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Swedish Authorities Disconnects FileSharing as a Religion

Drew Wilson — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 11:47:38 +0000

Filesharing is certainly widely practised. People certainly do share files religiously. FileSharing is a regular part of people's lives. Does that make filesharing a religion though? Apparently not as far as Swedish authorities are concerned.

We recently found out that there is an apparent movement in Sweden to declare filesharing as a religion. The religion is apparently known as Kopimism and even has its own website. The website contains the following to describe the belief system:

All knowledge to all
The search for knowledge is sacred
The circulation of knowledge is sacred
The act of copying is sacred.

It also contains the following comments:

Throughout history, various groups around the world have been persecuted by oppressors. It has since taken refuge in religion and wanted a peaceful coexistence. Without threats and harassment. In our belief, communication is sacred. Communication needs to be respected. It is a direct sin to monitor and eavesdrop on people. The absolute secrecy is holy in the church of kopimism. In the individual pastoral care and confession with the kopimist priests (the Ops), priests are protected under Swedish law by an absolute professional secrecy. Copyright Religion is our absolute opposite – Ongoing obstruction of copying.

Sound convincing? Apparently, not to Swedish authorities. According to UPI, Swedish officials were not convinced enough to allow filesharing as a religion. From the report:

Swedish officials ruled against a Swedish group's attempt to have Internet file sharing classified as an act of religious worship. The Swedish Legal, Financial and Administrative Services Agency rejected the attempt by the Pirate Party of Uppsala to have their information copying and spreading activities registered as a religious faith known as The Missionary Church of Kopimism, The Local reported Thursday. The church's name came from the "Kopimi" -- pronounced "copy me" -- logo placed on the Web sites of people who are willing to have the contained information copied.

This wouldn't be the first time Swedish authorities rejected a rather unusual request for recognition of a church. Last year, Swedish authorities rejected a bid to have the Church of Orgasm be recognized as an official religion. 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 Court Fines File-Sharer $7 per Song

Jared Moya — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 11:54:19 +0000

Convicted for illegally sharing 33 copyright songs, serving as a stark reminder of how US verdicts, with a fine of $62,500 per song in the case of Jammie Thomas, are out of tune with reality.

A 26yo Swedish file-sharer convicted for violating that country's copyright laws has been handed a 2,000 SEK ($307 USD) fine for illegally sharing 33 copyrighted songs, a figure much more reasonable than he would've faced in the US. "Swedish courts may be slowly coming to their senses regarding noncommercial violations of the copyright monopoly," says Swedish Pirate Party founder Rick Falkvinge. Jammie Thomas, the first person to ever go to trial for illegal file-sharing in the US, faces a $1.5 million fine for illegally sharing just 24 songs. Though reduced from an initial $1.92 million, the figure is still just as impossible for the single mother to afford. In August of 2009 Joel Tenenbaum was found guilty of copyright infringement for illegally distributing 30 copyrighted songs, and fined $22,500 p/work for a grand total of $675,000. It has since been reduced to $67,500, or $12,500 per song, but he calls the amount “equally insane.” “Sixty-seven-and-half thousand dollars only sounds reasonable because it was so much before,” he said. The convicted Swedish file-sharer has to pay out just $7 per song. "The verdict is in stark contrast to the political verdict in the Pirate Bay trial, where four people were sentenced to long prison sentences and paying €3,500,000 for merely aiding in possibly sharing 33 works," says Falkvinge. "The Pirate Bay verdict has been appealed and is on its way to the Swedish Supreme Court and possibly the European Court of Justice. But then again, they were not judged for aiding and abetting, they were judged for talking back. That trial was political from day one and was a travesty on justice." He says that with a couple more verdicts like this one that perhaps the country can put some of its copyright laws in "history's junkyard" where they belong. Stay tuned. jared@zeropaid.com

Swedish ISP to Route Traffic Through VPN to Fight Data Law

Jared Moya — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 17:32:09 +0000

Swedish ISP Bahnhof plans to anonymize customer traffic to protect them for legislation requiring fixed and mobile telephone companies and ISPs to retain user traffic and location data for a period of six months to comply with the European Union's Data Retention Directive.

Swedish ISP Bahnhof says it will soon route all customer traffic through a VPN service in order to circumvent legislation intended to implement the European Union's Data Retention Directive. The Directive requires fixed and mobile telephone companies and ISPs to retain user traffic and location data for a period of six to twenty-four months in order to facilitate "the investigation, detection and prosecution of serious crime." Sweden plans to impose the minimum data retention requirement of 6 months. 'In our case, we plan to let our traffic go through a VPN service," says Jon Karlung, president of Bahnhof. He says the ISP plans to make the law as "toothless" as possible. Anonymizing user traffic will mean very little data, if any at all, will be useful to law enforcement investigations. "Technically, this is a stealth section, we will store all data up to this point of invisibility," he added. " What happens after that is not our responsibility and is outside the Bahnhof. So the only thing we are going to store is very little information in practice will be irrelevant." Karlung says he's all for investigating and prosecuting criminals like pedophiles and murders, but that it shouldn't be done by collecting and storing data from everyone in the process. It must be based on "individual cases" where there is reason for suspicion. Customers can opt out of the free VPN service and get their data stored for 50 SEK ($7.3 USD) p/mo if they want, but I can't imagine too many takers on the offer.

