Needless to say, for anybody reasonably knowledgeable about the downloading community, the notion that a sea change away from piracy had occurred earlier this year would seem highly implausible.  However, maybe Sweden was an isolated example, and the (likely) spread of such “graduated response” laws would ultimately lead to the first real downturn in file-trading since the heydays of Napster.  Sadly for the Economist and the entertainment industries, new evidence also came out on Friday that demonstrates just how misguided and premature any claims of victory over piracy really are. Enigmax at Torrentfreak cites a new report from Swedish Internet backbone Netnod, that shows there was indeed a very large dip in Internet usage overall in Sweden in April, as much as 30%.  Whether or not that decrease can be ascribed entirely to the change in law regarding downloading cannot be proven, but in any case, the latest figures show that the drop in Internet usage was wholly short-lived.  By the end of October, Swedish Internet traffic was completely back  to pre-April levels, and in fact, may well be even higher.  Has the initial scare over the harsher laws receded to the point that they are now being ignored?  On the other hand, seasonal effects have been noticed in file-sharing before, with decreases in summer months and increases in the fall corresponding with the return of young people to schools and universities, and that could be in play here as well.  In any case, if recording industry executives were about to start celebrating their long wished-for end to mass copyright infringement, they should put the champagne back on ice for the time being.

Much to the delight of free speech and copyright reform advocates everywhere, the Pirate Party UK (PPUK) has announced that it’s officially registered as a political party in that country and proves the Pirate Party’s growing international support.

“In recent years we have seen an unprecedented onslaught on the rights of the individual,” says the PPUK. “We are treated like criminals when we share entertainment digitally, even though this is just the modern equivalent of lending a book or a DVD to a friend. We look on helpless as our culture and heritage, so important for binding our society together, is eroded and privatised.”

The news comes on the heels of its wildly successful Pirate Party cousin in Sweden who recently managed to win 2 seats in the EU Parliament, and now boasts some 50,096 members making it the country’s 3rd largest.

PPUK main focus is to shape laws to “match the realities of life in the 21st century.”

Its 3 core policies are as follows:

1. The reform of Copyright and Patent Laws
2. The protection of our Right to Privacy
3. The protection of our Right to Freedom of Speech

It says it will remain neutral on all other issues outside of these three concerns.

“The internet has turned our world into a global village,” it adds. “Ideas can be shared at incredible speed, and at negligible cost. The benefits are plain to see, but as a result, many vested interests are threatened.”

“The old guard works hard to preserve their power and their privilege, so we must work hard for our freedom. The Pirate Party offers an alternative to the last century’s struggles between political left and political right. We are open to anyone and everyone who wants to live in a fair and open society.”

So why does the UK really need a Pirate Party? PPUK leader Andrew Robinson points out the fact that there are some 7 million file-sharers in the country and that the govt plans to fine them £50,000 ($82,520 USD) for copyright infringement is “ridiculous” given there’s no proof that its harming the creative content industry.

To buttress his point I might add that numerous studies have shown that file-sharing actually increases music consumption.

In fact, one of the music industry’s own economists says that revenue is actually up 4.7% since 2007.

Robinson would like to seer an exemption in copyright laws that allows for non-commercial use of people’s works.

“Our copyright law is horribly outdated and its skewed one way because all the lobbying is on the side of big businesses,” he says in an interview with PCPro. “This ties into our thoughts on patents. They’ve moved away from a way of encouraging invention to being a way for companies to lay claim to large areas of innovation.”

The European Anti-Piracy Association (AEPOC) is alarmed by the Pirate Party’s message, which it calls it “criminal at its core,” and says its success should serve as a “wake-up call for national governments and the European Commission to take a clear position on piracy matters.”

So it’s up to individuals to make sure that their voice is properly represented in the fight and demand meaningful copyright law reform.

Why is it so important? Christian Engström, newly elected member of the Swedish Pirate Party to the European Parliament, argues that it’s because copyright laws as they currently exist are slowly restricting our ability to communicate with one another online, and that furthermore, is eroding any sense of a “common cultural heritage.”

“Technology opens up possibilities; copyright law shuts them down,” he said in a op-ed posted last month.

