ISPs Dragged Into Swedish File Sharing Battle

paulraps writes "Swedish internet service providers may soon be required by law to take greater responsibility for unlawful file-sharing. Although rejecting the ludicrous idea of an overarching broadband fee which would be shared out among copyright holders, a government report published on Monday called for internet providers to be 'bound to contribute to bringing all copyright infringement to an end'. Under the proposal, copyright holders whose material is being shared illegally would be entitled to compensation from ISPs which did not ban users. Needless to say, the country's ISPs are not happy."

Re:Uh oh...

[hedwards]

The equivalent has been done, and it doesn't bring relief from the media corporations. Canada for instance has a surcharge on blank CDs that goes to the media trade groups. From what I can tell very little of it goes to pay the artists, and pretty much none goes to the independent labels.

I can't imagine that it would go better here, where the government and courts are even more beholden to the interests of the media conglomerates.

Re:Uh oh...

[Jugalator]

Canada for instance has a surcharge on blank CDs that goes to the media trade groups.

Sweden actually has the same kind of organization ( http://www.copyswede.se/default.asp?ML=10622 [copyswede.se] )... I think it even applies to hard drives!

That's also a pretty crappy idea, because what happens...? Well, since we became members of the EU, making online orders from outside the country became much cheaper, and I can just order 50 DVD-R's in bulk from Denmark for a cheaper price than in Sweden due to these fees, even including the shipping charges. All they're really achieving with these leives is risking making Swedish businesses lose profits due to these uncertain reports of how much the piracy even impact sales. I guess the fallacy being that Sweden is alone in the world, and they can do whatever they wish without impact to the economy. :-p

Re:Make telephone companies responsible then...

[arminw]

....Make the post office responsible for mail fraud.....

Actually they do. It's one of the jobs of Postal Inspectors. There's a whole body of law specifically dealing with crimes involving the postal system and their enforcement. In some counties, the communications infrastructure, as well as roads and railroads are owned and run by the government. In the US, the Post Office is mandated in the Constitution and was a cabinet level department of the US Government.