Piracy Unlimited

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2010-11-09T12:58:00.001+01:00

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Pirate Party passes the Left

2009-02-26T00:25:00.006+01:00

The Swedish Piratpartiet (Pirate Party) has, according to the latest figures, now passed the Left Party in membership figures. The Pirate Party has, according to their latest estimates, over 10 800 members, a bit over 100 more than the left party.

Also, their youth organisation, Ung Pirat (Young Pirate) has surpassed the once mighty social democratic youth organisation SSU in membership figures, becoming the second largest youth organisation in the country. It's getting clearly more difficult for the mainstream media to ignore the influence that the Pirate Party is, or should be, gaining in Swedish politics.

The Pirate Bay trial - my favourite scene from the screenplay

2009-02-25T04:26:00.008+01:00

Witness examination with Magnus Mårtensson, IFPI:

Prosecutor: It is correct that you're working for IFPI?
Mårtensson: Yes.
P: How long have you done that?
M: For fifteen years.
P: What are you doing for IFPI?
M: Antipiracy. We act against pirates.
P: What does acting against mean?
M: We gather evidence and turns it over to the police in ongoing investigations.
P: So you have prior experience in investigating infringements.
M: Yes.
P: What did you do before you started working for IFPI?
M: I was a student.
P: Had you gathered evidence over the net before working for IFPI?
M: No, only for IFPI.
P: So, this is the first time you gather evidence over the internet?
M: Nono.
P: Okay, then I misunderstood. How did the investigation work?
M: I went to the Pirate Bay, downloaded a number of albums to my own computer, and concluded the songs I had downloaded were correct and working.
P: How did you make your selection?
M: Not very scientifically - I checked the top list.
P: What software did you use to secure the evidence?
M: None at all. I used Internet Explorer and made some screen dumps.
P: You didn't use any BitTorrent software.
M: Yes, of course I did. I also used a BitTorrent client called Azureus.
P: But there were no network logging in the background?
M: No.
P: How did the download work?
M: I searched for an artist, chose one of the links in the search results list presented, clicked it and was redirected to a download list for the torrent file with a lot of information, and what is relevant on that page is a link that is called "download this torrent". When you click the link you get a torrent file. When I got the torrent file, Azureus started the download of the file.
M: When you had started the download, did you get any contacts with other file sharers?
P: Yes, mostly uploaders.
M: When you started the download yourself, did you get in contact with a tracker?
P: Yes, well... I watched over some of the cases. In one of the screen dumps I took you can see a tracker address to PRQ. I'm no bit torrent expert, but I am somehow communicating with the tracker.
M: Did you somehow during the download check that you were in connection with the tracer?
P: No.. as I, making the download, felt, I was on the Pirate Bay website, I didn't control what tracker was contacted.
M: What albums did you download?
P: *goes through a list*

Defense: You say that you're a lawyer. That means that you have no education in computer science?
Mårtensson: That is correct.
D: You also said you're no expert in the BitTorrent protocol. Does that mean that you're not an expert in technical matters?
M: That is correct. I was supposed to mimic an average user.
D: There is someone that has uploaded a torrent file to TPBs homepage. Can you at all claim whether or not the downloaded torrent file originated with that one uploader?
M: No.
D: Can you at all claim whether or not the work [the music] has been available at the internet at the time when you downloaded the torrent file?
M: Yeah... well... you can upload in one of two ways, you either have the entire file or parts of it.
D: So, can you claim that you've downloaded a part of the torrent from the uploader?
M: Er...? No.
D: Can you say how the people in the swarm got there, via the Pirate Bay or some other way?
M: No.
D: When you made your screen dump, did you turn off DHT and Peer Exchange?
M: DHT was turned on of course. I wanted to mimic an average user.
D: So there were no way for you to verify that the tracker was used?
M: The tracker's address was on the screen. I take that as a confirmation that it was somehow used.
D: But since you had DHT turned on, you have no possibility to claim with any certainty that the Pirate Bay tracker was actually used?
[After many exchanges of this question, Mårtensson finally admits:]
M: No.
D: Did you really listen to all the songs from beginning to end, to verify it was actually those songs.
M: Yes, I did.
D: How did you select the songs?
M: I chose them myself.
D: Did you download the BitTorrent client from the Pirate Bay?
M: No, from the client manufacturer's homepage.
D: So, you had a complete set of file sharing software on your computer before you went to the Pirate Bay?
M: That is correct.
D: So it was your computer that initiated the file sharing?
M: I have to get a torrent file from the Pirate Bay.
D: But that torrent file, you could just as well has gotten it from Google?
M: I have never done this via Google.
D: Nobody on IFPI has discussed doing this with you, aside from you never doing it yourself?
M: We never had any problems with Google...
D: But after working for IFPI for fifteen years, you must be aware that there are torrent files on Google?
M: This might sound strange to you, but that's nothing we talk about.
D: But you do know other sites than the Pirate Bay? For example?
M: I would say, for example, BTJunkie.
D: And had you gone to that site instead and downloaded the same torrent, your client would have reacted in the same way.
M: Yes.
D: Do you have any idea how many of these sites there are on the internet?
M: No.
D: A file sharing service, is it automatic, in that it doesn't know whether a file is protected or not?
M: That is correct.
D: So when you start your download, are you on the Pirate Bay or in your client?
M: The client.
[Discussions of a particular screen dump]
D: This torrent file is uploaded by [user name]. Have you or your employer ever attempted to make contact with this person?
M: No.
D: This torrent file being uploaded by this person at this time, does that also mean the person has uploaded a copy of the work?
M: No.
D: It could be empty?
M: Well, the torrent file is uploaded at this date (Feb. 13).
D: Do you know if the person uploading the torrent also used his client to upload a copy of the work?
M: No, I can't answer that [meaning: I don't know].
D: Your screen dump is from Azureus. That program is not released by the Pirate Bay?
M: No, you can get that program anywhere.
D: It says there are two complete sources and two non-complete source. What does that mean?
M: I'm no bit torrent expert, but, it means two seeds, two leechers.
D: Then I want to ask you - have you made any attempts to identify these four computers?
M: No, the entire point was mimicing an average user.
D: I'm still asking.
M: No, we haven't made any identifications.
D: So my question is: do you know if these four persons are uploading via the Pirate Bay.
M: I have no idea.
D: Could they be uploading through completely different paths?
M: I have no idea.
D: On February 13 this torrent was uploaded to the Pirate Bay. Have you any idea how many times it has been uploaded to other places, such as Google, YouTube...?
M: That is impossible to say.
D: It could in fact be the millionth copy...?
M: It's impossible to say. It could be.
D: If Robbie Williams release an album, how many times has it been copied before it ends up on your computer.
M: I don't know.

Comment: It should be obvious, the ownage. No need to dwell on that.

I have personal reasons to feel a connection to this very scene: by a bizarre leap of fate, Magnus was working on a summer camp where I was as a kid, at Varvåkra. In fact, he was arguably one of my favourites among the camp leaders. He's really a great guy. Almost a shame he was this pwned here, though we're on the opposite side of the trenches on this matter.

Note that I did not witness this scene on the original show in the court house. I only translated the transcript from Rick.

The latest Pirate Bay controversy

2008-09-12T01:00:00.002+02:00

The Pirate Bay, the scorn of the Old Empires, is currently involved in a new scandal. But it's the same old story about the evil of men, the question of right or wrong and the morals of the hypocritic Old Media.

Act 1 - The crime
In spring, there was a terrible double murder in Sweden. Appearantly, a jealous ex girlfriend went berserk. She killed two little children and put their mother in a coma.

The press was all over this thing. Day in and day out they reported minute reports on anything regarding this case. Everything known about the murder. The thrilling drama of the mother, unconcious and unaware that her children were dead. Then the chilling drama as she woke up and found out about the whole ordeal. They marvelled at the police investigation, every little detail at the trial and so on.

Act 2 - The Principle of Public Knowledge
They managed to do that because of a constitutional right in Sweden called "The principle of Public Knowledge" - I think that's the best way to translate it. It's a lawful principle that says that documents made by Swedish authorities are open to the public without limitations, unless extraordinary circumstances (such as national security) deems it to be classified. Publicity is the norm. Classification is the exception.

The idea is, of course, that everyone should be able to check up on any authority descision afterwards to see the reasoning behind it and detect flaws.

Untill recently, this principle was hardly ever exercised by others than journalists or scientists, because it was quite a task to go to the office of said authority (say the prosecutor in some small town far away) and find the document in question. Then you couldn't take the original, obviously, so you had to copy the documents you wanted. A complex police report such as the one in the aforementioned case can be thousands of pages. So copying it would be both pricy and hard work.

Nowadays, that's not a problem. Most of these documents are turned into PDF documents, and getting a hold of them is a matter of requesting them from said authorities and having them mailed over. The fee is usually about ten bucks, the cost of the work put down on sending it over. A service fee.

Act 3 - The upload
For some reason, someone decided they wanted a copy of the prosecutor's material on this case. So they did just like I described before, they ordered the material and got it sent over. And then they decided to make a torrent file out of it, and uploading it to the Pirate Bay.

In the prosecutor's material was included some pictures from the autopsy of the victims. This made it all hot stuff.

The file was uploaded to the Pirate Bay. Not the report itself, but a link to the computer from where it could be downloaded. Nothing is stored at the Pirate Bay servers but links, and this is why it has been difficult to file charges against them and get them convicted of anything. They are currently awaiting a trial for the ridiculous crime labled "Aiding piracy", invented just for this trial.

The link was uploaded, and didn't get much attention. There are millions of such torrents on the Pirate Bay. Thousands are added every day. If people doesn't upload it, it disappears in the noise. This is what probably would've happened in a couple of days, if the Media hadn't intervened.

Act 4 - The hype
For some reason, a driven reporter on TV4 News found out about this torrent and decided that it would be News (TM), given the high profile of the murder case and the fact that there were autopsy pictures. So they aired a report about this. They couldn't resist - "Autopsy pictures at the Pirate Bay". Despite the fact that this was hardly the case.

It led to the Pirate Bay getting hundereds of mails from upset people who, in more or less threatening manners, demanded they take down the material.

Now the Pirate Bay can't really do much about this.

First of all, they have a principle that they don't take stuff down, unless it is illegal to possess (such as child porn). If they started to back down on that principle, they would soon have to start to take down more and more controversial (or private) material links untill they idea with the site was obliterated.

Secondly, the Streisand effect would've kicked in. The Streisand effect is a principle that if you try to remove something from the Internet, it starts spreading faster. The definition is, "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it."

In 2003 a photographer took an aerial picture of Streisand's house. She sued the website publishing it as part of a beachfront project. And soon it was evident that this had led to the picture being very popular on the Internet.

In April 2007, the HDTV encryption key was published on Digg. They tried to remove it. The result is that it started to occur on hundereds of thousands of web pages. There's a song about it. Several domain names contains the number or variations of it. By trying to conceal this number, it became the most famous number on the Internet.

Wikileaks had a series of OT documents from the Church of Scientology. When the Scientologists tried to have it removed, Wikileaks woved to publish several thousands of additional pages of Scientology material.

It's quite simple - once something gets on the Internet it stays. If you try to remove it, you make things worse. The Pirate Bay crew knew this.

And the fact is that if TV 4 News hadn't made the report, the file would've disappeared in the noise. But by making the report, they made the public aware of it. Suddenly, it went from 100 downloads in several months to tens of thousands of downloads in a couple of days.

All this the Pirate Bay crew understood and tried to tell the people mailing them to have it removed. Aside from the fact that material wasn't there in the first place, only links to it.

When one of the moderators had spent an entire day answering this kind of mails, with various levels of abuse, he got fed up. To one mail, he simply answered. "Enough with the fucking nagging. No, no and again no."

The problem was that the person he replied to wasn't just any concerned citizen. it was the father of the two murdered children.

Act 5 - the bigots
Of course, this was realized quite quickly, and the Pirate Bay issued a public message (Swedish only) apologizing to the father for this reply, along with an explanation of why the mistake had occured.

But of course, the story took off. Every old media - newspapers, radio, TV - in the country has reported on this. Hundereds of blogs has discussed it. Some have tried to start a boycot campaign against the Pirate Bay with limited success. Others have tried to explain or defend the Pirate Bay - I tend to belong to the second category.