“This was never the intent. Copyright was meant to encourage culture, not restrict it. This is reason enough for reform. But the current regime has even more damaging effects. In order to uphold copyright laws, governments are beginning to restrict our right to communicate with each other in private, without being monitored,” he continued.

The digital age has heralded an unprecedented era in which content can be transmitted to anywhere in the world in a matter of seconds and enrichen the lives of those with few physical alternatives.

Unfortunately, copyright laws were written largely in an analog world and have yet to adapt to the current realities of our time.

Let’s hope the UK’s new Pirate Party will help change that.

We have to do it one country at a time.

Stay tuned.

DOWNLOAD AND POST A PPUK POSTER TO SHOW YOUR SUPPORT

jared@zeropaid.com

“Let it not be done in silence!” Said one Blog poster by the name of Henrik Alexandersson. He offered a list of what is currently at stake:

• Enhanced cooperation between the EU and USA “in the field of freedom, security and justice”.
• National anti-terrorist center in all EU states, who will report to Brussels.
• All EU states must share their intelligence with all other member states.
• More and more effective, “data-mining”.
• Real time access to data on, for example, citizens’ travel, banking, mobile positions, internet use, and to fingerprint and portraits.
• Streamlined monitoring by active collection of citizens’ electronic footprints.
• EU standards of supervision.
• EU harmonization to remove legal barriers to surveillance and interception.
• Analysis at European level of material from national surveillance and mass interception.
• An expanded EU bureaucracy for monitoring, interception and analysis, known as SITC.

“As Emma raised through non-aligned Sweden,” Rick Falkvinge, founder of the Swedish Pirate Party commented on his blog, “it feels almost obscene to the Swedish capital city synonymous with a package whose purpose is to introduce a Bodström Samhälle beyond what was previously seen, and the elimination of legal civil rights protection for it.”

The Swedish Pirate Party website also notes that the protests will happen from July 15-17 at Humlegården, Stockholm.

While on the surface, it appears to just be “stopping the terrorists”, we should note that, in Europe, there’s been multiple attempts to use systems supposedly set in place to stop terrorism for the commercial interests of the copyright industry. Austrian newspapers wanted to use data retention to enforce copyright for one. For another, German publishers wanted to add RapidShare to the national blacklists. While it doesn’t appear that file-sharing related activities are even close to being in the Stockholm Program, it’s hard to deny that surveillance to enforce copyright is indirectly one step closer to becoming a reality thanks to this.

Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

Christian Engström, newly elected member of the Swedish Pirate Party to the European Parliament, has written an excellent op-ed article for the Financial Times criticizing the damage that copyright law enforcement is doing to the ability of individuals to freely communicate with one another, and that furthermore, is eroding any sense of a “common cultural heritage.”

“What we think of as our common cultural heritage is not ‘ours’ at all,” he observes by noting that one can’t watch or hear anything by our great musical icons like Elvis Presley without paying a fee. Artists like Presley comprise part of our very cultural fabric, defining a whole generation of people and influencing artists that follow.

It’s quite distasteful to think that copyright laws have been so warped that long after an artist dies, long after the need for artist compensation is necessary, society still must “pay to play.”

“Technology opens up possibilities; copyright law shuts them down,” he continues.

“This was never the intent. Copyright was meant to encourage culture, not restrict it. This is reason enough for reform. But the current regime has even more damaging effects. In order to uphold copyright laws, governments are beginning to restrict our right to communicate with each other in private, without being monitored.”

Exactly. Copyright law was written in an analog world so to speak, a world before the Internet and online communication, and fair use laws haven’t been appropriately strengthened since.

For section 107 of US copyright law specifies 4 factors in determining whether or not a particular use is fair:

1. The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes
2. The nature of the copyrighted work
3. The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole
4. The effect of the use upon the potential market for, or value of, the copyrighted work

Copyright law was really meant to govern commercial use of copyrighted material not noncommercial, and so has resulted in a de facto state of affairs where copyright holders simply argue that posting copyrighted material without authorization isn’t protected by fair use, that it negatively effects the “potential market for” and “value of” it.

When it comes to illegal file-sharing, Engström notes that the only way too fight it is to inspect every byte of data as it’s transferred between individuals.

“Even if the authorities closed down all other possibilities, people could still send copyrighted files as attachments to e-mails or through private networks,” he writes. “If people start doing that, should we give the government the right to monitor all mail and all encrypted networks? Whenever there are ways of communicating in private, they will be used to share copyrighted material.”

