p2pnet - rss feed: MPAA raids Iceland
p2pnet.net News:- Iceland has the highest computer literacy and highest Net access per household in the world (79% of homes were connected to the internet in December 2002).
Who says so? The MPA (owned by America’s MPAA - Motion Picture Association of America) or, rather, SMAIS, its Icelandic extension.
And why would the MPA(A) be interested in a tiny country with a total population of only around 280,000?
“[…] with the development of technology and high bandwidth, Iceland (like other Nordic countries) has foreseen a great threat of growing Internet piracy (mainly illegal downloads and file-sharing) and it is generating considerable alarm in the local audiovisual community,” says SMAIS.
“Due to this development, and others, SMAIS has dramatically increased its focus against internet piracy.”
All that Net access means downloads, and downloads mean not just music, but movies as well and that’s a job for the MPA(A) storm troopers, with local law officers as their unpaid helpers.
“Police in Iceland raided the homes of 12 people and confiscated computer equipment and CDs this week as the global war on file sharing reached the volcanic homeland of elves and trolls,” says a news brief in The Register. “Police targeted individuals using the popular DC++ file sharing application to share movie files. One suspect was found with approximately 2.5TB of allegedly illicit material.
“Within hours of the raids, net traffic in Iceland fell 40 per cent, according to SMAIS (Iceland’s association of film right holders), which filed the complaints which prompted police action.”.
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See:-
280,000 - Iceland, BBC h2g2
SMAIS - SMAIS (the Association of film right holders in Iceland)
volcanic homeland - Iceland’s net traffic plummets, following P2P raids, The Register, September 30, 2004
