The Brand New Pirate Party of Finland on File-Sharing
Written by enigmax on August 21, 2009A working group at Finland’s Ministry of Education believes that it can reduce piracy by sending warnings to alleged file-sharers. This week saw the official registration of Finland’s Pirate Party, so TorrentFreak caught up with their spokesman Kaj Sotala for a more detailed look at the proposals and file-sharing in general in the country.
Earlier this week reports surfaced that a working group at Finland’s Ministry of Education is considering the possibility of delivering warnings to the screens of suspected illicit file-sharers, via their ISPs.
At the moment it is only possible to discover the identities of alleged file-sharers through legal action or via the police, therefore implementing the system would require amendments to Finland’s data protection laws.
As reported on our sister-site FreakBits, Finland’s brand new Pirate Party was officially registered this week, so we took the opportunity to catch up with party spokesman Kaj Sotala for his thoughts on these proposals.
Kaj told us that the original memo (.pdf, Finnish) actually constitutes a blow against the copyright lobby.
“In the introduction/summary, it is stated that the currently existing legislation is sufficient, and already makes it possible to act against unauthorized file-sharing. While they do suggest a new procedure, whereby ISPs would begin issuing warnings to people participating in file-sharing, they are not certain if this is actually necessary. They emphasize that anything along those lines would require careful consideration as well as a balancing between the interests of copyright, privacy, and secrecy of correspondence,” he explained.
Like most countries, Finland currently has plenty of legislation which rights holders can call upon in the case of copyright disputes and, if they approach the court with evidence of breaches of a “considerable degree”, they can get an order for ISPs to hand over the alleged infringer’s identity.
Rights holders then have several options – offer up charges, settle out of court (pay up or else) or report the alleged offenses to the police. If the rights owner goes down the civil route, the court can threaten to fine an individual if he fails to stop his activity.
“The court may also order the defendant’s ISP to block the sharing of the illicit material, by whatever means the ISP finds appropriate,” Kaj explains. “This usually requires that the defendant has failed to obey a request to stop sharing, but can also be done immediately and without hearing the defendant, if the court deems that severe economic damage will result otherwise.”
If the rights holder goes down the criminal route, it is up to the police to decide if the offenses are serious enough to pursue. If they are, the police can order an ISP to hand over customer details. The potential for punishment under current laws could be a fine or a jail sentence of up to two years.
“There is also a DMCA-like procedure by which the rights holder can request a website host to take down infringing content. However, it’s more restricted than the DMCA, as the rights holder is required to first contact the person who put up the content and request him to voluntarily take it down. The website host can only be contacted if the infringer does not comply, or if they cannot be identified,” Kaj told TorrentFreak.
In 2008, rights holders made use of current legislation by successfully persuading courts to force ISPs to hand over the personal information of fifty alleged file-sharers. The memo indicated that more strict measures aren’t really necessary as the current ones are sufficient, although Kaj explained that there was an emphasis to follow developments closely.
The suggestion that warnings could be flashed up on the screens of alleged file-sharers is considered to be a milder alternative to legal action, and Kaj explained to us how it might work.
First off the rights holder would send a warning to the ISP, which it would then pass to the alleged infringer, but already there is a problem – there would be a need for changes in the law to operate such a system.
“Currently existing laws concerning secrecy of correspondence do not allow an ISP to connect messages sent over their networks with individual users for this purpose,” Kaj explained.
According to the proposal, rights holders would be required to pay for the system – Kaj told TorrentFreak that it is hoped that this would help reduce the number of frivolous warnings and notes that the memo speculates that this “could be combined into a gradual process, where file-sharers are initially warned to cease sharing, and only brought to court if they fail to adhere to the warnings.”
The memo concludes by noting no changes to the current system are needed at this time, saying it is premature to consider such a warning system, or any changes in the law to accommodate it.
Previously: BREIN Not Impressed With New Pirate Bay Plans
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40 Responses
If my ISP started giving me MAFIAA pop-ups telling me to quit filesharing they would never receive another cent from me. I would bail in a heartbeat, thats just messed up. I’d feel less violated if their goons showed up at my door i think.
“According to the proposal, rights holders would be required to pay for the system”
I bet that got the bitches whining… they went everyone else to do the work on other peoples money and sit back and wait for bags of money to fall in their laps.