This is a thought that should send shudders through all with it’s right to privacy and free speech ramifications.

“If you want to stop people doing this, you must remove the right to communicate in private,” continues Engström “There is no other option. Society has to make a choice.”

That choice is being made as we speak with copyright holders working overtime to enact “three-strikes” and data filtering legislation around the globe.

“The technology could be used to create a Big Brother society beyond our nightmares, where governments and corporations monitor every detail of our lives,” he says. “In the former East Germany, the government needed tens of thousands of employees to keep track of the citizens using typewriters, pencils and index cards. Today a computer can do the same thing a million times faster, at the push of a button. There are many politicians who want to push that button.”

Engström says that we must embrace file-sharing technology because it encourages cultural and civic participation, turning people from “passive consumers” who are fed information into people who actually share it with others, “collaborating on a journey into the future.”

The real point here is that copyright laws have yet to catch up with our online world, and until it does our online freedom truly is as “threatened” as Engstrom says, specially if deep-pocketd copyright holders succeed in updating it for us vis a vis “three-strikes” and other draconian measures.

jared@zeropaid.com

The Swedish Performing Rights Society (STIM), whose job it is to “protect the interests of authors and publishers of music in Sweden,” has sent letters to over 2900 companies in Sweden demanding compensation for their allowing employees to listen to music during work hours.

“Perhaps someone has the radio on or is listening to a CD and if so, you need to have a permit that allows for music to be played the workplace,” said Susanne Bodin, a STIM spokesperson, to the Sweden-based DN newspaper. “A workplace isn’t private and therefore you should have a licence for music to be played so that the copyright holders get paid.”

The issue first arose after STIM sent a letter to the County Council in Stockholm demanding 25,000 kronor ($3,141 USD) in order to allow its 500 employees to listen to music at work. It then asked the Govt Offices of Sweden if the fees were proper.

“According to the legal investigation I carried out, it seems appropriate that these fees are paid, but we still want a response from the Government Offices as to whether you pay these fees yourself,” says State Provincial Office lawyer Annika Kleen in a letter to the Cabinet Office.

According STIM, all companies and organizations with more than 40 employees must pay a licensing fee if employees listen to music on a CD player or PC that can be heard by others.

“It is part of our mission to find these companies so that our clients, music generators, get paid,” says Bodin. “We would have preferred that the situation is the reverse: that companies and organizations contacted us, but it is difficult to know of all that need licenses.”

So what of businesses that say they employees aren’t listening to music? Will there be surprise workplace inspections?

“We obviously can not force anyone to pay if they say they are not listening to music,” adds Bodin.

It follows a similar effort in other countries like Australia, where music licensing bodies are even targeting gyms, cafes, restaurants, and other places where people hear music as a group.

One of the founders of The Pirate Bay suggested that one could buy a share in The Pirate Bay, but were people buying shares a little too early? That’s what Aktietorget is trying to find out after the stocks for the buyer, Global Gaming Factory, went up before the announcement of the acquisition.

All this is according to Swedish news site, The Swedish Wire. There were comments that if the sale didn’t go through, then the site would then revert back to the original owners. From the report:

“There are reasons to suspect that information was leaked”, said Peter Gönczi, executive vice president at Aktietorget, to business daily Dagens Industri.

Consequently, Peter Gönczi will start an investigation to see if the trading rules have been despoiled.

If the acquisition is completed, Aktietorget might start a further investigation since The Pirate Bay is suspected of committing criminal actions. In April Stockholm’s district court sentenced Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm, Peter Sunde and Carl Lundström each to a year in jail and ordered them to pay damages of 30 million kronor (€2.72 million, $3.56 million dollars) to the movie and recording industry. The verdict has been appealed to a higher court.

“Aktietorget wants to make sure that the companies that are traded on the list are managing legitimate businesses”, Peter Gönczi said to Dagens Industri.

Here’s an interesting question in all of this. What if the sale was halted and the infamous BitTorrent website was reverted back to the owners? Certainly, this would pose as an interesting problem for the founders on the PR front. Users already know that the admins intended on selling the site – something that didn’t sit well for many users. All this is on top of the legal implications of the site since the admins did say that they intended on filing charges against the Swedish legal system in the European Court of Human Rights right before the sale. This was the result of a three judge panel deciding that the admins cannot appeal the decision that the original judge wasn’t biased.

