You're missing the point. They don't believe in this themselves, but they need to say something outrageous so that the politicians - the sheep they are - will listen to them. They're now behaving like a spoiled child that doesn't get whatever it points at - shouting like crazy.

I'd really like a way to filter out all consumer BULLSHIT from the Internet so they'd leave it the fuck alone. But they LOVE the Internet - as long as they control it and this is precisely what they're aiming at. A wonderful, democracy, information, development tool is instead used as a fucking commercial channel.

I can't stand the fuckers, really. Keep your fucking music and movies and stay the fuck away.

Several experts in Sweden are calling for a re-trial with another judge.

It's somewhat embarrassing. The judge says that he made the call that his participation in "intellectual property groups" (upphovsrättsföreningar) did not bias him.

When the trial started a nämndeman (assistant to the judge) was dismissed because he was considered biased due to his profession as a composer.

It sure will be interesting to see how this one plays out. One might assert that the judge made a huge mistake by taking the case and thus wasting a tremendous amount of time and energy for both sides. Rather moronic for a judge, who should be able to see this type of conflicts.

Several experts in Sweden are calling for a re-trial with another judge.

It's somewhat embarrassing. The judge says that he made the call that his participation in "intellectual property groups" (upphovsrättsföreningar) did not bias him.

When the trial started a nämndeman (assistant to the judge) was dismissed because he was considered biased due to his profession as a composer.

It sure will be interesting to see how this one plays out. One might assert that the judge made a huge mistake by taking the case and thus wasting a tremendous amount of time and energy for both sides. Rather moronic for a judge, who should be able to see this type of conflicts.

I understand your critisism but I disagree that the best option to fight for our apparent right to download music is to simply ignore that media companies will bring your ass to court, fine you into oblivion and then in some weird way you win.

You cannot win this battle by filesharing copyrighted works unless you mean that once all file sharers are economically obliterated, there will magically not be any consumers left and the politics and market will (again) magically change?

I don't understand the master plan here. Feel free to enlighten me - I enjoy this conversation (see my e-mail if you're unwilling to post all twists and turns to slashdot). I for one won't hope for your premature death.

How are "all" affected negatively by my actions (and I don't mean this to be a statistical rebuttal)? If I and all the rest continue to download, what exactly will happen? Will they change the law so that once again, the media companies cannot ask for IP-address to identity resolutions? At what price? You're not asking for little, are you.

You see, the only way for that plan to have an effect is to actually wind up in court. If you continue to fileshare their crap and manage to dodge their radar you haven't accomplished shit! So in other words, you want me to sell my car, move to a smaller apartment, dress like a hobo and eat noodles every day. Wow, you're a brave guy, aren't you. Please don't lecture me on civil disobedience when you're taking jack risk.

Finally, the way you DO win this battle is on the political arena. Now, you might not be Swedish and so you cannot vote on the Pirate Party. I am and I surely will. Meanwhile I participate in protests and educate friends and family (and co-workers).

Whoah, that's quite some hostility. I'm sure you'll understand where I'm coming from once you read my comments and get a cool off break.

As someone else articulated: The game is rigged? Don't play the game.

I'm a fierce freedom activist. But continuing to support the media industry by filesharing their works (they do "own" them after all -- that's the current law -- let's respect it for a moment) is really a bad idea. My hope is that a sort of "open source" market will develop as people reject "the industry".

It's sad to see people like you, completely blinded by rage towards the media companies, attacking constructive ideas and the people behind them.

Don't play the game. Simple as that.

You make a good point, Kjella. I agree with you that my approach is not going to legalize filesharing copyrighted works without permission from the authors/rightsholders.

My point is that by stopping so called piracy, the market will find a way to provide us with services that we can accept. This is my sincere hope.

The Swedish law we're discussing basically boils down to that copyright owners can request the identity behind an IP-address from an ISP with permission from a court. If the artist gives permission, people can fileshare all they want. Again, this is what I hope will happen as the industry keeps chasing its customers.

Of course it bothers me with the slippery slope that is the surveillance legislation orgie, but this story and my comment is not on those issues.

I'm already a Pirate Party member.

What I realize is that continuing to fileshare copyrighted works is COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE to the cause.

By the way, I really am Swedish.

I fail to see your point. Downloading stuff that the authors seems to completely hate you for is somehow Freedom?

No. That's a childish approach. With freedom comes responsibility. Now, I think the industry is behaving like a rabies dog but they're within their rights to disallow us to copy their material without giving them a krona.

Freedom is to being able to NOT BUY INTO THEIR SHIT. Accept their rules since it's in fact codified, but refuse to participate in transactions with them unless you're offered a FAIR DEAL and things YOU ACTUALLY WANT.

I, and I bet many others with me, don't think it's fun anymore. While a good many proceeds to download songs, movies and TV series using other protocols than e.g. torrents, there are those that recognize that it's not a sustainable situation. I stopped downloading questionable material the 31st of March.

Legislation will get worse and worse to the point where we are all under constant surveillance. We don't need to give "them" any more leverage to these draconian laws. We are in our right to fileshare on a personal level - that is, with friends and family. Let's stop filesharing with "strangers" and we're untouchable.

There's a huge discussion on obfuscation techniques and VPN solutions for consumers -- they're ignoring the upcoming EU directive on mandatory requirement to keep logs. Ergo, when anonymisation services keep logs, you're no longer anonymous.

I for one have "given up" my habits completely. I play by the rules set by the industry. If they cannot offer me what I want (unencumbered digital music), then I simply do not buy from them.

I also enjoy Spotify a great bit - the only thing I really miss is a service that lets me download TV series.

Lastly, the only torrents you'll see on my system is OSS like Debian and Ubuntu ISO:s.

(Yes, I am Swedish.)

Gee, I wonder if

1) there's a difference between lawyers in court and citizens outside of court speaking their mind -- clearly they're equivalent!

2) there's a difference between laws of the United States of America and the Kingdom of Sweden -- clearly, these Swedish judges should not tolerate disrespectful attitudes towards American law!

OK. I'm laughing:

Did you not understand that this trial is a Swedish trial? American law actually is a joke until it's applicable in Sweden.

The prosecution was caught red-handed both 4th and 5th day and the defense once again protested this method of trying to throw the defendants off guard with new material, saying things such as "you've done this all week -- have you not learned anything at all?" and "this is starting to look like an American movie trial -- we request you hand over ALL material NOW".

The court took a break for discussions. After 10 minutes the court informs the prosecution that they must hand over any material they have not already handed over and which they wish to use in their case. The prosecution, specifically Danowski, acts like a 5-year-old and says "but.. the problem, your Honor, is that I don't know if it's necessary, so.. [I wish not to, is the meaning of this]", which the court immediately smacks down with "the meaning of the court's decision is that all material, any material, not presented to the defense, that you wish to use, must be handed over NOW".

The prosecution clearly was very disappointed that they weren't allowed to play cowboys in court.

The prosecution also tried to snare Peter Sunde with a lot of documents found on the web.. Danowski tried to make it look like Peter Sunde had said things he hadn't said with the help of [ square brackets! ] which Peter Sunde kindly informed is a way to insert 3rd party information, or reflection, on a quote. The prosecution is going about with rather dirty tactics.

Prosecution lawyer Monique Wadsted questions Carl Lundstrom, pleading not guilty and having nothing to do with TPB, calling TPB illegal, trying to have him label it as illegal as well. The defense protests, luckily. Got damn industry lawyers...