But it all boils down to this:

The Old Media loves this whole situation. They feel threatened by the new media trends and the development that new technology has meant to them. They have not been particularily good at following the latest developments and are worried about blogs, user-provided content, torrent technology and all the other things that threatens their monopoly on handing out information to the masses. They have seen an opportunity to do so now.

And in fact, how cynical aren't they? For months they have exploited the tragedy of this family on a daily basis. And now, suddenly, when one of the symbols of the new information infrastructure have accidentally gotten involved in this case, NOW they are suddenly horrified about the lack of morals towards the family?

Talk about hypocrits. Being holier than thou when they in fact created the problem in the first place - after exploiting it for add incomes for months? I am suddenly glad I never became a reporter. Had I been, I would seriously have questioned the ethics of my job today.

Law on communications tapping scorned from abroad

2008-06-17T01:29:00.001+02:00

The Swedish FRA law is condemned by several international NGOs. Among these are Privacy International, a London based foundation based in 50 countries which works against electronic monitoring of citizens and for a stronger protection of privacy and openness.

Privacy International's vice secretary general David Banisar has followed the debate of the Swedish FRA law for some time.

"I can't imagine how this law is going to be able to meet the demands of the European Declaration of Human Rights, Banisar says to DN.

He can't think of any European equivalents to the FRA law, and says it's one of the most far reaching acts he has seen in this field:

"The closest you get, the way I see it, is the controversial decision of the Bush administration to bypass the law and monitor all American communications with other countries, even that on internal matters."

Echelon is a huge American-British network for search pattern basedlinetaping, the largest information collection and monitoring network that has ever existed. According to Privacy International, Echelon is able to get itself into and spy on the tele- and data trafic of almost any country and with very limited judicial control. The system is estimated to catch around 3 billion communications a day.

Echelon is primarily controlled by the US and the UK, but Australia, New Zeeland and Canada also adds to the surveillance.

Surprisingly enough, David Banisar claims that the FRA in a way actually works in an even broader fashion.

"In reality it will contain Swedish domestical communication as well, if it happens to cross the borders."

The European Federation of Journalists, EFJ, has also made a statement where they condemn the Swedish bill proposal. Electronic monitoring of tele- and e-mail communications is breaking international and European legislation, the EFJ concludes. In the European Parliament the FRA bill is questioned by, among others, the French MEP Benoît Hamon, prominent socialist and former coworker of Martin Aubry, minister of Labour in the Jospin administration. Hamon has written a letter with a number of questions about the bill to the European Convention: He wants to know if the Convention believes that the FRA bill is compatible with European legislation and with the European Declaration of Human Rights. He also asks if the Commision has any idea wether or not the Swedish government has taken any measure to protect non-Swedes. He also asks if there are any connections to monitoring networks ouside of the EU, primarily Echelon.

Håkan Jevrell, state secretary in the Ministry of Defence, claimed in DN yesterday that the Swedish law isn't unique in the world or in Europe. However, his only concrete example was Echelon.

In fact, it is very hard to get a greater picture of what models of surveillance that are in use in other EU countries, and if they can be compared with the FRA bill. Except for the UK, the Netherlands and Germany has implemented some fort of surveillance. But details about how these countrie control their signal fishing, or other European example, are things that the Ministry of Defense hasn't been able to provide DN with.

"I don't think we have any such informations specifically about tapping withing the EU", department employee Per Anderman says.

Tove Nandorf, DN

Sweden steps away from democracy

2008-06-17T00:20:00.001+02:00

World+dog ignores Sweden's Draconian wiretap bill
'If your email crosses our border, we tap it'
By Dan Goodin in San Francisco
Published Wednesday 4th June 2008 20:27 GMT

Sweden is on the verge of passing a far-reaching wiretapping program that would greatly expand the government's spying capabilities by permitting it to monitor all email and telephone traffic coming in and out of the country.

So far, hacks from the mainstream Swedish press seem to be on holiday, so news about the proposed law is woefully hard to come by. That leaves us turning to this summary from the decidedly partisan Swedish Pirate Party for details. We'd prefer to rely on a more neutral group, but that wasn't possible this time. According to them, here's a broad outline:

The En anpassad försvarsunderrättelseverksamhet bill (which loosely translates to "a better adapted military intelligence gathering") gives Sweden's National Defence Radio Establishment (FRA) direct access to the traffic passing through its borders. Now remember, we're talking about the internet, which frequently routes packets though multiple geographically dispersed hops before they reach their final destination.

This all but guarantees that emails and voice over IP (VoIP) calls between Swedes will routinely be siphoned into a massive monitoring machine. And we wouldn't be surprised if traffic between parties with no tie to the country regularly passes through Sweden's border as well, and that too would be fair game. (For example, email sent from a BT address in London to Finland is likely to pass through Sweden first.)

Once intercepted, the data will be searched for certain keywords, and those that contain the words will be pulled aside for additional scrutiny. A broad array of organizations will have use of the system, including the Department of Transportation, the Department of Agriculture, the police, secret service and customs, and in some cases major businesses. The bill allows Swedes to be singled out, as well.

When the bill was introduced in early 2007, Google was reportedly so concerned about its consequences for privacy that it threatened to limit its ties to the country if the measure passed.

"We have contacted Swedish authorities to give our view of the proposal and we have made it clear that we will never place any servers inside Sweden's borders if the proposal goes through," Peter Fleischer, Google's global privacy counsel, said last year, according to this article. "We simply cannot compromise our users' integrity by allowing Swedish authorities access to data that may not even concern Swedish activity."

But so far, few outside of the pro-privacy universe have bothered to discuss the bill this time around. There have been no similar pronouncements from Google and representatives there didn't respond to a request for comment. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has likewise been reticent about the bill.

"Surprisingly enough, there hasn't been that much written about it, even in the Swedish media," said Patrik Runald, a Swedish national and a security response manager for F-Secure who works in San Jose, California.

"The funny thing is when asked what do you want to look for, [backers of the bill] don't really specify what they're interested in," he continued. "It's a very broad bill. They basically can interpret whatever they like."

One of the few recent press mentions of the bill came from a publication called Cellular News in London. According to this story, Nordic and Baltic telecommunications provider TeliaSonera planned to move email servers out of Sweden to protect the privacy of its Finnish customers.

The bill is scheduled to come up for a vote on June 17. According to the Swedish Pirate Party, a majority of parliament currently backs the bill.

Source: The Register

I am seriously starting to worry about Swedish democracy.

1: When this law is passed, Sweden has taken a huge and almost irrevocable step towards abandoning democracy.

2: This step has been taken by systematic cheating (votes and debates during times when many are away, i.e. Christmas vacations and similar) and lies to the press and on official websites.

3: This step has been part of a strategy that has been used more or less since the same year that Swedish political society - around year 2000 - unanimously said that we will never again mass monitor our citizens.

4: This step has been taken because both the left wing and the right wing parties have pushing for it.

5: It is enough that four parliament members from any of the governing parties votes against it for it to be turned down. However, several of said politicians who claim they are against this law has told media that they will either vote to pass the law just the same in fear of reprisals or bad blood from their party peers (the so-called "party whip") or that they will refrain from voting alltogether for the same reasons.

6: Mass media has shunned to write anything about this untill last week, when it was clear that hundereds of blog posts has taken it up, when hundereds of upset people have mailed their MPs to protest, and when the campaign site against this law has had hundereds of thousands of visits within the span of a week. Now, suddenly, all news papers write about it. From various angles.

7: The Pirate Party released an mp3 recording of a conversation with the chairman of the FRA admitting that the authority has already been monitoring trafic en masse for several years without being permitted to do so by law.

8: Sweden's leading TV news show has also uncovered that FRA has done this monitoring, and well aware that there are serious legal issues surrounding the procedures.

9: Several other authorities, expert panels, unions, concideration bodies, union of journalists, union of lawyers, the National Security Service and others have all shunned this law as unconstitional and anti-democratic.

And still, it seems like the Swedish parliament will ignore all these facts and pass this law on Wednesday.

Check out Magnatune if you haven't already

2007-03-28T00:14:00.000+02:00

If this hasn't already been featured everywhere, it should have been.

Magnatune is a record label that started in the year 2000 from what I can gather (claims that the famous Courtney Love article was written six months after the foundation of the company, but Wikipedia says 2003). The founder's wife had been signed and completely screwed over by the record company - she lost the rights to her music for 7 years, even though the CD was out of print for many years, and received $137 in royalties, parts of which was paid out as CD copies of her own album.

So John Buckman started his own record label. It is not connected to any of the music mafia lobby groups like the RIAA. These guys don't believe in such groups.

All artists signed to the label is handpicked. Which means they sell what they believe in. And because of this, they don't screw their artists over - 50% of the sales goes to the artist.

When you browse around the site, you'll notice that you don't make a buy based on a guess. You can listen to everything, every minute of every song of every album, so you know exactly what it is that you're buying.

And when you make the buy, you download full CD qualities in several formats, with high quality album art - or you can have the CD shipped to you. If you lose your products for any reasons, it's completely okay to download it again.

There is no DRM on their products. Magnatunes doesn't like DRM. Their music can be played anywhere.

If you have a podcast that is non-commercial, or what they call "commercial but starving", you can use their music for free, due to individual deals with every individual artist. And it doesn't stop their. On their website, they outright encourage the buyer to give three copies of your purchase to friends.

The three copies limitations sounds like DRM. It's really not. It doesn't stop you from making more than three copies of files. It allowes you to do four downloads from the downloads page. So when you buy something from them, four people can download the buy.

The only thing I miss is the opportunity to buy individual tracks or designing one's own CD - one buy the entire album in a chunk from Magnatunes, in an old-fashioned style that might quickly go out of date.

Cheering too soon

2007-03-22T01:03:00.000+01:00

Recently, I reported that there is a chance that the social democrats might force a postponement on the Stasi law of defense minister Odenberg, that their own former justice minister Bodström developed before the elections last year.

I also pointed out that Bodström and the social democrats have nothing principally against mass surveillance - quite the contrary, they wouldn't mind it at all when they regain power in 2010 or 2014 - but they are now trying to take popularity points as this legislation is turning out to be a hot potatoe.

I guess I can only confirm that I was right.

The Social Democrats have started working on their own proposition of surveillance legislation.

Today the party held a hearing where critical voices could make themselves heard.

Defense minister Mikael Odenberg have adjusted his original proposition. But it is not enough, according to Board of Attorneys representative Anne Ramberg and the chairman of Directory Committee and former head of SÄPO (Swedish National Security Agency) Anders Eriksson.

Ramberg protests against the fact that the proposition that lets FRA listen in on all tele trafic and read e-mail, faxes and text messages to and from Sweden will make possible an unregulated retrieval of information.

"We are talking about surveillance on a scale that we have never been close to before," said Anne Ramberg, who think that such revolutionizing legislation must be prepared differently.

"Why such a hurry? Why not take a step back?" she asks and called for an independent body authorizing the surveillance.

Anders Eriksson agree and compared with other countries that have more far-reaching limits [to survelliance - my comment], such as the US and Germany.

Former Justice Minister Thomas Bodström also wants new rules for surveillance but he is critical of the proposition from the government.

"We will bring our own proposition where Anne Ramberg's and Anders Eriksson's views will be important", Bodström says and calls for an independent body of control.

The non-socialist parties have left an opening for changes in the proposition during its handling in parliament. The committees of defense, justice and constitution are to hold a public hearing and the decision is not to be made until June.

The governmental party MPs are happy to remind anyone that it was the social democrats that created the proposition. But Bodström says:

"We have failed the propositions of both the old government and the new one."

If the social democrats can't get support for their opinions, they will reach the minority protection the parliament provides and postpone the proposition for a year.

(Source)

So, the social democrats will make their own proposition about mass surveillance á la Eastern Germany. The main difference is that they want a control body (which they also had in Eastern Germany, by the way), and they will take the opinions of a lawyer and the former head of the Swedish Security Services into account! But they will also only postpone the decision if these changes doesn't get through.

So there is really difference at all, in other words.

But, even if we are lucky and the proposition does get postponed, we shouldn't believe we are safe just yet. Because there are three other surveillance propositions waiting to get sneaked through as well. The Pirate Party made a press release on March 13.

