The Pirate Bay and Filesharers Backed by Swedish Politicians
Written by Ernesto on February 09, 2008Two weeks ago we reported on Greens EFA launching the pro-filesharing campaign “I Wouldn’t Steal“. With new editorials in Swedish newspapers coinciding with The Pirate Bay’s charges, it seems the Green Party is looking to push the issue forward, thereby supporting The Pirate Bay.
In recent years, the Swedish Green Party, which holds 19 seats in parliament, has taken a clear stance on filesharing. Following the raid on The Pirate Bay in 2006, the party board released a memo entitled “Free the files!” in which they suggested to fully legalize non-commercial filesharing.
When asked about the purpose of the memo in 2006, party spokesperson Peter Eriksson said: “Our aim is to make laws in line with the new technologies. The other option is to pretend that you can go on like you always have, although it’s practically impossible. Reality has changed.”
One of the driving forces behind the recent “I Wouldn’t Steal” campaign from the European Green parties was the Swedish politician Carl Schlyter, and his initiative seems to have spurred others in the party to join the debate. Earlier this week, an editorial was published in two local Swedish newspapers. It was titled “Filesharing is not theft” and was written by Akko Karlsson, member of the Swedish Green Party’s executive board.
In the editorial, Akko argued that filesharing can’t be compared to theft, as theft is when someone takes away the possibility for another person to use something, whereas filesharing only creates a new copy without erasing the original.
“For me, this is a generation issue,” said Akko Karlsson when TorrentFreak asked her why she decided to write the editorial. “You should always endorse the new technologies’ possibilities.”
In her editorial, Akko criticizes the entertainment industry’s failing to enter the information age with working business models:
“You could argue that filesharing hinders some people from earning as much money as they would have if filesharing was not possible. But now it is possible, the technology is there, and then the industry needs to find new ways of handling it. They’ve had the chance to work on new ways for 10 years but haven’t come up with much else than silly trailers that say filesharing is theft. [...] When new technology emerges, it’s not necessarily it that must be adapted to the old ways. Sometimes, the industry itself must adapt.”
Akko further told TorrentFreak that she’s convinced that filesharing, copyright and integrity will be important issues for Green Party in the 2009 elections for the European Parliament and the 2010 elections in Sweden.
“Because there is also the democratic aspect of this,” she says, “There are so many people under repressive regimes for whom filesharing and the Internet is the link to the rest of the world that inspires, gives hope and makes it endurable to fight for human rights and democracy. The state’s control system is expanding. We used to heavily criticize the intrusions of privacy and control systems in place behind the Iron Curtain, but now we are building this ourselves.”
In Swedish old media, there’s currently a heated argument against filesharing, with novelists like Liza Marklund and Jan Guillou using every inch of their weekly columns in Swedish newspapers to lobby for tougher measures. With the trial against The Pirate Bay coming up, the debate has sunk even deeper in the trenches. In this climate, for politicians to step up to the plate with sound arguments why filesharing should be legalized seems like a bold move.
But Akko Karlsson is not alone.
On January 31, an editorial was published in Gothenburg’s daily newspaper. It was written by Green Party’s Lage Rahm, member of Parliament, party spokesperson on IT issues and substitute member on The Committee on Industry and Trade. On the subject of the ongoing case against The Pirate Bay, he called for reason when it comes to impose tougher measures on filesharing:
“Not only is the struggle [to end illegal filesharing] doomed to fail, it also creates a risk that filesharing on the Internet becomes anonymized and encrypted. An increased availability of untraceable networks will make it harder to fight organized crime.”
As an example, Lage Rahm put forward the bust of a pedophile ring with more than 700 suspects in 33 countries last year. This was done by tracking chatrooms, downloaded photos and e-mail.
“Most people realize that the police and copyright interest groups are fighting against windmills. [...] Convicting sentences against The Pirate Bay would have merely marginal effects on the scope of illegal filesharing. More severe is that the hunt will lead to an increased interest for absolute anonymity among Sweden’s approximately 1 million filesharers. Their activity will move to untraceable darknets.”
He focused on the dangers of Internet communities going underground and concluded:
“New technologies mean we as legislators are faced with an entirely new reality. Tougher measures against filesharing means risking the police’s possibilities of fighting child pornography and organized crime. It is worrying that the Minister of Justice doesn’t seem to realize this. For The Green Party, this is one of the main arguments of legalizing non-commercial downloading. [...] The Minister of Justice should leave to the industry to clear up the mess they have made for themselves. Judicial resources should be diverted to fight severe online criminality instead of hunting filesharing sixteen-year-olds.”
So, what does this all mean for the European filesharer? Well, one thing is sure, political parties that actually have power are taking a pro-filesharing stance. A sign that things are moving forward, slowly, but in the right direction.
