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IFPI to Sue Swedish ISP for Facilitating Copyright Infringement

The last year has seen the IFPI shift its focus from the individual filesharer, to their ISPs. After Denmark, Norway and Ireland, the anti-piracy lobbyists have now announced that they will go after a Swedish ISP, claiming that the company facilitates copyright infringement.

ifpiIdeally, the IFPI wants every ISP to act as the Internet police, by restricting their customers access to websites they claim are facilitating copyright infringement.

So far, the IFPI has had little success with their lobby, that’s probably why they decided to put legal pressure on the ISPs. “We believe that ISPs have a special part to play in this and must help us. The discussions we’ve tried to have with the ISPs haven’t led anywhere,” IFPI’s Managing Director in Sweden, Lars Gustafsson, said in response to their recent announcement.

The IFPI claims to have studied several ISPs practices, but according to Lars Gustaffson they intend to focus on one particular company which they claim facilitates filesharing on the Internet. One of the services they hope to stop is their nemesis, The Pirate Bay.

Gustafsson was advised by his legal team not to disclose the name of the ISP yet, but many people think the ISP Bahnhof will be the most likely target, since they are recommended by the pirate community because of their high stance on integrity.

“The ISPs don’t believe they have any responsibility to help when it comes to hindering filesharing,” says Lars Gustafsson. IFPI already sent out letters to several service providers, urging them to start monitoring their customers and filtering websites.

Most ISPs refuse to cooperate with the IFPI though. Last month, Telia Sonera, a large Swedish ISP responded to the IFPI’s request by stating that such actions are illegal under EU law. Norwegian ISPs later responded with similar arguments.

On the other hand, the IFPI claims that restricting access to filesharing sites might actually benefit ISPs. “Illegal P2P file-sharing may have helped drive broadband subscriptions in the past, yet today these activities, particularly in respect of movies, are hogging bandwidth,” they state.

Thus far, the IFPI has won in Denmark. In February, a Danish court ordered the ISP ‘Tele2′ to block its customers from accessing The Pirate Bay. The decision is currently under appeal, and the Pirate Bay recently announced that they will demand compensation for the block.

To be continued…

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  • Hulk

    Bahnhof has been targeted before, I recall a raid in 2005. Back then, some fishy things happend. Rumors have it that an APB (Antipiratbyran) associate placed warez on Bahnhofs servers before the raid.
    I only got an german link to this story, maybe “The local” has more:

    http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/19/19818/1.html

    Edit: Here you go

    http://www.thelocal.se/1099/20050314/
    http://www.thelocal.se/article.php?ID=1157

    Don’t know how that settled, though, Any swedish pirates in here able to give an update?

  • first

    They really dont get it do they?

  • Veritias

    Ridiculous…

  • anon

    Go ahead, block the piratebay.

    They know there are countless better sites right?

  • me

    They still haven’t got anything in Ireland yet.

  • Sandeep

    They don’t know what they are doing

  • Chris

    Seems suing is how the record industry now making money, guess they’re having trouble selling their crap nowadays.

  • Don Williams

    Copyright infringement requires that a physical copy be made, which does not and cannot occur with electronic transfer. It’s like taking a photo of a car. It’s only an image. It’s not the real thing. The largest country in the World and one of the oldest and most sensible, Russia (much older than US), has already concluded that in it’s wisdom.

    Also ISPs are not responsible for any possible infringing uses as they are merely a conduit, and it’s not their responsibility to monitor and report on all their activity for some petty cartel.

    It’s just another way to defraud and extort. Don’t give them an inch or they’ll take a mile.

  • Eric Johnston

    Ha, this is ludicrous. I don’t think they have a snowball’s chance in hell. Just wielding their mouths to intimidate. This is one of their latest tactics worldwide. Everyone stand their ground. They are outnumbered 1000s to 1. Without authority to back them they are puny and insignificant.

  • Ben

    So are they going to go after the telcos next because phone customers can call a relative on their birthday and perform an unlicensed version of “Happy Birthday” over the phone?

  • WTFBBQ

    The IFPI, what a bunch of douchebags. When will they learn that Sweden doesn’t a flying rat’s ass about copyright, and neither does anyone but the assholes they’re there to “protect?”

    IFPI is the old generation, soon to be superseded by the new one.

  • mysogynistic bumsplat

    when will they sue google? they help us find all these sites after all.

  • @$$|-|0|3

    AHAHAHAHA!!!!!

    Good luck, this is Sweden!

