p2pnet - rss feed: Swedish anti-P2P laws
p2pnet news | politics:- Sweden is fast achieving Most Favoured status with the entertainment cartels.
Proposals for new laws which would give copyright holders access to the identities of anyone suspected of sharing copyrighted music and movies online are high on the country’s political agenda.
“Musicians, filmmakers and other copyright holders will soon have the right to be told the identity of people who share their material online,” says The Local, going on, “The law would make it possible for copyright holders to file civil law suits against file sharers.”
As things stand, filesharing isn’t seen as “sufficiently serious to warrant the violation of people’s integrity,” says the story.
But Hollywood and the Big 4 record labels are determined to put an end to that sorry state of affairs.
According to the new proposal, “those wishing to find out information about file sharers will not even have to go via a prosecutor,” The Local goes on.
However, justice minister Beatrice Ask emphasises the proposal is so far just that: a proposal.
“I feel that to make this a matter for civil law could be better than making it a matter for [criminal] courts, which is the option currently available,” she’s quoted as stating. “But proportionality - that the rules should correspond to the seriousness of the act that has taken place - always applies. I will need to weigh various views when we present a final proposal,.”
Meanwhile, “I can see a danger that it will be abused. Somebody could fabricate evidence, something that would be hard for a court to detect as there would be nobody arguing against them - no other party disputing the release of personal information,” says Daniel Westman, a researcher in law and informatics at Stockholm University, in The Local.
“There is a risk that the law might be used for example to reveal the identities of people spreading unpalatable opinions over the internet,” said Westman.
But not to worry.
“Ask denied that the law could be used for unwarranted privacy invasions.”
Also See:
suspected of sharing - Sweden considers new copyright laws, July 10, 2007
The Local - File sharing law worries lawyers, July 24, 2007
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