Norwegian Minister Wants to Legalize File-Sharing
Written by Ernesto on February 22, 2009The trial of The Pirate Bay has not gone by unnoticed in Sweden’s neighbor country, Norway. The IFPI has ordered the largest ISP in the country to block the site, while on the other hand Norway’s Minister of Education is critical of the music industry, and wants to legalize (illegal) file-sharing
Earlier this week the music industry, headed by the IFPI, gave Norway’s largest Internet provider an ultimatum; block access to The Pirate Bay within 14 days or we will take you to court.
ISPs have criticized IFPI’s move, and Pirate Bay’s spokesman Peter Sunde said that “the crazy people behind IFPI should be stopped.” Bård Vegar Solhjell, Minister of Education and Research in Norway sides with Peter in this assessment, as he vouches for the legalization of file-sharing.
In a recent blog post, the minister who is a member of the Socialist Left Party (SV), said that file-sharing is genius, and a great way to discover and access music. “You and I can get access to all the world’s music when we want. Fantastic!” Solhjell wrote on his weblog.
The music industry should embrace the Internet instead of fighting it, according to the minister. “All previous technology advances have led to fears that the older format would die. But TV did not kill radio, the Web did not kill the book, and the download is not going to kill music,” Solhjell wrote.
The music industry fears new technologies according to Norway’s Minister of Education. He believes that if radio had been invented today the record labels would have tried to shut that down too. “But just as the radio and cassettes haven’t killed music, it is a preposterous claim to say that file-sharing does,” Solhjell told VG nett.
Instead of fighting file-sharing and the Internet, the industry should be looking for a system that works for consumers and artists. Spotify is one example according to the minister, who has put ‘legal file-sharing’ on the agenda of his party.
In their new party program they describe it as follows: “SV will explore the possibility of legalizing non-commercial file-sharing of music performed by private persons, in combination with a licensing solution for payment to the licensees,” and Solhjell believes that in the end, both consumers and artist will benefit from an open market.
Previously: Pirate Bay Ends First Trial Week Partying
Next: Top 10 Most Pirated Movies on BitTorrent
93 Responses
AWESOME.
Wow there finally figuring out they have no choice.
You. Have. No. Choice.
Adapt or die.
Adapt or die.
ADAPT. OR. DIE.
We won long ago, just took them this long to figure it out.
Very nice, as his party (SV) is in government at the moment! :D
lol…this may just happen!
Adapt or Die indeed.
Lovely!
I read this somewhere…
“If millions of people are breaking the law, then it is not the people who have to change:It is the LAW that has to change”
Don’t you agree ?
Sounds like vote mongering to me
At last the agreed New technology.
We are not stealing, we are just sharing with each other, if we like it, then we buy it.
For example: When we are buying a shirt, first we try it, if we liked it, then we pay for it and have it for ever.
File Sharing is the same, File sharing is giving everyone a chance to try before buying !
Can I vote for this man ?? Please make him President !!
+1 to #9 David
I thought this was a joke at first. But damn! This is great news.
If this goes through….. I will buy up a few norweigan seedboxes (it would be legal now!), and seed to the world.
INFORMATION WANTS TO BE FREE!!! Software, Books, Music, Videos – once it leaves the medium by which it is stored it is simply electrons. If we the people coax those electrons to share themselves with us for a time, to harness their power or help them to reproduce and migrate on, are we not doing them a favor, by giving them the chance to do that which they were created for? To be free and move freely, while enhancing the enjoyment and contributing to the betterment of everyone else at the same time?
The industries need to understand and be aware – INFORMATION, regardless of the media by which it is entrapped, wants to be FREE.
RIAA needs to be overhauled, the DMCA needs to be repealed!!!
Papa John’s Pizza is King of the pizza industry food chain.
Pizza Master
Eat, Drink, Download and Be Merry!!!
Lets not get ahead of ourself.
Our minister want to tax broadband to compensate copyrightholders.
And while it may sound like a good idea, it won’t work in practice.
If file sharing is legalized in Norway I’ll seriously consider working there for a while.
I mean, I’m from Sweden, it’s really not that far. ^_^
Adapt or die…
Adapt or die…
What will kill them?
