverage around here is really shabby and Streetview is hilarious; it contains pictures of roads that don't exist on the ground.

[Tjalle]

what?

"all of the centre-right political parties have condemned the law as well"

hmm, the center-right parties ARE the goverment so I seriously doubt it....

[TeeCee]

Funny that.

A brief missive from the department of failing to see the difference.

".....record companies can send letters out to internet users at random and demand any figure they like.."

What? You mean rather than getting bum-sucking troll law firms to do it for them like they do in the UK?............ Wait! I see the difference, they need a court order first. How quaint.

[Anonymous Coward]

Time to face the music

Sooner or later all pirates will be prosecuted for their crimes. Denial isn't going to prevent prosecution. There should be a uniform policy of $10,000 per copy fine and minimum jail or prison sentences. Then the pirates all know up front that they are going to jail for their crimes. No excuses, no whinning, just hefty fines and jail or prison.

Time to get real or go to jail. Copyright laws exist to protect art. If the pirates can't live within the rules of society then they aren't entitled to be on the streets. That is why we have prisons.

[Anonymous Coward]

well, i apologise

I didn't even know they HAD a music industry in Sweden. I now bow to my new Swedish music overlords.

[kain preacher]

Just think

If they put same amount of effort to clean up crime, fix the economy , solve the ills of the world.

Seriously you think they were going after rapists , serial killers. I can mug you , but not share a file.

[Anonymous Coward]

@Paul Smith

Apologies to everyone else if this poster is a troll, but I had to respond anyway...

> Sooner or later all pirates will be prosecuted for their crimes. Denial isn't going to prevent prosecution. There should be a uniform policy of $10,000 per copy fine and minimum jail or prison sentences. Then the pirates all know up front that they are going to jail for their crimes. No excuses, no whinning, just hefty fines and jail or prison.

I think you meant "whining", but anyway... Files are shared by computers at the behest (in many cases) of unknown pirates, who might or might not be the heads of the households in which these computers are stuated. No-one (least of all society) is going to benefit from tech-ignorant elderly people or teenage children (or even anyone else) being bullied by law firms into paying thousands of dollars/pounds solely because they've been terrorised/terrified into doing so by means of letters pumped out "en masse" by droids using ISP's records for the IP address involved. And El Reg has rightly given full coverage of technical papers showing how these blood-suckers can be fooled into sending these to networked printers and appliances with no storage capability whatsoever!!

> Copyright laws exist to protect art

No. They exist to protect private interests. Why else would so many countries keep extending copyright laws for longer and longer periods, in many cases long after the deaths of the original authors (literature), artists (art) and artistes (music)?

[Anonymous Coward]

@ Paul Smith

For a wind-up merchant you aren't very funny. Surely you can do better than that?

[Anonymous Coward]

@Paul Smith: A little harsh?

Never borrowed a video or CD from a friend, Paul? Never copied a CD to a cassette?

It's not a crime, it's copyright infringement, and private, non-commercial infringement at that. Nobody's making any money off it. That doesn't make it "right", but it certainly does make it non-criminal.

Save the fines and jail terms for the real criminals.

[Pierre]

It once was the radios...

Then it's been audio cassettes copiers, then CD rippers, now P2P... the record industry has an impressive track record of ambulance chasing. The funniest thing is that they managed to get artists onboard this times. Even though said artists won't get any money out of it whatsoever. Actually they may even be made redundant. Once the records companies finish their conversion into lawsuit-spurting machines, they won't need those pesky musicians anymore. Why should the big label share their revenues with musicians anyway? The records industry looses hundreds billion of dollars every year in "artists fees". Them artists, they are costing the records industry way too much. Jail them. Or at least fine them. If they cannot play by the rules, they are not entitled to be in the street. That is why we have prisons.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Time to face the music

There's crimes...and then there's *crimes*. You really wanna lock up a bunch of people (perhaps even a sizable portion of the population) in the same place with murderers, rapists, armed robbers, and other violent criminals just because they have a bone to pick about the price of bad music? Guess you never heard of civil disobedience.

[Anonymous Coward]

Absolutely lock up all criminals including pirates

If it takes locking up an entire generation for them to learn to respect the laws of society, so be it. You'd think if they are smart enough to turn on a PC they'd have already learned by now that if you break the law, you go to jail. Allowing piracy is just fueling future crime by the "entitled generation". No one has a God given right to steal. You steal you go to jail. Very basic law of society, worldwide.

Current day pirates should feel lucky. Not that long ago your hands were cut off for stealing in some Asian countries. Horse and cattle thieves were hung. Today's pirates should be fined $10K per copy and do jail or prison time depending on the volume of theft or distibution. The fact that modern pirates falsely believe that they can hide behind their PC monitor is all the more reason to make the punishment harsher. The audacity is quite typical of the "entitled generation", which is not entitled to anything they don't work for and pay for. Time to get use to it. This is reality.

[RW]

@ Paul Smith

As sung in "The Mikado", make the punishment fit the crime.

$10,000 for stealing a copy of a copyrighted work that no one much is willing to actually pay for is on a par with transporting to Australia a thief who stole a loaf of bread.

