The message from the Moderate Party MPs to their AntipiratbyrÃ¥n supporting colleagues was “be careful, they will never be satisfied”, drawing parallels to the earlier attempts to ban MP3 players, and VCRs, both areas in which, having failed to ban, industry groups are now making a profit from selling content.

Karl Sigfrid told TorrentFreak that the APB proposals make no practical sense. “I think it could be solved in theory. However, in reality, you would need such a surveillance system to achieve this that it would be all out of proportion. So I don’t think there’s a feasilbe way of stopping individuals copying. The cause for file sharing is basically that it’s possible. People have always done it to the extent that they’ve been able to. With cassette tapes 20 years ago and electronically today. Copyright laws preventing individuals from sharing information have never been legitimate in the eyes of most people.”

When asked about if it was down to content industries being slow to change their business practices, he replied: “It’s hard to say what would have happened if the content industries had been quicker releasing their material online, before the P2P networks grew mainstream. Probably the illegal filesharing would be less extensive, but it’s possible that it would still have been increasingly difficult for iTunes and such services to compete with free downloading. The change needed might be so radical that it’s no longer about selling copies of immaterial products at all.”

Rickard Falkvinge, of the Swedish Pirate Party was understandably upbeat about it. “Karl Sigfrid’s taking a stand marks a major turning point. For the first time, an established politician shows deep-down understanding of the real conflict, instead of cluelessly humming along with a technophobical luddite industry. Some other Swedish mainstream politicians have previously talked in terms of how it’s unreasonable to declare war on an entire generation. Sigfrid is the first to understand why.” His enthusiasm is understandable as, one Swedish torrent user put it “a bunch of members of The Conservative Party have started listening to the policies of The Pirate Party, and they want to jump on their bandwagon, as it’s gaining popularity”.

Gaining popularity it is, as yesterday, thirteen members of Parliament joined in another attack (Swedish only, no English translation at present) on the likes of the APB, and recording industries, saying “The record labels are obviously opposed to a development that makes them obsolete.” However, not everyone has been celebrating. Pirate Bay administrator Brokep was skeptical, saying “I’m intrigued that the debate is sparking up again. There’s been a lot of lies from the politicians. Promises and nothing has happened, so at least this will put the debate back on the map.”

The initial seven MPs were Karl Sigfrid. Margareta Cederfelt. Ulf Berg. Lena Asplund. Staffan Appelros. Lisbeth Grönfeldt Bergman and Göran Montan. Tuesdays additions were Marie Weibull Kornias,Finn Bengtsson, Ann-Charlotte Hammar Johnsson, Sven Yngve Persson, and Anders Hansson.

**UPDATE** Sorry, forgot to add this translation of the second piece, available here

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

When Part 1 was released, “The League of Noble Peers” asked downloaders to donate $1 (or more) if they wanted to support the project. Unsurprisingly, the vast majority donated just that. However, for the new release the majority donated $15 or more. Why? Well it could be that donators were motivated by a mystery gift they were offered when they gave more than $15, but there are alternative explanations as to why pirates may be more generous than people assume.

Jamie King, producer of the film gives the following explanation on his blog: “Over 90% of people donating are deciding to go over the artificial $15 threshold we set. But I don’t think people literally ‘want that gift’; I think they want an excuse to be generous!”

This could be true, the people who donate (still only a small percentage) are obviously dedicated to the cause, but there is more. It could also be that they donate more because they now don’t have an excuse to donate only $1, even pirates don’t want to look miserly. Most importantly perhaps, is that it shows that it can be wise to avoid psychological reactance, and leave the choice about what to donate or spend on a film or a music album up to the consumer. It is a challenge to build business models around free will and free content, but the Steal This Film project shows that there are opportunities.