WikiLeaks: Sweden Anti-Piracy Law “Doing Little” to Fight P2P

Jared Moya — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 19:02:36 +0000

Cable reveals that IPRED legislation "might be doing little to stop the problem of illegal file-sharing" since many are now using VPN services and other means to mask their IP addresses.

It was back in February of last year that the Swedish govt passed legislation based on the European Union's Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive (IPRED), and thanks to WikiLeaks we finally have the govt's opinion on its effectiveness. The legislation was intended to made it easier for police to go after illegal file-sharers, lifting the requirement that they can only pursue those that have committed crimes severe enough to merit 2 or more years of prison time, but as it turns out, Swedish police complain IPRED has made more their job "more difficult," not less. "Swedish Police Enforcement officials are complaining that implementation of the IPRED has made it more difficult to solve crimes," reads the cable. "Swedish Internet Service Providers are saving user information related to IP-numbers for a shorter period of time following the IPRED legislation." A number of ISPs began lowering their data retention times to the shortest allowed under the law so as to minimize their customers' exposure to copyright infringement claims. The best unintended consequence of IPRED is that many opted to begin masking their IP addresses so as to avoid the scrutiny of law enforcement officials. "Also, as previously reported (Ref A) the IPRED legislation might be doing little to stop the problem of illegal file-sharing as internet users now are using services which allow them to hide their IP-addresses," it continues. Shortly after IPRED took effect Swedish BitTorrent tracker site The Pirate Bay launched the IPREDator VPN service. For a little less than $7 bucks a month the VPN service anonymizes a a subscriber’s IP address. The service has been hugely popular, and is just one of the many VPN services that exist. It was pointed out earlier this year that despite the controversial IPRED law, Swedish file-sharing is on the rise, and that it's only targeted 3 people so far and not the 800 or more the govt had anticipated. “IPRED-law has not had the impact that someone in mind, no matter which side you are on,” said Marcin de Kaminski, a founder of the Swedish Bureau of Piracy, at the time." It seems the Swedish police would agree. No matter what kind of anti-piracy roadblocks govt's attempt to put in place to combat online copyright infringement file-sharers will always evolve and adapt, and this WikiLeaks cable proves that fact. Stay tuned. jared@zeropaid.com

Swedish Pirate Party Agrees to Host WikiLeaks Servers

Jared Moya — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 00:57:58 +0000

Moves to shield whistleblower site from pressure over its decision to release some 76,000 classified US documents concerning the war in Afghanistan, as well as strengthen its ability to disclose controversial material in the future.

The Swedish Pirate Party continues to make waves with news that it signed an agreement to begin hosting whistleblower site WikiLeaks servers. "The contribution of WikiLeaks is tremendously important to the entire world," says Rick Falkvinge, leader of the Pirate Party, in a statement. "We desire to contribute to any effort that increases transparency and accountability of power in the world." The Pirate Party will begin providing free bandwidth to the site much as it has already done for Swedish BitTorrent tracker site The Pirate Bay. "This is one of our signatures," adds Falkvinge. "We don’t just talk. We act. Using our own resources and time, we help change the world rather than pass the buck, commission reports, and avoid responsibility like other politicians." WikiLeaks has been at the center of a media firestorm over the past few weeks for its decision to release some 76,000 classified US documents concerning the war in Afghanistan. "We welcome the help provided by the Pirate Party," says Julian Assange, spokesperson for WikiLeaks. "Our organisations share many values and I am looking forward to future ways we can help each other improve the world." It claims to have another 15,000, "more sensitive," documents to release in the coming weeks once it has a chance to vet them and remove names of Afghans assisting coalition troops, something it failed to do the first time around and for which it was rightly criticized by a number of leading human rights organizations. The Pirate Party, by hosting WikiLeaks, hopes to provide it a safe haven much as it's done for The Pirate Bay. "We hope that the new Parliament will give serious consideration to further strengthening Sweden’s press protection legislation," says Assange. "Western democracies are not always as free as one might think, and freedom of the press needs constant vigilance. In particular, we would welcome Sweden copying Iceland’s Modern Media Initiative, something that the Pirate Party also desires." Assange also says that he sees "more opportunities down the road" in which WikiLeaks and The Pirate Party can cooperate with one another. What this means is unclear. The Pirate Party, for its part, knows that by hosting WikiLeaks servers the threshold for the confiscation is much, much higher. "If the servers are placed at an ordinary web hotel the threshold is of course already high when it comes to making a raid and removing them," says Anna Troberg (PP), deputy leader of the Pirate Party. "But the political price for touching the servers of a political party is even higher. So we can offer them some added protection, of which they are in great need." Some have also argued that WikiLeaks lacks the publishing certificate needed for full press freedom protection in Sweden. Now that The Pirate Party is hosting WikiLeaks the matter is no longer of concern. Stay tuned. jared@zeropaid.com

Swedish Pirate Party Offers to Host WikiLeaks

Jared Moya — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 14:52:18 +0000

After already offering safe haven for BitTorrent tracker site The Pirate Bay on Swedish Parliament servers, now extends the same offer to whistleblower site WikiLeaks, pledging server space and bandwidth if it too is attacked.