One thing is for sure, this latest tangle could dramatically complicate things for the admins of The Pirate Bay. Not really something an exhausted team would want at this point in time.

Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

There are no shortage of Swedish citizens irate over what happened with the admins of The Pirate Bay during the “spectrial”. Even though the admins cannot appeal the judicial review that decided that the judge in the Pirate Bay spectrial was not biased, the story is far from over at this point in time. It seems that a debate has re-emerged where many key players in the Swedish justice system are debating whether organization affiliations should be questioned prior to a case. It’s interesting to know that this debate isn’t new, and the high profile case has re-energized that debate.

While the debate is going on, the admins of The Pirate Bay are currently considering pressing charges against Sweden in the European court of Human Rights.

“And it should also be noted that Anders Eka,” The Pirate Bay wrote in their blog, “the guy with the final decision that is not appealable, heads in an immaterial rights organisation as Peter Drowsky and Monique Wasted, the MPAA and Ifpi-lawyers. However, he does not feel that working together with the lawyers that enjoys this decision the most has an impact on his decision or that he might be biased himself…”

“Tomorrow,” they added, “we will probably file charges against the swedish legal system to the european court of human rights.”

One admin from The Pirate Bay said at one point that he simply Googled the judges for their affiliations and found them to be affiliated with pro-copyright organizations within minutes.

We haven’t yet found any formal documents that suggest that charges have been filed yet.

Still, while the trial of the Pirate Bay admins is a high profile case, that isn’t the only one fuelling anger. Another key case in the copyright debate in Sweden is also making some waves as well. According to The Local, publishers have recently tested the new anti-filesharing law by demanding that customer information be handed over from the ISP. Ephone resisted, so the Publishers took the issue to court and got the Swedish court to force the ISP to divulge the information.

Having the legal means to force an ISP to divulge customer information via an IP-address is a key step in the waves of lawsuits seen in the United States (which has seen over 35,000 lawsuits against alleged file-sharers) If that weren’t possible, the United States would not have seen all these lawsuits against file-sharers in the first place. It’s unclear whether or not waves as seen in the United States or Britain will be seen in Sweden, but this case suggests that it is now possible to sue alleged file-sharers en-mass in Sweden now.

Two court cases later and now the whole Swedish justice system is now under the gun by many. Imagine what would happen if more file-sharers receive legal threats.

Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

The timing of the Iranian political turmoil couldn’t have been more peculiar. Many countries around the world have, at the same time, pushed for tougher surveillance or censorship laws. The 18th certainly contained news stories that would more than likely irk thousands of internet savvy users. TOR, in essence is for anyone wanting to protect their identity while on the internet from prying eyes including controlling governments. It begs the question, will the Pirate Party’s newly launched TOR nodes be used by mainly Iranians hoping to exercise free speech or by those fearing their government has thrown basic civil rights out the window in first world countries under the false claim of fighting terrorism?

Canada has already tabled legislation that would make warrantless ISP-level surveillance mandatory. Meanwhile, Germany is currently mulling mandatory DNS blacklist. In Finland, talking about the blacklist contents has seemingly become a criminal activity. Meanwhile, in the United States, sharing music online, regardless of what those songs could really be, could land you a nearly $2 million fine. All that on top of the fresh US allegations where the NSA was accused of improperly wiretapping possibly “millions” of Americans beyond the scope of the current wiretapping laws. Even Britain has opted to try port blocking, ISP blacklisting, protocol blocking and much more purely for the sake of reducing “internet piracy” by “70%”.

Many might look at the Russian police chief’s comment that internet anonymity should be abolished and say how ridiculous and draconian his comments. Yet after looking at todays news, one has to wonder exactly who in power secretly agrees with him on the international stage.

Then, on the day where all of this is going down, we have the Pirate Party that was once seen as the little political party that could to the political party that might to the major force that did after winning a seat in the European parliament – two once the Lisbon treaty is ratified. When news broke that Iranians are questioning the outcome of their own election and the government is using oppressive measures to quell civil dissatisfaction, the Pirate Party chose to launch two TOR nodes and a proxy server, saying that freedom of communication is global. While clearly pointed at Iranian dissidents, one wonders if the anonymous service offered by the political party one politician mistakenly labelled as rapists will eventually be used by people in supposedly free countries.