@8 Glynn
Even if it is vote mongering, it is at least an indication that favoring legalizing the free usage of copyrighted material as a popular initiative – and that politicians are willing to try to satisfy this population.
File sharing won’t kill music…
…The RIAA will!
google ifpi origins
look for copyriot.se
they even edited thier own wikipedia and were caught!
if i were an independant not contracted to ifpi member record label artist in norway i would sue in return the as off of this fashistic rooted IFPI when they get a court to blog tpb.
What IFPI wants in that case is clearly shut down my means of do business since i would want to have my norwegian fans download my music via TPB.
This is clearly anti competitive behaviour of IFPI.
And such a suit might work well better since it is business rooted instead of claims how evil IFPI is in censoring the reality!
IFPI will otherwise jsut argue with the CP claim that always work with the politicos that they bribe!
That is an very cool and smart decision!!
Finally a step in the right direction.
Man this guy has to be the BEST person in goverment yet, Vote for him!
kickass!@!!!!
Hell yeah! Now I’ll study in Norway instead of Sweden! :)
Why there are no such politicians in other countries? Greetings to Norway! Awesome!
Hahahah, oh man.
The IFPI must be shitting itself. Bård Vegar Solhjell sounds more or less like a regular person, and not your average politician with planet-sized greed and a fruitfly-sized brain.
They’d better pray to God he’s the only normal human being working in Norway’s government, or else the IFPI will be marching to its grave even faster.
Excellent Advice Mr Minister.Hope the Anti-p brigade was as Smart as u & understand that basic POV!
anyone need a waffles invite?
Shame he’s only applying it to music. Books should be free to share too (sharing books online definitely wont kill the industry because there are billions of luddites out there who prefer the printed page to a file on a screen)
Progress cant be stopped.
take note other countries.
this is how you do it.
This doesn’t surprise me. Socialists will stop at nothing to destroy the fabric of our economy. Although the files should be free to roam without interference, this Norwegian (we suspect he may actually be Swedish) is using this argument to further his socialist cause.
I implore everyone at TorrentFreak to look past his words and into the true sinister intentions of this communist!
http://www.harrynads.com
Spotify is for people that cant get on a real music site.
#30
One small step at a time. I’m sure he has people in parliament and even people in his own government against these views…
I Dont beleave it. I just dont beleave that any “stronger” party member(s) would do anything like this. It is too much utopic sci-fi…
PS:
This is the “Socialistic Left party” (SV), they also wants to shut down NATO, cut all ties to USA, import the whole third worlds poor population and tax 100% of our income… and resurrect Stalin.
Well, something like that anyway.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Left_Party_(Norway)
That guy is pure unadulterated awesome. I bet he listens to black metal n’ shit too.
File sharing, as in all freedom of information, is critical to a free liberal and open democracy. True freedom of information, is the language of truly Representative government.
Remember people, once you give up your right to simply share a music file, whats next? DRM your OS, DRM you own personal videos?
Without P2P, the Great Firewall of China would be blocking me as we speak. Without bittorrent, and other forms of global information sharing, we would not be making the collective effort we are today of true freedom of information. Norway, I hope you take the first step. We have a long way to go.
File sharing would not kill music; in fact, file sharing would help encourage interest in music.
we need a guy like this in the uk .. some 1 who will fight and stand for freedom .. both in terms of copyright and general liberty …all we have in the uk is a one eyed scotish idiot who never stops lying (j.clarkson2009)
fight the good fight norway freedom is the right to all mankind
Excellent news indeed.
Unfortunately I live in wrong country.
He does have some interesting ideas but I highly doubt that its going to happen. There is too much money in suing people for piracy to shut that business down. Also, he is just one minister in a quite small country so I really do wander how far that is going to reverberate.
Ow and he said that the radio did not kill the music: the question here is how many people had the radio and how many people have access to the Internet. It is not a fair comparison.
Every medium has some free distrobution methods.
TV is free over the airwaves, Radio is free (lawl since Sirious and XM went bellyup). Even Internet has some free dialup services still (add supported), and books/movies/CDs and stuff is also free with a library card.
Freedom gives people a choice. Do i want the “B” version free? or pay for the “A” version? At the moment downloading makes it even easier and more justifiable to listen to or watch the “B” version. If only the “A” version would give itself reason to be wanted again. (i.e. lower prices, superiour quality, additional content).