The social democrats have made it understood that they will probably vote with the Green Party and the Left Party for a postponement of the FRA proposition. The mass surveillance that the government has planned will then have to wait for at least a year.

"But there are three other almost identical propositions just around the corner, that threatens integrity just as much, says Pirate Party chairman Rickard Falkvinge.

Science Radio reported on March 13 on one of these propositions, one called "Availability of electronic communication in crime investigations", or SOU 2005:38. The proposition says that police is going to be able to place bugs in computers, and that internet providers are to be forced to spy on all their customers, all the time, for the benifit of the National Board of Police. The idea is that a police officer or another personal involved in state administration can watch what a person has done at a given time. The internet providers are to pay the bill for the surveillance and the gigantic database that is required.

"Just like in the case of the FRA proposition, it is a matter of mass surveillance of ordinary citizens that are not even suspected of crime. This is the wrong direction to go for our society", says Rickard Falkvinge.

Another proposition that is expected to be brought up in parliament during spring is the Data Storage Directive, due to be integrated into Swedish legislation before June. It is a EU directive from the winter of 2005, where Thomas Bodström was a key architect. Just like the proposition on electronic communications, it is about internet providers being forced to register what their customers are doing and give this information to authorities. Critics claim that this clash with the European Convention and thus can not and should not be implemented.

"From having a mail secrecy where it has been forbiden for the operators to store information about our private communications, we are now going to have laws that says that they are forced to do it, says Rickard Falkvinge. Information about all text messages, e-mails and phone calls are to be logged in a gigantic database. They are also being forced to store our movements through to"wn, by continously taking the bearings of all cellular phones."

The third proposition is the so-called Sanction Directive, or IPRED1. This is also a EU directive due to become Swedish legislation. The planned Swedish implementation give the lobby groups of movie and record companies the right to work as police and prosecutors, with more far reaching power than the real judicial system.

"This is how it works in the US, for example. There these lobby groups have put into system forcing tens of thousands of citizens to turn over all their fortunes to them, threatening to sue them for the tripple amounts if they don't comply. They have sent legal threats to 83 year old ladies and 12 year old school girls. This is nothing short of systematic and state sanctioned blackmailing, and this kind of organized crime against our citizens I don't want to see in Sweden," Falkvinge says. "Those that don't believe this could happen in Sweden can watch any other country in Europe - every place where these special interest groups have been given this authority, they act in the same fashion. They are accused of organized mafia methods, and not without reason."

"Each one of these propositions is an abomination against democracy and a direct threat against society if they are made into laws. Sweden is the second worst country in Europe when it comes to protecting our privacy. Why is the government hurrying to create the police state that is the lowest spot on the list? The Pirate Party claimed before the election that there wouldn't be much of a difference between a red or a blue government in this respect, but it is sad to see how correct with were. It is now up to Sweden to confirm that all these propositions is a breach against basic human rights conventions and to refuse to make them into laws," Falkvinge concludes.

We are currently fighting for basic democratic principles in Sweden, believe nothing else. If these propositons are passed and turned into legislation, we have a system of mass surveillance that has not been seen in Europe since well before the fall of the Iron Curtain. Back then we were on the right side of the wall. If these laws are passed, we will quickly find ourselves on the wrong side of the Telescreens.

Name the company

2007-03-22T00:36:00.000+01:00

Who can guess the name of the company I am now describing?

5 points: One of the many companies that are effectively involved in lawsuits against itself for copyright infringments?

4 points: The company in 2005 hired graffiti artists to spray paint advertisements for one of its products in seven major US cities.

3 points: The company has been charged for price cartelling several times, including in 2005 (at least three times), 2006, and just as late as March 20, 2007.

2 points: Received fame for installing a rootkit on the computer of those that bought some of their products. They provided an uninstaller - that installed a dial-home program. They are facing several class action lawsuits regarding this matter. being sued or filed by several US states, the US federal government and sovereign states.

1 points: Provides what is probably the most over-priced game console in the world - for consumers, developers and virtually anyone else.

Answer: Sony, of course.

Official website in Swedish

2007-03-19T04:44:00.000+01:00

I now have an official website in Swedish. http://ithaum.googlepages.com/home is the address.

Social democrats might postpone surveillance law

2007-03-13T07:04:00.000+01:00

Former minister of justice Thomas Bodström and another influental social democrat Ulrica Messing recommend that the law that will give FRA rights to spy on Swedish citizens be postponed a year for debate.

Thomas Bodström has no principle obligations against the idea, mind you, he simply do not think that the proposition is good enough from an integrity point of view.

Vice prime minister Maud Olofsson has an interesting way of arguing for the proposition. She says that this is merely regulating something that has been done practically for decades.

That's like making murder legal, since that has happened for a long time, and now we want to regulate how it is done.

If there is a practice that is unacceptable in society, the answer is to bring the responsible to justice. Not to legalize their actions.

A large step

2007-03-08T20:17:00.000+01:00

So, when defense minister Odenberg presents the new surveillance law to the parliament, what are the words he begins his presentation with?

Today we take an important step to improve the personal integrity of the individual.

Have I heard and read this before somewhere?

WAR IS PEACE

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

Mass surveillance bill might get postponed for a year - with a little luck

2007-03-07T11:13:00.000+01:00

According to Swedish news agency TT, the controversial mass surveillance law might be postponed for a year if enough members of the parliament demands it. Two opposition parties have already decided to try to make it so, but will need support from further MPs.

Since even MPs belonging to the parties in government are highly critical of this proposition, that would effectively put Sweden in a state of survelliance resembling that of the former Eastern Europe, the government is now trying broke a deal with the Social Democrats.

But, despite the fact that the Social Democrats have laid the groundworks of mass surveillance during the last few years, they now see a chance to play the good guys. They are not saying they are pro this bill, but they keep it "an open question." Not to be fooled, of course, chances are they will sooner or later regain power and hardly object to being a step closer to the Bodström society, now perhaps better described as the Bodström-Odenberg society. But perhaps, who knows, in a few years, people might have forgotten about how they were the once building the base for this development.

During the Pirate Demonstration last month, however, representatives of Young Pirates, youth organisation of the Swedish Pirate Party already said to Swedish Television that the main strategy was to get a postponement in the Parliament for a year, so that the matter could rise up on the agenda, since the only reason people are not reacting more powerfully on these developments is that they are simply not aware of them.

Below is the full message in my translation.

Controversial law can be stopped in parliament

On Thursday, Defense minister Mikael Odenberg is to finish the law of signal surveillance against computer and tele trafic through cable. The parliament might however stop the controversial propostion for a year.

- He can't be certain to pass this proposition this year, says former minister of justice Thomas Bodström (s).

The defense minister is hoping that the law can be put into effect on July 1 this year. It gives the right for FRA (Försvarets Radioanstalt - The Radio Institution of the Defense Forces) to keep surveillence of all tele communications to and from the country that goes through cable.

According to the constitution, a minority of 60 MPs can force a postponement for twelve months, since it is a proposition limiting freedoms and rights of individuals.

The Left party and the Green Party have already decided to try to force the postponement. Green Party mouthpiece Peter Eriksson has also demanded a debate when the proposition is handed to the Parliament. The two parties will however need support from other MPs to manage to halt the proposition for a year.

To avoid delays, Odenberg (m) have stated that he would consult with the Social Democrats concerning the prooisition. S, however, have not in advance wanted to declair their position on the matter. According to the parliaments Defense Committee chairman Ulrica Messing (s) it is an "open" question if the party is to support a delay.

Basically the Social Democrats believe that the FRA needs to be able to perform surveillence not only radio trafic, but also data- och tele communications through cable. But it has to be weighed against the protection of personal integrity, according to Messing.

Bodström also points towards a less highlighted part of the proposition, that he believes should be discussed further. The military is given the possibility to perform intelligence gathering in Sweden, something that collides with police tasks.

- We have always been clear that it is the work of the police to conduct crime investigations, and the work of the military to defend the nation.

The governmental parties have negotiated changes to strengthen personal integrity in the proposition, and have done so untill the last second before the decision was taken this Thursday.

Those who wants to delay it will have the support of statements that will be made by the Parliamentary Committee of Defense of Personal Integrity in a few weeks. The committee has investigated the laws of recent years and will come to the conclusion that there has been too little analysis of how personal integrity is affected.

Several right wing MPs in the committee are expressing criticism on that the government has not awaited the statement before pushing the proposition.

- It's not serious, says Annie Johansson (c).

Her fellow party member, former MP Agne Hansson says that integrity matters is not kept high on the agendy these days.

The controversial surveillance biil is now also facing criticism from a pure technical viewpoint. It will not be possible to separate foreign data trafic from domestic data traic, according to Patric Fältström, who has been leading the IT-political stragety group of the government for the last years, according to Swedish Radio.

It is crucial for this bill that it is possible to separate trafic within Sweden from trafic to other countries, since the FRA according to the proposition can only monitor data and telecommunications to and from other countries.

- It is extremely difficult to determine if the trafic is really passing between someone in Sweden and someone outside of Sweden. My position is that it's impossible, says Patric Fältström to Swedish Radio.

From TT.

Funny picture.

2007-03-07T00:07:00.000+01:00

Kudos to p2pnet, who found the picture off of Tony in Holland. Thanks to you.

Successful lobby groups file another complaint against the Pirate Bay, for the same crime

2007-02-28T04:36:00.000+01:00

It seems that IFPI has decided to file another report on The Pirate Bay, in the middle of the current investigation. For the same crime. And, according to the CEO, Lars Gustafsson, they would like another raid.

That's what we wish for in our wettest dreams.

Isn't it counterproductive and impossible to get an investigation for a crime going by a police report, while another investigation is currently taking place for the same crime?

Well, it seems that the copyright lobby groups have wind in their sails. Not only have they been educating the police on how to tackle file sharing. It seems that their last attack on the Pirate Bay will not be investigated on wether or not it was constitutional. At least not now. "Postponed indefinately." sounds very convinient.

And so the scandal grows.

Known APB employed infiltrator lectures on copyright at Swedish Police Academy

2007-02-22T08:01:00.000+01:00

Copyriot provide a very interesting notice:

On March 10, the Swedish police made a raid on Bahnhof, the first independent Internet Service Provider in Sweden. It was raided, and four servers confiscated, due to a police report made by Antipiratbyrån - piracy was done from the servers.

But it turned out the servers were not Bahnhofs property, since employees had put them there.

Before too long, it was proven that the person that had put the servers there was paid by a person calling himself "Rogue", who was actually paid by - Antipiratbyrån. This rogue also send mails to his bosses, bragging that he had infiltrated the ISP for two years which finally led to a raid.

This turned into a major scandal when a group called Arga Unga Hackare (Angry Young Hackers) gained access to APB mail and published some. It was a scandal, because it proved that APB had hired a person to infiltrate a company, and that the person had then himself commited piracy crimes while at their property, and then the APB, his employers, had reported the company, leading to a raid.

"Rogue" turned out to be a guy called Peter Bergström. And, are you ready for this (translation from Copyriot):

No further indignation will be spent here over the fact that Hollywood and FBI has been allowed to educate the Swedish police. We will simply note an interesting name. Invited to the Police Academy seminar on file sharing and copyright legislation, held on January 24, was:

* Andrew Myers, FBI agent.
* Henrik Pontén, chief legal advisor at the APB
* The Brussels lobbyist Peter Bergström, representative of the MPA

Hmm... Peter Bergström? I recognize this name from the scandal where APB infiltrated Bahnhof.

According to the mails hacked and made public, Rogue, the nickname of this infiltrator, was a 32 year old by the name of Peter Bergström. This person sent, among other things, IRC logs to APBs Anders Nilsson, and after the raid on Bahnhof during the spring of 2005 he proudly reported to his employers in the US:

From: peter@anti-piracy.se
Sent: Thursday, March 10, 2005 9:29
To: Tilbury, Chad; Seymour, Dan; Winter, Craig
Subject: Swedish pirates busted!

Hi guys!

After 2 years of infiltrations our work finally paid of today with a successful raid on Sweden's oldest and largest ISP named Bahnhof.
Bahnhof has been a source for top level piracy for several years and hosting some of the biggest and fastest servers in Europe.

