This first test of IPRED was designed to get the personal identifying details of a subscriber who allegedly stored more than 2000 audio books on his server, 27 of which breached the publishers’ copyrights.

In June 2009 the court ordered ISP ePhone to hand over the personal details of the individual. However, ePhone protested and took the case to the court of appeal which overturned the decision and sent the case to the Supreme Court.

So could IPRED, the law created to enable copyright holders to more easily chase down copyright infringers, be used for its intended purpose? Sweden’s Supreme Court said that only the European Court of Justice could decide. Yesterday, Advocate General Niilo Jääskinen gave his advice on the matter and it was a victory for privacy which could deliver a fatal blow to IPRED, but one to which Internet service providers hold the key.

Jääskinen’s statement concluded that while no EU Directive ­ exists which prevents copyright owners requesting personal information on file-sharers from ISPs under IPRED, the data being stored by ISPs must have originally been stored for the purpose in order to be subsequently released.

“It is a victory for freedom. Although it is difficult to interpret, it is very good news,” says Christian Engstrom, MEP for the Pirate Party. “Internet service providers collect customer data to manage their operations, not to bust suspected file sharers as the copyright mafia want them to do.”

But speaking with Expressen, pro-copyright advocate Per Strömbäck says that the Supreme Court asked the ECJ only one question – Is there any conflict between the EU data retention directive and the Swedish IPRED-law? – and the response to that was a clear “no”. Further discussion on the reasons why data was originally stored was an error by the Advocate General, he believes.

Pirate Party’s Engstrom says the advice by the Advocate will mean that it will still be OK for the ISPs to disclose information to police and prosecutors in criminal cases, just not to private companies, adding that “the justice system has more important ­ things to do than to track down teenagers who listen to music.”

Indeed, ePhone’s original objection to IPRED was that it would give surveillance powers to private companies where that should be an issue for the police, so they will be pleased with the advice. Needless to say, ePhone did not store customer information for the purposes of handing it over to Antipiratbyrån.

But for now, as the advice from the Advocate General is digested by the ECJ before heading back to Sweden’s Supreme Court, increasingly Antipiratbyrån are doing just fine without help from IPRED. By conducting their activities alongside the police – who already have the necessary powers to get information from ISPs – they are getting the information they want anyway, just in other ways.

Source: EU Advocate General Anti-Piracy Advice “A Victory For Freedom”

The “IPR Enforcement Directive” (IPRED) falls into this category. In short, it is filled with measures that would make it easier to clamp down on file-sharers while turning Internet providers into copyright police.

Earlier this year various stakeholders and EU citizens were given the chance to have their say on IPRED, and the results of this consultation were published today. A total of 380 responses were sent in, nearly half of which came from individuals.

There is very little consensus on the contents of the anti-piracy piracy directive. What is apparent from the summary published by the European Commission is that there’s a clear divide between copyright holders on the one hand, and citizens, Internet providers and academics on the other.

As was to be expected, the overwhelming majority of copyright holders and various collecting societies call for even stricter rules on copyright-infringement and file-sharing. They further call for greater responsibilities for Internet providers who they think should filter rogue sites and monitor copyright infringers.

Most of the responses, however, were opposing the implementation of harsher anti-piracy measures for a variety of reasons.

The Internet providers for example stress that stricter rules could have a chilling effect on innovation. They also side with the vast majority of citizens, consumer protection organisations and academics who claim that IPRED threatens basic human rights.

“The overwhelming majority of individual citizens, consumer protection organisations and academics strongly argued against any further (over)regulation of IPR infringements, especially in the context of the online world. Filtering of content and monitoring traffic on the internet were perceived as threats to fundamental rights or even censorship and therefore clearly rejected,” the European Commission writes.

In addition, the majority of the respondents argue that the entertainment industry itself is one of the causes of piracy, due to the lacking availability of legal content.

“Many stakeholders who opposed amending the current IPR Enforcement Directive, including ISPs, telecommunication operators and a majority of individual contributors, viewed the lack of available and attractive licit offer as one of the main causes for online piracy. They considered that increasing such service offers would constitute a feasible alternative to imposing more detailed enforcement measures.”

Most citizens go even further and call for legalizing file-sharing entirely, as it helps the free exchange of information.

“In their contributions, most individual citizens called for removing copyright protection against file-sharing, arguing that the free exchange of information would help spread culture as well as increase creativity without having detrimental effect on industry and society as a whole; such free exchange should therefore be supported rather than considered as infringing copyright law,” the European Commission writes.

From reading the responses it is clear that the majority has serious doubts about the anti-piracy measures that are introduced by IPRED. However, as we’ve seen time and time again in the past, this is by no means a guarantee that the lawmakers will listen.

Source: ISPs, Academics and Citizens Oppose EU Anti-Piracy Legislation

Jon Karlung, CEO of ISP Bahnhof and one of the most outspoken opponents of IPRED, quickly announced that he would take measures to protect the privacy of his customers.

Although IPRED should’ve made it easier to track down file-sharers, there is nothing in Sweden’s Electronic Communications Law that dictates that ISPs have to store information about the IP addresses they allocate to their customers. To that end, Bahnhof stopped storing user data. No matter how many requests they received from copyright holders, there would be no data to hand over.

Later Bahnhof was joined by Tele2, with CEO Niclas Palmstierna announcing that his company would also stop storing IP address information. Through an increasing number of ISPs, IPRED had effectively been neutralized.