  • Anonymous

    IFPI is a bunch of idiots. without “so-called” piracy I would never buy a ticket to concert of one of not so much known band in Czech Rep., because I would not be able to download their two albums. Yes, I downloaded 2 their albums (downloading is still pretty legal in our country), listened to them and decided that this band is “MUST see for my own eyes live” and is worth buying two tickets.

    OK, IFPI, if you wanna kill music, do it. And don’t tell us such craps that copying/piracy/whatever kills music. It’s actually YOU who is killing music – the real good music that is worth listening, not those craps that we must listen to in radio wherever we move, because in e.g. supermarkets one cannot switch it off. Achmed (the dead terrorist) on you!

  • Mr. S

    “Illegal P2P file-sharing may have helped drive broadband subscriptions in the past, yet today these activities, particularly in respect of movies, are hogging bandwidth”

    Do they really believe that? Of course they still make money from P2P -_-’

    Most ISP’s here even offer unlimited traffic for a cheap price.

  • skogge

    They haven’t actually managed to block any users in Denmark.
    Tele2 is a daughter company of Telenor. Telenor also owns other broadband service providers, and all existing costumers have been moved from Tele2 to Cybercity, which does not have a block on the piratebay.

  • liquidmonkey

    good luck you losers, my country will laugh and shit in your face, classic viking style!!!
    AS IF the ISP’s here are going to bend over for you and your stupid intimidation tactics.
    hardly anyone EVER gets sued in sweden period, unlike america.
    let that be your first lesson.

  • Nobody

    It’ll never fly.

    It’s along the same lines of suing gun manufacturers because of criminals and the like. May as well go after the PC manufacturers, the companies that make blank DVDs, every media player that doesn’t support DRM, and so on too. They all technically facilitate piracy.

    They’re grasping as straws, and I’m sure the courts will see this as nothing more than another stupid attempt to circumvent the law by the IFPI, who as a track record of thinking that the law doesn’t apply to them.

  • Anonymous

    hmm those fascist bastards can go fuck themselves as usual

  • Tobbe

    IFPI: Fuck you.

  • Huh?

    When will the IFPI sue my employer? He doesn’t pay me enough to buy CDs. He’s facilitating copyright infringement.

  • Crandom

    IFPI: EPIC FAIL

    (picture soon…)

  • Mr.Afghanistan

    IFPI FUCK YOU Once Again !
    We don’t care if you force them to monitor us or not.
    If we give our ISP 10$ extra, they will never monitor LoL & will give a little more upload speed to share :)

  • Anonymous

    Yeah, right. They just try to pass the buck to someone else.

  • Rycon

    lol this company is run by 4 year olds

  • Fugazi

    So, the IFPI tries to implement methods that were used by the Stasi, Securitate and similar organisations. Recruit scores of informers to denounce the rest.

    First, informers sell out the dissidents. Which creates more dissidents of course. Then informers go on to slur the opposition to further the need for informers because there will be more opposition and some of it will go into hiding. What’s worth reporting about neighbours or colleagues is up to the informers at some point. Since there will be special recognition when they report more than other informers they’ll report more.

    When a system is so broken that it needs these sorts of moulds to keep it together it’s not a workable system. It’s a mouldering system.

  • 3z3

    Why don’t we have the IFPI go for the root of the problem and sue the artists for making digitally recorded music; facilitating these high-quality copyright infringements.

    Why don’t we just wear gray suits, work in cubicles, speak newspeak, watch the fucking telescreen, hate Emmanuel Goldstein, and not express any creativity without fingering someone who wants to share it freely?

  • Lars the DANE!! xD

    Well, they should try and read some european laws, they obviousely think we over here in Scandinavia / Europe, are some sort of American State, where they can operate freely.. Well, they can’t.. And they can’t because we got stuff like real freedom, and privacy..

    So just FUCK OF IFPI :P
    I’m proud of being a Dane, and i’m proud of my ISP, standing up to these, facist lobbyist! :D

  • Jimmy

    Typical Capitalist pigs. They will never understand and feel threatened by a modern country like Sweden.

  • Putin 08

    At this point, the IFPI should be banned from setting one single fucking foot inside a Swedish courthouse ever again.

    All it does is and attempt to bully, extort from, and sue Swedish citizens over things that don’t fucking break Swedish law.

    When this latest lawsuit falls flat on its ass(seriousy, it might as well be printed on toiletpaper), what’s next for these mental pea-brains? Are they gonna sue the government? Are they gonna lobby the U.N. to put sanctions on Sweden?

    With the IFPI being so unfathomably stupid, crooked, and greedy as it is, I could actually see that happening.