Is this the same Peter Bergström? I don't know, but it doesn't seem completely unlikely that the MPA(A) could have rewarded "Rogue" with a job in Brussels.

Bahnhofs own investigation concluded that Peter Bergströms own acts was crime provocation, and Piratbyrån reported APB for forgery and false accusations - a police report that, hardly surpricingly, the police doesn't seem to have touched. The entire Bahnhof affair has been getting in the shadow of the Pirate Bay raid, but when the central figure "Rogue" have now possibly popped up as a lecturer at the Police Academy, it would be extra important to investigate if there have been any mistakes done?

Windows Vista sucks - it's the pirates' fault

2007-02-20T22:06:00.000+01:00

The reason why Windows Vista is selling slowly is piracy, especially in countries such as China, India, Brazil and Russia.

At least the Microsoft CEO, Steve "The Sweaty Madman" Ballmer claims this to be the truth.

His final solution (interesting choice of words, I wonder if they are his or if it's the words of the Inquirer) is to - increase the WGA to squeaze these developing nations more.

Steve Ballmer has not understood that blaming piracy doesn't work. And that piracy is actually a great help to developing economies. It's good that Stevie finally has released Bill Gates' skirt, but if someone is able to give Bill Gates advice on matters of software, then it would be wise to listen.

And perhaps it's the other way around, really - Vista doesn't sell bad because of piracy, there might be piracy because of Vista's pricing and trusted computing concept. Perhaps it's about time that big business looks over their business methods, instead of blaming piracy for the fact that the world is still evolving.

Demonstration in favour of Egyptian blogger who faces prison

2007-02-20T21:45:00.000+01:00

The Egyptian blogger Abdelkareem has been detained since November because he spoke his mind. On February 22nd Kareem will be the first Egyptian to stand trial for Internet-based journalism. Because of his arguments for secularism, women’s rights and free speech this 22-year old blogger faces up to 11 years in jail. More information here.

Right now several Swedish bloggers and others are preparing a protest against this attack on freedom of expression. Please help us to show support for human rights in Egypt. Mark your calendar, and if you are a blogger, please spread the word.

Meet us outside the Egyptian Embassy

Strandvägen 35, Stockholm

Wednesday, 21 February, 12.00

Speakers:

Henrik Alexandersson, blogger

Fredrik Malm, Member of Parliament

Johan Norberg, author

The MPAA educates Swedish police

2007-02-20T02:08:00.000+01:00

So the question of copyright is a rather complicated one, and our system is not entierly sure how work it juridically.

In Sweden we have a few number prejudicing cases and it is all a mess. Therefor it would be welcomed to see that police is educating people on the matter. As a matter of fact, a couple of weeks ago, six officers finished their education as the Swedish police force's experts in matters of copyright, piracy and file sharing.

That would be a good thing, one might think. Maybe these officers could balance the complex interests involved, that of industry, originators, privacy, and judicial security.

If it weren't for one fact. Guess who educated these Swedish police officers?

The MPAA did.

So it seems, once again, the US private interest group has been going to Sweden to teach our police how to work our laws in our country.

Representatives from the three organisations (MPA, FBI, APB) were invited by the Police Academy to hold lectures on how they have worked against piracy and give example of successfull projects in other countries. [...] In the report (from IIPA, mentioned on this blog earlier, my comment) there are also plans for the "industry to plan further training and educational work with police and prosecutors during 2007."

And, get this:

After Computer Sweden's queries Friday, the list of participants became classified.

Isn't it about time that the Swedish judicial system stopped taking orders from US lobby groups?

Pirates of all colours demonstrate in four cities

2007-02-18T14:02:00.003+01:00

On Saturday, a few hundered people gathered outside the Swedish parliament in Stockholm. Other demonstrations were held in Malmö, Gothenburgh and Umeå, with the same number of participants. The message was clear: Mass surveillance of all citizens in case something interesting will show up is not okay. With the new legislation that is passing in Sweden, couped through political and judicial instances, means that Sweden is rapidly passing countries such as the UK and the US that are famous, or infamous, for their surveillance. Instead, the Swedish system is getting dangerously similar to those of Eastern Germany or the Soviet Union when it comes to surveillance.

TV news made a short report covering a few minutes that was aired on most of the important news shows throughout the evening. This report focused on the wide representation present in arranging these demonstrations.

The demonstrations were arranged by the Pirate Party along with Ung Pirat, Ung Vänster (Young Left, youth organisation of the Left Party), Grön Ungdom (Green Youth, youth organisation of the Green Party) and Liberala Ungdomsförbundet (Liberal Yough Organisation, youth organisation of the People's Parrty, one of the liberal parties in government). This was not only an outcry against Sweden's march against an Orwellian society, but also the youth organisations decrying the failures of their mother parties to protect basic democratic principles.

IIPA: Sweden an infamous pirate haven

2007-02-15T05:10:00.000+01:00

Sweden is a free haven for piracy, hosting more Direct Connect hubs than any other country in the world. It is also the home of the Pirate Bay and this illegal distribution continues to increase because of bad legislation. This is claimed by the copyright organisation IIPA in a special report on Sweden.

The copyright interest group International Intellectual Property Alliance, IIPA, points at Sweden as being one of 60 countries where "copyright legislation creates obstacles for the founding of new companies with large needs for copyright, such as software companies". This is reported by the Business Software Alliance, BSA, one of the organisations behind the report.

The annual report has been presented to the United States Trade Representative.

The reasons that Sweden is on the list is, according to the organisation, that there is a lot of internet piracy going on in Sweden, and that we are claimed to have difficulties dealing with the criminal activity in an effective manner.

The IIPA can not yet see an end to the widespread piracy in Sweden. According to the organisation, 490 000 movies were downloaded during the third quarter last year, an increase from 468 000 movies the year before, the report says, not specifying any source.

The situation is further complicated, according to the organisation, by the fact that Swedes are tolerant towards piracy, something that according to the report is evident in media and in public opinion. The politicians are not thought of as having understood the extent of the file sharing problem. The organisation however claims to be looking forward to cooperating with the new government in finding new ways in the struggle against piracy.

In the report it is claimed that Sweden is the home of 40 per cent of the top sites that are specialized pirate servers with large storage capabilities and large bandwidth, that are present in Europe. It is also claimed that Sweden is home to the largest number of Direct Connect users and hubs. The report points out that Sweden is the home of the Pirate Bay.

Also the political debate following the raid against the Pirate Bay is highlighted in the report. The copyright industry is said to be deeply concerned that the Social Democratic party and the Moderate party during the fall have made positive remarks on the idea of a fee on broadband as an alternative to keeping piracy illegal.

Sweden is also criticized because it is not possible to get user information from ISP:s, something that turns copyright legislation into a lame duck, and it is also remarked that Sweden has not yet implemented the EU directive that gives possibilities to pirate hunters to demand information on file sharers without police or attorneys.

It does not, however, know what we all know - that APB, the Anti-Piracy Bureau in fact has the right to collect personal information about individuals that they suspect of being involved in piracy, in other words to perform police work. Nor does it mention that Sweden is about to pass a law that gives private interest groups such as members of the copyright mafia the rights to demand private information about individuals from ISPs if the organisation suspects them of being involved in piracy. This is something I have reported on time and time again, and something that will be the target of a rally this saturday.

The report expresses disappointment that many ISP:s have stopped forwarding reminders to users after copyright groups have discovered that there is piracy going on. This is something that IIPA sees as a consequence of the public debate on file sharing that has been going on in Sweden.

The Pirate Party is also pointed out as a sign that Sweden is one of the most pro pirate countries and the IIPA themselves claim that the party's result in the general elections last years was far lower than expected.

Note the tone. Sweden is an infamous haven for pirates. It's lame duck legislation makes it hard for software companies to start. The public, the politicians and media are all against the copyright mafia.

Sweden can't deal with criminal activity.

Sweden has the nerve to be toleratant towards piracy. The Swedish public are insolent enough to think that it is a waste of resources to hunt down close to one fourth of the population.

Swedish media has the audacity to mirror this public opinion. And Swedish politicians are stupid enough to act on the same public opinion. Nevermind that in a representative democracy such as Sweden politicians are suppose to work in the interest of the public.

The politics of Sweden is so perverted that politicians and public figures have the very nerve to actually discuss different alternatives.

Sweden is so corrupt that it doesn't even let private organisations perform police work.

How fortunate then that we have brave groups like the IIPA, that can point our errors out to us. Groups like the IIPA that does not complain about an open debate. Groups like the IIPA who would never give a figure without citing any sources. Groups like the IIPA who would never ever forget to mention that a country DO give them the possibilities that they claim they are denied.

For what is it that the IIPA says? It complaints about the Swedish open minds on political ideas, on new business models, on the right to express one's opinions, on the protection against private policing and mob rule, on our willingness to discuss various alternative solutions to problems. On the very basics of democracy.

"Democracy and piracy can not co-exist. Therefor, let us together cut down on democracy. That is the price we must pay to be able to keep to our own out-dated business methods."

This is what the IIPA wants to tell us in this report. This is the slogan of the copyright mafia. And, in an instant, it becomes rather obvious that the main problem is not that democracy and piracy have problems to co-exist. The problem is the co-existance of democracy and copyright as we know it today.

Check the report out!

Demonstrations for Privacy in Sweden, this saturday!

2007-02-14T00:11:00.000+01:00

Swedish authorities have given a green light to the radio corps of the military for mass surveillance of telecommunications. According to Anne Ramberg in the Swedish Association of Lawyers, this means that Sweden will now carry through a surveillance similar to that of former Eastern Germany, and by far surpasses for example the United States of today.

More and similar descisions are coming, decisions that will consequently give priority to surveillance over integrity. It is time to tell the Parliament that they don't have support for these policies. It is time for demonstrations!

This Saturday, February 17, the Pirate Party will arrange a demonstration for the right to privacy, together with Green Youth, Liberal Youth and Young Pirate. More organisations are poked and might attend. We gather those that want to save our rights to a private life on the following spots:

Stockholm - Mynttorget, 2 p.m.
Gothemburg: Gustav Adolf square, 1 p.m.
Malmö: Stortorget, 1 p.m.
Umeå: Rådhustorget, 3 p.m.

Come to the demonstration, bring your friends and demonstrate for the right to privacy.

The machine is us

2007-02-05T22:04:00.000+01:00

I like this video.

Romania tells Bill Gates that piracy helps

2007-02-05T20:24:00.000+01:00

Bill Gates attended the grand opening of a new research center in Romania. He was presented by the Star of Romania from the president, Traian Basescu, a medal usually given out for outstanding bravery during wartime. And he got to listen to a speech held by the president at the opening. A speech that must have surprised him a bit.

"Piracy helped the young generation to discover computers. It set off the development of the IT industry in Romania", he said.

"A bad thing became, in the end, an investment in friendship towards Microsoft and Bill Gates; an investment in educating the young generation in Romania which created the Romanians' friendship with the computer."

The British Software Alliance (BSA) made a survey, concluding that 72 per cent of all software in Romania is pirated. Bill Gates did not reply to the president's statement.

More at vnunet.com.

Traffic monitoring and bugging in Sweden

2006-12-19T07:41:00.000+01:00

Minister of Justice Beatrice Ask, who used to be one of the sharpest critics of Thomas Bodström on the question of data trafic monitoring, have now made a complete U-turn and says that storing of trafic data is to be implemented in Sweden.

This directive means that information about all Swedish telephone calls, SMSs, emails, cell phone calls are to be stored if the police needs it. From being illegal to store for matters of personal integrity, tele and internet operators are now being legally forced to store theis information for the judicial bodies. Whoever you call, when, and from where, is now going to be registered. Yes, from where. Cell phones with be continually checked for location, and movements will be registered and stored.

This is a breech of integrity of a scale that is unheard of in the world. Never before, a state has created a complete database of how its citizens are moving,

Youth organisation Young Pirate launched

2006-12-19T07:32:00.000+01:00

This weekend saw the foundation of Young Pirate, the youth section to the Swedish Pirate Party. It is to be headed Hugi Ásgeirsson from the town of Kiruna. It will be open to everyone under the age of 26, who can choose to also be members of the Pirate Party.

I will come back with more information as soon as there is more to get.

File sharing is increasing - don't believe them!

