Swiss IFPI claims p2p victory
p2p news / p2pnet: The IFPI’s (International Federation of the Phonographic Industr) Swiss arm says it’s all over for Swiss p2p users who download copyright protected works.
Or at least, that’s the final aim of their anti-piracy campaign, Game Over.
IFPI Switzerland claims it now has (semi-)professional p2p-infringers under control, there and the focus of its legal actions will now move to private infringers (Raubkopierer), concentrating on people who download the most, for starters.
The tactic is well-known: tracking down IP-addresses, warning users via Instant Messaging, offering settlements, starting civil lawsuits with fines between 3,000 and 10,000 Swiss Franks if no settlement is reached, and eventually threatening criminal lawsuits.
IFPI Switzerland says until now, it’s been trusting “on the principle of individual responsibility embodied in Switzerland,” but this didn’t lead to a respect for intellectual property, as it had hoped.
The projection of incumbent legal and socio-economic structures continues.
Until the game is over.
Rik Lambers – CoCo
[Lambers is a former researcher at the Institute for Information Law, Amsterdam, who's now in transition to a new full time job in the field of IP/Internet law. He's also an associate member of the European INDICARE project, which researches consumer issues related to DRM.]
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First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win
- Mohandas Gandhi
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 political representatives. 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.
November 17th, 2005 at 8:23 pm
Pro infringers are just using different methods.
November 18th, 2005 at 4:27 am
Doesn’t switzerland require it’s citizens to complete a year of military service? Doesn’t it also require every household to own and maintain at least one working firearm?
If so, i really doubt the wisdom of pissing off geeks with guns.
November 19th, 2005 at 10:37 am
3 months, and then 2 weeks every year of your life until you’re an old man.
Downloading still isn’t illegal in Switzerland, as far as I know.