While Swedish ISPs clearly felt they had little choice but to protect the privacy of their customers against civil action related to petty file-sharing, it seems that their response to IPRED has generated an unwanted side-effect.

Anders Ahlqvist, chief of the National IT crime unit says that due to a lack of customer logging data at ISPs, it is becoming harder for the police to track down criminals carrying out serious crimes.

“It is a major concern, for example, when minors are exploited for sexual purposes via the Internet but we can not trace the perpetrators because logging information is missing,” says Ahlqvist.

Taking IPRED out of the equation is not an option, though. It appears there will be a new push to introduce a data-retention directive which will close the loophole and force ISPs to store customer IP address data in future, an eventuality predicted by IFPI lawyer Peter Danowsky back in April 2009.

Source: Police Say Anti-Piracy Law Makes Catching Criminals Harder

The entertainment industries, who were hugely in favor of the new law, said it would lead to decreases in illegal file-sharing, boost online availability of media and encourage citizens to spend money legitimately in official online stores.

Critics said that IPRED would boost file-sharing overall, increase usage of alternative methods to obtain unofficial media, would lead to people taking measures to cover their tracks online and prove to be ineffective.

According to a multitude of sources, IPRED has done the impossible. It has both increased and decreased file-sharing, increased availability of both legal and illegal material online while more money is being spent than ever before – not only on authorized media but bandwidth and VPNs too.

It hasn’t always been good news though. Suppliers of Internet bandwidth saw their business torn apart this time last year when 30% of their market disappeared overnight as casual file-sharers panicked about being locked up in jail forever for using The Pirate Bay. Luckily ISPs survived the year and their trade soon bounced back and on to record levels.

As 2009 progressed, for many Swedish file-sharers the fears mounted in the background. Would they be first to receive a scary letter in the mail? Would their life be ruined for sharing unauthorized material? Would the music and movie industries go on the rampage with the hundreds of IPRED cases the Swedish Government had predicted?

Hardly. Sure, a few book publishers got a bit uppity and tried to force ISP Ephone to hand over some customer information (that case is off to the Supreme Court) but so far, not one individual has been convicted of an IPRED-related offense.

Even the IFPI haven’t taken much advantage of their new powers having used them only once to go after a single file-sharer, an individual who may be simply warned once IFPI know his or her identity.

Nevertheless, IPRED is still doing its magic and being all things to all men.

Research by the Cyber Norms sociological research project showed that just before IPRED was introduced, 22% of respondents didn’t download illegally. By September 2009 that had jumped to 39%.

Yet one month later, Bonver, a company providing bricks and mortar stores with DVD movies, said that since the introduction of IPRED, rental had increased by a 40% with online movie downloads up 115%.

And all this while record numbers of Swedes turned to services to make them anonymous on the Internet. But what are they doing on their secret connections? That’s the thing…..no-one really knows anymore, but considering the music industry’s next announcement, it seemed doubtful it was for file-sharing.

In January 2010, IFPI announced that music sales were up 10.2% in 2009, which represented the first increase in revenue since 2000. IFPI chairman Ludvig Werner put this success down to better online availability and, of course, the introduction of IPRED.

But no sooner had the champagne been cracked open, a new study by independent consultancy firm MediaVision revealed that the accessing of illicit material online was actually on the increase.

But don’t despair. Even Kjell Bohlund of the Swedish Publishers’ Association is happy today, as he notes that the illegal file sharing of books has declined in favor of legal sales.

So all this leads to conclude that as of today, April 1st 2010, IPRED must surely be the greatest piece of anti-piracy legislation ever.

Not only does it allow the music, movie and book industries to increase revenue and improve online availability of authorized material, it also reduces piracy and allows it flourish at the same time. File-sharers are being left alone to do their thing while spending more money than they have done in a decade, while VPN suppliers wonder how they’re going to spend all their money.

But the greatest winners are those that commission surveys – spare a thought for them as they sip champagne on their yachts.

Source: Happy Birthday IPRED, The Best Anti-Piracy Law Ever

Several months later in November 2009, TorrentFreak looked at some Netnod data which seemed to indicate that not only had Swedish traffic levels returned to pre-IPRED levels, but actually surpassed them.

Traffic levels naturally increase year-on-year anyway, so it was difficult to be certain that that this boost was related to recovering levels of online piracy. However, new research just published by a consultancy firm seems to suggest that accessing illicit material online is indeed on the increase.

Mediavision bills itself an independent consultancy firm specializing in analyzing consumer behavior within the sphere of digital media. Its clients include media groups, TV channels, advertisers and production companies.

In its just published 2009 fourth quarter report, the company reveals that it detected an increase in the downloading of TV shows during the autumn of that year. In the 15 to 74 year-old bracket, 1.4 million Internet users engaged in that activity.

In the 15 to 24 year old group, 0.5 million used illicit streaming services to access both movies and TV shows, a method which Mediavision believes is becoming more sought after. 20% of the respondents in this age group admitted using them.

The company further says that 60% of 15 to 24 year-olds are estimated to have consumed illicit media online via various means in the fourth quarter of 2009, versus 40% of the 15 to 74 year-olds. This figure is the same as that reported by Mediavision before IPRED was introduced.

