p2pnet.net news:- Files shared don’t equal massive sales losses to the corporate music industry. Period. End of story.

However, confirming that money, political clout and lobbying, and not justice, are what count around the world, an appeals court has upheld Sweden’s first conviction for sharing music files online, says The Local.

“The ruling confirms the punishment handed down by BorÃ¥s District Court in October,” says the story. “The man had appealed his conviction, while the prosecutor had demanded he be given a suspended prison sentence. The original verdict in the case was the first concerning file sharing of music. Pro-file sharing advocates at welcomed Tuesday’s ruling.”

The Pirate Party, standing for the legalisation of file-sharing, says the decision is a victory.

“The court is confirming that file sharing is punishable by fines,” The Local has PiratbyrÃ¥n’s Tobias Andersson saying. “This means that the police are not permitted to demand details of the addresses behind IP addresses and cannot carry out house searches.”

Small-scale file sharers are immune, he says adding, “I believe that the industry will slowly but surely come to realise that this is a pretty fruitless tactic.”

But Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s IFPI (International Federation of Phonographic Industry) is claiming it as a definite win for Big Music.

“The verdict only concerns four songs and it costs the one sentenced about 20,000 crowns in fines - that is 5,000 (about $891) crowns per song,” the IFPI said, acording to Reuters.

And it’s all part of a “carrot-and-stick approach by the industry”, which is pushing cases against file sharers, at the same time promoting so-called “legal” music services, adds the story.

Slashdot it!

Also See:
The Local - Fine for filesharer ‘puts stop to police action’, June 12, 2007
Reuters - Swedish court upholds file-sharing conviction, June 12, 2007

If your Net access is blocked by government restrictions, try Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto’s Munk Centre for International Studies. Go here for the official download, and here for details. And if you’re Chinese and you’re looking for a way to access independent Internet news sources, try Freegate, the DIT program written to help Chinese citizens circumvent web site blocking outside of China. Download it here.

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Tired of being treated like a criminal? They depend on you, not the other way around. Don’t buy their ‘product’. Do bug your local politicians. Use emails, snail-mail, phone calls, faxes, IM, stop them in the street, blog. And if you’re into organizing, organize petitions, organize demonstrations and then turn up on your local political rep’s doorstep, making sure you’ve contacted your local tv/radio station/newspaper in advance. Don’t just complain. Do something!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 13th, 2007 at 7:02 am and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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