First European Anti-Piracy Disconnection: The Finnish Government
Written by enigmax on May 14, 2008The Internet connection belonging to the Provincial Government of Åland in Finland has been disconnected following action by the anti-piracy outfit CIAPC. This disconnection, ordered by a court, may mark the first time an Internet connection has been severed in Europe for anti-piracy reasons.
The last few months have turned the possibility of disconnecting file-sharers from the Internet into a hot topic. France has been at the forefront of pushing disconnections and many other countries have indicated they would like to implement similar policies, despite objections and concerns that such actions are a disproportionate response to personal file-sharing activities. So far, the general impression is that we are a long way from these things actually happening. Until today.
According to a Piraattiliitto report, the Copyright Information and Anti-piracy Centre (CIAPC) in Finland has used a copyright law which came into force January 1st 2006, to have a file-sharer disconnected from the Internet. However, this drastic action - which is thought to be the first anti-piracy related disconnection in Europe - comes with additional controversy. This wasn’t some kid sharing files from his bedroom on a residential connection, this was a government employee using a government internet connection to share music videos.
In true disproportionate anti-piracy style, this fact didn’t stop CIAPC from getting the government connection severed via the Ahvenanmaan District Court. According to CIAPC the connection, operated by the ISP Ålands Datakommunikation, was being used by the Provincial Government of Åland. It is unclear if this action caused any disruption to legitimate government business but it’s probably safe to say that it didn’t help it in any way.
Åland Executive Niklas Karlman said of the incident: “As an employer, we must ensure that employees do not engage in illegal activities. We are taking steps to raise awareness among our employees. We are aware of this threat to our security.”
According to the report, the Finnish copyright lobby ’sneaked’ the disconnection sanction into copyright law without the legislators hearing the opinions of any independent legal or technical experts. The process has been harshly criticized by Electronic Frontier Finland (EFFI). EFFI vice chairman Ville Oksanen characterizes the legislation process “one of the dirtiest he has ever seen”.
The action also goes directly against the European Parliament who, this April, condemned state plans to authorize the disconnection of suspected file-sharers from the Internet. European Parliament said that disconnecting petty file-sharers would be “conflicting with civil liberties and human rights and with the principles of proportionality, effectiveness and dissuasiveness”.
It seems that even government activity can be disrupted these days in the name of copyright enforcement.
Previously: Most Popular DVDrips on BitTorrent (wk19)
Next: Understanding Anti-Piracy Enforcement
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No, Åland is a part of Finland. They do however they speak Swedish for some reason, maybe it has something to do with the Finnish language.
I hope more government employees get prosecuted under this law, especially legislators. Once they have suffered the wrath of movie and record companies, they will finally stand up to these bullies and repeal anti-piracy laws (hopefully).
All ya need is Rupert Murdock on your side
Finland’s politics are very sinister and I suspect very corrupt at heart. It wouldn’t surprise me if Finnish politicians are being bankrolled by the XXAAs.
I dont get this.. whats wrong with just slapping that mofo on the back of the head and telling him to stop..
World Crisis avoided!
We are fighting the MAFIAA. We are showing how absurd their principles are! Greetings from Finland.
I assume they trace users of p2p apps and then target a whole IP range. Do they know or care that files “shared” may not even be uploaded to anyone, and so many software and games titles are legally sharable. What may be in contention is uncrippled software, but can they spot the difference or do they care? No and no. Even if they were able to download something which had a copyright concern, it has been shown in high court that is not legal evidence, as it was done with copyright holder permission which doesn’t prove illegal distribution. If not then they have illegally downloaded and neither is that admissible. You can’t commit a “crime” to get “evidence” of a “crime”.
As I’ve discovered recently the music industry and Hollywood really do have a history of mob ties. It’s not just rhetoric. This explains a lot to me. They work in a similar manner, and royalties are just a nice legal way of saying “protection racket money”
They won’t destroy the Internet, but they could certainly damage it and drive it underground with this kind of help from the authorities
“dissuasiveness” does not bear any meaning but if you like to hear someone singing, why not listen to this
As the saying goes, “payback’s a bitch”.
The law was pushed when copyright wasn’t such a big issue but still we fought against it a lot. Some of the law writers actually profited from the law so it was dirty as hell. Very good example of todays copyright corruption. Did it work in any way? No, more and more culture are being shared every day and especially youngster don’t have any respect for these corrupted assholes.
Disconnection part was indeed hidden in the law and when it was criticized the government told that the law couldn’t be used for disconnecting file sharers. Another lie as we can see. What wasn’t covered here in Torrentfreak is that the disconnection isn’t permanent so it really isn’t such a good weapon. CIAPC has been begging for the operators to do something but that really doest work. The disconnection can only be used in critical cases so this doesn’t really effect the common pirates, what ever that means. In special cases the disconnection will be carried out without informing the plain fit but the hearing must be held immediately. Temporary disconnection, temporary.
Am I worried as a Finn? Hell no. It’s because of crap like this I lose my trust in copyright and share even more. After this I will share a lot more. Yaaar :)
This is what I do:
Never watch TV.
Use Linux and freeware apps.
Listen to unsigned bands.
If there’s some commercial software/music/movie I want, I make sure I don’t give my money to some big corporation with an agressive anti-piracy agenda (because I don’t want to support that crap).
There are lots of alternatives to mainstream entertainment where the artist/creator actually get a piece of the money :)
EFFI critizied that Finnish copyright law is dangerous. Exsample, what if the address would belong to the hospital? Someone would get killed.
This only happends then when nobody check out who owns that ip-address. Ålands court did not and so didn’t TTVK (Finnish copyright organization).
that’s ridiculous, finland fight back!
“Another case where Finland has to show we are on the forefront of enforcing any idiotic rules proposed internationally. The “best pupil” syndrome is nothing new to us finns…”
That’s exactly what my girlfriend just said.
Reminds me of absentee ballots here in the United States Congress, and how so many piss-poor laws have been sneaked by … I find it surprising that its just as bad in Europe …
This is good news.
If people can not use internet in an ethic way they should not be allowed to use it.
Only greedy people thinks it’s ok to take whatever thewy want without paying for it.
sue the isp, sue the CIAPC and your probably will get some money because this is clearly against a shitload of laws …
Hope that other governments take the same view and start cutting more people off from the wretched Internet. P2P and the “free music culture” is putting independent musicians and small record companies out of business every day. I know because that’s what I did before I was forced to give it all up.
If P2P isn’t controlled, the major labels will just diversify and go and sell soap powder or cat food instead; it’s the real musicians that are getting hit the worst by file sharing. What about our human rights?
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