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.

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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.

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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.

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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...

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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?

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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.

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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?

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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.

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Swedish Court Get The Pirate Bay Taken Down

from the sunk? dept

When the original ruling came out against The Pirate Bay's founders, one odd part was that there was no injunction forcing the site to stop doing anything. The entertainment industry quickly filed for one -- which seemed a bit odd, considering that the case was under appeal. The latest, however, is that a judge has ordered one of the main ISPs servicing The Pirate Bay to stop, making the site largely inaccessible. In the meantime, the gov't agency that was responsible for getting the founders to pay up has basically found that they can't find any money to collect, which aligns with what the four guys have been saying all along (that they don't own the site and don't make money from it).

Either way, congrats to the entertainment industry for temporarily wac(k)ing another mole. Considering the whole mess with GGF, it seems like most of The Pirate Bay's users are already migrating elsewhere, and a few people are setting up clone sites. Again, this certainly isn't condoning their behavior, but at what point does the industry realize that it's not helping matters. It's just further distributing the problem, making it that much more difficult to do anything legitimate. Update: And, of course, it only took a few hours until the site was back online. Keep on mole hunting, Hollywood.

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Swedish ISP Refuses To Give Up IP Addresses; Appeals Court Order

from the fighting-IPRED dept

Earlier this year, you may recall that strict new "anti-piracy" legislation went into effect in Sweden, which required ISPs to hand over IP addresses and other info they had on people. Because of this, some ISPs have been proactive in deleting log files. But, a bigger question may be whether or not such rules violate user privacy. It appears that the Swedish courts are going to need to sort this out. The first ISP who was asked for IP address info in Sweden under this new IPRED law, Ephone, is appealing the court order to hand over the data, even though it faces huge fines for not complying. The case is a little different than a typical file sharing case in that it involves an attempt to find out who's running a particular server on which certain content was stored. However, Ephone points out that the server itself required a password to access, and thus the content was not made publicly available -- and thus, was not copyright infringement. Not surprisingly, Ephone's customers have made it clear to the company that they support it in protecting their privacy.

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Swedish Performing Rights Society Demands Cash From Companies That Let Employees Listen To Music

from the oh-come-on dept

It appears that the Swedish performing rights society STIM is taking lessons from ASCAP (in the US) and PRS (in the UK) in trying to extend the definition of a public performance in order to demand licensing money from just about anyone. In this case, STIM has apparently sent out demand letters to thousands of Swedish companies telling those companies that if anyone at the company listens to music on the job, the company needs to pay for a license:

Perhaps someone has the radio on or is listening to a CD and if so, you need to have a permit that allows for music to be played the workplace... A workplace isn't private and therefore you should have a license for music to be played so that the copyright holders get paid.

This is, of course, quite misleading. The copyright holder has already been paid if they're listening to the radio or a CD. This is an attempt to get paid multiple times for the same thing. We've been hearing stories about how these various collection societies are in trouble lately due to low interest rates and poor investment choices, but watching them flail around and start demanding money from everyone, and trying to get paid multiple times for the same work is really quite an amazing abuse of power. Why isn't any gov't agency cracking down on such an abuse?

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The Pirate Bay Has Been Bought By A Public Company [Updated...]

from the didn't-see-that-coming dept

Details are a bit scarce at this point, but Martin alerts us to the news that The Pirate Bay has apparently been sold to a public company for 60 million SEK (about $8 million US) -- at least according to a press release from the supposed buyer, Global Gaming Factory X (GGF). Apparently it's 30 million SEK/$4 million in cash and another the rest in shares in GGF. The company claims the acquisition will be complete in August, and that it will "launch new business models that allow compensation to the content providers and copyright owners." Separately, it appears GGF is also buying another technology company, called Peerialism.

Apparently GGF operates internet cafes and gaming centers in Sweden, and also offers software for managing internet cafes as well.

I assume more details will be forthcoming soon (we'll update the post as necessary), but this raises a variety of questions -- in part about the ongoing lawsuit and the lingering jailterms for the four people who were on trial. Considering it was always quite amorphous who actually "owned" The Pirate Bay, it makes you wonder who sold it and who gets the money. Also, since the guys on trial insisted they actually didn't make much money from The Pirate Bay, they may actually be seen in a worse light after this news, suggesting that even if they didn't make money from ongoing operations, they may have cashed in on the sale. All in all, quite a surprise, and we look forward to additional details.

Update: Ok! Martin alerts us to the fact that Peter "brokep" Sunde has confirmed the deal and provided some details via a Twitter interview. Martin, helpfully, translates:

Daniel Goldberg:
@ brokep Is this correct? http://bit.ly/1YR0m

Peter S Kolmisoppi:
@ danielg0ldberg Yes.