Swedish Pirate Party deputy leader Anna Troberg is putting her party at the forefront of the debate over free speech online with news that it's offering whistleblower site WikiLeaks server space and bandwidth if it too is attacked by American interests like BitTorrent tracker site The Pirate Bay. "Wikileaks is currently housed at the Swedish hosting company PRQ, which is run by the Pirate Bay profiles Gottfrid Svartholm and Fredrik Neij, but Wikileaks is under constant attack," she tells DN. "It would not surprise me at all if Sweden was shortly subjected to American pressure to shut down Wikileaks. They have acted similarly in terms of Pirate Bay, and given that Wikileaks activities strikes at the very heart of American power, it's probably just a matter of time before acting." "Now is the moment of truth for our Swedish politicians. Will they have enough backbone to stand up on Wikileaks and democracy, or will they give way for the U.S. and go after the PRQ and Wikileaks?" WikiLeaks, as I'm sure many are aware, has been in the news lately over the release of 91,000 US military documents containing highly confidential information about the war in Afghanistan from 2004 and 2009. Critics, aside from arguing the leaks endanger NATO troops and tactics in the war against terrorism, also claim that it will inhibit the sort of data sharing among intelligence agencies that 9/11 commission says could have helped to prevent the 9/11 attacks. "The reaction to this is going to be push-back against sharing," says retired Air Force general and former CIA chief Michael Hayden. Regardless, Troberg says that in a democracy access to information, "sometimes to the information that those in power do not want people to have," is important if citizens are to be able to make a truly "informed decision before voting." She places an emphasis on the fact that WikiLeaks is a new and important way to disseminate information alongside traditional fare like newspapers or broadcast TV, but unlike them WikiLeaks doesn't require "editors with nerves of steel" to report "major revelations." "Wikileaks does not operate under the same journalistic responsibilities and limitations as traditional media, but it takes its self-imposed mission to truth-very seriously," she adds. Offering WikiLeaks is in keeping with The Pirate Party's efforts to keep information free of govt censors. Earlier this month it began offering bandwidth to The Pirate Bay and later launched its own ISP - aptly named Pirate ISP - whose main principle is anonymity of user traffic. "We provide bandwidth to our greatest political opinion leaders, The Pirate Bay," says Troberg. "If Wikileaks again attacked, we will immediately offer them both the server space and bandwidth. Pirate Party believes in democracy and we are not afraid to stand up for it." Stay tuned. jared@zeropaid.com

Swedish Copyright Collective – Technology Is Killing the Blank Disc Star

Drew Wilson — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 07:28:21 +0000

When was the last time you burned a CD or a DVD? If you haven't done that in a while, you aren't alone according to a copyright collective that collects royalties on blank discs. With slumping blank disc sales, the royalty collecting agency is scrambling to find the next thing to tax to keep revenue money flowing.

The music industry has, for years, pointed to falling physical album sales - even though sometimes those statistics have been questionable - as a reason to ratchet up copyright laws in various countries. So how hard is it getting to sell a physical album when its hard enough to sell blank discs? According to The Local, lowering blank disc sales including CDs and DVDs are worrying Copyswede, an organization that helps get royalty money from blank disc sales and forwarding them to rights holders. From the article:

Income generated from a copy fee built in to the price of recordable CDs and DVDs – and shared among artists and copyright holders – has almost halved over the last two years. In 2007, sales of blank discs generated 200 million kronor ($28 million) for artists, compared to just 113 million kronor in 2009.

“We’re seeing a technology shift whereby the discs in themselves are no longer of interest. File sharers and others have started using different technologies. Things can instead be stored on people’s computer hard drives or their telephones,” Copyswede’s managing director Mattias Åkerlind told news agency TT.

That certainly rings true. When blank discs were all the rage, hard drives were rarely above the 100GB mark which helped to fuel the need for blank discs. Now, hard drives are creeping up to the half a terabyte mark in laptops and climbing up to the 1TB mark on external back-ups and desktop computers. Much harder to run out of space on a 1TB hard drive than it is to fill up an 80GB hard drive to say the least. If there is a need to back up a computer hard drive, one larger external drive does the trick now. No need to rely on DVDrs with a measly 4GB in it when you can pick up a 1TB external hard drive now. Maybe the positive way one can look at this is the fact that there are less of these discs that will ultimately end up in a landfill since it is probably more environmentally friendly to have 1 external hard drive end up in a landfill compared to hundreds of CD-r's. Any way to reduce e-Waste is a benefit to the environment considering the toxins that can come out of some of that e-waste. In any event, the copyright collective is trying to put a new levy on newer technology such as cell phones:

Copyswede’s proposed fee would add around 100 kronor to the cost of a mobile phone with 32 gigabytes of memory. But negotiations have stalled of late, with the organisation enjoying scant support from electronics retailers opposed to price hikes on goods like telephones and hard disks.

The crazy thing is knowing how many organizations (SAC, EFF, etc.) have recommended putting a levy on ISPs and allowing file-sharing to continue unabated, yet rights holders refuse to budge on that even though it would put money in artists hands, give people far fewer headaches over legal threats and reduce the legal bills of rights holders. Maybe the elephant in the room is being ignored because rights holders want to have their cake and eat it too (tax consumers and sue them too). 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.

Pirate Bay to Move to Swedish Parliament Server

Jared Moya — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 19:32:35 +0000

Swedish Pirate Party escalates the war between the entertainment industry and the BitTorrent tracker site by taking advantage of a part of the Swedish Constitution that gives MPs immunity from lawsuits or prosecution for actions performed as part of their political mandate.