2006-12-19T07:20:00.000+01:00

The Anti-Piracy Bureau claims that piracy is decreasing in Sweden.

"The statistics we have shows that the trials we have had has given a lot of effect. This is a typical crime where trials given much attention has a preventive effect", says the senior judicial advisor Henrik Pontén. [...] "We keep up our work as before. Our focus has always been on the large distributors, not individuals - even if those cases have gotten the most media attention."

This is the kinds of arguments that are used to get an exclusion from legislation meant to protect privacy. But are their arguments true?

1) As I pointed out three days ago, the APB have seemed to concentrate on getting trials for the most leanient forms of copyright infringements.

2) Their campaign is not working. According to new figures made by SCB (Statistics Sweden), the Swedish government agency on stats, one out of every five persons have used file sharing programs in one way or the other. This is an increase since last year, where the same figure was 18%.

So there we have it - the APB is concentrating on ordinary people. And file sharing is increasing. But the special interest group APB becomes exceptions in that they can store personal information and perform private police investigations, because they claim they go after the "big game" and that their methods are working.

Swedish anti pirate lobby allowed prolonged exclusion from integrity legislation

2006-12-16T23:36:00.000+01:00

IFPI and the Anti Piracy Bureau has been granted a prolonged permission to store IP addresses, according to a desicion made in the Data Inspection board of Sweden. This means that they are partially excluded from legislation that prevents individuals, groups and authorities to store data that has ties to personal integrity.

The Anti Piracy Bureau has made themselves famous for private investigations, organized citizens arrest and suspicion of provoking crimes, as well as basing their cases on screenshots. Screenshots can be forged, even as simply as in a matter of a script on a webpage, and should have no credibility as evidence, but has actually been used to sentence people for copyright infringements.

When the Anti Piracy Bureau applied for an exclusion the last time, they claimed that they wanted the exclusion to try "particularily grave cases of copyright infringment". But the cases they have tried since then has all been about the one movie shared without any commercial interests, i.e. the leanest forms of copyright infringement that exists in Swedish law. Instead of noticing, or caring about, this obvious slide of purpose and obvious change of facts in the last application, and instead of making a case out of it or demanding some form of explanation, the Data Inspection board has, as mentioned above, decided to prolong the exclusion.

What is more worrying than the fact that Swedish judicial authorities are excluding special interest groups from legislation in their particular area, and giving them the opportunity to perform their own private police investigations, is the motivation given by the Data Inspection board:

Datainspektionen bedömer att organisationernas insamling av bland annat IP-nummer inte innebär någon otillbörlig kränkning av den personliga integriteten. Båda organisationerna har i uppdrag att tillvarata sina medlemmars ekonomiska och rättsliga intressen. Till skillnad från tidigare får bland annat Antipiratbyrån efter årsskiftet även behålla uppgifter som redan lämnats till polisen.

"The board believes that the collection of for example IP addresses does not lead to any unacceptable transgressions of personal integrity. [...] As of now, the Anti Piracy Bureau can also keep information already given to the police." (Link - Swedish)

Which means that not only are this special interest group excluded from the law against private policing, they can also keep archives of data they have gathered - data that according to Swedish law is concidered significant to personal integrity."

It uses, as an argument, that storing this information does not endanger said personal integrity. Which means that there's not really a point of such a law in the first place - why issue a law that says that you can't store personal data because it endangers personal integrity, and then give special interest groups the privilledge to store the same data - because it doesn't endager personal integrity?

Stopping terrorism vs blocking internet traffic - In the EU

2006-11-28T07:42:00.000+01:00

In Mid-August the Vice-President of the European Commission, Franco Frattini, commented on websites that can be used for terrorism. He concluded that the aim was to make the Internet an "hostile environment" for terrorists. “I think it’s very important to explore further possibilities of blocking websites that incite to commit terrorist actions,” he said.

So, the Spy Blog wrote to Frattini asking on just how they figured they would do that, putting forward a list of 17 questions on the topic. What they received recently were a lenghty reply that essentially included numerous avaisive statements.

Basically, the commission seems to know approximately what it wants to do, but it has no idea on how to do it.

However, one point is interesting - they don't seem to rule out much, right now. On the first question asked,

Are you proposing a European Union version of the national level firewall content filtering and censorware software such as is used in the 'Great firewall of China' or in Saudi Arabia and other repressive regimes?

the reply is:

At such an early stage of our consultations it would be premature to speak about a specific solution...

As in, "We don't know yet, but we are not ruling out the possibility that we might build a Great Firewall of Europe."

But they are also quick to add:

the European Union is founded on the principles of liberty, democracy, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, and the rule of law. In consequence, policy options undermining such principles will be necessarily ruled out.

Which means that the commission might try to build up a firewall that filters out dangerous materials but maintains our basic democratic values. Which are two interesting principles to let oppose each other.

As concluded, the European Commission wants to make the Internet hostile grounds for terrorism. This obviously raises the old question of wether it's okay for democracy to overrule itself for self-protective reasons, as in: is it okay to set aside democratic principles to defend democratic principles, and who decides what is set aside to protect what.

In any case, watchdogness is called for, because even if people can be trusted enough to act without monitoring, authorities has proved that they obviously can not. Which means that we might want to watch out, lest some politicians might in the future tell a couple of network security experts what European citizens can and can not access on the world wide web.

Disclaimer: Some of this post has been shamelessly stolen from theRegister. I urge everyone to read this article as well.

School to Fingerprint All Students

2006-08-29T20:00:00.000+02:00

A London school is to embark on a trial to fingerprint 1,500 children when they return to school. Holland Park School is believed to be one of the first schools in the UK to seek to fingerprint every pupil in an effort to monitor their attendance.

This definately made me choke on my coffee. The United Kingdom steps one more step towards 1984. The first victims are the children.

Excerpt from the Pirate Party election program

2006-08-29T18:48:00.000+02:00

On August 28, the Pirate Party of Sweden made their election program official. An introduction stating the ideas and ideology behind their program, the party stated their program for the election in a number of concrete points. The program consists of a total of 15 pages, and should be the most concrete and factual of the programs presented by parties running in the elections.

Below is a translation I made of the introduction.

The Pirate Party Election Manifesto 2006

Preface
The election program of the Pirate Party consists of various nautical charts, describing what we want to do in each of the areas within the Pirate Party policies. These charts are divided in sections based on deadline and what is to be done on a Swedish and on a European level.

As an introduction to these charts, we describe our ideology and our main policies.

Protected integrity in an open society
The development of technology has made sure Sweden and Europe stand before a fork in the road. The new technology offers fantastic possibilities to spread culture and knowledge all over the world with almost no costs. But it also makes way for the building of a society monitored at a level unheard of up untill now.

In no time, the monitoring state has advanced its positions strongly in Sweden. This development threatens equality and safety before the law, and nothing indicates that it even adds to security. The Pirate Party believes this is the wrong way to go.

The right to privacy is a corner stone in an open and democratic society. Each and everyone has the right to respect for one's own private and family life, one's home and one's correspondense. If the constitutional freedom of information is to be more than empty words on a paper, we much defend the right for protected private communication.

The arguments for every individual step towards a monitoring society may sound very convincing, but we only have to look at the recent history of Europe to see where that road leads. It is less than twenty years since the fall of the Berlin wall, and there are numerous other terrible examples. To claim that it's only those with something to hide that has anything to fear is simply lacking knowledge of history, and lacking courage.

We have no problem with police monitoring and spying on suspected criminals. That is exactly what the police is suppose to be doing. But routinely monitoring ordinary citizens hoping for something suspicious to turn up is not only a gross violation of the privacy of honest people. It is also a waste of valuable police resources.

Vi måste dra i nödbromsen på det tåg som skenar mot ett samhälle vi inte vill ha. Terrorister kan attackera det öppna samhället, men bara regeringar kan avskaffa det. Piratpartiet vill se till att det inte händer.

We have to pull the emergency break on the train running towards a society we don't want. Terrorists can attack our open society, but only governments can disband it. The Pirate Party wants to ensure that this doesn't happen.

Private communication and file sharing
A driving force behind the current monitoring hystery is the entertainment business, which wants to prevent people from file sharing copyrighted material. But to achieve this all private communication must be monitored. To know what ones and zeros make up a movie, the ones and zeros has to be analyzed. It is the same sort of ones and zeros that is sent, regardsless of if it makes up a piece of music, or a letter to a doctor or a lawyer.

Therefor society ha to choose: do we want a possibility to trustingly communicate over the Internet to exist?

If your answer is yes, it means that also those that shares copyrighted material can use these possibilities.

If you answer is no, it means that you abolish the right of information, the right to mail secrecy and the right to a private life.

There are no other answers.

It is not possible to claim that society should allow mail secrecy for certain purposes, but not for others, since it is impossible to separate the different cases without breeching the secrecy. It is the same types of ones and zeros being used, and only by opening the message, it is possible to see what it contains.

The current copyright legislation can not be combined with freedom of information and protected private communication. Since the fundamental principles of the open, democratic society is more important than conserving old business models within the business of entertainment at all costs, copyright has to fold.

But this is not negative. A reformed copyright legislation, expressing a balance between different interests in society instead of being an order form from the large media companies, has its own benifits. It is a possibility for Sweden and Europe, not a threat.

The spreading of culture and knowledge is a positive thing
Thanks to the Internet it is today possible for everyone with a computer to take part of a fantastic treasure of culture and knowledge.

Instead of being limited to a cultural canon decided from above, the youths of today has access to the music, theater and pictures of an entire world. This is something we should embrace, not something we should try to forbid. File sharing is good for society and its people.

All non-commercial aquiring, using, bettering and spread of culture should be actively encouraged. The Internet is filling the same function today as popular education did a hundered years ago. It is something positive and good for the development of society.

The copyright legislation must be changes so that it is made perfectly clear that it only regulate use and copying of works done for commercial purposes. To share copies, or in any other way spread or use someone else's work, should never be forbidden as long as it is done on an idealistic basis without the purposes of commercial gain.

Unfortunately, the legislation has developed in quite the opposite direction. On July 1, 2005, a million ordinary Swedes were suddenly turned into criminals over night, simply because they download movies and music. This doesn't only hurt our possibilities to take part of culture. In the long run it undermines the trust of our entire judicial apparatus. This development has to end.

In a similar fashion, patents are used to inhibit the spread and use of knowledge, which hurts society as a whole.

Medical patents makes people in porr countries die for no reason. It twists the priorities in research and makes the costs for medications a problem in every health care budget.

Software patents inhibits technical development within the info tech area and preresents a serious threat against small as well as mid-sized businesses and individual developers. They run the risk of putting the power over the Internet completely in the hands of a small number of multi national businesses.

We want to release knowledge, and have specific suggestion on how to avoid the negative consequences that the patent system means.

Sweden and Europe has everything to gain from choosing the path of openness.

No other issues
The Pirate Party does not have any policies on issues that traditionally concerns the left-right scale, or any other issues outside of our program of policieis.

We particularily does not concern ourselves with the division of wealth. We are not after dividing money between different groups in society. None of our propositions costs any money for the state, and several of them may potentially save money in the budget. Because of this, we can place ourselves outside of the struggle concerning the budget, with good faith, and leave it to the old parties.

We are ready to support a social democratic as well as a non-socialist government, och we claim that both Göran Persson as well as Fredrik Reinfeldt are well capable of taking the role as the head of government in a satisfactory manner. We do not believe that the differences between them are that big, in reality, and everyone of us are ready to live with any of them as our prime minister.

The only thing that concerns us, is the protection of our open society and democracy, that the march towards a controlled society is cancelled, and that culture and knowledge are set free.

Our goal is to reach the parliament and being in a position where we can tip the scale. If we succeed in this we will talk to both Göran Persson and Fredrik Reinfeldt alike. We will explain what we want, and point out that our policies in no way differs from either traditional social democratic policy or traditional liberal/non-socialist policy.

After that, we will support the person aspiring to form a government, who is ready to make the best deal with us on our policies. On any matter outside of our policy statement, we will support and vote for the current government, no matter what we believe individually on different matters.

Due to the fact that we do not have a view on everything on this earth, but concentrate completely on the issues where we have formed a policy, we can promise a result if we make it to the house of parliament in a scale-tipping position. That makes us unique in Swedish political history.