The world hasn’t gone completely big brother yet, but it certainly is taking steps in that direction where unnecessary surveillance is sold as being “in the publics interest”. Government mandated censorship already has a history of being abused and only a few countries have implemented such laws in question. One can easily look at “the Great Firewall of China” and criticize the Chinese government for using the blacklists as a means to suppress free speech. Similar criticisms can be made for Thailands infamous crimes of spreading mis-information about the king. Yet, here we are today, still living in countries that supposedly would never legislate our freedoms away, yet we have a long list of “western” and “westernized” countries pulling precisely the same stunts that have earned China the scorn from countries like the United States. Websites from political websites all the way down to dental clinics are being targeted by government mandated censors. “Of course these censorship tactics do little more than fight the horrific crimes seen on the internet! That’s what they are meant to do!” supporters would say. Unfortunately, actual practise says otherwise.

Maybe this will all somehow go away in the woodwork. Maybe a certain amount of civil disobedience and uprisings will make politicians think twice on this legislation. It certainly worked in Canada when the Liberal government tabled lawful access legislation before. Still, what if we won’t be so lucky this time around? Failing letter campaigns, petitions, protests and pro-civil rights lobbying, what then? Maybe then, we’ll have to look at the Chinese free speech movement not as a tragic tale of a government gone power mad, but rather as a lesson looking forward into the future. Maybe we can learn from Chinese civil dissidents as we survive government’s “protecting” us from the harms of an evil wild west internet that bring out psychopaths bent on targeting your children and “enemies of copyright”.

Of course, a dreaded future that sees such things happening hasn’t actually fully materialized yet even though governments have repeatedly said that they plan on going down this slippery slope into a butchering of civil rights. The war isn’t over yet. Far from it. In fact, it would have a long way to go before it was over. More people would rely on proxies and anonymous servers located in countries that have yet to consider legislation that would either blacklist websites or simply monitor every single web communication you have made. Plenty of governments could enact such legislation and civil disobedience would still exist. Sound familiar? It should to the file-sharing debate watchers. That whack-a-mole campaign that has frustrated the copyright industry for over a decade now. It’ll be an identical problem for the government hoping to block out or issue surveillance on suspected terrorism – thus highlighting the utter futility, once again, of controlling the internet.

In the mean time, we can all hope we won’t eventually be led to a Chinese-like internet controlled by a non-Chinese government – heaven forbid the US government unveils two cartoon police officers ready to tell us when we’ve connected to an unauthorized website. We can only hope that people who know a thing or two about the internet will prevail in bringing an inkling of sanity to the debates instead of having people like former car salesmen who like to think they know everything about the internet be the only voices in all of this. We can only that the last resort proxies set up by the Pirate Party won’t be necessary to enjoy a free internet tomorrow. We can only hope things will be as they were 3 years ago 10 years from now. We can only hope for better days ahead while governments spread their all-knowing and controlling tentacles deeper and deeper into the wonders that is the internet. We can only hope that resistance that dares to discuss free speech on the internet on sidewalks actually get their message across. We can only hope because this internet thing is great, sure would be a shame if something were to, eh, happen to it!

Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

Swedish news site, The Local discussed the issue, but if you want a link to a Google translation to the posting that sparked the controversy, you can read it here.

In the posting, Qarlsson suggested that a statistic shows that young men are more likely to be rapists. She then notes that a large number of Pirate Party supporters who are concerned about privacy are young men. She then made the unfortunate connection that there might be a connection there. Notably absent was the difference between privacy online and offline. About 162 comments later, she apologized for being unclear with her comment (Google Translation) and said that both men and women would be upset if their privacy was violated.

For a number of users, there were still tensions even after the apology though. One user wrote, “apology not accepted, you do not express yourself like that. As Joppa wrote “You are a disgrace to the Center Party and I hope that this leads to your position in doubt.”

“It counts as defamation with what you wrote, but some but thanks for your post soon so than men go and defame groups and then apologize for it and still get away with it.” The user added.

