Swedish music industry joins file sharing battle

Found on The Local on Wednesday, 19 October 2005
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Sweden's high profile battle between illegal file sharers and representatives of the film and games industries rumbles on. But now the country's music industry, which has so far kept quiet on the subject, is planning to get involved.

Last week the IFPI, along with the games and film industry body, Antipiratbyran (APB), was given the right to register the IP addresses of individuals found to be sharing copyright-protected material.

This gave the organisations an exemption from the Personal Data Act and was seen as a significant victory for APB and an indication that the hunt for illegal file sharers could proceed.

The order comes from the Swedish Board of Data Inspection, but APB says it is impossible without the cooperation of the country's internet service providers. And the ISPs are not playing ball.

Only the file sharer's ISP can link the IP address to the person. If the ISP receives a request for such information from the police, they cannot refuse it, but a few calls from TT revealed that requests from APB would be ignored.

The public face of APB, lawyer Henrik Pontén, thinks that the ISPs are taking a short-term view of the problem.

"It is also in their interests that there is a functioning games and film industry for legal distribution," he said.

Oh, what a pity. Now they theoretically can, but still can't. Good to see that the ISP's are not on their side. Besides, why should it be in their interest to sue their users? Even if there is a working legal distribution system, I doubt they would see a cent. The users pays the movie industry, and then the line of the ISP is used. Not much of a difference to traditional P2P for them there.