Daniel Goldberg:
@ brokep What a thing! Who gets the money? Who owns the TPB?

Peter S Kolmisoppi:
@ danielg0ldberg Foreign company, with demands from our side to finance a fund for internet projects. We get no money.

Daniel Goldberg:
@ brokep Cool. What do you mean internet project? Will you not have to use the money to cover the damages?

Peter S Kolmisoppi:
@ danielg0ldberg Internet Project in the form of political activism, etc. TPB changed hands in 2006 already to not be sued.

Daniel Goldberg
@ brokep Congratulations, the scoop! Who is the owner of TPB today?

Peter S Kolmisoppi:
@ danielg0ldberg It's partly why we've have been so sure that lawsuits against us is pointless in the end ... :-)

Peter S Kolmisoppi:
@ danielg0ldberg I do not think that I may say for legal reasons. But they are people we trust. And have conditioned things too..

So... that answers some of the questions (and raises a few others!). The money is not going to these guys, but will go towards funding internet political activism. Also, apparently the official ownership of The Pirate Bay had been in the hands of others who are not clear.

Update 2: The official blog post from The Pirate Bay basically says the same thing as the interview above, and suggests that the site operators felt that the service needed new blood to power it and keep it evolving.

Update 3: Apparently The Pirate Bay is also close its tracker and remove the torrents it hosts itself, instead just will rely on third parties, which it will index. The claim is that this is to make the service even more decentralized, but it is a bit of a headscratcher.

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Swedish Appeals Court Denies Pirate Bay Retrial -- Says No Bias By Judge

from the no-bull,-no-bias dept

The Swedish appeals court charged with looking into whether or not the judge in the original trial against The Pirate Bay was biased, has said they found no bias (for real, this time) with the judge, despite his belonging to two groups that have pushed for stronger copyright laws -- and the fact that the prosecutors' lawyers were involved in that organization as well. Apparently, the court says the judge should have brought this information to light sooner, but otherwise said it was no big deal.

According to Brokep, one of the four people convicted in the trial, the group plans to file charges against the court for human rights violations, and will claim that the appeals court judge was also biased. Not knowing much about Swedish law, I have no idea if that has any chance of succeeding, but it doesn't seem like the argument has worked all that well so far. Christian Engstrom, the Swedish Pirate Party member just elected to the EU Parliament seems to believe that the courts are blinded by the high profile of the case, such that they're applying the law incorrectly:

This is part of a pattern. It show that the Swedish legal system is no longer to be trusted when it comes to copyright cases. It's a travesty of justice quite simply. There are certainly problems with the laws too but this also shows that the courts are not capable of applying the laws in a correct manner. I've been a lay judge for seven years and I've never seen an indictment as bad as the Pirate Bay verdict. But that didn't stop the court from setting ridiculous sentences.

Now, of course defenders of the entertainment industry's position seem to have a blind spot as to how The Pirate Bay can possibly be considered legal, but Engstrom's right. The law in Sweden doesn't seem to have been applied properly, since The Pirate Bay itself does not host any infringing files directly. It seems like the court still doesn't quite understand that fact. Either way, Engstrom seems to recognize that chances for winning on appeal seem unlikely as well. Instead, he's hoping that citizens will recognize that the law itself needs to be fixed even more:

This makes it clear that the only way to win this battle is through politics. It's a political issue and it's going to be decided at the general election in 2010.

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Swedish Pirate Party Wins Two One Seat In EU Parliament

from the thanks-to-the-Pirate-Bay-verdict dept

In yet another sign that the entertainment industry's "winning" verdict in the trial of The Pirate Bay was anything but a victory, the surge in voters signed up to be a part of Sweden's Pirate Party was enough to elect two one representative of the party to the European Parliament, with 7.4% 7.1% of the vote (Updated as later results became public). And, of course, it's no surprise that this is a youth movement. Among voters under 30, 19% voted for The Pirate Party. Of course, you can guess how the entertainment industry will react -- shunning what they consider to be "immoral" "thieves" rather than recognizing what the party actually represents: those who believe in certain civil rights that are blocked and hindered by over-aggressive enforcement of intellectual property rules. I don't necessarily agree with the overall stance of "The Pirate Party" (and I hate the name), but it's hard to deny that it's actually making some inroads -- and that the entertainment industry isn't making much of an effort to understand why.