Overall, the company says it believes that the accessing of illicit movies and TV shows via the web has recovered at least to pre-IPRED levels, maybe slightly higher.

Jens Heron at Mediavision says that the piracy situation with TV shows would improve if foreign TV shows and other international became more readily available, at a time and place of the consumers’ choosing.

“Our analysis shows that consumers increasingly want to decide for themselves when to watch and from which screen. Unfortunately, many have become adept at circumventing the IPRED legislation. The way to remedy this, in addition to legislation, is, of course, by offering great legal alternatives,” he added.

Indeed, as earlier reported, around 10% of Swedes aged between 15 and 25 are taking measures to neutralize IPRED, with as many as 500,000 others in the country following suit. Måns Svensson, PhD in Sociology of Law in Lund, estimated that 6 to 7 percent of all Swedes could now be hiding themselves online.

Source: Illicit File-Sharing and Streaming of TV Shows Increases

File-sharers on the other hand haven’t been sitting still either, as many have chosen to negate these initiatives by going anonymous.

Users of BitTorrent and other file-sharing networks have increasingly turned to solutions that hide their identities from the outside world, rendering these new anti-piracy initiatives useless. The IPREDator service from the founders of The Pirate Bay opened up to the public this week, and is undoubtedly the most talked about newcomer in this business.

With a beta launch coinciding with the introduction of the controversial IPRED law in Sweden, the service promised to offer users an anonymous connection to the Internet. IPRED gave the copyright holders increased power to track down pirates, and with the launch of IPREDator the creators neutralized this new ‘threat’.

Much like many other comparable VPN services, Ipredator allows users to connect to the Internet while hiding their own IP-address. The interest in services like this is booming. In Sweden alone, an estimated 500,000 Internet subscribers are already hiding their identities online, and that number is expected to rapidly grow in the new year.

Ipredator is currently using the same platform as several other VPN franchises including Relakks, which means it’s not really anything we haven’t seen before. The servers are maintained and provided by Pirate Bay affiliates though, which may be more trustworthy to the average BitTorrent user than a random VPN provider.

That aside, we were told by former Pirate Bay spokesman Peter Sunde that contrary to what the legal page states, no logs of any kind are kept by Ipredator. The text that is in there is a left over from the standard template they got from the provider of the VPN platform.

And, according to Sunde, there will soon be even more advantages and added security to Ipredator.

While Ipredator owes its name to the IPRED legislation, the team behind it is also working to crush the Swedish wiretapping law (FRA) that was introduced earlier. Sunde explained in a recent writeup how they are planning to not only encrypt the connection between individual users and the VPN, but also the entire stream of outgoing data from the VPN until it has passed Sweden’s borders.

This will make it practically impossible for the Government to decrypt the data and find out what’s being sent. “The only thing they can do is to make it illegal to encrypt,” Sunde told TorrentFreak.

“People don’t understand why I want to encrypt the traffic, since they’re already hidden when they connect to our system. But they must understand that the same traffic can be found unencrypted, traveling across borders again,” Sunde told TorrentFreak. “Also, using a VPN outside of Sweden is bad for Swedes, since it will raise a suspicion flag at FRA,” he added.

Although these wiretap-busting plans haven’t been implemented yet, Ipredator does already offer a secure VPN connection. The service guarantees that anti-piracy outfits or even your ISP will be unable to record or spy on your BitTorrent downloads. Ipredator has just opened its doors to the public for those who did make the beta and are interested in giving it a try.

Source: Pirate Bay’s Ipredator VPN Opens To The Public

They asked the Södertörn District Court to demand that TeliaSonera give up the information because SweTorrents was infringing on their copyrights. The application was made under the IPRED legislation introduced earlier that year, which was put in place to make it easier for copyright holders to track down and identify potential copyright infringers.

In December, the Court ruled in favor of the movie companies and ordered TeliaSonera to hand over the requested information to Antipiratbyrån. Claiming that the ruling violates the privacy of one of its customers, the ISP decided to appeal the decision.

In its appeal, the ISP argues that IPRED is in direct violation of the EU’s data retention directive, under which the privacy of the SweTorrents owner would be protected. According to TeliaSonera’s lawyer, the directive applies to this case even though it hasn’t yet been implemented by the Swedish government.

“The protection of privacy contained in the directive prevents the application of the Swedish IPRED law in this case,” TeliaSonera’s lawyer Patrick Hiselius said in a comment.

TeliaSonera further notes that in its ruling the District Court speaks of “the material that is uploaded on the website,” even though there is no copyright material on SweTorrents, only torrent links. Therefore, it appears that the Court’s ruling is “based on faulty technical knowledge,” according to the ISP.

If TeliaSonera’s appeal is successful, the new IPRED law will be crushed, which would be a huge setback for the anti-piracy outfits that lobbied long and hard to get it passed.

Source: ISP Stands Up For Torrent Site Owner’s Privacy

However, months and months went by without any attempt by music industry group IFPI to gain the personal details of an alleged file-sharer. Then in September, IFPI chief executive Lars Gustafsson said that the group were simply biding their time, and offered assurances that IFPI cases would appear in the months that followed.

Now, months later in December, the wait is over.

Today IFPI submitted evidence of alleged file-sharing to the Stockholm District Court, asking it to force an ISP to hand over the details of an individual behind a single IP address.