Another interesting point raised by Jamie in his post is the need for alternative payment models. Sure, PayPal works but they take away too much money – it’s replacing one money sucking middleman with another. Take the Radiohead release for example, you could get the album virtually for free, but you still had to pay the credit card company nearly $1. This is probably why most people decided to pirate the album, instead of getting it for “free”. It seems that The Pirate Bay agrees on this, as they are working on a p2p based payment model that will probably be released by the and of this month.

TorrentFreak briefly talked to Brokep about this upcoming project a while ago, unfortunately we are not allowed to give you any more details, but it’s certainly an interesting project with a lot of potential. Brokep did reveal a bit on Jamie’s blog as he said: “I think that people will pay if there’s a simple solution. The payment solutions of today are not built for the new, network economy — they’re built around the old one. As we move away from the old economy, we’re here without a new payment solution.”

We will definitely keep you informed on this upcoming project. BitTorrent opens up possibilities for independent filmmakers. Distribution costs are now non-existent, and new business models are slowly starting to emerge. The future of film making looks bright and will be in part funded and formed by the innovators who were once called pirates.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

If it’s any consolation, The Pirate Bay is not alone in being blocked. In March, YouTube was banned for hosting videos that insulted the founder of modern Turkey. To the relief of many Turks, the ban only lasted two days, as Google promptly pulled down the videos. And last month, WordPress.com was blocked because some of its users were charged with defamation of a Turkish author.

The first we heard of the Pirate Bay block was two days ago, when Cenk, a long-time reader of TorrentFreak from Turkey, e-mailed in to let us know that The Pirate Bay was no longer accessible in his country. Cenk states that since last Monday, government has shut down all access to thepiratebay.org. However, the press has said nothing on the matter. “I did not hear about thepiratebay.org getting sued or anything and even there was no news on the newspaper or anywhere,” he wrote.

We asked the TPB guys if they knew anything about this. According to them, it has been blocked “for over a year.” They’re “not sure if it’s the whole country or just the major ISPs,” but “there was some court ruling over it.” That court ruling, we’ve discovered, has ordered Türk Telekom, Turkey’s largest ISP, to block The Pirate Bay, though why exactly is still unknown to both the site’s admins and users of the site in Turkey.

There is a comical irony to this all, given that Turkey is the home of some of the most famous real life pirates history has seen, those of the Barbary coast. One can only guess that they have yet to set sail in the intertubes.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

I seriously wonder how they came up with these numbers, since it is not that easy to track down the source of a camcorder recorded movie (they can) but like they say “it’s an estimate”. But it wouldn’t be the first time that the MPAA makes up their own stats to justify their doubtful actions.

The impressive figures inspired the MPAA and the NYPD to pay some extra attention to the whereabouts of these pirates. They even teamed up with the Office of Special Enforcement (OSE) to track down the pirate networks, and bring them to court.

And to complete the circle, the City of New York announced that they plan to introduce legislation to amend the penal law. Convicted pirates then will face jail time up to one year, and up to four years in prison, for previously convicted pirates.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Libraries

Yes, libraries! Libraries are evil, evil places. One single copy of a book, movie or music album is borrowed and abused by tens, if not hundreds of self-centred, ignorant pirates. Hell, they even have copiers in most libraries allowing pirates to copy every book on the shelves.

The nerdy book worm with no money, he shouldn’t be able to read (and copy) every book in existence for free right? But he can! “Mommy, I want to go to to the library,” he asks his mother innocently. “Of course son,” she replies, secretly happy that her son can get smart(er) for just the cost of transport.

But seriously.. what if...

Imagine if publishers and authors suddenly decide to shut down libraries because they don’t want people to have free access to the works they publish. Wouldn’t that be a shame?

Waitaminute, haven’t they already started that??

The biggest library of them all

Google. One word that can literally shape the meaning of online copyright. And it has. Google has been sued more times than a prominent pop singer from the 80s has grabbed his crotch. With the recent acquisition of YouTube, Google has taken on not just the most popular site on the Internet, but also the one with the most copyright violations.

