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A scare from the east (digital bloodbath)
I've been reading up on Rick Falkvinge's blog, the leader of the Swedish Pirate Party:http://rickfalkvinge.se/2009/02/27/valkomna-ombord/
It talks about the "Private police law" - Ipred which was accepted in "Riksdagen" a little while ago. I don't know where to begin, but to sum it up, the content industry would be able to:
* Perform private criminal investigations
* Force an ISP to provide the subscriber info for the IP address they've been supervising and see as an (illegal) file sharer (even the Swedish police don't have the rights to do that)
* Confiscate the house and freeze the bank accounts of the person they suspect for illegal filesharing
They go after the person responsible for the connection, not necessarily the person doing the infringement
* Search the house and any equipment which can contain infringing content (private diaries? private surfing history? politicial intentions? sexual preferences?) They get to see it all.
And that's just some of it. On the other hand, I see Telenor here in Norway today are sticking it to the content industry, saying that basically they can't shut down access to the Pirate Bay, because it would be like the postal office inspecting mail. They also nip it in the bud and flat out say that the business model of the content industry is broken, and that it needs to change (using mobile phone ring tones as an example of something that works). That may be because Telenor has a vested interest and a piece of the pie for content that gets ordered through their network or using their broadband, but oh well.
But, anyway back to this Swedish deal. From what I surmise, the content industry can go after anyone they suspect, freeze their assets (how do you pay your lawyer then?) and force the people to pay up the sum on short notice. Nothing like being held hostage huh?
Another bit in that article is that the group of people accused of filesharing can be forced to pay an ad where they admit to being convicted. To draw a macabre paralell, I know there are places where you can be executed and your family forced to pay for the bullet. Or that you're publicly humiliated (flogged) and then sent to economic prison for a while. If it isn't an economic death sentence.. can anyone fathom the anguish of being publicly humiliated and ruined?
I can only hope that the politicians here in Norway don't go down the same path.
[Permalink] [By morphex] [Politics (and judicial matters) (Atom feed)] [02 Mar 21:46 Europe/Oslo]