We all know they need to adapt. The question is How?
@Kramerica Industries
What you say makes sense, except
what’s to stop people from distributing version A?
You see this all the time. Sure you have your standard bootleg mp3s leaked a week before release. So one could say “why download this crappy mp3 when you can pay for high quality lossless audio formats for a price?”
Then 2 weeks later high quality lossless flacs hit the internet. And noone bothers buying.
@39 – Clarkson is a tory idiot who works in media, if you think he is on your side you’re a fool, Clarkson is a funny broadcaster and I love Top Gear, but nothing he says should be taken seriously.
Cool! Go Norway!
Politician wants power.
Politician sees an opportunity to gain votes.
Politician tells you exactly what you want to hear.
Voters suck it up without any real thought.
Politician gains power.
Politician sells you out.
Voters wave fists in air.
Rinse. Repeat.
—
And today’s word is: ‘Naive’.
:/
Oh great, you do this now just as I’m about to move abroad… :P
I hope this cause spreads to other parties. I don’t vote on single cases no matter how much I want to, so I don’t think I’ll ever vote for SV. All the centrist parties should pick this up, seriously – Venstre, a smaller party that often still winds up being important when it comes to forming governments, apparently has the legalization of file sharing on their agenda. At least I know their youth organization does. I won’t vote for them either, because they are on principle opposed to the monarchy and I am not even remotely opposed to it =/
i say if they want to make $$$$ on it they need to make it available… many times ppl might have bought something instead of dl it for free had it been available on line somewhere…
notice his choice a words aobut infringement.
interesting it slike a half measure , while trying to look all cool and hip.
Ya can’t do that be all in or all out.
That’s it you are with us or agaisnt us PERIOD.
mark my words the new zealand law is ocming via ACTA for us all, are you read to goto prison, the new camera law so cops cant be pictured is to stop protests and abuse of police.
god dammit fuck me is it nazi germany on a world wide scale, did hitler hide and secretly use some genetic way to stay alive and take over?
WTF IS GOING ON , where is htat star trek nice fuzzy cozy we all live in peace world, don’t tell me a single act of some nut bars can truly end the need for peace and free culture.
notice his choice a words aobut infringement.
interesting it slike a half measure , while trying to look all cool and hip.
Ya can’t do that be all in or all out.
That’s it you are with us or agaisnt us PERIOD.
mark my words the new zealand law is ocming via ACTA for us all, are you read to goto prison, the new camera law so cops cant be pictured is to stop protests and abuse of police.
god dammit foook me is it nazi germany on a world wide scale, did hitler hide and secretly use some genetic way to stay alive and take over?
WTF IS GOING ON , where is htat star trek nice fuzzy cozy we all live in peace world, don’t tell me a single act of some nut bars can truly end the need for peace and free culture.
@Dazzer
I agree that audio distro is tough to discerne version “A” from version “B”. That’s for the music industry to decide what price is low enough for them. What if songs were $0.10 DRM free instead of $1.29? I think we’d see people buying a lot more music rather than searching through torrents and waiting for seeds (assuming the songs were available instantly from time of purchase A, and low seed numbers on torrent B)
With movies its different because they come with additional content these days, plus the hi-def vids have large file size.
And soon, e-books will be the new craze.
I think that media companies have the opportunity to give the consumer more reasonable choices, its the consumer who’s willing to take risks to get what they want if the choices provided aren’t acceptable.
The way things are now, where the media companies are forcing people to comply to its requirements, is obviously not working.
Wow.
WOOT GO MR
TPB FTW
problem is that they say this now, but if they’re elected they’ll say something else, don’t trust politicians.
s/licensees/licensors/; # :)
There are plenty of ways to find music and “try it out” before you buy it that are legal, and don’t involve downloading entire albums for free, that you may or may not delete after you’ve “tried them.”
Every person I’ve associated with who takes that mindset and preaches those values… rarely ends up buying the shit they claim to be “trying out”, instead they just “try it out” indefinitely.
You know what you do.
And you do it because you don’t want to have to pay for the things you enjoy.
Too bad he’s from SV, as I would never give my vote to the Socialist Left party (I’m norwegian).