Google Print, now rebranded as Google Book Search is an attempt to create the largest library on the face of the earth, err… Google Earth. If Google isn’t the worst of all evils, then who is? I mean, now even book worms from the so-called third world (the regions we’re trying to keep under control through the holy means of copyright) will now be able to pop open their $100 laptops and read to their hearts’ content.

How in the world are we supposed to stop this armageddon of evilness? There is only 1 way. We Sue.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Earlier this month a 29 year old man was fined $2200 for uploading a movie, but he was discharged by the appeal court because there was not enough evidence that the man actually uploaded the film from his computer.

It is unknown whether the convicted filesharers will appeal. They might have a case since these rulings often lack a sufficient amount of technical evidence.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

This Swedish election has been special in many ways. It was if though the parliamentary parties and the media outlets of Sweden decided to boycott all the parties that didn’t already have seats in the parliament. The media let virtually no space for smaller parties – debate articles were refused, press releases not printed and so on. The parliamentary parties were not willing to debate with the smaller parties. Even the Swedish election authorities did not make their numbers official until Wednesday, three days after the election.

Despite this, the smaller parties shared about 5.7% of the votes. This is nearly double compared to the last elections. Sweden is a country with high percentage of active voters – at peak years, close to 90% of the voters place their ballots. This year, this number was 81,5% – and everyone seems happy that at least it’s not as bad as last time, when less than 80% voted.

Unfortunately The Pirate Party is a typical example of a smaller party.

They are completely ignored by news and media outlets. The papers have more or less openly decided to shut out smaller parties. The debate articles weren’t published – I think the Metro newspaper went so far as to reply they didn’t view the Pirate Party as a party, but as a special interest group. The press releases have been ignored, and the party was good enough to be in the papers only if reporters have somehow sniffed a possible scoop – or scandal. The fact that a member left the Pirate Party to help a reality show pin-up with her personal campaign (the Unique party, which only had her name on the ballots) made news. That the Pirate Party had outgrown the Green Party (government party) did not.

It was shunned by the political establishment. A consensus has been reached to only accept governmental parties into the light. Probably this is a strategy to keep white supremacists out of the fine halls of debate, out of the TV studios, and out of having an accepted platform. But this also reflected badly on other smaller parties, such as the Pirate Party, who were not allowed in public debates, not allowed to put up one little election hut (an endearing Swedish tradition, where you build little huts or cots near malls and communication centers in towns and suburbs and large centers of the cities).

Despite this, the Pirate Party has thrived. It has now over 9 000 members, which is better than, as mentioned, the Green Party. The complete lack of funds, being virtually dependent on member charity and the RELAKKS cooperation, meant that the party had to rely completely on active members. Not only for printing and putting up posters or handing out flyers, but also to make sure there were ballot papers at all the polling stations. The Pirate Party succeeded in doing that. On almost every polling station there were ballot papers, not only on Election Day, but on all the several other locations where people could pre-vote, there were also ballot papers.

Come Election Day, many, many members stood outside the polling station for twelve hours, handing out ballot papers to people coming in. As did the seven major parties, only while their representatives was standing there for an hour or two, getting paid for their troubles while waiting to be substituted by someone else, Pirate Party members stood for hours expecting no one to relieve them and getting no payment for their troubles.

Despite this, the results were not as good as hoped for. As of now, the official result is 0.63%. As numbers go, everything but 1% must be seen as some sort of disappointment. The outcome was not what had been expected. For every member, there were about 3-4 voters. Suffice to say, the many members that had gathered on a restaurant in Stockholm didn’t cheer as much as might have been expected beforehand. Perhaps the winds did not blow so strongly into the sails of the Pirate ship as one might have expected.

But not everything in politics are numbers. There are also things to brag about.

In eight months the Pirate Party grew from nothing to 9 000 members, more members than one of the parliamentary parties. This is in a time where virtually every political party are together losing tens of thousands of members. Day in and day out newsspapers write that people are losing interest in party politics. However, even on Election Day the Pirate Party received some 100 new members, simply by handing out ballot papers.

