[Infowarrior] - Swedish antipiracy law stirs up political waters

[Richard Forno]

  March 31, 2009 8:32 AM PDT
Swedish antipiracy law stirs up political waters
by Erik Palm

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10207718-93.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

File swappers in Sweden, land of the world's largest bittorrent  
sharing site, The Pirate Bay, are facing a tougher future.

The so-called IPRED law, scheduled to go into effect Wednesday, will  
in some instances require Internet service providers to reveal  
subscribers' Internet Protocol addresses to copyright holders-- 
including the film, music, and game industries--that charge users with  
illegal file sharing.

The Swedish law stipulates that property rights holders can take their  
grievances to a court, which will examine the evidence, including the  
extent of the file sharing, and decide whether the IP address will be  
released. The copyright holder then can send a warning letter to the  
ISP subscriber, and eventually file a civil case against the alleged  
pirate if the violation doesn't stop.

The law takes effect just as a copyright infringement case against The  
Pirate Bay draws to a conclusion. The verdict in that trial, due to be  
announced April 17, will not be affected by the new law, since only  
file sharing done after Wednesday will be taken into account. In  
response to the new law, however, The Pirate Bay site recently  
launched IPREDator, a new paid service that lets users download "more  
anonymously." The service costs 5 euros a month.

CNET has contacted The Pirate Bay for comment, but has not yet heard  
back.

In the United States, major ISPs including AT&T and Comcast have  
recently begun working with the Recording Industry Association of  
America to target people suspected of pirating music. The steps  
involved could include suspension or termination of service for repeat  
offenders, in a determination made by the Internet provider.

In Sweden, a country with one of the highest rates of Internet use in  
the world and a strong tradition of peer-to-peer networks, the IPRED  
law is proving to be a political hot button.

Citizens in general, and young men in particular, oppose IPRED in  
large numbers, according to a recent survey for Swedish national  
newspaper SvD.

For its part, the Antipiracy Agency, an organization formed by the  
film and game industries to fight Internet piracy in Sweden, is happy  
about the new law, which was passed by a large majority of the Swedish  
parliament on February 25.

"Of course we'll use the law," Henrik Ponten, a lawyer for at the  
Antipiracy Agency told Swedish news agency TT. "We have not acted to  
get the law and then not use it."

But in a sign of just how sensitive the law is, the center party in  
Sweden's ruling right alliance, which formulated the law, publicly  
debated its stricter aspects, a stance likely taken to appease a key  
voting demographic--young people for whom file sharing is one of the  
biggest political concerns. The leading party in the opposing left  
alliance party, the Social Democrats, did the same, even though it too  
voted for the law.

A country of file sharers
The once notorious file-sharing software Kazaa, the established peer- 
to-peer telephony software Skype, and similar offerings originated in  
Sweden. An estimated 1 out of 10 Swedes engage in file-sharing  
practices. File sharing is such a big issue in the Northern European  
country, in fact, that elected politicians write op-eds on emerging  
technologies for mainstream news outlets.

And Pirateparty--which was formed in 2006 to reform copyright law and  
protect citizens' rights to privacy--after only three years has the  
one of the largest numbers of members among the youth wings of the  
country's political parties.

The numbers related to IPRED bear that out. According to the survey by  
the newspaper SvD (article in Swedish), 79 percent of men ages 15 to  
29 oppose IPRED. Only 32 percent of those polled support the law,  
while 48 percent say they oppose it adamantly.

The law, based on the European antipiracy directive Intellectual  
Property Rights Enforcement Directive, is supposed to focus on file  
sharers who upload material and those who download a considerable  
numbers of files. Where the line will be drawn is not yet clear.

Technically, it has also been questioned whether one can link the  
downloading of a certain file to a specific person. For instance, if a  
computer is shared in a family or the subscriber has been surfing with  
a wireless router, a pirate could be using that connection to download  
files illegally.

The Left and Green parties in Sweden, which are in political  
opposition to the ruling right-wing alliance, voted against the law.  
They say it threatens democracy and personal integrity, since it gives  
large companies too much power to act as police and collect sensitive  
personal data.

Whether the law has an effect remains to be seen. According to the  
survey in the newspaper SvD, only one out of four people who answered  
that they were sharing files said they would stop once the new  
legislation is in place.