However, Venstre (meaning ‘Left’, who for some reason is on the ‘Right’ in norwegian politics) is the liberal party – and is approximately the same size as SV. They also support file sharing. :-)
.. so, here’s hoping for a larger Venstre (”Left”) and hoping that the “Borgerlige” (the “right” side, which Venstre (”left”) is party of) wins the next election!
But this is the single case where I agree with a guy from SV (Socialist Left).
(Hope I confused a lot of people now)
Spotify has terrible quality.
Who wants to pay for music in crappy lossless formats when the filesharing community is sharing immaculate FLACs?
#56
This may be the case for some people who only use public trackers. On private trackers, you see that people who actually love music gather around there. I may have downloaded around 9000 albums so far, but the last year alone, I spent around € 2000,- on music (Vinyl, CD, Concert, Festival) alone.
So there you go with your claim.
“SV will explore the possibility of legalizing non-commercial file-sharing of music performed by private persons, in combination with a licensing solution for payment to the licensees,”
Ie me playing my guitar for non commercial reasons, AND I will have to pay?
F That.
It is easy:
Copyright: 1-2 years
Patents: Abolish
Have a nice day
#45, #54
The adaptation is easy, the music industry should just have to realise that their digital services suck and why they suck.
1. Formats and Quality
If you buy music online, you get it in a lossy proprietary format, usually with some sort of DRM pollution. You can’t play it on a regular PMP and it hurts your ears when you can.
Needless to say that this sucks.
Why isn’t the industry selling music in a lossless, open, and widely supported format, like FLAC? There’s hardly any added cost (in fact, it would be cheaper), and everyone has enough bandwidth to get some.
Ironically, some label I heard of tried to sell transcodes as if they were lossless, so I’m affraid we’d see a lot of that..
2. Cost
An album download now costs something in the area of € 10,-, which is a lot of money for something that’s not physical and had no added reproduction costs (as opposed to CD’s for instance).
Something in the area of € 2,50 per album would tempt me into spending more money in total than now, while there is no additional cost to the music industry. In short, with lower prices, they’d sell more music to more people and thus make more money.
3. Hassle
Being a non-American, it’s a huge hassle trying to actually buy music online. The payment methods suck, the downloads are slow, the catalogs are very limited and you’re stuck in some bloated application half the time.
Make it fast and easy with a proper website and payment methods people actually use in real life and outside of America.
It’s not that hard. The problem is that the music industry wants full control, so they can maximize profits with the least possible effort. Of course this would sting them, who would have expected otherwise?
Also, note that it’s the dinosaur companies that take the frontline in this fight, since their radio and magazine plugging tactics no longer work in present times. The smaller, indepentend companies actually understand the Internet and have made very good use of it.
Wow, finally a politician with a working brain. I’ll move to Norway just to vote him… just kidding, but I hope Norwegians will. :D
Could you imagine what it would look like if downloading music became legal? Just think how many people would start downloading all they want over night. It would be mayhem.
No wait. Actually it wouldnt be that different, because everyone I know who support it allready do and everyone I know who dont support it is a bunch of idiots. Well, maybe not idiots, just uninformed.
But lets hope this one goes through.
#60
“My favourite party also supports filesharing”
Proof or go away.
if enough people would buy shares in lets say universal you can get a voting majority and stop this bullshit.
don’t know how much their market capitalization is, but that could be a shortcut. just need to get millions of people participate.
Yea great guys how would you like it if you worked in an industry where people think that it is their right to take what you did/produced for free
@69
it’s already free, just needs a tape recorder and a radio.
@69
It’s not about wanting to take things for free.
It’s about the dinosaurs dictating culture and empowering the rich over the poor.
Lot of posts here say that other parties are positive to file sharing as well… Well, if so many politicians and parties are pro fs, then why the hell isn’t it legal in Norway? I know; they are politicians. They lie their hearts out just to get your votes. They’re just words that have never been spoken as soon as the election is over.
Anything released for public belongs to the public.
Thats how i view this issue.
Why can’t there be more Politicians like him ?
This once again proves that there is only one thing Sweden has that Norway does not…..Good Neighbors ;-)
There are NO laws saying that the entertainment industry cannot make a deal with a partner and thereby offering their music in the way this politician does. His proposition is basicaly just air.