It looks as though Swedish BitTorrent tracker site The Pirate Bay will get the last laugh in its long-running battle with the entertainment industry over accusations of copyright infringement. The Swedish Pirate Party has announced that it will make use of parliamentary immunity to protect the site from prosecution. The group has already been the site's ISP since this past May after the MPAA managed to convince a district court judge in Hamburg, Germany to issue a injunction against the site’s then Germany-based bandwidth provider, CB3ROB, and its owner, Sven Olaf Kamphuis. "But we want to go even further," says the group. "The Swedish Constitution is often ignored, but it contains an interesting detail. It says that MPs can not be sued or prosecuted for something that is done as part of their political mandate." "In practice, this implies total immunity for any political action taken within this working environment. Some of the Pirate Party's prospective MPs intend to use this to host the entire Pirate Bay from inside the parliament." It says the matter is really all about protecting free speech and Internet infrastructure, that copyright holders are trying to "sabotage and prevent" both The Pirate Bay's servers and users from communicating with one another. The Pirate Party observes a certain amount of symbolism in running the site from inside the country's parliamentary building. "The Pirate Party does this to protect several important values: Information security, fundamental freedom of expression, the future of Sweden as an industrial nation, and Sweden's reputation as leading the way into the future," it continues. "The Pirate Party consists of people who act on their resources where other politicians only appoint investigations and try to avoid responsibility." The most impressive part of The Pirate Party's argument is that it makes a connection between the file-sharing culture and "future industry skills." Copyright holders have a long track record of either preventing or delaying the creation of new technologies that interfere with its revenue streams. "In this context, The Pirate Bay is a global icon for freedom of speech, next generation of jobs, and future industries," it says. "Naturally, the previous generation of industries feel threatened by this icon. For this reason it wants to make the site a "national industrial interest" by hosting the site on the Swedish Parliament's servers. "The Pirate Party is the only political party that takes responsibility for our fundamental civil rights, our country's information security, and the talent of the next generation," it continues. Now all the Pirate Party needs is permission from The Pirate Bay's owners and place in parliament after the September 19th elections. It's curious that the Pirate Party has to protect the site at all. The Pirate Bay has never actually hosted any copyrighted material, and even quit hosting torrent trackers last November. All the site is a search engine, much as Google is, even though the search-engine giant loathes the comparison. Maybe Google will have a change of heart if the music industry ratchets up its DMCA complaints. Stay tuned. jared@zeropaid.com

Swedish Appeals Court Orders ISP to Divulge SweTorrent Users Identities

Drew Wilson — Mon, 17 May 2010 23:16:46 +0000

There was an interesting ruling made recently in a Swedish court. After months of fighting in the Swedish court system, the court of appeals have ruled that TeliaSonera, a telecom giant, must divulge the names and addresses of several people behind SweTorrents to Swedish film company Svensk Filmindustri.

"The court of appeal has decided today to uphold the Soedertoern district court's decision to order an Internet service provider to give out the names and addresses of the holders of certain IP-addresses," a court statement said. Failure to comply to the court order would mean that the telecom giant could face a fine of 750,000 kronor (96,523 dollars). The ruling came about as a result of IPred, the controversial Swedish copyright reform law. The reason this ruling is quite important is that this is the crossroads for the future of a Swedish digital environment. If an ISP is forced to divulge personal information to rights holders of an alleged copyright violator, it would mean confirmation of an Americanization of Swedish law. We say this because one only has to look to the United States to see what happens when rights holders have the power to unmask file-sharers. Tens of thousands of people in the United States have recieved legal threats thanks to an American copyright reform law known as the DMCA. Two high profile cases, the Tenenbaum case and the Jammie Thomas cases, saw convicted file-sharers facing fines of hundreds of thousands of US dollars or several million dollars. On a related issue recently, Cory Doctorow has some interesting comments on tough copyright laws while discussing the litigation between Viacom and YouTube. "The lawmakers who say that they favour these draconian copyright powers are not on the side of creators. The creators are the ones busily shovelling their creative works on to YouTube. These laws are designed to provide full employment for the litigation industry," Doctorow commented, "and to encourage the moral hazard that has TV and record companies turning into lawsuit factories." As it becomes easier to litigate random internet users, some companies may find themselves attracted to a business model not to promote and produce entertainment, but rather promote and push for more litigation. If there are any obstacles toward getting hundreds of thousands of settlements, then the entertainment industry simply lobbies the governments in question to remove those obstacles. It's sad to see Sweden legally breaking down like this. Once, Swedish citizens could be proud to have an environment where things like free speech and privacy could be expected. Now, it's starting to look like they'll have neither now. 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.

2009 – A ZeroPaid Year in Review – Part 2 of 3

Drew Wilson — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 19:42:36 +0000

We continue with our 2009 year in review with part two of our three part review. Part one of three.