“We believe that all parts of the music industry feel best served by a combination of good legal services and good legislation. IPRED is a law with good privacy protection for citizens, but of course we will use it to protect our members’ rights,” said Ludvig Werner, Chairman of IFPI Sweden, in a statement.

However, before panic sets in among Sweden’s file-sharers, the details of the request should be considered. Among other things, IPRED aims to increase penalties and ultimately criminalize large scale infringement, so it’s interesting that IFPI have chosen their first target carefully.

Rather than go after a BitTorrent user, where it becomes very difficult to prove that one user is sharing lots and lots of music at once in order to be categorized as a large-scale infringer, IFPI has targeted the user of a Direct Connect hub instead. In basic terms, Direct Connect has a ‘shared folder’ type structure, where users are likely to share their whole music collections at once, not single albums as is common with BitTorrent.

IFPI says that it has not decided what it will do once it identifies the individual. It may go for a lawsuit, or instead chose to issue a warning.

Last week, the Stockholm District court ruled on another IPRED case, ordering ISP TeliaSonera to hand over the identity of the Swetorrents BitTorrent tracker operator to anti-piracy group Antipiratbyrån, which is working on behalf of four movie studios.

This request by IFPI is the first brought under IPRED by the music industry, and the third overall.

Update: Telia has announced that it will appeal the decision.

Source: IFPI Use IPRED To Demand File-Sharer Info For The First Time

The companies, Svensk Filmindustri, Pan Vision, Filmlance and Yellow Bird in conjunction with Antipiratbyrån (APB), applied to the Södertörn District Court to force ISP TeliaSonera to hand over the details of the account holder behind the Swetorrents BitTorrent tracker.

A representative from APB said that Swetorrents made copyright movies available on the Internet, some of which have yet to have their commercial release, and claimed that the site negatively affects the revenues of the movie companies.

Today the Södertörn District Court announced its decision. TeliaSonera must hand over the name and address of the Swetorrents operator to Antipiratbyrån. Failure to comply will cost the company 750,000 kronor ($110,000) in fines.

It had been argued that since Swetorrents is a so-called private BitTorrent tracker which requires registration to access, this meant that the site is closed and not open to the public. This claim was dismissed, since the site has around 20,000 members and on this basis, could not be considered to be private.

“Today’s decision shows that it’s the victim of infringing activity that must be protected, rather than the perpetrator,” said lawyer for Antipiratbyrån Sara Lindbäck in a statement, noting that it was no longer acceptable to protect illegal activity by hiding it behind an IP address.

When the initial application was filed by the movie companies, TeliaSonera indicated it would fight to maintain the privacy of its customers, adding that it could appeal if the court decided against it.

“If there is an order from the court, it’s highly probable that we will appeal the decision,” a TeliaSonera spokesperson said at the time. “We’re not just going to hand over the information. It’s our duty to protect our customers’ privacy.”

At this stage a number of issues are unclear. The first, whether TeliaSonera intends to stand by its original intention to appeal. The second, whether the person behind the IP address is actually the operator of the site or simply the account holder, and the third, whether the account holder even handed over his correct details to TeliaSonera in the first instance.

in any event, the site’s current public IP address does not belong to TeliaSonera.

Source: Court Orders ISP To Hand Over Torrent Site Operator Details

The legislation came into force on April 1st this year, and the very next day the Netnod Internet Exchange reported a significant drop of 30% in Swedish Internet traffic. This dramatic reduction in data transfers was attributed to file-sharers reigning in their activities on fears of being identified by anti-piracy companies.

In response to the news, Swedish Pirate Party Chairman Rick Falkvinge told TorrentFreak that most experts believed that the initial “scare effect” would wear off in time. They were absolutely right.

Current data from Netnod reveals that traffic levels in Sweden have not only returned to normal, pre-IPRED levels, but actually seem on track to surpass them. This increase is partly natural, but the relatively steep climb in recent months seems to suggest that P2P traffic is on the rise again.

While anti-piracy and copyright groups are working hard to clock up successes in getting governments to implement increasingly tougher laws to deal with online file-sharers, they too aren’t sitting back and accepting defeat in the face of these new challenges. Many are turning to services which enable them to hide their identities.

Recently the Cyber Norms sociological research project reported that 10% of Swedes aged between 15 and 25 were taking measures to neutralize online surveillance, with as many as 500,000 of their countrymen following suit. Måns Svensson, PhD in Sociology of Law in Lund, estimated that 6 to 7 percent of all Swedes could now be hiding themselves online.

In this cat and mouse game, the cats have to spend millions of dollars and years of effort to achieve their aims of getting new legislation to protect their interests. However, in a crushing response, the mice spend just a few minutes in thought deciding how to spend a few dollars in order to instantly neutralize the threat.

As people around the world look forward to the festive season, it must seem like Christmas every day for VPN suppliers.

Source: Swedish Internet Traffic Recovers After Initial IPRED Scare

The law is intended to make it easier for copyright holders to obtain the personal details of alleged file-sharers from ISPs, but the ISPs are not handing information over without a fight.

This April, five book publishers handed a request to a local court for information on the owner of an FTP-server that allegedly stored more than 2000 audio books. Although it was a private server and the audio books couldn’t have been made available to the general public, the court ordered the ISP Ephone to hand over the details of the person behind the IP address.

In a response to the negative decision Ephone consulted its customers, asking them whether they should appeal the case or not. Of the 20,000 customers who responded, a massive 99% were in favor of an appeal, so Ephone duly took the case to the Appeal Court.