I think the MAFIAA popups are a good idea, as you get the first one of those you can know you are being monitored and its time to switch to a VPN solution…
@eZee: lol good point. Explains why Kaj seems positive to the idea.
But still…MAFIAA pop-ups *shudder*
It sound good that the MPAA should pay for the ISP’s extra work whit that.
But as it is, was an will be, the MPAA will surly play’s there mussels again and force the government to implement this service they need, and than force the ISP to bill this one on there oven cost again.
And in the end it will be the user that will pay for this implement, because the ISP will raise the access cost for there’s costumers.
Because this has already happened when the military /government have forced the ISP’s of every country to Log and store (minimum half year) every traffic on there networks (Internet and Mobile) in the name of Anti-Terrorist plan 9/11 crap.
How would they get the software on your PC required to send you notices to your screen? Will this software be open source and cross platform? You can’t just popup a message to someone anymore (well most people block that Windows Messaging Service now).
@ SoUHmmm
nahh that is easy to make.
the ISP can force your browser to start up (only when you start your browser by you self) on the ISP’s oven page
sorry forgot the rest of the message:
@ SoUHmmm
nahh that is easy to make.
the ISP can force your browser to start up (only when you start your browser by you self) on the ISP’s oven page, by redirecting the first HTTP request of your browser.
and after the message was displayed then your browser make a cookie whit an time stamp that is maybe only an hour valid or till you next time restart your PC
I have some hope my government (I am Finnish) will have a backbone and refuse MAFIAA bullying. Around here we still believe the gvt is for the people!
F stands for free, I stands for inventive, N stands for non-conformist. ;)
Finnish Pirate Party Chairman Pasi Palmulehto said the party would call for “a reform of copyright laws, protecting privacy and freedom of speech as well as transparency in politics.”
http://www.swedishwire.com/politics/776-pirate-party-swashbuckles-into-finnish-politics-
lol. this is all so messed up :P
A Canadian ISP is currently injecting content into a browser session showing usage or telling you your over your limit:
Article:
Rogers Again Injects Web Pages With Its Own Content
Friday June 26, 2009
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/4083/125/
Tbh, i’d welcome them to my house before i’d welcome a popup, i have a nice fence, plenty of warning signs and 2 very grouchy Rottweilers (not had a salesman knock on my door in 3 years).
Aug 21, 2009 at 16:35 by bewbiegirl
LOL @bewbiegirl I don’t think this is the right place to post that kind of info.
I lived in Finland but moved norway this year. Finland is world fifth place in police nation comparision.
1. China 2. USA 3. UK 4. France 5. Finland.
But Finland is fast moving to be world most police nation. Finland and Finland copyright laws sucks so much :(
6. Italy 7. NL 8. Japan 9. Australia 10. new zealend
top 10 countries which are most police nations in world = copyright nations.
“Explains why Kaj seems positive to the idea.”
I’m not really positive to the idea – I was merely reporting what the memo in question said.
I live in Sweden and in Finland situtation is very bad. Copyright lobby make new laws and most peoples and goverment agree anything. Lex Karpela and Lex Nokia laws http://www.wikipedia.org makes Finland near best police nation in world.
Copyright lobby owns all politicians and parties in Finland. Most amazing is finnish people attitude they simply do nothing only whine in internet how bad situation. They do nothing to change things. Next move finnish copyright lobby is planning to make law “3 strikes” Which France was first planing to use.
Finland is one of to worst countries. Peoples there are whiners and cowards and they accept any new laws what MAFIAA make. Also finnish pirate party is joke, because they can not debate in TV very well and dressing is like poor man. Also pirate party in Finland is not very active not much members and finns simply don’t have fighting mental. Bad country.
You should shut up Peter S_U_N_D_E. You did earn millions with illegal things but you are fully right of course :(
I hope finns take my critic as creative and positive way and stand up for fight. They should use their “SISU” and become more active and fight. Less whining and less coward things. Much more action!!!
How many countries have Pirate parties now… it must be the only or at least biggest polical movement in the world technically.
@basement dweller:
I’m a big fan of free Finnish electronica so perhaps I have some Finnish in me and my people of long ago are communicating with me…
“Of modern nationalities, Finns are closest to Cro-Magnons in terms of anthropological measurements.”
– Wikip.
Ok well perhaps not. ;D
Best wishes on your new party.