May May started off with several stories pretty much happening at the exact same time. One of those stories was the increase in support for municipal broadband by major tech companies. Project Greenlight, the municipal broadband company that could in the US scored an uprising that caused more opposition toward the movement that would kill municipal broadband. The so-called "level the playing field" bills that would kill municipal broadband was ultimately sent to committee - that included the Senate version. Another story was the story about how Canada's presence on the priority watch listttttt started to lead many into believing that obstruct free trade in Canada in a bid to tighten copyright laws - a plan that never really panned out for the IFPI. Later on that month, the Conference Board of Canada suffered a major embarrassment when it was caught pirating a report to call for tough actions against piracy. If that wasn't bad enough, revelations quickly emerged that the Digital Economic Report by the Conference Board of Canada ignored independent research as well. Ultimately, the Conference Board of Canada withdrew the report. The constant drum beat of the so-called three strikes law continued throughout the month of May. The European Union re-opened a graduated response meaning the three strikes law was once again on the table. Later on, the three strikes law in Europe was once again killed - this time, for good. It dashed hopes for the major entertainment industry to have a three-strikes-and-your-out system in place for an entire continent. Meanwhile in France, in what seemed to be a very big point in the timeline of the Three Strikes Law in the country was one man voicing opposition to the three strikes law - an opinion that cost him his job, but gripped a nation with an interest in tech and political related issues. In spite of the political outcry, the French Three Strikes law was passed anyway. Then in Britain, a UK copyright group demanded that alleged file-sharers be disconnected from the internet, but the British ISPs stood firm and rejected the calls. Later back in France, there were revelations that the French Three Strikes law would see 1000 disconnections per day. The MPAA's overall success continued in May with the major success of Wolverine at the box office showing that movie leaks, once again, has no impact on cinema ticket sales. The CEO of LimeWire was caught up in Congress trying to convince regulators that the program is safe for consumption. This happened while congress was debating a law that would prevent inadvertent file-sharing. The RIAA, a few months in to an era they promised would be litigation free, filed even more lawsuits they promised they would never file. While they were making more enemies in that respect, they were also making enemies with an old ally - public radio. One of the RIAA's members higher ups also made the comment that nothing good ever comes out of the internet - a comment that drew anger from many places around the internet. The major political fallout of ThePirateBay guilty verdict continued to prove that there was political ramifications as The Pirate Party'sssss support continued to grow and was projected to win two seats in the EU Parliament. Meanwhile, a Swedish bank decided, in spite of an unsettled court case, decided to freeze the bank account of the admins of the BitTorrent site. The demands for a fair trial grew particularly when the admins demanded one. With a political backlash looming, the Swedish government did the unthinkable, push for more draconian laws affecting the internet - in this case, demand mandatory data retention for 6 months. After facing a major fine, prosecutors that miraculously managed to convict ThePirateBay admins demanded further fines and a gag order on the admins. They reiterated their demands saying a $3.6 Million fine was not enough. Supporting the conviction of ThePirateBay admins grew more challenging when news later broke about how the BSA admitted that losses due to piracy were entirely hypothetical - while obvious to most, a reaffirming admission nevertheless. Ultimately, ThePirateBay admins finally made things happen when it was decided that a three judge panel would decide whether or not the original judge that convicted the admins was biased. This happened at roughly the same time when polls continued to show that The Pirate Party was set to win at least one seat in the EU Parliament. Things continued to appear to be going in ThePirateBay admins favour when the courts rejected the demands for an additional fine and gag order. Things grew increasingly hairy when a Swedish minister was caught applauding the outcome of ThePirateBay trial. Meanwhile, The Pirate Party support gained a major supporter when a famousdish writer explained why he is voting for the party. While the year is filled with studies, one study in particular seemed to reaffirm many observers of the copyright debate's belief - a flat rate is, indeed, the way to go. The RealDVD trial kept making occasional appearances in the headlines as Real accused the MPAA of anti-trust violations. Privacy was also an issue that made headlines throughout the year. At one point, after France decided to push for three strikes law, the government took things a step further and pushed for legalizing the use of malware by police among other things. It was a law so draconian, few believed what they read when the story broke. The Joel Tenenbaum case re-emerged in the headlines as the Harvard Professor defending an alleged file-sharer suggested that file-sharing is "fair use". The Harvard Law professor later said that the RIAAs lawsuit campaign was an unconstitutional abuse of the law. Spain made it into the headlines when the record industry took P2P developer Pablo Soto to court over unfair competition. The Australian web filtering debate grew when confusing language emerged that the filtering would be voluntary mandatory. That didn't stop the Australian Christian Group from reiterating calls for a porn filter though. June June started off with Spanish citizens demanding internet civil rights. Probably facing huge pressure from the public, Spanish counterparts for the copyright industry later backed down from demanding a three strikes law for the country. With questions swirling about the future of the RIAAs filesharing lawsuit campaign, the RIAA went public to say that file-sharing lawsuits are not about the money but a "fair and reasonable" campaign. Things grew more tense around ThePirateBay trial's outcome. One artist even put one of his albums on the site to protest his art being used against the admins during the trial. Later on, time was up and the admins for The Pirate Bay urged European citizens to get out and vote - though they didn't exactly say for who, just get out and vote. Things seemed to just play in to Swedish The Pirate Party'sssss favour as the party then went on to win two seats in the EU Parliament. Meanwhile, things quickly went sideways for the admins of ThePirateBay when the three panel judge ruled that the original judge was not biased in making his guilty conviction. The Pirate