Yesterday the Appeal Court announced its verdict, which turned out to be a win for the ISP and the alleged copyright infringer. The Appeal Court nullified the earlier decision of the District Court against the ISP, and ruled that Ephone does not have to hand over the details of the FTP owner to the book publishers.

The Appeal Court argued that, even though the FTP server contained copyrighted works, probable cause for copyright infringement had not been proven. Since the server in question required login credentials there was no distribution to the public, the Appeal Court said.

The decision of the Appeal Court was received with huge disappointment by the book publishers, but welcomed by Ephone and the majority of its customers. Still, this decision may not be the end of the first IPRED case as it may still be appealed at the Supreme Court.

Source: Alleged Pirate Walks Free Under New Anti-Piracy Law

On April 1st this year the new law became active and immediately there was a reported dramatic drop in Internet traffic, which many believed could be attributed to file-sharers becoming more cautious about being identified by anti-piracy and entertainment companies.

While many forecasted that file-sharing lawsuits would quickly follow, in fact the reverse is true. So far, no action has been taken against music pirates at all – but that doesn’t mean it isn’t coming, it is, albeit somewhat later than expected.

But at this point and in the absence of lawsuits, how has the introduction and awareness of IPRED affected file-sharing activities?

According to new research carried out by SIFO on behalf of TV operator Viasat – who earlier this year said that although affected by piracy would not use the new legislation at all – 11 % of Swedes continue to download copyright works using the Internet.

When split between the sexes, 16% of men said they are continuing to download compared to 5% of women.

Of the traditionally download-intensive 15 to 29 year olds, 25% of those questioned said they are carrying on their activities regardless of the law.

While 76% of the file-sharers questioned said that they aren’t intimidated by IPRED, 16% of all respondents said they had stopped illicit downloading completely.

Overall, a significant 46% said that they could be encouraged to stop illicit sharing if provided with better legal alternatives. Just over a quarter of respondents said they are happy with existing ‘legitimate’ services through which they can buy music and movies.

“We need more good, reasonably priced legal alternatives to prevent illegal downloading,” said Viasat CEO Hans Skarplöth. “Only 27 percent think that the alternatives are good enough today. The commercial operators must therefore act more vigorously to attract more people to become legal while we must become better at information about the options that actually exist.”

Bonver, a company providing bricks and mortar stores with DVD movies, said that since the introduction of IPRED, rental has increased by a massive 40%.

According to CEO Gerard Versteegh, online movie downloads have benefited the most, with a reported increase of 115%.

These digital sales figures should be interpreted with caution though. Movie downloads are on the rise worldwide and the reported 115% increase might very well be attributed to other factors.

Source: Many Swedes Undeterred By New Anti-Piracy Law

On April 1st the new law became active and immediately there was a dramatic drop in Internet traffic, which many observers put down to file-sharers retreating based on a fear of becoming identified.

Indeed, Henrik Pontén from Antipiratbyrån – the Swedish anti-piracy office – said he was convinced. “The majority of all Internet traffic is file-sharing. Because of that, there’s no other explanation for the decrease in traffic than the IPRED law,” he stated.

Then at the end of April, two ISPs – Bahnhof and Tele2 – both announced they would stop logging Internet activity which would seriously hamper the effects of IPRED on their customers.

But despite the massive opposition to the legislation, despite the fear, the huge drop in Internet traffic, the action of ISPs to limit its effects (and The Pirate Bay team releasing iPredator to neutralize it), so far in the battle against music file-sharers, IPRED is a sleeping beast.

Although the music industry promised to use IPRED to go after pirates, it has been a full 6 months since the legislation was introduced and so far, not a single complaint has been made against a file-sharer.

So does this mean that the feared music industry onslaught against P2P users will amount to nothing? Unfortunately, almost certainly not – they are sitting patiently for the wheels to turn in another case.

Previously five book publishers handed a request to a local court demanding information about the owner of an FTP-server where audio books were stored. Although it was a private FTP and the books couldn’t have been made available to the public, the court ordered the ISP Ephone to hand over the personal details of the individual behind the IP-address. Ephone refused, with their CEO describing the evidence submitted as insufficient. The case is under appeal.

Yesterday IFPI chief executive Lars Gustafsson told DN.se that they are simply biding their time to see the outcome of this earlier IPRED action by the publishing industry before going after music sharers, and offered assurances that IFPI cases will come in the fall.

Although there will probably not be the one hundred case promised earlier, Gustafsson still refused to be pinned down on the exact number, instead promising that the complaints will be issued “on a broad front.”

Source: IFPI Prepares IPRED Complaints Against File-Sharers

This April five book publishers handed a request to a local court for information on the owner of an FTP-server that allegedly stored more than 2000 audio books. Although it was a private server and the audio books couldn’t have been made available to the public, the court ordered the ISP Ephone to hand over the details of the person behind the IP address.

Ephone refused to comply, instead deciding to take the case to the Appeal Court. Interestingly, the company decided to follow up the case based on feedback from its customers through an online poll on its website.

In total, over 20,000 visitors voted on the question of whether or not the company should appeal or not. The results didn’t leave room for much doubt. A massive 99% of the respondents were in favor of appealing, and some even offered to cover a part of the court costs.