We are the only party that will never deal away our free and open society for the benifit of any other issue or interest.

More on the Pirate Party tipping the scale
The Pirate Party does not take a stand in issues generally associated with the right or left, or any other issues that are not part of our declaration of principles. We are ready to support a socialdemocratic as well as a non-socialist government. The only thing that concerns us is that the march towards a controlled society is cancelled, and that culture and knowledge in society are set free,

On of the factions within Swedish politics has really anything to lose in reality by satisfiying more or less all of our demands. Neither Persson nor Reinfeldt have any personal interest in keeping the absurdity that is current copyright legislation. The fact that things look like they do, is primarily due to lack of interest in the area, and that they have therefor allowed the 'experts' (i.e. the lobbyists of the entertainment industry) have their way.

In a situation where they can gain position of forming a government by striking a deal with us in an issue that they, themselves, believe to be less important, there is every reason to believe that they will be eager to find a solution.

But in either case, there are three possible scenarios:

1) One of the factions agree to our demands, and the other does not. Then we will choose the faction that agree with us. Wether this is the red faction of the blue faction is of no concern for us. As long as we see that they are doing their best to seriously run our issues, we will support the government in all other issues as well, without questioning.

2) Both the factions agree to our demands. If there are differences of nuances making one faction looking slightly better than the other, we will choose this faction. If both are exactly as good, we will support the faction with the more votes. This way we won't influence the balance between the factions in Swedish politics. As long as the government is running our issues, we will support them in all desicions, just as in the first scenario.

3) Both the factions refuse to meet our demands. This is the more complicated case, but we can handle this one too. Initially we will support one faction, and make a government possible. Most likely this will be the ones with the less votes, so that the others, the 'victors', will feel that they have lost power they were entitled to. They can, however, not do much about it, since we will suport the government without questioning in anything that does not involve our principles.

When the "victors" are safely placed in the penalty box of opposition, we start our businesslike, low-voiced conversations with them, untill they realize that our proposals are not, in fact, that dangerous, and that they can only win from working with us. When they have seen our arguments in the glow of the miraging governmental position for a while, there are good reasons to believe they will agree with us. This is when we will call for a vote of non-confidence and change the government. After that, the Pirate Party with support the new government without questioning, in all issues, as long as the government runs our issues forcefully, just as in scenario 1 and 2.

This is our entire strategy. This way we can guarantee that our policies will have a break-through.

Questions and answers about our scale-tipping strategy
- How do we handle parliamentary votes that does not include any issues that the Pirate Party runs?

We will support the government in office, no matter what our personal opinions might be.

- Will the party try to make deals with other parties ("if you vote for us on issue "X" and "Y" we will help you with "Z")?

No, we will talk to the party in office. As long as they do as we want in our issues, we will support them in all other matters. We do not wish to try shopping a la carte from different parties (if we do, we will only be shoved aside). If the goverment stops this manner of cooperation, we will change the government, but as long as we tolerate a government, we are completely loyal to them in all other issues, those not in our program.

- ...or not vote?

If the government needs our support in the parliament it can count on it. We will not cancel our votes if this would affect the turnout against the government.

- ...or let the individual MPs decide for themselves?

Under no circumstances. The day we start voting after personal preference, we have nothing more to offer the other parties in a negotiation. If this happens, we can no longer benifit from our position, and have no longer any means to influence the policies that is the closest to our hearts.

- But in the third scenario (that is if none of the factions wants to offer anything at all, even though we are tipping the scale), why would we want to support the government? We should obviously be able to offer them to vote, from their perspective, in an unseemly manner? It seems a bit awkward to give them what they want first (by support) and then trying to negotiate.

The idea in the third scenario is that we help a government form, that we ourselves aren't happy with, but who we choose to support indefinately anyway. Principally only to tease the opposition, in other words. When the opposition has spent a few months being grumpy because they can't form a government even though they think they won the election, they have two alternatives to choose from. They can either stay grumpy for the next four years, or they can start talking to us to find out if they can "talk sense in to us" and have our support.

The big prize is the government, both for the left and the right, and they have nothing to lose from having a dialogue with us. With that, we've managed to initialize a discussion with the opposition concerning these issues. Since our proposals does not, in any way, clash with the basic values of neither the left wing nor the right wing block, and since they are good proposals, objectively, for Sweden, there is no reason to believe that they would prefer to stay grumpy for the next four years instead of making a deal with us.

But until they have done so, we will consistently vote with their opponents (i.e. the government that we support even if we think they are no good). That way the opposition will have an even bigger reason to strike a deal with us, even moreso than if we voted without a clear direction. The more votes the opposition lose concerning health care / education / taxes / disbanding of military units, the more eager they will become to have a change of government.

The government that is in power even though we think they're no good will perhaps feel happy to be able to carry through whatever they want without giving us anything in return. But they will know that all it takes for them to lose office is one word from the opposition. So the joy they're feeling will hardly be very deep or long lasting.

Poängen med att släppa fram en regering även om ingendera sidan ger oss vad vi vill ha är att skapa stabilitet och låta eventuella heta känslor svalna en smula. Man kan inte dra ut på regeringsförhandlingar mer än ett par veckor efter det att valet är klart. Kan vi inte få en regering som vi vill ha (för att den lovar att göra rätt i våra frågor) är det ändå bättre att släppa fram en regeringsbildare som vi ogillar. Landet måste ha en regering.

The point of helping a government to form even if none of the players gives us what we want is that we want to add to a stablity and let things calm down a bit. One can't postpone negotiations about the government more than a couple of weeks after the election. If we can't have a government that we want because it promises to see our points and work for them, it's still better to help a government we don't like. The country needs a government.

Parliamentarism is such an ingenious system because the parliament can throw out the government in office whenever a majority of its members wish. The leader of the opposition will know this, no matter if his name is Persson or Reinfeldt. So why would he not talk to us to see if he can create a majority for a vote of no confidence? And why would he not meet our demands when he has had time to think about them, and realize that they do not oppose his own ideology or any core party issues in any way?

If we make it to the parliament, but can not tip the scale
Even if we would not reach a position where we can tip the scale, we can still do a lot of good in the standing committees. Much of the malfunctioning legislation that is voted through is often voted through because the established parties does not understand the Internet and all the new technology. They have not thought through the consequences of building a controlled society to conserve the old instead of embracing the possibilities we have in our time.

They often blindly trust what lobbyists and civil servants at the departments tell them to think. They do not see these issues as important enough to put down time getting an informed opinion.

We can hopefully change this, simply by being part of the commitees, pressing the fact that these are important issues. Neither social democrats nor moderates really want to make it illegal for small businesses to develop new software, after all, or put all Swedish youths in prison. The fact that they still make or argue for laws that has these consequences is mostly due to lack of knowledge. We can supply the standing committees with a well needed competence and a valuable perspective.

- If we can't tip the scale, will we try to negotiate about individual issues?

In this scenario, negotiations will hardly be our most important tool, simply because we wouldn't have much of a negotiation position. If they can create a majority without us, they won't need to negotiate with us at all.

But this does not mean that all would be lost. We could still add a lot, simply by being constructive in our committee work. Much of the worst legislation is due to the fact that the established parties lack knowledge and interest in our issues.

- ...or will we simply cancel our votes?

In a situation where there is a parliamentary majority without us, it wouldn't matter how we voted, and then it doesn't make a differece. The simplest thing would be to simply not vote.

- ...or do we present bills that are promptly turned down?

We might want to present bills as part of our work to clarify the choices our society has, but the purpose then would only be to raise these issues. We would probably have to spend more time discussing the pros and cons of the bills that are about to be clubbed.

- ...or should we simply stay home with our kids?

Participating in the committees in a constructive manner aside, there will be much work to be done on the european level. Some of the decisions we want carried through can only be made in Brussels. Therefor we have all reason to do what we can to support our sister parties in other countries, and help them get started. So there might not be much time for vacation, even if we don't get to support a government.

High School talks

2006-08-23T23:03:00.000+02:00

This is an excellent reflection from real life, given by Rasmus Fleischer of Copyriot:

Today I was invited to Fryshuset high school to talk about file sharing before 300 freshmen. Most of them were part of variour aesthetic educations, from soul and music production, to drama and computer games. I spoke in a personal manner, from the vast changes that has taken place since I started my aesthetic education in high school myself, thirteen years ago. Back then, the tape was the hot stuff, both if you wanted to get your demo out, and if you wanted to copy new, exciting music from friends. TOday these parts of music have changed in a way that makes a richer musical climate possible, where the moment has gotten its rightful place. That was about what I said, only a bit more personal.

The high school had asked IFPI (the Swedish equivalent of the RIAA, my note) if they wanted to represent 'the other side', presenting a contrary position. IFPI obviously declined the invitation, they did not wish to talk to the Bureau of Piracy, but instead preferred to let us have our say without an argument, before a group of people they should regard as the absolutely most important youths to reach out to with their message. What a fantastic PR strategy. Can anyone understand how the anti pirates think? Well, I'm happy I didn't have to argue with lawyers from a different planet. Instead there was another opponent present, one of the music production teachers. This gave significantly better grounds for a meaningful discussion. And in one way, perhaps, our views didn't differ that much: none of us were really interested in changing laws, and we both expect file sharing to be impossible to stop. My opponent slammed the Pirate Bay raid and the "blunt methods" of IFPI. On the other hand, he thought that file sharing networks were a bit unnecessary when there are such things as iTunes and MySpace, and claimed that there were a sort of right to stop others from copying one's works after all, since one's works is like one's children. The audience - hundereds of file sharing and culture producing teens - was concerned and alert. During the next to weeks they are now to work on file sharing themes, in all school subjects.

A small note to those IFPI representatives reading this: You are losing a generation, not only a generation of "consumers", but also those that you expect to sign contracts with in the future.

Bill Gates makes the distinction

2006-08-23T07:59:00.000+02:00

Pirates often face arguments that are based on how sharing copyrighted material is comparable with theft. The usual answer is that theft is one thing, copyright infringment is another, and that's why they are placed in different sections of the body of law.

Some people continues to have trouble making the distinction.

Bill Gates is not one of them.

He recently told the Wall Streeet Journal that he watched physics lectures and the Harlem Globetrotters on YouTube. When WSJ says they are stolen he answered:

Stolen's a strong word. It's copyrighted content that the owner wasn't paid for.

Special interest groups will be able to get IP addresses to conduct private investigations

2006-08-12T18:15:00.000+02:00

Johan Linander, MP of the Center Party, has some mildly shocking news on his weblog.

I read DN (Swedish daily, translators note) today in the business section (I can't find it on dn.se so I can't link) that the department of justice is working on a legislation that are going to force ISP to provide IP addresses to copyright holders when they suspect infringement of their copyrights. The legislation is evidentally based on an EU directive called the Sanction Directive.

Today there has to be a police investigation of a suspected copyright crime, a crime that has to be serious enough to merit a prison sentence, if the police are to have IP addresses from ISPs. With the new law, a police investigation is not needed, a crime meriting prison is not needed, and the IP addresses are to be given out to the Bureau of Anti Piracy (the interest group of copyright holders in Sweden), since they are "working for" the copyright holders.

This sounds completely absurd. First of all to use integrity infringing methods against individuals no matter how small the crime, secondly that it's enough that an organisation is investigating, not the police, and, above all, because the ISPs can be forced by a court to provide IP addresses to an interest organisation instead of providing it to the police.

Marianne Levin, expert on copyright matters at the Stockholm university, says to DN that the law proposal signifies a new trend in Swedish law, since the Supreme Court traditionally has been restrictive when it comes to providing information from a third party.

I will of course work to stop this. An updated copyright legislation is needed, not more hunting of file sharers. If someone is going to be able to get personal information about me from my ISP, it should of course be the police, not the Bureau of Anti Piracy. We should not have a legislation giving interest groups rights to receive information from businesses at all. If a crime is committed the police should investigate it, and integrity infringment should only be allowed in the case of serious crimes.

What's the next step? Should an organisation hiding women under threat be able to demand call lists from phone companies if they suspect a man is making threatening calls to their ex girlfriends? No, even if this is a much more serious crime, it's the police that should investigate and use methods of privacy infringment, not an interest group.