Party's success didn't stop at the EU Election. The party proved to be growing in strength both nationally and internationally - many point out that the victory in Sweden inspired many others around the world to start their own national Pirate Parties. While the Pirate Party movement was growing stronger and stronger, the Swedish government decided to divert 15 police officials to investigating copyright infringement. Interestingly enough, shortly after that announcement, ThePirateBay formally launched its VPN service. Scrambling for some way to stop the overwhelming success of The Pirate Party, a Swedish politician made the unfortunate decision to equate Pirate Party Supporters with rapists. Bad news later emerged for ThePirateBay admins in the midst of all this when a court ruled that the original judge was not biased. By that point, many rumours circulated about the three judge panel being biased as well. Oddly enough, right after the ruling, the admins were issued a court summons via Twitter by Dutch anti-p2p organization BREIN. Also towards the end of the month, many in Sweden questioning the entire judicial system of Sweden. Things were going along smoothly PR-wise for ThePirateBay until news emerged that the website was sold. Many users then flocked to alternatives as a result, outraged and calling the admins "sellouts". This was, perhaps, the first time the admins experienced negative publicity from the public. Not to be forgotten, the Jammie Thomas trial took an interesting turn when lawyers moved to bar evidence provided by Media Sentry in the trial. The retrial of Jammie Thomas started later on that month. Unfortunately, in the same month, Jamie Thomas was also fined $1.92 Million for sharing a mere 24 songs. The MPAA's trial against RealDVD took a critical turn when the MPAA said that even making one DVD was illegal. Meanwhile, the MPAA found themselves admitting to losing the PR war to "the enemies of copyright". One might observe that the language further signalled a sort of more mean spirited language that later seems to be part of a later PR war. Controversy in Canada continued over the Conference Board of Canada's report when the CEO spoke out to do some damage control only to have an ex-employee counter the CEO's claims. Meanwhile, uncertainty about the Canadian government's ability to handle internet related issues grew when the governing party introduced mandatory ISP level surveillance legislation. Sadlypears for many that the governing party let Canadians down upon review of both surveillance bills. The response was swift as many Canadian newspapers responded by making mast-head editorials denouncing the surveillance legislation. Things started to look dicey on the political landscape in Canada when the Liberal party announced that they would combat piracy and ratify WIPO. The reason this was dicey because with the governing party and the Liberal party, there is enough votes to pass anything. Things looked dicey until the Liberal party, no doubt facing internal controversy, backtracked on calls to ratify WIPO and merely saying that their calls to ratify WIPO was merely to mark interest on the subject... honestly! While the copyright debate grew in Canada, news surfaced that BNN, a Canadian broadcaster, was accused of censoring the copyright debate by taking down several videos on the subject from YouTube. A report out of Russia suggested that the Russian government wanted internet anonymity abolished. A UK Minister, after the government faced even more pressure to change their minds on the three strikes law position, continued to defy the industry's calls for a three strikes law saying that such a law was "too draconian". One of the ways that the copyright industry exerted pressure onto the government was through a study that was cast in to doubt when reviewed. A UK ISP also said that the idea that one can stop file-sharing is "very naive". Another study in the UK suggested that losses due to piracy were fictitious and that if losses occurred, it wasn't due to file-sharing and piracy, but rather, gaming and DVDs. Undeterred by a botched PR campaign and growing scepticism about the anti-file-sharing movement, a copyright industry entity argued that a three strikes law was the way to go and that throttling was a waste of time. Frances LOPPSI 2 law that would allow police to upload malware received an expert review which had further insights and confirmation in the law. Meanwhile, fresh from passing the three strikes law, France went on to use military intelligence to shut down a private BitTorrent website. Later on that month, the French president was dealt with another embarrassing blow to his plans for a French Three Strikes Law when France's Constitutional Court ruled that the three strikes law was unconstitutional. Fresh from the PR loss of having the three strikes law ruled unconstitutional, French authorities reiterated that they would be going after Snowtiger donators and uploaders. It was that point in time that a new face of the three strikes law would emerge - a judge had to order the third strike and consequential disconnection. This new version seemed to catch on in other countries later on - at least, that's what other countries were pressured to adopt by the international copyright industry conglomerates. Interestingly enough, like the Swedish Pirate Party, the French Pirate Party was called a "hacker group". The party refuted being called a "hacker group". In New Zealand, after being forced to back peddle on implementing a three strikes law partly due to the major blackout protests, New Zealand gave signals that it would re-introduce the three strikes law in that country. Let's not forget that during this month was also the tenth anniversary of Napster. On the anniversary, KFPA Radio interviewed both Jared Moya and myself to discuss the implications of Napster's original release. Michael Geist marked the anniversary by debunking several file-sharing myths. CRIA, while still in possession of some PR credibility still at that point, freaked out about Michael Geist debunking the file-sharing myths and argued that the file-sharing problem was a "fact". Germany also made headlines when critics picked apart the mandatory DNS blacklist proposal. Civil unrest against the government, as a result of this, grew in the country. RapidShare, a German based company later in the month, was fined $33 Million for copyright violations. As a result, many started looking for alternatives to the one-click hoster though it never ultimately affected the services dominance in the one-click hosting industry. Germany wasn't the only country having political troubles trying to make ISP blacklists. Political tensions in Finland mounted when a Finnish transparency website was placed on the mandatory blacklist. With many internet related issues facing Germans and a government appearing to ignore their citizens, it might not be a surprise that after the success of the Pirate Party in the EU that the German counterpart managed to snag national seat from a defecting party member of another party. In spite of this, Germany passed surveillance