Another user wrote, “I think you should get a serious think about what you want to do with your life. It is not responsible to seize on a Parliamentary seat when you have such severe psychological problems that you have. Resign. Take a break. You hurt not only your party but the entire faith in democracy which, despite everything, still exist in this country.”

“So you accuse not Piratpartiet, but you still accusing the young men? We, young men take not away from rape? Or how should I interpret your post?” A third user writes.

What makes this a strange conflict that it’s pitting two groups against each other who sometimes fight for similar human rights. Both feminists and file-sharers don’t want to be targeted by malicious activity. Qarlsson does admit herself that women would find it equally distasteful to having their privacy violated. Surely women would find it just as troubling to finding their internet connections cut off based on baseless accusations. Still, what this is more likely to be was an incident where one particular individual making a comment that didn’t seem to be completely thought through – consequently receiving a backlash as a result given her status.

Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

There’s a surprising report from The Local which could put new meaning into “Press Your Luck”. The article says that two prosecutors last year were appointed to investigate copyright infringement claims which includes file-sharing related issues. After being frustrated with how slowly the cases were moving along, 15 more officials have been appointed to help investigate copyright infringement cases which, of course, includes online copyright infringement online through file-sharing. We attempted to look for the original SvD article The Local referred to, but we could only find this article (Google translation) which seems to look at underlying infrastructure and argue that the success of the Pirate Party was the result of policies made by past politics.

Already in the country, a poll was conducted nationally and showed that if an election were held today, The Pirate Party would win multiple seats. It seems puzzling that such a thing is happening now, but of course, as we’ve observed during the raid on The Pirate Bay several years ago, that police business is suppose to be conducted separately from political business. Still, the raids proved that this isn’t always happening in practise. So, in that light, it’s not easy to tell if this is a political move or purely a move made by Swedish police.

We don’t know every political thing that has happened in Sweden. However, we can extrapolate possible political scenarios based on what has happened in other political systems to conjure up, well, a guess as to what is going on here if politics is involved.

Whenever something political happens, either it gets replayed and splashed in the media for weeks on end, making the issue not go away. Either that or the situation seems to be an idle curiosity for the media for a day or so before it gets swept under the rug, increasing the likelihood that it’ll be forgotten in the public conscious.

We already know that the United States is heavily involved in the political affairs of Sweden on issues related to copyright – just look at the Special 301 report or the whole Pirate Bay raid and the politics behind it to name two examples of this. Since the current Swedish governing party seems to be on side with the United States on matters surrounding copyright, one might assume that the matters of copyright would go away sooner rather than later.

Unfortunately for those who hoped that the matters would go away, the explosion in media attention surrounding the Pirate Bay trial helped thrust one Pirate Party member into the European Parliament. The next election isn’t until 2010, leaving over a year between then and now for the political backlash to ensue.

This sort of thing leads one to hypothesize that maybe the government is hoping the issues would be taken care of now and a new issue would arise in Sweden that would divert attention away from copyright related issues that have, so far, angered so many Swedes in the first place. Then, when election time hits, different matters would be on the table and take away from the momentum from the Pirate Party.

So, if this hypothesis has any elements of truth, getting all these draconian moves out of the way now actually makes political sense at this point. So, the American friendly agenda could be pushed here for the next little while.

Still, it’s not hard to find Swedes who are angered by moves like this. Looking in the comment section of the news story certainly shows this.

“It is so nice to hear news like this that Sweden is listening to its American overlords and going after these bad bad people. You see,” one user writes, “with the price of gas and the markets down, “US” rich overlords need your weak SEK to pay for our yachts & our Mexican servants and such.”

“This is ridiculous,” another user writes, “insane, ludicrous , and a complete abomination, they do not have resources to protect people from crime and to investigate things that really matter such as paedophiles, rapists, the mafia, drug dealers, illegal immigration and their own officials or politicians charging personal items to the tax payers, and they will add resource to go after my baby sitter or my the kids in the neighbourhood, for downloading the latest Titney spears cd?”

Another user wrote, “We pay taxes, let´s write to the politicians and [...], in a nice civilized manner we can tell him how we feel. This is poor use of precious resources, the will only benefit big studio executhiefs!”

It isn’t impossible to suspect that issues regarding human rights, as defined by the European Union, issues like this won’t go away easily especially when the issues keep getting inflamed like this.

Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.