Pull your head out of your ass, man.

[Jim]

@Paul Smith

Your posts are classic Twat-O-Tron so either you are a rather poor troll or a complete cock.

"You steal you go to jail."

Copyright infringment, while a crime, is NOT THEFT. These 'pirates' are not stealing anything, unlike the real pirates as described in other articles. Also, art has no intrinsic value - people will pay millions for the works of Van Gogh for no good reason (or one that stands up to logic anyway). Isn't it interesting that 'pirates' are blamed for the drop in media seller profits even though the volume of goods sold is actually increasing?

And why doesn't your statement appear to apply when the scale of theft is so grand that the entire global monetary systems are at risk of collapse. Maybe governments could spend their time hunting these 'real' crimnals?

Finally, don't you think the "entitled generation" is owed some payback as they watch their freedoms being inhibited on an almost daily basis?

[Anonymous Coward]

OLD

Their 60% figure is ridiculous. I have not bought a cd in over 7 years. The sad thing is that I don’t even bother to download anything any more. I must be getting old.

[Rapacity]

@Paul Smith

"If it takes locking up an entire generation for them to learn to respect the laws of society, so be it."

You said it well there Paul. Laws of Society! The laws and regulations under discussion didn't come from society. They came and come from corporate entities. They exist to serve a financial end not a social good. These laws and regulations corrupt the functioning of society by placing real people under the bullying arm of abstract entities that have few freedoms to lose by persecuting file sharers. Nor do those entities risk destitution and quality of life.

As for the profit losses, beside the fact that most file sharers would never purchase anyway else they do purchase after they've trialled the item, are those profit losses based on the actual amount stood to be made from the raw sale of goods i.e as a download in absence of physical product and packaging (eg no CD, DVD, case, artwork, paper, card, transaction fees, advertisement etc...)?

Paul, have you ever recorded a film from TV with the intention to watch it later when you have more availability? If you have, have you ever forgotten to record over the recording so as to appease your conscience? Were downloading of copyrighted materials without payment made explicitly legal for the purpose of trial before purchase, would you download and file share? Would you trust yourself to delete the download if chose not to purchase?

I suspect you don't realize you are a bully whom is trying to determine others' actions by hiding behind copyright law and regulation. I hope that one day soon, you come to understand the nonsense in your argument.

I am not saying that copyright infringement is right; I am saying that I disagree with the current system of copyright "agreements". They are hardly agreements when the terms are set by one side and the only option is to not enter into them when you disagree with them.

Also, I am not saying I agree with ripping off talent; but, where music is concerned, I do think that were people given the option to download and pay the band/artist directly then I'm sure people would pay.

There are many alternatives to the present system of paying for intangible items. It seems to me that corporations aren't interested in exploring them. Neither are they concerned with understanding some of the more ethical reasons for downloading e.g downloading in lieu of purchase when access to a real world outlet is unavailable and cash is the only means for payment.

[Anonymous Coward]

@Paul Smith (Rant the second)

Yawn, yawn....breach of copyright is theft yada yada yada.....Don't suppose you would care to explain how they can get away with charging as much for a downloaded album as they do for the real thing? No significant post-mix costs, no significant transportation/storage costs, and what was that other one...oh yes, no significant increaase in how much the artist gets. Not to mention the download stores that use DRM or similar so can decide when you no longer can listen to it.

The sooner that the record labels understand supply/demand the better. They have a marketing opportunity here which they are choosing to fight rather than use. Profit is a simple formula where you subtract costs from income, just ask Mr McAwber, and the lower costs are (ooh, I know, I know...keep the songs online and don't supply anything like CDs or cases or even the bloody artwork) the less you can charge and still make a profit. Additionally, the lower the cost, the less likely people are to put any effort into finding a way around paying as even Daily mail readers can work out that £5 of effort to save 10p on downloading a track rapidly hits their own pocket.

[Jeffrey Nonken]

@Paul Smith

"if you break the law, you go to jail."

Damn straight. I went 67 mph in a 65 mph zone last week, and I'm now serving time, as I deserve. It was amazing how the police swooped down and captured all one hundred thousand people on the freeway doing the same thing. And the tailgaters, oh my! Three inches too close and you get an extra 90 days.

Joke Alert because I'm not sure you have the higher brain function to realize this is sarcasm without help.

[Anonymous Coward]

Denial won't change piracy laws

Get over it folks. We have had copyright laws for fifty years and no pirate is going to be allowed to steal. Just because you are in denial of existing laws doesn't mean the laws are going to change so that you can escape prosecution for your crimes. To prove the point to the clueless pirates in denial, new laws are being passed in countries all around the world to specifically address piracy. Every person in prison is in denial and they will have lots of new cellmates as more pirates show up weekly. You can live by the laws of society or you can rot in prison. It's your choice. If you steal, you go to prison. End of the line.

[heystoopid]

Bad statistics 101

The biggest problem is that entertainment media industry has plucked all their mysterious so called piracy losses data out of thin air quite literally and will not admit to releasing huge volumes of crap be it video or audio of hear or see once and say "my god that was biggest crap load of shinola , I wish I never hear it or see it again 80% of the time like the new bloodfest yiccky sucky Bond movie" .