legislation anyway. The United States made headlines in other ways as well. One of those headlines was ASCAP demanding an additional performance tax for ringtones. Curiously, Argentina made headlines for the first time this year here on ZeroPaid when the countries newspapers demanded to use data retention to go after alleged copyright infringers. Banking on the success of the previous victory by the copyright industry getting one Irish ISP to bring in a three strikes law, Irish counterparts of the copyright industry moved to try and pressure more ISPs in Ireland to put in place a three strikes policy. Australia continued to remain in the headlines with the governments plan to filter online video games as well. This was in the face of severe questions of how much of the internet the government was going to filter. If there was one issue all countries had reason to worry, it was the continued negotiations of ACTA. During June, consumer groups demanded that ACTA negotiations be halted. One of the concerns of ACTA was a complete lack of transparency. While artists supporting file-sharing is nothing new, another artist joined the ranks of many other artists who said that there were positives to file-sharing. Later on, Moby said that suing music fans is not a sustainable business model. July July saw what may be one of the biggest copyright related loss for the UseNet community. UseNet.com suffered a copyright infringement case loss. In the US, controversy kept rolling over ASCAPs decision to demand performance royalties on ringtones, but the EFF slammed ASCAP for the demands saying that ringtones are like music being heard on a car stereo system with the car windows rolled down. Towards the end of the month, the hearings on allowing exceptions to the DMCA made headlines when one lawyer argued that a user cannot access legal content forever and it's an over the top demand to say otherwise. July also reconfirmed that ThePirateBay had changed. The site made headlines when ThePirateBay announced that it would pay seeders money - all part of a new business model apparently. The acquisition seemed to go as smoothly as one could hope, but just days after the acquisition, things started to fall apart for the deal. The buyer of ThePirateBay was accused of insider trading. Still, The Pirate Party on the other hand was still enjoying the euphoria of their major victories on the national and international stage. In the process, they wrote an op-ed saying that copyright laws endanger people's digital freedom. The deal between ThePirateBay and Global Gaming Factory looked increasingly bleak as more questions were raised about the acquisition of the site - GGF refuted the questions, saying that the deal was going along smoothly. While the deal was going on, the MPAA echoed previous calls by other arms of the copyright industry to shutter ThePirateBay. Things in Canada got interesting when The Pirate Party of Canada landed on Canadian shores and began to establish themselves. Meanwhile, as BNN took heat for censoring the copyright debate, BNN responded to criticism saying that the videos were part of a broader round of takedowns and wasn't targeting the copyright debate in particular. A little bit of a political turf war was seen in Canada on the news that the Pirate Party were entering the political stage. The Green Party said that there was no need for a Pirate Party given that there was already a Green Party willing to take the issues to task. The Pirate Party responded to those comments. It was then that things really turned around in Canada when the governing party held a copyright consultation. Some were sceptical, but most embraced the government initiative (how often does that happen on issues like this?) with open arms - the consultation wound up being the most successful consultation ever in terms of number of responses. During the month though, the consultation seemed to be the talk of the town with many talking about copyright in and outside the consultation. Access Copyright hit the panic button and said that the entire copyright debate will rob creators of their livelihoods. The infamous Dream Pinball lawsuits in the UK took an interesting turn when wrongfully accused victims caught up in the lawsuit began to step forward. Meanwhile, the UK government started to show signs that they were weakening on their stance on copyright. The government said that they'll need time to start reducing P2P activity. While it seemed that UK ISPs stood firm against a three strikes law, one ISP, Karoo, suddenly implemented a three strikes policy on their own. Critics called the decision a "KangKaroo court". Interestingly enough, in the mean time, the UK music industry's own economist, as if an echo to the major success the MPAA begrudginglyy admitted, said that UKs music revenues were up by 4.7%, a different take considering a while back, there was suggestions that the UK music industry was suffering thanks to competition by the movie and gaming industry. Frances defiance of letting the three strikes law get away became more apparent this month upon word that judges would be given 5 minutes to rule on each disconnection - 5 minutes of work that required far more time to go through on a case-by-case basis. The PR war kept rolling on though when the French broadcaster that fired the employee for voicing his opposition to the three strikes law was sued over the incident. Meanwhile, the three strikes law was then delayed a few months. The Jammie Thomas case roared back into the headlines proving that the case wasn't over. After dealing with the blow of being fined millions, Jammie Thomas' legal council announced that they would be appealing the court decision - one of the reasons would be based on constitutional grounds of the fine in question. The back and forth action continued in the courtroom when the RIAA demanded that Jammie Thomas be barred from P2P. Jammie Thomas' legal council later confirmed that one of the reasons for appealing was because of constitutional questions being raised by the fine. The Joel Tenenbaum case made headlines when the RIAA cried fowl over the idea that the Media Sentry evidence should be suppressed on the basis of the company violating wiretapping and private investigation laws. When everyone thought that the EU-wide three strikes law was finished, there was word that one EU parliamentarian suggested that download regulations needed to be overhauled. Things got dramatic on the EU stage when one European anti-piracy group called The Pirate Party's message "criminal". New Zealand made headlines in July again when the government revealed a newer gentler three strikes law. In fact, one MP suggested that there should be a blank tax for P2P so as to legalize it. On a positive note, a Spanish judge in the same month ruled that not-for-profit P2P was legal. On a more sad note, July saw South Korea's three strike law go into force. Things grew somewhat scary when Finland mulled banning the activity of talking about DRM circumvention. It wasn't always bad news throughout the year for Australia. The government suggested that maybe there was a more