In Denmark the largest ISP offers its costumers to download music for free in 192 kb/s. They made deals with record companies en masse – without stupid politicians interfering.
Wow i wish the uk had someone like this in government.
Proud to be an active participant in the destruction of the IFPI and global capitalism.
hell yea norway lets go change or die iraa
It really makes no difference what he said, the guy’s a politician ( and looking at the photo above he appears to be a twat! ) I’m surprised he isn’t holding a baby in one arm and a placard in the other either banning or advocating the latest popular dislike or want of the Nowegian people. I bet he does the ‘Dad dance’ at family gatherings ‘coz he’s ‘real cool man.’
The truth is Politicians prefer to deal with history, tradition. pomp, ceremony, with a side order of deceit, corruption and general sleeze with self serving adulation and an arogance that beggars belief. (Or rather that’s the way it works in the U.K. and the european commission or as in the case of Peter Scandalson both) With no acceptance or remorse for the havoc they’ve caused and with even less personal accountability for such, or to be honest any accountability whatsoever or so our policeforce and the crown prosecution service have informed us. These fuckwits are seemingly surprised and indeed shocked when reality rears it’s ugly head:- cash for honours illegal donations expense fiddling Credit crunch, illegal wars etc’ Wanker Blair alongside Gordon Gump and that band of inept arsewipes now running Britain are as equal of blame for the monetry losses here as any of the inbred morons running our banks but at least the banks didn’t engage us in illegal conflict.
BUT WE THE PEOPLE ARE TO BLAME AS WE FECKIN ELECTED THEM.
WHAT A SORRY BUNCH OF C%NTS WE REALLY ARE.
TOO STUPID TO FEEL ANGRY.
nooooo your doing it wrong.
its RIP OR DIE, not adapt or die
GREAT NORWAY!
Although I don’t agree with his Socialistic political views, I like the direction hes heading in regards to file sharing.
adapt or die ftw, ack ack.
and it’s “or”, not “xor”, fwiw.
.~.
Whoa, first off, this is clearly not about politicians, nor some of you seeing this as something bad, conspiracism. This is about the way media companies are forcing people to comply to its requirements, which is NOT working.
“the minister who is a member of the SOCIALIST Left Party…”
————————-
BIG SURPRISE he wants everyone’s hard work to be free.
“It’s not about wanting to take things for free.”
————————-
that’s exactly what it’s about. anyone that tells you different is a hormonal teenager going through the usual and tedious stages of “fight the man!” rebellion. eventually they’ll grow up, get jobs and realize that consuming without compensation is not fair, and distributing something you don’t own is not sharing.
way to go!
Americans brainwashed to hate socialism incoming in 3.. 2.. 1..
To anyone who pays for the work of others, that they enjoy. Good for you.
If you guys want to create good music for everyone to freely distribute, go for it, but you don’t have the right to make that decision for other people.
In criminal law, theft (also known as stealing or filching) is the illegal taking of another person’s property without that person’s freely-given consent.
Someone who carries out an act of or makes a career of theft is known as a thief.
A criminal who takes property belonging to someone else with the intention of keeping it or selling it.
You do not have the right to decide what someone’s selling should cost. That is their right, if you don’t like it. Don’t buy it.
The Future!!!
I’m from Norway. And some guy is gonna make drugs Legal, so it may be a free country soon. Dont do drugs…
Companies often already provide the file’s content for free on the public airwaves. But it’s not free. It’s paid for by advertising. Books and videos can be borrowed from the public libraries.
Make something illegal and you can’t control it and you sure as h**l can’t make any money off of it. Henry Ford found that out when he advocated prohibition of alcohol in the US. His taxes were up due to lost alcohol tax revenue and eventually he changed his tune.
Files should be distributed by the companies that are paid for by area and personal preference dependent advertising. They should be inserted before they can be used by a company that targets the audience. The companies producing the products get a revenue from the files legally distributed and everyone benefits. It’s either that or keep it illegal and people will find ways to get around the technical and legal road blocks.
In norway we pay a license to own a TV, so maybe we have to pay a license(tax) to have a internet connection now ? Or to own a PC (its been proposed before…You may watch tv on your PC so…)
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