Previously: TorrentFreedom Offers 100% Anonymous and Unrestricted BitTorrent
Next: Mininova Launches Music Torrent Streaming
63 Responses
Pages: « 1 [2] 3 » Show All
This is obviously a war that will never end.. the pirates will always have the edge over the industry and it will be a never ending thing.. I honestly doubt that political support for timesharing will ever be evident in the US, but its nice to see that perhaps somewhere, there is a safe heaven for these servers to be kept.
I hope this “other model” you guys hypothesize will cover independent game developers. Otherwise the only way to make money from making games in the future will be in-game advertising, as is done in some Flash games.
Hang In There The Pirate Bay
What are you talking about? As far as I know, game developers get an obscene amount of money from console developers to get these games to their console exclusively for a period of time. If game developers can’t get an income from creating games the consoles will perish as well. Console developers will there for pay game developers to create games for their console or pay for rights to these games so that they ensure their own existence.
Its inevitable that someone is going to throw in a “won’t someone please think of the children” argument on this issue. Canadian politicians have already made the same ignorant claims. Fear mongering in an effort to gain control of the net ‘for our own safety’ isn’t going to work this time unless the elderly and right wing neo-cons vote in record numbers, votes are illegally tabulated and the mainstream media suppresses the facts (well crap). Seriously, I think that a good portion of society knows better then to hand the net over to a bunch of politicians with arts degrees who claim to know whats best for everyone. I think we know who’s getting the better end of the deal with this kind of legislation when we can easily follow the dotted lines between politicians and corporations. If the feds and corps take control of the net it’ll be prohibition and the drug war redux; university students will go to jail for sharing a photocopied textbook and creeps will still be out there raping babies. Nothing will have been done to curb supply and demand by policing the logistics of said illicit product and harshly punishing those who are deemed violators.
at least some politicians think right…..unlike in my country……
HAIL HITLER!
oops, wrong guy
HAIL BUSH!
great article. Akko speaks with real clarity
wtf has this to do with TPB? nothing
filesharing has always been supported in Sweden, no news there
“Most people realize that the police and copyright interest groups are fighting against windmills. […]
http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/tilting-at-windmills.html
I wrote some software. I gave it away for free.
What did I get out of the deal? A great resume. Some great jobs. Some name recognition. The benefits just keep rolling in.
This model works for the small projects (one song, one program, one art piece). Maybe not so well for bigger projects like games and movies, but it could be extended in ways to do that. Make a toy-ific (word from the industry meaning it sells a lot of toys) movie, make money on the toys, let people share the movie for free. Same with games. All games and movies could be toy-ific and gadget-ific. Music has concerts. Software has upsells, services, and other stuff. Figure it out people. Sharing is the future. Find new ways to make your money, like I did.
[quote comment="285537"][quote comment="285283"]I’m bored with all of this, what is the ultimate goal here? to make piracy legal, to decriminalize it? Sweden is cool and progressive and all, but what are they actually trying to say about piracy and intellectual property? This isn’t weed we’re talking about here, where legalisation would eliminate much organised crime, and generate taxes to build roads and shit, and also actually GIVE people jobs…
If we take away SOME form of prosecution for piracy, and have politicians supporting it in their campaigns then there really is going to be no way for artists, musicians, novelists and film makers to make a friggin’ dime… or do we want everything to be permeated with aggressive advertising?
I just don’t see where this is going? I mean I steal shit, I know I do, and I will as long as I can. If they do find a way to clamp down on bittorrent, then us pirates, will find another way to steal our shit… but we still need the majority of lemmings to keep going to virgin and HMV and itunes.com to pay so people can eat…
Just my 2 cents…[/quote]
Filesharing is much more than just stealing stuff and getting free shit. It’s a movement. Oh, and people will still be paid. I just downloaded a Disturbed Album and loved it. I’m going to see one of their concerts in the summer now. Would I have found their music otherwise? Hell no! I wouldnt waste $20 on some group i dont know. I wouldnt waste $20 period! I get the music online for free, and if i like, i go to a show and buy some of their crappy tshirts. thats a much greater business model, rather than paying $20 everytime i want a change in my music. oh, and for every album you buy, the artist will be lucky if he/she sees even 5 pennies.[/quote]
My point exactly, only a few centuries ago, wondering minstrels were musicians who wnadered from town to town and played every night for food and lodging… But no-adays thats not conducive to having kids, and sending them to college, so a decent living has to be expected. I agree that true artists will make their art no matter what the cost to them, but we as a society should work to change that model… Thats why I listen watch fr free, and then support by going to show or buying the DVD. But fact remains that most of the stuff I download I am stealing with no intention of ever contributing to it in any way…. So I am a thief, and I do belong to the file sharing movement.
BTW, no one has addressed my question about how Starbucks got their grubby mits on the Radiohead album that Radiohead themselves have distributed for free, and Starbucks are now selling for 14.99… (In the US)… is that legal???!!!