The fact that more rights to use more and more repression and surveillance to hit against people for less and less crime is hardly news. The blogosphere has already pointed to the fact that the European Union is changing its' directions to make possible more and more serious repression against serious crime, while the Swedish department of justice is systematically changing Swedish legislation to fit more and more people within the span of "serious crime". Not long ago, Oscar Swartz of Texplorer repeased a report that showed this. He brought this up to public debate with the minister of justice, who's only response was that Swartz 'was not an independent scientist'.

But the fact that special interest groups are given the right to conduct crime investigations where they, themselves, have interests in the case is simply disturbing.

I can see a few other implementations of the same legislative culture. Why not let various white supremacy groups get addresses from the immigration authorities, for example?

Any society that makes claims of justice should be very clear - only the judicial body with police and prosecutors, IRS and similar conducts crime investigations. Private information is private for a reason. But this is something that the Swedish ministry of justice is trying to change.

"Piracy is killing the PC game market"

2006-08-09T18:05:00.000+02:00

Recently, Kevin Cloud, CEO of id Software, claimed that piracy is killing the PC game market. More and more game stores has begun selling more and more console games on the expense of PC games. This, says Cloud, is due to piracy.

One can't help to wonder - perhaps PC games are losing market shares to console games, simply because console games are winning market shares from PC games?

To me, it sounds like any other market - it changes. Some players win, and some players lose. Why should the game market be so much different? Do PC games have some form of natural right to maintain a certain part of the game market? Surely, this doesn't occur because PC games are possible to copy, but with console games it would be impossible. So, if piracy is killing the PC market, why isn't it also killing the console game market?

id is one of my absolute favourite game producers. Wolfenstein, Doom, Quake, say no more! Of all games I bought in my life, Quake3Arena was one I had waited for the longest. To win back market shares, the producing companies must release more price worthy products. Q3A didn't become much of a hit, mostly because of competition from Counter-Strike, a mod of Halflife, another PC game. Was this also because of piracy?

1up.com:

Good news, everyone.

2006-08-03T00:43:00.000+02:00

I had an offer I can't refuse.

My good friend Ernesto at TorrentFreak, with who I've been working with for a while, offered me to write exclusively for TF. This is simply too good to refuse. First of all, TorrentFreak is a site I hold in much asteem, as Ernesto is running one of the top blogs on the topic, and in general. Secondly, it's a good chance to expand and make myself useful. Also, I must admit I'm both flattered by the offer and see it as a chance to reach new readers.

So, does this mean that Piracy Unlimited is obsolete? Not at all!

As I think of it, I will simply write exclusively for TF and for PUL. Both are great places, and both deserve the same attention, I don't intend to cross-post. I was thinking that my contributions to Piracy Unlimited will be of a more detailed kind. More translations. And also stuff that might not be hottest news anymore, stuff like the Asbo story, for example. The hot news items will end up on both places of course. ;)

I want to thank TorrentFreak for this opportunity.

Time for the Pirate Party of the year!

2006-08-02T15:16:00.000+02:00

Piratbyråns websie has, as reported, returned after a political repression.
Copy Me, an anthology of texts from said website, has been a huge success and quickly sold out but will now be released in a new edition.
It's time to kick-start a fall that will be at least as exciting as the summer has been.

Thus, Piratbyrån has rented Undebara Bar in Stockholm, Sweden, and will host the Pirate Party of the year!

On the 7 of August, between 8pm and 1am, the party will be held. The guests will be treated to a joint performance by artist Goto80 and video group Jossystem.

- It will be a great party, says Rasmus Fleischer from Piratbyrån. We have Jossystem, performing a version of poloview all night. And Goto80 is a great live performer.

Why go to Stockholm?

- You should go if you like a great party, says Rasmus, who is careful to point out, that this will be an event for everyone out there who likes a good party, pirate or not.

Underbara bar is located at Östgötagatan 33, subway station Medborgarplatsen. You have to be 18 to get in. There's no entrance fee, only warrobe. Underbara bar has a wide range of beverages and other things one want to consume at a party.

Be here early! Goto80 & Jossystem will begin their performance at 9pm, due to neighbourhood related regulations. But after that, the music doesn't stop. Our DJs (names will be presented shortly) will keep at it all night. On the menu is, for example, dancable mash up mixes - the music that no copyright legislation understand! See you on August 7!

More from Piratbyrån.

Tribute post: to kdsde

2006-07-31T03:04:00.000+02:00

If someone bothers reading the few comments I actually get, you noticed that a certain kdsde has had the courtesy to comment every now and then. Most often, these are passenger seat driving kinds of comments - the person comments on typos, factual errors, technical difficulties, non-truths, stuff like that.

Two things must be said about this:

I do not feel bad about the comments. They don't make me feel bad in anyway. As a matter of fact I'm greatful that someone is reporting all the mistakes in inevitably due every now and then, every so often, every other post, or - heck, all the time. ;) kdsde is thus sort of my clean-up crew, that points out where the blood-stains are. This is great. And it also proves I have at least one regular reader who also comments, makes me feel like I'm not really the only person in the world who reads all the stuff I put on this blog (yes, I know there are more of you out there, but you get the point).
It's not me who is doing this. I have no idea what so ever who this person is, to be honest (though I'm sure s/he has probably told me, but I'm too shattered-minded to remember. Let me in on a little secret: I once forgot the name of a girlfriend. During the relationship. I'm just terrible with names and stuff like that). This doesn't make me less greatful, however.

So. Whoever you are kdsde, who does all this for me, and whyever you do it: keep doing it. It's bliss for me and the poor sods that feels compelled to read my rantings.

What happens to a newspaper when there are no news?

2006-07-27T23:09:00.001+02:00

Evidentally, very little is happening in Sweden right now. This is indicated by an attack against the Bureau of Piracy that turned out to become quite a funny story - only the laugh is on the attacker.

Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet ran a story about Piratshoppen, the website that sells Piratbyrån and the Pirate Bay related material such as T-shirts, stickers and so on. The article claimed that Piratshoppen sold material of a lesser moral standard. They claimed that via the shop, one could purchase T-shirts with captions such as, 'All women desire anal sex', and 'Feminism - for those who are fet, ugly and jealous'. The material sold was labaled 'sexist', which I can agree is a rather accurate term for the captions in the example.

But Piratbyrån doesn't sell their T-shirts directly. They hire a company called Peer99 to provide this service. They also have other customers, and all customers, including Piratbyrån, have their own sections in the website. The reporter had find the offensive T-shirts under sections belonging to other customers.

To make matters worse, Piratbyråns web server had been in police custody for almost two months when the article was published about 22 hours ago. Instead it had been replaced by a temporary newssite in the form of a blog, which hadn't even linked to Piratshoppen. In the article, the reporter claims that Piratbyrån hasn't become rich by advertisements, 'as we last month uncovered that the Pirate Bay did', but from the Piratshoppen. But as a matter of fact The Pirate Bay linked to Piratshoppen, and Piratbyrån did, in fact not, untill very recently.

The situation is clear - the reporter had countered the lack of local happenings by fabricating a story based on in-correct claims, to point an accusating finger at a website that hardly even existed most of the time that the story covered - and the accusation, amounting to something like 'They get fat off of sexism' - is based completely on 'guilt by association', which is something that a respectable newspaper should be very careful to avoid.

It could end with this, the fact that a notable Swedish daily pointed a guild-by association accusation against Piratbyrån based on inaccurate claims, but it didn't.

Not long after the article was published, some industrious digger found out an interesting fact, taste this: Svenska Dagbladet also have a shopping system, by an external provider, linked to their website, as part of their advertising system. Just as they claim Piratbyrån have. And Svenska Dagbladets webshop sold hardcore porn movies, with titles such as Anal Cunts, The Wrong Hole, Italian Lolita 1-5 Limited Edition and Mattress III - hardly something that promotes a very positive view on women, in other words.

So, not only did this accusation take place, it took place in a newspaper that does the same thing - only they're selling movies picturing women as sexual organs and mattresses.

This resulted in a number of comments on the article, as well as blog postings (sorry, no English links as of yet, you just have to believe me on this one). Not long after this occured, the porn was suddenly removed from SvDs website. A few hours later, it seems that the article has been a bit edited and corrected. Perhaps some editor pulled the young reporter in the ear and told him something about how he wasn't working on a tabloid?

It would be nice, however, to see if Svenska Dagbladet or the reporter takes their responsibility and act upon this, maybe put on some kind of aknowledgement - because aside from the fact that the newspaper did the same thing as the article accused others of doing; to point an accusing finger at someone, based on 'guilt by association' and false facts is not a nice thing to do, and it should be followed by some form of official 'please excuse us, we were wrong'.

Links (all in Swedish, I'm afraid)
Copyriot
Frihet, fildelning och feminism
Sänd mina rötter regn

Why is YouTube so bad? :O

2006-07-21T23:13:00.000+02:00

There seem to be a big fuzz right now about the terms and conditions that YouTube is changing to. Through these, YouTube is claiming rights to do what they want with what people upload to them.

I am claiming, however, that YouTube is on the right track, that there is nothing I can see that is very worrying, and in fact, that YouTubes terms and conditions isn't that far off from how many, but not all, pirates want copyright legislation to look.

The allegedly controversial and fought over passus looks like this:

…by submitting the User Submissions to YouTube, you hereby grant YouTube a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform the User Submissions in connection with the YouTube Website and YouTube's (and its successor's) business ... in any media formats and through any media channels.

Now, what is the active, the most important word of this passus? The answer is: non-exclusive. YouTube claims a non-exclusive right to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivate works of, display and perform what you download to them. This means that they want to use the materials they host - but it says outright that this right does not exclude anyone from using it.

All text on Piracy Unlimited is under a creative commons license, that says that what you find on this site, when it comes to the texts, you can use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivate works of, display and perform, whoever you are - under the condition that whatever result produced from this, will also be under this same license.

In other words, to be perfectly clear, I put more regulations on my rights to my texts on Piracy Unlimited than YouTube does in their terms and services. They say they want the right to use the stuff, but doesn't exclude anyone from doing the same. I say everyone can do this, but only if the end result is treated the same way. Granted, my regulations might make information more free in the long run - or maybe I just flatter myself by saying so - but the truth is that I put some manner of protective exclusiveness on my work, while YouTube, in their terms and conditions, simply do what pirates do when they say they want to make downloading legal:

"We want the rights to download, use, exchange and redo this material - but we don't say that others can't do the same thing." That's non-exclusive, and it's very important to remember this, before making something a hot potatoe just because it contains the word "copyright" or is related to it. :)

Now, if anyone can explain what is so bad about this deal, please do this to me. Send mails, write comments, cause I want to know what the fuzz about. To me, this simply looks like a company that comes way closer to what copyright legislation should look like, than the legislation we currently have, at least here in Sweden.

Piratbyrån back online

2006-07-19T23:48:00.000+02:00

After one and a half month of absence, Piratbyråns website is now back online with full functionality.

Following is the official press release:

On Wednesday, Piratbyrån (The Bureau of Piracy) went live with their old/new website. After one and a half month of absence from the internet, we can once again present a complete solution for anyone who is interested in piracy, file sharing and copyright criticism.

The central parts of the website is the ongoing news reporting and the forum, which has 60 000 members.

- We can now retake our place as the foremost copycritical news source on the net, says Tobias Andersson from Piratbyrån. Together with other news sites and blogs we make sure it will be impossible to miss all the exciting stuff that is happening on the area.

Piratbyrån's server and orginal data is still in police custody. Prosecutor Håkan Roswall refuses to end this custody. Data, however, is not dependent on being at a specific physical spot, and after a bit of juggeling, the website is back.

- Even though we have hardly been inactive, we are very happy to have regained our place on the Internet, Tobias Andersson says. It's from here our activity is coordinated.

During the time that the website has been offline, Piratbyrån has, among other things, organized a large demonstration concering the Pirate Bay raid, written debate articles, held conversations with politicians from practically every party, negotiated in the city court, held speeches in Almedalen, initiated a large international lobby organisation and bought a lock of hair from Thomas Bodström.

We wish all our new and old readers welcome to our website. Have fun on the Internet!

When the Swedish police got the order from prosecutor Roswall, he himself haven gotten subtle hints from the government working under MPAA pressure, to raid the Pirate Bay, Swedish tax payers were blessed with the chance to finance an operation concerning tens of officers on a number of places all over Sweden. Despite this, it took the Pirate Bay no more than three days to get back online.

