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Sweden applied new copyright laws

Written by Lasse Penttinen @ 02 Jul 2005 1:58 User comments (7)

Sweden applied new copyright laws Sweden has been a fertile ground for P2P filesharing and online piracy. Goverment policy has supported affordable broadband connections, while the copyright laws are very relaxed. Recently the BitTorrent site, The Pirate Bay, has been receiving a lot of attention, but they have persistently continued to stay in operation.
It is possible however that things just turned more difficult for the Swedish file sharers, as their new strengthened copyright laws were put into effect at midnight. The new laws criminalize the unauthorized distribution of copyrighted material on The Internet. However, the law by itself doesn't change anything. It is interesting to see how the Swedish goverment and authorities make use of the new laws, or will they - us neighbouring Finns know that the Swedes get nothing done before they have had their long and thorough discussion about the issue concerned...
"A law in itself changes nothing," said Henrik Ponten, a spokesman for Antipiratbyran, a Swedish lobbying group waging a fierce campaign against the file-sharers. "There is nothing that indicates that (file-sharers) would change their behavior."



Previously, it had only been illegal in Sweden to make pirated material available online for others to download via so-called peer-to-peer networks.

While such behavior is rampant here, no one has been convicted of doing it. However, a court is expected to make the first ruling in such a case later this year. A 27-year-old man was charged in March with making a Swedish movie available for download from his home computer.
Source: Businessweek

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7 user comments

12.7.2005 09:00

Quote:
It is interesting to see how the Swedish goverment and authorities make use of the new laws, or will they - us neighbouring Finns know that the Swedes get nothing done before they have had their long and thorough discussion about the issue concerned...
LOL. A bit of a neighbourly war.

22.7.2005 12:44

is there nowhere left where people can share what they buy? god...where's the whole "sharing and caring" human spirit? money...the route of everything that is asshole.

32.7.2005 17:32

Quote:
Recently the BitTorrent site Piratebay has been receiving a lot of attention
They wouldn't if high-profile sites didn't keep mentioning them in every news article possible. Well, trying to mention it, it is called The Pirate Bay, not Piratebay.

42.7.2005 23:18

Well im gonna say to this article is that welcome to the club :) Like other countries that already have these laws. Its all well and good that u bring these laws in but enforcing them and reenforcing them is another story... soo just keep on keppin on...

54.7.2005 11:18

What does this mean for PirateBay?

64.7.2005 20:27
Crystatic
Inactive

I dont understand those bit torrents and azurus sucks anyway........

75.7.2005 07:05
Reasons?
Inactive

P2P is so slow anyways. I usually end up uploading files to people at 600-900KB/s and downloading at a gay 10KB/s. I will never file share again. People with dial-up just whore you out, I never get a complete file. P2P blows compared to renting a DVD and copying it.

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