appropriate way to deal with P2P - possibly warming up to the P2P movement in a way. In an odd turn of events, Australian ISPs suggested that the controversial filtering plan by the Australian government would not slow down internet speeds - one of the major criticisms of the Australian internet filtering plan. Creators continued to question the big copyright companies tactics with UK legend Stephen Fry comparing the RIAA to big tobacco companies. Lawrence Lessig weighed in himself on P2P saying that P2P is the new prohibition. As if to show one more sign that the file-sharing movement was pretty much unstoppable, one small developer was developing one method of putting a song into a picture that would be readable and played back into audio. What was particularly fascinating was seeing how one could manipulate sound via Photoshop - not exactly a conventional software for modifying sound, but video demonstrations proved that it was possible. August News about Joel Tenenbaum rolled right from July to August when word came out that Tenenbaum was fined $675,000 for sharing 30 works. After the ruling, Tenenbaum set up a website that accepted donations that would go towards fighting the RIAA in court. The Jammie Thomas case too made headlines when a revelation emerged that the US government was stepping in to demand that the judge throw out claims of unconstitutionality. It seemed as though BREIN made some inroads in a Dutch court when a judge ruled that ThePirateBay was legally obliged to block users from the Netherlands. Amidst the commotion surrounding ThePirateBay, Brokep, an admin of the BitTorrent site, announced that he was leaving the website. Undeterred by repeated bad news about the deal between GGF and ThePirateBay, rumours surfaced that the company planned to acquire even more BitTorrent sites once the current deal was wrapping up. Along side that were rumours that a major record label was about to make a deal with ThePirateBay. Of course, The IFPI wanted GGF to pay for ThePirateBay fine if the deal were to go through. Not liking the earlier ruling in a Dutch court, ThePirateBay then said that it would challenge the Dutch courts decision to force the website to block Netherlands traffic. It was then that GGF made another bold move by announcing that it was negotiating a licensing agreement with a performing rights organization. Unfortunately, shortly after the announcement, GGFs stock was halted until the company produced the cash it promised to buy ThePirateBay. Trying to salvage the acquisition of ThePirateBay, GGF publicly disclosed their grand plan to legitimize ThePirateBay. Unfortunately for GGF, police began to suspect insider trading. Legal troubles for ThePirateBay continued when a Swedish court ordered a Swedish ISP to block ThePirateBay. Towards the end of the month, GGF investors abandoned ThePirateBay acquisition. The escapade wasn't over though as GGF then said that GGF investors approved of the plan to acquire ThePirateBay. Things went south again when tax collectors seized GGF CEOs assets that would go to paying back taxes. In France, steamed by the slow progress of the French Three Strikes Law, a special session was set aside to deal with the law as quickly as possible. Stunningly, there was movement again to neuter provisions in the EU telecoms package that would once again revive the EU-wide three strikes law. Meanwhile, in Canada, the copyright consultation continued to prove to be a hit amongst Canadians with more and more submissions continuing to pile up. Remarkably, while all this was happening, the copyright industry had the audacity to call for a Canadian three strikes law. It would prove to be one of the last calls to do so in the year as well. Coincidently, the Canadian Manitoba Music industry, during a round table, shunned CRIAs stance as if to re-highlight the rift between Canadian record labels and CRIA. Things continued to remain interesting in Canada's copyright consultation when DOC supported the expansion of "fair dealings". More calls to expand Canada's fair dealings continued to roll in to the consultation. Adding fuel for the demands for a more liberal approach to copyright, the ESA pointed out that the Canadian gaming industry grew without the need of a Technical Protection Measure or anti-circumvention law in place. No doubt freaking out about the whole consultation process and where it turned, the copyright industry was probably scrambling for a plan. It got one, but stacking the town hall meeting in their favour didn't exactly go over very well for Canadians. In an almost symbolic move, an American music group called the idea of a fair copyright law in Canada "disgusting". The NDP, the political group that sparked that comment responded, saying that they make no apology for their stance on copyright. With other countries having suggested that they would filter the internet, Malaysia suggested that it, too, plans to filter the internet. Germany saw one MP renew calls to legalize file-sharing, saying that a neutral stance of a blank tariff was the way to go. At the end of the month, the German Pirate Party even won several government seats. Things started to grow dark in Australia when ISPs essentially asked via proposed legislation to become copyright cops. In the UK, the criticism about "KangKaroo Courts" gained momentum when UK ISP Karoo backed down from plans to implement a three strikes policy and, instead, require a court order. With all this uncertainty about the digital future of the UK, it was probably no surprise when news emerged that the UK managed to get their own Pirate Party. The timing of this couldn't be better since it was just a short while later that the UK government turned around on its initial stance of not legislating in a three strikes law and seriously planned on a p2p crackdown. The British Pirate Party quickly built a name for themselves, writing a provocative piece on why the cost to fight file-sharing was "too high". It was then that the UK government pretty much made it official that it would disconnect file-sharers after all. A British ISP was dismayed at the governments change of heart on the issue of disconnecting file-sharers and said that the war on file-sharing was futile. This caused the British government to be on the defencive with their plan to disconnect alleged file-sharers. Things grew bleak for Mininova in August when a court ordered the site to remove all copyrighted content. Things seemed to start to turn around in Finland upon news that a Finnish Pirate Party was officially registered in the country. One Irish ISP went along with the idea of blocking ThePirateBay, but it turns out that it was the only ISP willing to do so at that time. The Irish Pirate Party announced its opposition to the ISP decision. The MPAA's war on RealDVD seemed to draw to a close in August when a judge barred the sale of RealDVD. One artist in August said that P2P was a global word of mouth, becoming yet another creative that said that there were positive attributes for file-sharing. Stay tuned for the final part of the review. 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.