Ephone’s CEO Bo Wigstrand said the company’s management had discussed their options internally, but what they really needed was input from their customers. “That was what finally led to our decision,” Wigstrand explained.

Besides the support from customers and the public, Ephone’s appeal is also backed by Swedish Member of Parliament Karl Sigfrid, who previously asked his ISP to delete all personal information linked to his IP-address to prevent him being chased down by copyright holders.

According to Ephone the evidence that the copyright holders had presented in the book case was incomplete and insufficient. It mainly consisted of screenshots and log files, Ephone’s lawyer said. Weak evidence aside, CEO Bo Wigstrand said that his company has to do all it can to protect the privacy of its customers.

Source: Swedish ISP Disputes Weak Piracy Evidence

The act in question defines who is eligible to store information on individuals and the inspection board’s justification for the decision was that IP addresses can be tied to a specific person and that only government agencies may store that kind of information in criminal cases.

Since collecting IP numbers (and suing the owners) is the core business for Antipiratbyrån, they appealed the decision to the County Administrative Court which agreed with the inspection board’s stance. Antipiratbyrån appealed again, with the same result, and then once again. Today, the highest instance, the Supreme Administrative Court said it will not try the case which means the previous decision is upheld.

Antipiratbyrån’s method for chasing filesharers by logging and storing their IP addresses is thereby in violation of the Personal Data Act.

However, while some prematurely celebrated the result as the death of IPRED (and have since rewritten their article), the truth is a little more sobering.

On his blog, Swedish Pirate Party’s Rick Falkvinge writes that a paragraph in IPRED specifically says that you don’t need to be granted exception from the Personal Data Act in order to retrieve the names of IP address holders from ISPs.

8.2.11 Exception from 21 § Personal Data Act

In the copyright law, additions are made that means no specific exception from 21 § Personal Data Act is needed to handle personal information regarding immaterial rights breach, when handling such information is necessary in order to present a legal claim.

Translated: Antipiratbyrån can do as they please…

Source: Collecting IP Addresses Illegal in Sweden

Now Karl Sigfrid, an MP with the Moderate Party and opponent of IPRED, is urging other Internet providers to follow this lead and refuse to log data that can be revealed under IPRED – no data logged means there is nothing to reveal.

Sigfrid has sent a letter to his ISP Bredbandsbolaget, urging them to stop storing data;

As a customer I ask you to stop storing information on the IP address that you assign me. The data need not be stored by law, and other Internet providers have already decided to discontinue storage.

Since you store my IP address, I can not operate an open wireless network without exposing myself to risk of having my identity extradited to the copyright holder. This is because I can not check if anyone else is guilty of illegal up-or downloading through my account.

A letter from a copyright holder and a possible lawsuit is a major inconvenience for those who have done nothing illegal, especially since a customer can ask his ISP to take legal action to protect their clients’ right to private communications.

So far Bredbandsbolaget has refused to comply and has said that it will continue to log the activities of its customers. A request for another major ISP Telia to stop logging resulted in the same response, with both companies claiming that they will continue to log for the “security of our customers”.

“Our task is to make sure that our customers are safe on the Internet. In order to do this we have to keep records for a short amount of time, maximum three weeks. We will not automatically give away any records but will investigate any such request very thoroughly and also appeal,” said Georgi Ganev, CEO of Bredbandsbolaget.

Ganev said that Tele2′s claimed decision to stop logging will compromise the security of its customers. “If they claim that they will be able to uphold security and at the same time immediately delete records, then I’m confused. It is impossible,” he said.

IFPI lawyer Peter Danowsky is completely against ISPs stopping their logging and has attacked them, accusing them of assisting with illegal behavior. “It is astonishing that someone who claims to be a serious telecoms company wants to contribute to breaches of the law, which is the meaning of what they do,” he said, while completely failing to mention that these ISPs are operating entirely within the law.

Quite how these logs improve customer security is not clear, but for those permanently using a VPN (like this writer) there are no logs whatsoever to refer to – and I haven’t noticed any reduction in my security at all.

In the meantime, Karl Sigfrid is encouraging everyone to copy his letter and send it to their own ISP.

Source: Swedish MP Wants His ISP To Delete Personal Data

As early as November, an op-ed was written by ISP Bahnhof’s CEO Jon Karlung where he stated his company would not hand over the information. “In its current version, the law makes no difference between computers and users. And meanwhile, it makes spies out of the ISPs,” he wrote at the time.

In a recent interview with Swedish national radio he reiterated this position and said ISPs are not legally bound to store information related to their customers’ IP-addresses. Hence, Bahnhof stopped storing user data and has no information to hand over, even if a court orders it. And Bahnhof isn’t on its own in taking this action.

Today, major operator Tele2 (over 600,000 customers) declared they will follow Bahnhof’s example and without delay stop storing this type of user data. “Previously, we have stored some information about our customer’s IP addresses for internal use, but now the privacy issue has been pushed this far with the IPRED discussion. We do this to strengthen our customers’ privacy,” said Tele2′s Swedish CEO Niclas
Palmstierna.

“There’s is nothing in the Electronic Communications Law that decides what we should store, only what we shouldn’t store. We have analyzed the legislation carefully and found that we have no obligations at all to store information about our customers’ IP addresses,” he continued.

