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.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

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.

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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.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

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.”

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

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.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

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…

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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.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

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.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

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.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

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.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

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.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

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.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

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.

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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?

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.