In three months, Pirate Parties has started in fifteen countries. Socialist, liberal, conservative parties have sister parties in many countries. But these are networks that took years, even decades, to develop. For it to pop up in fifteen countries over one summer is unheard of in history.

So, the Pirate Party didn’t reach the 1% mark. This means they will not have their ballot papers placed for them at the next elections (to the European Parliament in three years). But the Pirate Party has proved that they can have their ballot papers out by their own means. And since they are still growing, chances are they have an easier time doing it then.

However, The Pirate Party had other triumphs. Together with the Pirate Bay raid and the work of Piratbyran and other groups and people, copyright issues are now a part of the political agenda. One of the major parties has placed some stress on it as part of their campaign. Most of the parties, both in the new government as well as the opposition, changed their views on copyright and come to the conclusion that a revision might not be such a bad idea after all. Seats or no seats, the Pirate Party has had a huge impact, this must not be forgotten.

Now starts a new phase in the Pirate Party – a phase where ideology will be strenghtened, where they will lend support and help to pirates in all countries, and where they build up their inner structure and look forward to the next election.

The ship is in the water. Now it’s up to the Pirate Party to Sail it!

Perhaps it is nice to give a little more detail on the results of the Swedish Elections, for those who are interested.

Close to 100 000 people turned in blank ballots, which means, something like, ‘I agree with the voting system, but I don’t care about any single political party.’ It would be like three million American voters choose to vote, but vote for nobody. ‘We like our system, but to us it doesn’t matter who the hell runs it – the difference is not big enough for us to care.’ Together, the small parties and the blank ballots come close to corresponding to the total increase in voting numbers. So, in reality, one can seriously question if this was at all any gain to the established parties.

There was a change in government. From the Socialist block, consisting of the Social Democrats, the Left (ex-communist) party and the Green Party that has been controlling the country, to the Alliance, that spans from liberals to mildly conservatives, in the three non-socialist parties. For the first time in forever, a non-socialist government will be installed when not in an economic crisis.

But, to be honest, one can question whether this Alliance are really the winners. Many, many of the blank votes, and most of the votes on smaller parties, can easily be deducted as protests against the Social Democrats, who, through decades and decades of power, have developed strong power bonds and, as being the ruling party, hosting most of Sweden’s political scandals, most of its personal gainers, snobs, magnates, cheaters. These votes weren’t so much pro-Alliance as anti-Social Democrats. Which is illustrated by the fact that the Moderates, being the largest of the Alliance parties, won back a little bit more than the support they had lost the last elections, the fact that the Center Party gained a very small number of seats, the fact that the Christian Democrats and the People’s Party the liberals both lost even if they were on the winning side. The Christian Democrats lost a third of their votes. The People’s Party lost almost half.

In the municipality of Stockholm, the Green Party, being the smallest of the parties in the ruling red-green coalition, is seen as the winner. They nearly doubled their votes compared to the last election. Good to mention is that they ran a fierce banner campaign on subways and busses propagating for re-legalizing file sharing. Ironically the Pirate Party has more members than they have.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

And of course the International Pirate Party Umbrella organization PP-International.

Piraten Partei

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Florian: When I first heard about the founding of the Swedish Pirate Party I thought “yeah, that’s a nice idea. The industry is running amok and politicians ignore us, so why not found a Pirate Party in Austria?” But founding a party is a rather big step, so I delayed my plans.

TorrentFreak: So what motivated you to start an Austrian Pirate party after all?

Florian: Somewhere around June, new news about the music industry’s sue-em-all campaign appeared: the industry started suing fans who put videos on youtube showing how they dance and sing to popular songs. This was the limit, the music industry showed that it has absolutely no respect for it’s customers. I always was skeptic about the “filesharing is killing music” campaign they did, but this proved it: it’s not about the music. The music industry just wants to sue the hell out of whoever it can. DAMN! Someone gotta stop em. And so we do.