Peter Danowsky, IFPI lawyer and legal representative in the first IPRED case, is not impressed with the ISPs opposition, and claims he can change the law. “Everyone in the parliament has been operating under the assumption that the ISPs are loyal to the legislation and don’t want to participate in breaking the law. If Tele2 takes this attitude and other operators follow, there will be a stronger law in the future,” he stated.

As if Danowsky’s self-proclaimed parliamentary status didn’t take enough time, he’s also having difficulties getting information about the ‘owner’ of an IP address in the first IPRED case.

Acting on a mission from five book publishers, Danowsky handed a request to a local court for information about the owner of an FTP-server where audio books were stored. Although it was a private FTP and the audio books couldn’t have been made available to the public, the court ordered the ISP Ephone to hand over the information of the person behind the IP-address. But Ephone refused.

“The evidence that the publishers have submitted is incomplete,” wrote Ephone’s lawyer in a response to the court. It mainly consisted of screenshots and log files, which Ephone says isn’t enough. Furthermore, they claim that releasing the information is contrary to the basic right for protection of an individual’s privacy. “For us, the level of evidence to disclose information on an IP-address must be very high,” said CEO Bo Wigstrande.

It’s good to see that ISPs are willing to stand up for the privacy their customers. In this they are backed by the European Parliament that spoke out in favor of amendment 138/46 of the Telecoms Package several times, stating that the right to privacy of Internet users may not be restricted without prior ruling by the judicial authorities.

Source: Swedish ISPs Obstruct New Anti-Piracy Legislation

Two men, both aged 29, are alleged to have shared copyright infringing files. The police seized their computers and other equipment in the city of Skövde, according to an Aftonbladet report.

Fredrik Ingblad, the prosecutor assigned to the case said in a response to the arrests, “The two people in Sweden are suspected of having been part of an international network that have made a large amount of movies available.” When the prosecutor refers to an ‘international network’ he means the Scene. So far he has provided no information on how many files were shared.

In addition to sharing copyrighted works, the two are also suspected of operating a so called ‘rip box’, a high powered computer where movies can be quickly decoded and ripped into the appropriate format.

The prosecutor further said that the case was part of an international police operation against illegal file-sharing, codenamed Operation Carbonite. The operation is headed by Europol and law enforcement agencies from the USA, UK, The Netherlands, Belgium and Sweden are involved.

The two were questioned at a local police station, but at this point it is not known how they responded to the accusations. They will be questioned further, and if IFPI operating manager Lars Gustafsson is to be believed, this is only one of many file-sharing related cases this year.

Source: Two Swedish File-Sharers Arrested

Now, a day after IPRED came into force, data from the Netnod Internet Exchange shows a significant drop of 30% in Swedish Internet traffic. This impressive figure seems to suggest that the amount of traffic generated by filesharing has dropped even more.

“Most experts (including more neutral ones) judge it as an initial scare effect that will wear off after a week or two,” Swedish Pirate Party Chairman Rick Falkvinge told TorrentFreak, adding “This is what disturbs me the most — that the industry thrives on scaring the common citizen.”

Scaring the public is what they do indeed, with Lars Gustafsson, operating manager of IFPI Sweden estimating that there will be at least 100 cases in court this year.

Henrik Pontén from Antipiratbyrån – the Swedish anti-piracy office – sees the traffic drop as an indication that the new law is working. “The majority of all Internet traffic is file-sharing. Because of that, there’s no other explanation for the decrease in traffic than the IPRED law,” he stated.

The traffic drop is indeed significant, but that doesn’t mean people have stopped sharing. In the past 24 hours 384,657 Swedes were connected to the Pirate Bay tracker alone. That is close to 5% of the Swedish population, and no less than before.

On top of that, many people are looking for ways to hide their identities online. Thousands of new customers have visited new anonymizing service mullvad.net. “It’s beyond all expectations,” said Fredrik Strömberg, one of the two owners. We’ve received e-mails from all kinds of people. Mothers in families, young people, older people, all kinds. And everyone is swearing at the copyright lobby. It’s not good PR for them.”

In a few weeks more details on the filesharing habits of Swedes will surface, so then we’ll know whether or not IPRED changed anything, apart from the annoyance levels of the public.

Source: Anti-Piracy Law Causes Drop in Swedish Internet Traffic

Many file-sharers already pay a few dollars each month for a VPN service. This type of facility allows the user to protect his Internet connection with encryption while “tunneling’ data in privacy through the servers of a VPN provider, usually located in another country. The user’s ISP-designated IP address remains hidden, revealing only a second IP address provided by his VPN company.

This type of service hinders outsiders from finding the identity of an individual behind an IP address, while helping Internet users effectively side-step laws which may prove inconvenient or unpalatable in their home country.

For those who like to share files, one country set to introduce an extremely unpalatable law is Sweden. Due to come into force in just over a week, the controversial Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive (IPRED) legislation will make it easier for copyright holders to get their hands on the personal details of suspected illicit file-sharers.

But not if the crew of The Pirate Bay have anything to do with it.

Timed to coincide with the introduction of IPRED on April 1st 2009, a brand new service designed to neutralize the effects of the law will be launched. Dubbed ‘IPREDATOR’, this brand new anonymity service from The Pirate Bay promises to make subscribers “more anonymous” than when using traditional VPN services.

Peter Sunde, aka brokep told TorrentFreak that the service is currently in beta and will be slowly opened to around 500 users. When those users are experiencing the service bug-free, it will be opened up to everyone.