  • torjaus

    You can hardly say they won in Denmark. They got one of the smaller ISP’s to do a DNS block. One that is trivial to get around. Just use opendns.org for example.

    I think the effect of that block is very close to 0.

  • Anonymous

    [quote comment="367879"]AHAHAHAHA!!!!!

    Good luck, this is Sweden![/quote]
    i lol’d

  • Proggo

    Lots of thieves here airing their tiny little ideas about why it is ok to steal others work.

    It is not, and will never be, ok to steal what others have created.

    http://progagainstpirates.baywords.com/

  • Anonymous

    “Copyright infringement requires that a physical copy be made, which does not and cannot occur with electronic transfer.”

    This is one of many false rumours spread by greedy downloaders who want to enjoy others work without paying for it.

    It’s not true.

    http://progagainstpirates.baywords.com/

  • prodigydancer

    [quote comment="371920"]Lots of thieves here airing their tiny little ideas about why it is ok to steal others work.[/quote]
    And lots of douchebags here airing their tiny little ideas about so-called “copyright” which in fact doesn’t exist.

    It is not, and will never be, ok to steal what others have created.[/quote]
    Sure but we don’t steal anything. *Prove* me wrong. Otherwise it’s your word against mine and (God bless presumption of innocence!) this means I’ve won already. :-)

    [quote comment="371927"]“Copyright infringement requires that a physical copy be made, which does not and cannot occur with electronic transfer.”

    It’s not true.[/quote]

    Sure it’s not true. There’s no such thing as “copyright”, ergo here can’t by any “copyright infringement” (whatever this crap might mean) at all.

    http://prodigydancer.baywords.com/

  • Belligerent Engine

    Hogging bandwidth, they say? This statement was obviously geared towards the english-speaking world. In the nordic countries however, one pays for the internet service and the packets transferred are not metered in any way for ordinary home-user connections.

    And anyway, the national backbone is funded by the state. Why should the ISPs care? It’s infrastructure, like roads and delivery of electricity is. Once the population’s demands grow beyond capacity, capacity is increased. It’s not so hard if you give up the capitalist viewpoint of something having to “pay for itself”.

  • http://neuron2neuron.blogspot.com Ben Jones

    [quote comment="372080"]
    Sure but we don’t steal anything. *Prove* me wrong. Otherwise it’s your word against mine and (God bless presumption of innocence!) this means I’ve won already. :-)
    [/quote]

    Thats for criminal cases – civil cases go by what could be termed ‘majority of evidence’.

  • muuh-gnu

    Idiots. Fascist idiots.

    What they request is practically TOTAL SURVEILLANCE to prevent normal people to commit “information crimes”. Do they really mean that people who get disconnected from the internet will magically start to buy everything they would otherwise have downloaded? They will only make sure those people will NEVER again buy a music record or a dvd. I mean, you would really have to be an imbecile to keep buying from someone who sued you off the internet.

    Its idiotic. Anti-copying laws are idiotic. Whats the point of legislating prohibition laws just to keep a “copy manufacturing industry” alive in an era where everybody and their dog has copying machines at their home?? Its like prohibiting private refrigerators in order to forcefully keep an ice deliverer industry alive. Nobody would give up making ice in their homes just to enable ice industry employees to “make a living” delivering ice to everybodys home. It wont work with copying prohibiton too.

    Damn, damn modern day fascism.

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  • Putin 08

    [quote comment="371920"]Lots of thieves here airing their tiny little ideas about why it is ok to steal others work.[/quote]

    I’m surprised you can find the time to post comments, what with your busy schedule of eagerly jerking off the MAFIAA with both hands.

    Tell me, are you tragically retarded enough to actually mistake filesharing for theft, or are you fully aware that you’re lying and simply being a good little slut?

    Either way, I find it quite amusing that you would position yourself as standing on some kind of moral highground, when the MAFIAA are nothing more than crime families shielded beneath a thin corporate facade. They commit theft, they commit extortion, they commit terrorism, and given the chance, they are willing to ruin lives by suing people for tens of thousands of dollars over downloading a number of MP3s that would equal about $15 in the real world.

    And yet, here you are defending them. Doesn’t the irony of that just tickle you? You crusade against filesharing because it’s “wrong”, all the while standing on some of the lowest moral ground there is. You’re nothing but a willing whore for a syndicate of criminals.

    From the moral ground [i]I[/i] and every other filesharer stands on, I can only spit down in contempt upon slime like you.

  • jojodancer

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  • Apa

    “IFPI to Sue Swedish ISP for Facilitating Copyright Infringement”

    LMFAO!!

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