Long live, TPB
there is an akko in the article, and we all know there is an axxo somewhere… ok, maybe im saying nonsense…
The Greens are going to piss all over these promises come election year when they will do anything to maintain influence with the socialist party.
You guys are hilarious. I file share, but at least I know what I’m doing is wrong.
You think you’re “stickin it to the man” when you file share. You think the money comes out of execs pockets or movie stars, I don’t think so. It comes out of the labor-type positions and it raises prices for everyone who acquires it legally. Have you looked at any demographic studies of P2P file sharing? It’s not starving Cambodians who are downloading movies, it’s rich kids with broadband internet access.
I hate to tell you this guys but what we do is leverage our access to advanced technologies in order to fuck over people who generally have less than we do. We fuck over all of the normal people who have jobs related to entertainment. (The execs and stars are the people in food chain least effected by what we do. It pisses em off to be sure, but all-in-all they don’t bare the brunt of the lost revenue.) We fuck over people who don’t have access to a hip new high-tech way to steal their content, or people who realize that it takes a lot of effort from a lot of people to make the shit, so they don’t steal it on principle.
You guys act like you’re heroes saving the world one key stroke at a time. We’re common thieves, all of us. At least I’m willing to admit it.
I’m not a thief, i share files not steal them.
I would vote for them.
For the record, the norwegian political party “venstre” (liberal party) have been officially supporting legalisation of file sharing for about a year already.
On contrary to the swedish Green Party, Venstre is a main stream party which until recently shared the goverment power with the concervatives, the farmer party and the christian party for about 13 years, and so it is not a nutty left or right wing party.
http://www.uv.no/arkiv/pressemeldinger/liberal-party-advocates-legal-file-sharing
Oops, that should be 9 years, not 13. Anyway.
[quote comment="285283"]I’m bored with all of this, what is the ultimate goal here? to make piracy legal, to decriminalize it? Sweden is cool and progressive and all, but what are they actually trying to say about piracy and intellectual property? This isn’t weed we’re talking about here, where legalisation would eliminate much organised crime, and generate taxes to build roads and shit, and also actually GIVE people jobs…
If we take away SOME form of prosecution for piracy, and have politicians supporting it in their campaigns then there really is going to be no way for artists, musicians, novelists and film makers to make a friggin’ dime… or do we want everything to be permeated with aggressive advertising?
I just don’t see where this is going? I mean I steal shit, I know I do, and I will as long as I can. If they do find a way to clamp down on bittorrent, then us pirates, will find another way to steal our shit… but we still need the majority of lemmings to keep going to virgin and HMV and itunes.com to pay so people can eat…
Just my 2 cents…[/quote]
well said and I agree with you. I think, that Piracy will be a cat and mouse chase between mpaa (etc.) against the filesharers. and it should remain like that. although all the pirate-supporting news sites are giving the impression that piracy wont put musicans out of job most of us know thats not the case.
until now theres still a majority who buy music from stores (itunes etc.) but if piracy comes legal also they will move to pirate bay and then the artists are out of job.
Movie industry is different. new blu-ray full hd videos and the future ultra-full-hd-videos are way too big to be shared in the net so I will buy blu-rays from store with 20€ rather than downloading that 50gb from net over 1 month…
Pretty sure none of these Greens ever tried to be a working musician, producer or run a label of any size (same probably applies to film/video as well).
Those of you who think every entertainer should have a day job, news flash: most of them do. Those of you who think that everyone running a record label is a wearing nice suits and jetting around? We’re not. And if you think that all entertainers should set out a begging bowl (donation button), ask yourself if you would work only for donations. As a way to get rewarded for a hobby maybe its OK, but if you’ve spent time training yourself, building your skill and reputation, would you act like a beggar in the street shaking a cup for spare change? I sure as heck wont.
Oh and to all of you who “share” files, may I ask where you got those files to begin with?
[quote comment="287393"]Pretty sure none of these Greens ever tried to be a working musician, producer or run a label of any size (same probably applies to film/video as well).
Those of you who think every entertainer should have a day job, news flash: most of them do. Those of you who think that everyone running a record label is a wearing nice suits and jetting around? We’re not. And if you think that all entertainers should set out a begging bowl (donation button), ask yourself if you would work only for donations. As a way to get rewarded for a hobby maybe its OK, but if you’ve spent time training yourself, building your skill and reputation, would you act like a beggar in the street shaking a cup for spare change? I sure as heck wont.
Oh and to all of you who “share” files, may I ask where you got those files to begin with?[/quote]
Bingo!!! Well said!
4 references to this post
Pages: « 1 [2] 3 » Show All
Responses are closed
All remaining responses will continue to be archived. Use the TorrentFreak forums if you want to discuss something.