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Prolific And Influential Swedish Author Throws Support Behind The Pirate Party

from the it's-all-about-freedom-of-expression dept

TorrentFreak points us to the news that one of Sweden's most influential and prolific authors has written an editorial where he throws his support behind The Pirate Party and explains why. He talks about the advance of technology and how silly it is to try and stop it, and then discusses the damages done by excessive intellectual property. He discusses how copyright often gets in the way of the creative class in getting their works out there and consumed, and when that happens the interests of spreading ideas should outweigh any protective interests. And this is coming from someone who is considered one of Sweden's most prolific writers. The idea that things like The Pirate Bay needs to be stopped or there won't be incentives to create are pretty much disproved right here.

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Another Day, Another Bizarre Twist In The Pirate Bay Case

from the ain't-nothing-normal-going-on-here... dept

It seems like not a day can go by without another oddity popping up having to do with The Pirate Bay trial in Sweden. There was the labels pretending the ruling said stuff it didn't. Then there were the charges of a biased judge -- followed up by charges of bias against not one but two of the judges put in charge of figuring out if the original judge was biased. Oh, and then there was that oddity where Warner Music apparently hired the lead police investigator in the case while he was still investigating the case. The latest such news is that Sweden's Cultural Minister told a gathering of entertainment industry folks that she supported the ruling. Now, to many of us outside of Sweden, that may not seem like a huge deal, but apparently the laws in Sweden state that a gov't minister cannot influence ongoing litigation -- and these comments could be seen as an attempt to support one side of the case. It seems like the oddities around this case are not going away any time soon.

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Record Labels Attempt To Stretch Pirate Bay Ruling Rejected For Now

from the not-yet-guys dept

Last week, we noted that the major record labels were already trying to stretch the disputed ruling in The Pirate Bay case, pushing to get the site taken offline and to increase the damages for every day the site stays online. It was notable that the original ruling, while fining the four defendants and giving them jail time, included no injunction to take the site down or any formula for continuing fines. That's no problem for the record labels, who just asked the court to add those fines anyway. At least initially, that strategy appears to have failed, as the court has rejected the request, at least until The Pirate Bay defendants have a chance to respond. Once again, though, it's fascinating to watch the record labels slowly realizing that the "big win" they thought they got from the case has been pretty much the exact opposite of what they hoped for. It didn't shut down the site. It increased interest in the site and the political movement behind it. And it exposed a potentially biased judge. At some point, you have to wonder if the recording industry would have been better off just letting the obscure (at the time) Swedish site continue living in obscurity, rather than generating all sorts of attention by trying to get it shut down.

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Once Again Privacy Laws And Anti-Piracy Data Retention Laws Conflict

from the ain't-that-always-the-way? dept

We've noticed in the past that there are two massively conflicting ideas pushed by politicians: privacy laws that require companies to dump data they collect on users and data-retention laws that require companies to hold onto data for law enforcement or anti-piracy efforts. That seems to be showing up in Sweden now, where the recent IPRED law required ISPs to turn over data on those accused of file sharing. However, that simply led many Swedish ISPs to stop keeping log files. So, of course, some Swedish politicians put forth a data retention amendment, requiring ISPs to keep logs, which sounds great until lots of folks recognized this would clearly violate privacy laws already in place (via Michael Scott). You get the feeling we're going to see a lot more of these sorts of conflicts in the near future.

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Swedish Judge In Charge Of Determining Bias Of Pirate Bay Judge Removed... For Bias

from the but-why-did-this-happen-in-the-first-place? dept

A few folks have sent in various version of this story about how the judge assigned to review whether or not the original judge in The Pirate Bay trial was biased, by belonging to two separate groups in favor of stronger copyright laws, has herself been removed from the case because she belonged to the same two groups. This raises all sorts of questions -- including how the hell she was put in charge of the review in the first place. Did no one think to ask if she was in the same groups? Or did she not volunteer the info when handed the case? In the meantime, how difficult is it to find an unbiased judge in Sweden?

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Music Labels Trying To Force Pirate Bay Offline Now

from the hmm dept

Earlier this month, we noted that the record labels were already stretching The Pirate Bay ruling to use it to go after web hosting firms who clearly were far separated from the actions of their clients. And, of course, the ruling itself is both being disputed, due to conflicts of interest, and also being appealed. But, it appears that the record labels are so freaked out by how badly the ruling has backfired on the industry that they're trying to do anything to regain what they think (incorrectly) is the moral victory. Among the web hosting firms they're approaching is the one that provides bandwidth to The Pirate Bay, and the music labels are demanding it to stop. Also, the labels are demanding more money. This is notable because for all the problems with the original ruling, it didn't do two things: order the site shut down or provide any guidelines regarding future infringement. So, now it appears that the labels are simply taking that matter into their own hands and interpreting the ruling beyond what it actually said. At some point, will they actually realize that everything they do here is just making things worse for themselves?

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