This in turn explains much since the year 2000 , why the audio music industry has fallen to 20% in sales volume since those halcyon days when Joe Punter(who is now broke due to over taxing burdens imposed on him by the politicians) bought up everything that was fed to him. Now in the internet age post 2000, Joe Computer samples everything before selectively buying avoiding the shinola like the bubonic plague that it is and always will remain.

The problem lies with your average greedy dysfunctional mostly less then honest lying scumbag idiot politician we elect to represent us , who despite controlling their own pay packets/gold lined pensions , for the most part consider themselves underpaid to the corporate sector and always want more. Even though we know , they will tell outrageous lies every election season , like suckers we still vote for this lot of slimy pondscum , so they know that short of being a total moron they won't be punished for their trangressions and dishonesty come election time .

Now the media PR wankers from the Multimedia entertainment industry run a combination of evil shrink shock factor 101 of exageration and lies(they know most politicians are not computer savvy and are far too lazy or stupid to even check up on the basic facts told to them anyway), plus assorted bribes which run from free lunches, free overseas trips to outright illegal cash bribes "Abramoff Style" , although the ones they have little or no impact on are the ever alert "George Galloway's " of this world asking why is this idiot scamming me ? As for Joe the Voter who cares he is next election term away problem and has the memory retention level of a gold fish in their minds.

After all most politicians don't really care so long as some else pays all their bills for their rich and opulent famous life style they reckon goes with the job as peoples representative Norm Coleman style.

As for those evil p2p media stealing pirates "Sandvine" of the evil Comcast bandwidth choker fame quantitised their usage at around a mere 22% of the total daily internet traffic which equates to a very small percentage of the data traffic required to transmit this so called pirated media across the world of ours .

Numbers ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Downloaderz Rule

Ha, Mr Smith don't look now but your ass is on fire!

I said, don't look now!!

Your arguments make as much sense as as 15 year olds TXT message.

Please stay off line, we need more bandwidth over here for our nefarious P2P activities.

[Anonymous Coward]

Lost 60% of revenue?

If they calculate this based on number of files being shared / downloaded then who do I contact to get something taken off this percentage?

I've downloaded albums to see if they were any good and then, once I discovered that they were, I bought the album on cd (I know - I'm old but I like to have something physical to justify my expenditure (and it is normally cheaper anyway!)). They therefore GAINED revenue from my "illegal" downloading.

Likewise when I download something to discover it is utter tosh and has obviously been "created" out of the bowels of some totally untalented waste of oxygen then they haven't lost any money as I wouldn't have bought it anyway.

And just to be complete I also delete it from my system to ensure that I won't be responsible for infliciting said bowel eruptions upon their ears.

[T J]

@Paul Smith - good effort mate!

Paul Smith - don't listen to them mate! That was a *beautiful* troll, the whole tone of voice, the grammar, everything. SPOT ON. Just one thing - can we STOP TROLLING PLEASE?????

[T J]

And why wont anyone just say it??

And why wont anyone just say it??

Downloading is your own business. Its not the governments, the police and certainly not commerce's.

So the record companies and the spoilt little nambies they manufacture aren't making a mint anymore? Good. That's because they're dead and corpses don't earn money.

Maybe we'll actually get to HEAR some of the little guys now.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Absolutely lock up all criminals including pirates

From the keyboard of Paul "Saudi" Smith:

"Today's pirates should be fined $10K per copy"

Well, I suppose that's one way of funding art: "pirates" become patrons, at least at those prices. Anyway, it's back to the Daily Mail for you!

[EvilJason]

@Paul Smith

I had the a large long message stating how you are wrong and just an annoying troll but half way through i felt you where not worth the effort.

so my entire post summarized in three lines.

1: Copyright infringement is COPYRIGHT INFRINGMENT it is a civil offence not criminal so no jail time.

2: Piracy involves ships and boats and international water stop comparing them to file sharers it just makes you look moronic not that it is that hard.

3: The lost sale doctrine and the right for a copyright holder to have control over non commercial non public uses of intellectual property(i.e. not real stuff like songs or data) are lies that have been twisted so much they have been accepted as truth.

If the laws of society ban the private non commercial use and sharing of intellectual property WHY ARE THEY SEEKING NEWS LAWS TO BE MADE THEN?

Stop trolling or use your brain if your not.

-Jason

p.s. according to your precious copyright laws the above is copyrighted JASON 2008 any use other than reading is non permitted and any message sharing a similarity will not be tolerated resulting in legal action.

......J/K LOL

[Jim Carter]

To Mr Paul Smith

You sound remarkably like one of the "esteemed" members of the Westboro Baptist Church.

But, to my point. Music and film sharing is, if I remember correctly, a civil matter, as opposed to criminal law. While some more reactionary members of society may well share your viewpoint, they are few and far between, there simply isn't the political will to put your somewhat unique views into law, be it civil, criminal, or for that matter, legal precedent.

The choice of the icon is obvious enough, mind you.