@21
thats funny…i would have guessed people of a different ethnic origin before i guessed finns
come on everyone knows the finnish are from outer space
Well you didn’t even stop FRA law in Sweden. Nuff said.
If we don’t have sisu, then why the hell did we form pirate Party in the first place? to sit back and get corrupted? Hell no.
We’re fighting, but we’re not high profile enough to get to the news yet.
And the political landscape starts to change little by little and maybe in the future sympathetic ears and pockets will not be available anymore to the industry :)
The suggestion of on-screen warnings appears to be completely separate from the notification process. Shoving the memo through Google gives me only ‘notification by e-mail or paper letter.’ HTTP hijacking is fraught with difficulties and is no way to notify an ISP account holder that a rights holder has made an accusation of copyright infringement.
I believe what’s being proposed is the hijacking of pages on file-sharing websites to include a generic warning that, if you proceed, you might be committing copyright infringement. I don’t know if the idea is to put a warning message on the homepage or every page of sites such as The Pirate Bay and RapidShare, or only for specific URLs where a rights holder has made a complaint.
Allowing such warning messages would require a fundamental shift in legal thinking. The change in legislation would have to allow the systematic interception and manipulation of web traffic for a purpose other than essential network management. Things like ‘confidentiality of communications’ and ‘mere conduit’ would go out the window. This is exactly the sort of egregious spying that the various Pirate Parties are deeply concerned about. It would be the start of a very slippery slope.
Check this out; this is too cool and so appropriate (kind of brings a tear to my eye):
“The Man from Earth is a 2007 science fiction film… The movie gained recognition in part for being widely distributed through Internet peer-to-peer networks and its producer publicly thanked users of these networks for this.”
…
“The film tells a story of John Oldman, a man claiming to be a Cro-Magnon… who still survives after 14,000 years… the film is an intellectual discourse between the alleged 14,000-year-old Cro-Magnon and his professor and teacher friends at his farewell party.”
– Wikip.
“…the adult female found at the shelter had survived for some time with a skull fracture. As these injuries would be life threatening even today, this suggests that Cro-Magnons believed in community support and took care of each others’ injuries.”
:.) . .
See also
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wreck
“Star Wreck is a series of Finnish Star Trek parody movies started by Samuli Torssonen in 1992… All Star Wreck films are available for free download and viewing online. They are offered under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs-NonCommercials licence.”
Big hugs to Finland from Canada.
Canada has many of the methods Finland uses currently.. Yet the RIAA (CRIA)\MPAA still want to turn us into a DMCA laden country with no power.. It’s so not cool..
I wonder how they would deal with encrypted traffic to show messages LoL
Oh wow, seems pretty reasonable to me dude!
RT
http://www.web-tools.us.tc
Some info from a Finn.
Fact is that no-one is going to sit 2 years for copyright crimes. Every sentence given from copyright infringement have been conditional discharge of few months, so it is easy here.
If the MAFIAA will try to go with the civil way, they will only gain few euros. Usually people have to pay only around 3000 euros for thousands of files, which is nothing for a finn, as the average monthly paycheck is around the same amount.
85% of the people under 20 have downloaded illegal material (and fully knowing it is illegal), and 65% do it regularly. All of our parties youth organizations are also against these reforms, so future looks bright.
32@ Too much lies to cover ugly truth about Finland and desperate
action to make own country look better. All who believe what 32@ say should read this.
“Imprisonment pirate server, the administrator of the Seinäjoki Finland district court
Seinäjoki Finland District Court sentenced on Friday, 5.6.2009 34-year-old man for one year and two-month conditional jail sentence.
Copyright violation, the man was sentenced to pay the right of copyright holders under the imputation of compensation of 76 654 €. In addition, damages and legal costs came to pay a total of 9 492 €. Direct Connect -hubia (DC-hubi). The man was set up and maintained a data network Härmän Häjyt called Direct Connect hubia (DC-Hub).”
http://translate.google.fi/translate?prev=hp&hl=fi&js=y&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.antipiracy.fi%2Fajankohtaista%2F%3Fid%3D177&sl=fi&tl=en&history_state0=
Like Peter Sunde said here in above comments. I can not agree more about Finland and finns.
We are talking about your country finns. So you start insult us that we did not stop FRA and other nonsense. We are talking about Finland not Sweden!