TorrentFreak: So do you want to get everything for free, without paying creators of art?

Florian: No. we want artists to get paid! but the current copyright doesn’t
meet this requirement. Artists get exploited by big media companies, who in turn exploit customers.

TorrentFreak: So the system needs to change?

Florian: Yes, the copyright was introduced to “promote the progress of science and useful arts”, but this point has been completely lost nowadays. It degraded to a mere tool to lock our culture in a few hands (See the gatekeeper reference in courntey love’s article). The balance between the interests of publishers and consumers has been lost. The balance between the need to share and sustain culture (ie: works no longer sold, but which are still copyrighted, or the legal and technical problems libraries have nowadays) and the need to make profit is heavily skewed to one side. If we follow the path we’re on we’ll see the death of culture as we know it.

TorrentFreak: So what are the first steps you’re going to take?

Florian: First of all we’re doing whatever possible to participate in this years national election. In Austria you need 4% of the votes to get seats in parliament. Secondly, we are going to set up a website/forum, probably even an organization to focus on the lobbying work of NGOs in our main topics (copyright, privacy, patents).

The music industry in Austria spends a lot of workforce in lobbying to make people believe filesharing is evil. I think filesharing is the future of the music industry, especially for unknown artists and indie labels. They can reach millions of people without needing to bow to horrible major label contracts. I think that’s the _real_ reason why majo labels want to get rid of filesharing. We need to show artists and customers why the RIAA and its friends really want to abolish filesharing and private copies. I think we need a “pirate bureau” in each country ;)

TorrentFreak: How was the response in Austrian media?

Florian: The media response we got so far is wonderful. We got coverage
on big newspapers, websites, and radio shows.

TorrentFreak: And did you get any response from your political opponents?

Florian: The big parties haven’t reacted so far. They’re too busy driving their own “election
campaigns”.

TorrentFreak: How many members do you have at this point?

Florian: Not as much as the Swedes unfortunately. We’ve been officially founded just two weeks ago. We have 50 members so far and 150 people in our forum.

TorrentFreak: Are you planning to participate in the upcoming election? And are there any prerequisites?

Florian: Yes, our target is to participate in the upcoming elections. We need to collect 2600 signatures until October 25th. Unfortunately we only have around 100 so far. The way you have to collect those is quite complicated in Austria: people need to print out a form, take it to their municipal office, sign it in front of an appointee, show their id, then put it in an envelope and send it to us. It’s hell. But we’re working hard to get those signatures. Luckily we can also participate just in parts of austria. we’ve got 9 federal states, each requiring 100 to 500 signatures. It should at least be possible to gather the signatures in some of them.

TorrentFreak: Thanks and good luck.

Florian: You’re welcome

Austrian Pirate Party

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

We all know that “copyright holders” means “MPAA, RIAA and other anti-piracy groups”, that will claim their representing the copyright owners. So, in effect, if this bill is passed, Swedish legislation has given room for a situation where special interest groups can demand personal information from companies to conduct their own private investigations. So the new law will give the anti-piracy lobby more power, at least in Sweden. On the other hand, not far from Sweden, the Dutch anti-p2p organization BREIN recently lost a case where they demanded personal info about filesharing ip’s.

This new law would be in line with how Sweden has worked before. Last year, the police made a bust on a large Swedish ISP called Bahnhof, after an investigation from the Bureau of Anti-Piracy (a Swedish copyright owner interest group). The interest group filed a report almost immediately after the bust, indicating they had exclusive information from the prosecutor. The ISP then released all their logs, which indicated that it was the interest group that had hired a mole to use their computers to commit copyright crimes. Of course, this didn’t lead anywhere. And the Pirate Bay bust on May 31 should be proof that it did not discourage Swedish police and prosecutors to walk errands for copyright “representatives”.

But what frightens me is the prospect that this kind of behavior is getting legally sanctioned.

I made a translation of Linander’s blog entry and provide some further arguments on Piracy Unlimited.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.