Fortunately the service won’t be limited to just Swedish users. Brokep confirmed that anonymity will be available globally for a modest fee of around 5 euros ($6.77) per month.

The weak link in any VPN/anonymity service is always their willingness (or otherwise) to hand over your customer data when pressured under the law. However, with IPREDATOR this should not be an issue since the service is promising to keep no logs of user activity whatsoever.

Anyone who would like to participate in the beta should sign up here.

Stay tuned for further updates.

Source: Pirate Bay Announces IPREDATOR Global Anonymity Service

The law has been controversial from the start, with over 50,000 people signing up to the “Stop IPRED” group on Facebook. Swedish Pirate Party Chairman Rick Falkvinge has been most vocal on the issue.

“These laws are written by digital illiterates who behave like blindfolded, drunken elephants trumpeting about in an egg packaging facility,” he told TorrentFreak. “They have no idea how much damage they’re causing, because they lack today’s literacy: an understanding of how the Internet is reshaping the power structures at their core.”

Nevertheless, Sweden will go ahead with the introduction of the law and, as we predicted back in October last year, the objections to it continue. E24.se reports that a new poll from Sifo indicates that nearly half of all Swedes (48% of those questioned) believe that the IPRED law is wrong.

The group showing the strongest opposition are the typical file-sharers – 15-29 year old men – with a huge 79 percent of those rejecting the new law. In Sweden, 56 percent of men aged between 26 and 35 engage in file-sharing.

From the over 65 years old group, who will generally have less interest in the Internet, 27 percent of them were against IPRED, while 34 percent demonstrated support. The narrow 50-54 year olds group showed a 45 percent opposition to the law.

Overall, just 32 per cent of respondents were in favor of the legislation.

In response to the new law and the heated copyright debate, the National Library of Sweden has closed its open Wi-Fi network. They have thereby disabled online access to a lot of research material, which can now only be accessed upon request -just like in the olden days.

IPRED will come into effect April 1st 2009.

Source: Major Opposition to New Swedish Copyright Law

Now, according to a Dagbladet report, Minister for Justice Beatrice Ask will receive a report from the police this Friday, which will recommend that they should be able to investigate file-sharers whose actions would have previously only been punishable by a fine.

The proposed legislation, based on the controversial Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive (IPRED) we previously reported on, will give the police (and private companies) more power to go after individual file-sharers. It would also enable the police to find out who sent an email to who, along with details of telephone calls. The IPRED proposals, which have faced widespread opposition, aim to increase penalties and criminalize breaches of intellectual property law inside the EU.

The new law was already heavily opposed by Swedish Pirate Party Chairman Rick Falkvinge, who told TorrentFreak: “These laws are written by digital illiterates who behave like blindfolded, drunken elephants trumpeting about in an egg packaging facility. They have no idea how much damage they’re causing, because they lack today’s literacy: an understanding of how the Internet is reshaping the power structures at their core.”

Addressing fears that any legislation could be applied retroactively, i.e file-sharers could be pursued for previous breaches, Minister for Justice Beatrice Ask already asked for the deletion from the proposals of any such provisions. She further told Dagbladet that her ministry wont comment before they receive the interim report from the police on Friday. However, they are clear on one thing – there will definitely be new legislation.

Source: Sweden Considers Police Action Against File-Sharers

In recent times, the Pirate Party has been more concerned with government actions that affect ordinary citizens. The wiretapping law (FRA) for example, as well as the likes of IPRED, which will give companies chasing an alleged copyright infringer more powers than the police. Worrying for anyone that has followed our stories on Davenport Lyons in the UK. “If IPRED becomes law, then drug dealers will have greater rights and protection than file-sharers,” wrote one news site.

On Monday, the PiratPartiet released their list of candidates for the EU parliamentary election taking place in June. Heading the list is party vice-chairman Christian Engstrom, but the other 19 candidates cover a wide age-range and are of roughly equal gender. This is not a party dominated by geeky teenage boys, but one that’s growing quickly; the Swedish Pirate Party now has only a few hundred members less than the Green Party.

Other countries aren’t so lucky. Spain, Poland and France, are among those with parties that hope to run in the election, but are having difficulty getting supporters. “It’s a sad state of affairs globally,” says Andrew Norton, the coordinator of Pirate Party International. “Most countries have lots of people that just can’t be bothered. They will post on forums to express their anger, but not do anything worthwhile about it.”

However, in Sweden – the home of The Pirate Bay – things are getting better. In the prominent Swedish newspaper, Svenska Dagbladet, the headline reads “IPRED Favours the Pirate Party.” It goes on to comment on how directives like IPRED are driving people to the Pirate Party in Sweden, people who are concerned over both IPRED and FRA laws.

In their first election The Swedish Pirate Party gathered some 35,000 votes – roughly comparable to a leading 3rd party candidate in a US presidential election, percentage-wise. But, with the heavy public focus on these hot-topic issues, it’s entirely possible they’ll reach 100,000 – the number required in the last EU election in Sweden to get a seat.

The newspaper closed with a comment from political scientist and election researcher Henrik Oscarsson, who identified the Pirate Party as “a classic civil rights movement”. We have to wonder, does this make Brokep and Co. at the Pirate Bay, the digital Rosa Parks?

Source: Pirate Parties are “A Classic Civil Rights Movement”