Finns always try cover and hide their dirty asses by insulting others or trying translate debate to other topics. Exactly what most finns which above topics. When digging deep more shit can found in Finland copyright system.
“Previously, in 2006, the Turku District Court sentenced the BitTorrent protocol used Finreactor Service Administrators of copyright violations and fines of more than 500 000 euros compensation.”
http://translate.google.fi/translate?prev=hp&hl=fi&js=y&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.antipiracy.fi%2Fajankohtaista%2F%3Fid%3D177&sl=fi&tl=en&history_state0=
Like Peter Sunde said above comments ugly truth comes out about finns and Finland. Why try hide and lie finns? You think we swedish are stupid that we don’t know about your country. We know more about your corrupted and shit copyright laws than you think. We don’t want your shit copyright laws in our country. That is what Finland copyright MAFIAA is trying to do lobby same laws to us. GTFO!
So who gives a damn about that s**tty country anyways? It’s worse than a russian anyways so why should we care? If they don’t have balls to defend theyr own rights, then so be it. They don’t need any rights since they’re not willing to defend them anyways. As a matter of fact, they don’t DESERVE any rights unless theyre actually willing earn them.
Seriously, guys. Any decent country can go to hell in a handbasket.
No group has a monopoly on corruption.
That’s why it’s important to be hard, sharp, wise and fast enough to deal with it when it rears its ugly head. And it will, it will, over and over again.
“Give me back my broken night
my mirrored room, my secret life
it’s lonely here,
there’s no one left to torture
Give me absolute control
over every living soul
And lie beside me, baby,
that’s an order!
Give me crack and anal sex
Take the only tree that’s left
and stuff it up the hole
in your culture
Give me back the Berlin wall
give me Stalin and St Paul
I’ve seen the future, brother:
it is murder…
I’ve seen the nations rise and fall
I’ve heard their stories, heard them all
but love’s the only engine of survival…”
Clip from ‘The Future’,
By Leonard Cohen
Why don’t you dig up something that involves only DOWNLOADING, not hosting a site/hub/server? Because in those cases people will never go to jail, they don’t even get conditional sentences.
Even those who keep servers get only around few months conditional jail sentences, while in Sweden they get 1 full year(TPB) and millions of euros.
Uploaders and Downloaders get only small fines (3000~ euros), and as we are much wealthier than our western neighbours, it is peanuts for regular finn.
Oh, and is your name really Peter? I thought the most popular name in Sweden is Muhammed? So what do we get next from you, TheJihadBay? Soon you fools will have Sharia-laws, and then we see who is laughing.
Holy fuck this was a fun read. Yes I am a finn and yes I will be bashing some people in this post but not like you might think.
First off @Peter: Our country is far from perfect but so is yours. Sure Lex Nokia and Lex Karpela got voted in but there are so many computer and internet illiterates in our government that it is shameful. Only 1 person know what the fuck he is talking about. But don’t think we just stood there and did nothing about it. We had protests and petitions and whatnot but it didn’t work. I hope that someday, someone with half a brain will look at those laws and wipe their asses with them and throw them away.
And as of your response to #32: For a single person to go to jail it has to be a server he is operating. No one will do jail time for downloading some songs. Besides if they try we can always argue that we have paid the cartels tons of cash on blank media levies for decades.
And what the fuck has dressing to do with anything? Cowards and whiners? Really? C’mon man.
Next up @Erik Andresson: We didn’t start the name calling. We responded to accusations made by Peter. And as to the story of Finreactor. They were again running a server with warez. Not single downloaders but a server. Besides like I told Peter we tried to stop the legislation from passing but were shit outta luck because of idiots in parliment.
@35: Really? That’s the best that you came up with? Worse than Russia. Well at least we have some sort of freedom of speech here. Journalists don’t get shot for writing articles.
And all i have to say is to hell with this country. Finns may have “Sisu” to fight, it’s a shame that the majority (read:majority) are to stupid to determine for themselves what is worth fighting for.
Lex Nokia, FRA, ACTA, 3-Strikes etc. The pattern is global and everybody should wake up.
PS. As a finn i assume it is my duty to diss Sweden so here goes. * off Sverige!
Really? hard to believe.i heard this news times from many friends playing on a tall dating site ___kisscougar. com___,i did not believe, i think that they are know nothing but dating and love.
i am wrong.
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