Piratbyrån is a bit more dependent on user content and large chunks of bigger data as well as a smooth system for the ongoing news coverage and handling of the forum for large numbers of users - users that was left stranded along with everyone else in this ongoing farse.

Nor does Piratbyrån get any help with funding by advertising companies, and rely completely on other means, particularily the hard work of its users and crew, to get it going. Given these facts and the astonishing attention Piratbyrån has gotten since the raid and the following demonstration, many to-do lists have been filled for most hours of the day. This has made it more difficult for Piratbyrån to regain their full functionlity.

But Piratbyrån has done what pirates have always done - instead of simply trusting others to solve problems for them, they have acted to solve the problems themselves. The website is currently independent on the servers some authority representatives with half an idea of what they are doing is digging through at the moment - in an investigation where Piratbyrån isn't even involved.

Now, this functionality is back, even though all backed up data from the forums and the news archives made before the raid still remain in the loving care of various Swedish authorities. It's about time. As soon as the prosecutor gets his act together and allows the police force to return Piratbyråns property to Piratbyrån, old data will be made available again.

And while on the subject - the world online community still demand of the authorities mentioned above: Release the data you have abducted and now hold in captivity for political reasons.

Asbo - a threat against british democracy

2006-07-18T20:56:00.000+02:00

Ryan Wilkinson, age 10, has gotten a court-order that bans him from, among other things, meeting 17 named individuals, using public transport, and being in a public place in West Yorkshire between 1900 GMT and 0730 GMT, unless accompanied by named family members. That is, he can't use public transport at all, and he is submitted to house arrest during off hours. He's ten years old.

Paul Daniels, age 14, can't be in a public place between 10pm and 7am unless accompanied by his mother, father or a grandparent, untill September 14 2007. On wednesdays, the curfew takes place on midnight. He is not allowed to meet with three or more people in public, if said people are aged 11 to 18 or family members, and except on lessons, he can't be on school grounds. That is, house arrest during off hours, and overruled freedom of association for a 14 year old.

A 16-year old with ADHD has been banned from entering parts of Sheffield. If he does enter these areas, he can be sentenced to 12 months in prison.

Luke Davis has been ordered to not go through the front door of his own house. He had been "attacking homes and cars" and "shouting obscenities".

15-year old Dean played football in the street. Dangerous yes. He received a court order with a map showing where he can't play football. He's also banned from going within 100 meters from the local Roseberry Sports and Community College and other things, including inciting others to commit these acts. "Let's go to school." would be an offense if the school in question would be the one mentioned above.

An 11-year old illeterate boy in a dysfunctional family were kicked out of school, and ended up on the wrong side of society - an outcast. After a number of juvenice offenses. When Times visited his family, the police came over at 10 in the morning and told his mother they would come back to arrest him later. He has now been issued an order that confines him to his home for the next five years. If he wants to leave his home, he can only use a specified route, marked in yellow on a map, leading to the outskirts of town - but only if he was accompanied by a "responsible adult".

Two brothers, 10 and 11 years old, in Nottinghamshire has been banned from participating in large groups, or going out night-time.

13-year old Michael had never been accused of anything before. But a while ago there were complaints - some anonymously - of, for example, vandalizing or shouting abuse. Based on these complaints, a court issued an order where Michael can't set his foot on several streets in his neighbourhood, or face the risk of being sentenced to five years.

These are just a short list of some of the most absurd and frightening examples I have found when researching about the ASBO, the Anti-social behaviour order. It was issued in Britain in 1998 under the Crime and Disorder Act.

What happens is that a person is complained about for disoderly conduct or anti-social behaviour, and a court state an order, naming a number of conditions that the person, the child, has to reach. If it is not reached, the child can instead be put in front of a criminal court.

There are two things that are quite astonishing when it comes to Asbo, aside from it being effectively making sentences made on a whim from a court against children:

* There is an old tradition in Britain, that when a child is convicted of a criminal offense, the anonymity to which young offenders are ordinarily entitled prevents anyone from discovering his name, what he looks like, or where he lives. This is not the case when it comes to the Asbo. Anyone can find these things out.

* Asbo cases are heard in civil courts, so the complaints against the defendant does not have to be proven beyond reasonable doubt, but merely judged on the balance of probability.

Since its implementation, thousands of Asbos have been issued in England and Wales, banning various children from everything from playing football to going through their own front door, as noted above. In Scotland, however, the Asbos are inherently and profoundly adverse to the judicial system that Scotland has (Scotland has a separate judicial system from that of the UK) Asbos are simply not compatible with scottish law implementation. Thus, only 4 Asbos has been issued there.

So as it seems, Britain has implemented a system where children can be, in effect, convicted to sentences depending on the will of a civil court, where their names are been made public and they do not have to be convicted by evidence, but by probability, and that's often for things that are not concidered crimes otherwise - it's well enough that someone can complain, even anonymously, that the child's behaviour is anti-social.

It does not bode well for Britain that they have effectively killed - ended, not put in jeopardy - all judicial security for children. Concidering how Britain also is the most monitored country in the Western World, and where effectively only two parties have the possibility to form a government, there is grounds for me to question the claim that the United Kingdom is actually a democracy.

Check out ASBOWatch list of child abuse.

Pirate Party International seems on the way

2006-07-18T17:53:00.000+02:00

As you might have seen on Piracy Unlimited, I have argued that since various pro-piracy groups have recently started to go international, it's time for the pirate parties in various countries to do the same. Discussions have been under way lately in the Swedish Pirate Party, and it has resulted in their international liaison to start up PP International Net.

From the website:

Welcome!

This place is meant to be a meeting point for all the Pirate Parties that have started up around the world - just as much as a point to meet up and start something up in countries that have yet to see a Pirate Party to be formed.

Across the world we may have loads of various experiences and ideas, resources that are untapped. This place will hopefully make for a great place to pick up new things, as well as sharing your own tidbits with the rest of us!

You want to start a party, but have no place to recide, to discuss and plan? We'll provide a section for you under Temporary Country Sections, where you can talk to eachother in your own language until you have everything you need to set something up for yourselves.

If you have ideas of what this place should be like, put them up in the PPI forum!

This will be a work in progress, no doubt, so be patient to start with!

This is a simple placement page for PP International Net, btw. New front will be coming soon!

Please enjoy!

//infinite_emma

Despite the fact that this is quite new - I haven't seen any other blog cover it yet, there has already been queries to start things up on the site, even before they put up a real frontpage. My thought is that as soon as this spreads, there will be further requests from other places, and this international project has left shore for the waters of the future. Good work, let's get this ship moving!

Informer - Don't Do It!

2006-07-14T21:06:00.000+02:00

Swedish daily Expressen had a very interesting editorial today, written by an Isobel Hadley-Kamptz: "Refuse to give away your neighbour." It contains truths that are viable in any country.

Soon our goldie-lock justice minister has information about all our petty crimes. Because most of us has some dirt in some parts of our concience. Money under the table, fixing benifits, some pooching, some undeclared liqour from abroad, some trading belong in a grey zone. An entire generation of youths file sharing and rather have a joint than drink alcohol on friday evening. [...] A general suspicious outlook is tearing on society more than petty crimes. But we don't need to accept this. Everyone has a chance to resist. Refuse to inform about your neighbour.

She also staples a number of examples on how the Swedish society is not only marching towards a society of monitoring but also of informing. She tells about Lerum, a quaint little town of 15 000 or so inhabitants in western Sweden, where the municipality encourages it's inhabitants to inform on each other anonymously using the internet.

If the neighbour is getting his wage under the table, if the neighbour's kids are drinking beer, if someone tags the neighbour's wall. Sure it can seem reasonable to step in if you see ghastly things happen. Solidarity is about caring. But tipping off the local authorities anonymously? A municipality that actively encourages us to spy on our neighbours?

She also reminds us that the People's Party (that are actually allegedly liberals, even if most Swedes probably thinks about China when they hear the name), in their flirt with voters that call for tougher policies have suggested that the security police use informers on schools that can inform them of pupils with subversive opinions or behaviours. According to Isobel, the security police "just shrugged and implied that was already being done."

This editorial reminds us of another dimension on the questions of monitoring, that are sometimes forgotten in an often technical debate about camrea spreads, DNA databases, phone logs or the validity of a screenshot as proof in a court of law: that this kind of monitoring society also influence the way we humans look at each other - if the former is the hard side of repression, the latter is the softer, subtle and more long term devastating side of the Orwellian/Bodströmian society.

I for one have said before that in a generation or two, the new ideas about information as the basis for society and the conclusions deriving from these ideas, will eventually more and more replace our current old-school, 18th century right-left block parliamentary horse trading politics untill we actually live in the information age. But attempts to stop this is being made, just as attempts were made to stop every other major paradigm shift and revolution throughout human history - a history that seems bent on waging wars over ideas as much as about resources.

And right now, we need to organise our defensive and offensive strategies, so the other side of the force doesn't get the upper hand. If it gets too predominant, it's not impossible that it's the Bodströmian ideal that replaces our current old-school democracy all together. The old time is changing, wether we want it or not. The question now is what will fill the void - progression or repression.

Expressen: Vägra ange din granne (Swedish)

News alert: International pirate lobby organisation goes live!

2006-07-12T12:36:00.000+02:00

A few minutes ago, a press release was made available from The Pro Piracy Lobby.

PPL is a cooperative group between pirate organisations, devoted to free culture, in several countries.

So far, this international cooperation consist of the following members, according to the PPL website:

ArtiLiberated (Sweden)
Piratbyrån (Sweden)
Piratgruppen (Denmark)
Piratgruppen (Norway)
The Pirate Bay (Sweden)

Rumour has it that several other groups are interested in joining the cooperation.

The Pro Piracy Lobby is what the name implies - an organisation aimed at coordinating the pirate movement's lobby efforts internationally in a more effective manner, a way to make these ideas available to people throughout the world. According to the website, the platform looks like this:

Kopimi - We will copy whatever we want. Make p2p legal or just accept it!

We are the Internet. We know it, we feel it, we live it and we are here to tell the world that p2p will never be stopped, can't be stopped and shouldn't be stopped. The Internet is a vast global network, screaming with life and the creativity of millions of minds. We will choose to explore it in any way we please and we don't need guidance.

Free networking, everywhere by anyone!!

We live in a time defined by the Internet. It preceeds everything else. Everything new and intresting begins there. Every important event and all the fun in the world too. The freedom of developing and offering networking services of any kind, even anonymously and free of charge, should be considered a self-evident right.

Don't touch our Internets! No more efforts to limit, monitor or sabotage use of the net!

When we talk about price, we don't mean what the price for copy-protected music should be or how much artists are supposed to be compensated for supposed loss due to file sharing. We mean what price the anti piracy lobby organisations and governments are willing to pay to get rid of file sharing? The only way is to shut down the entire Internet and even then we will soon rebuild our own. Anti pirates of Hollywood and the world, don't touch our Internet!

The Pro Piracy Lobby will continue to grow along with the expansion of a positive understanding of piracy and filesharing. Our mission is to bring forth a progressive Internet development, our goal being no less than the ruling of the the seven seas!

- Behind the Pro Piracy Lobby there is a strife to expand the arena for copyright criticism. As copypirates we have to be able to meet wherever we are - and we are everywhere, says Marcin de Kaminski from Piratbyrån Sweden.

But the listed member groups have cooperated for awhile. In what way does the Pro Piracy Lobby help expanding the international cooperation? And can you reveal any further international partners?

- Even though we have already cooperated for a long while, PPL makes a more formal cooperation visible. Together we can present a clear, common front, that can continue to present our present and future ideas on an international stage, says de Kaminski. It would not be fair to present future partners before the deals are final, but I can tell you that presently we have good relations with similar groups in a dozen other countries, mainly in Europe, but also on other continents.

I have promoted international organisation of the pirate movement a few times here on Piracy Unlimited. It seems that at least the non-party organisations of the pirate movement has now come to the same conclusion and are working towards these goals - still remain only to see how the various pirate parties of the world responds to this.

The pirate movement is global and getting organised. Will the pirate parties go the same way, or will they remain only regional curiosities? What does the Pro Piracy Lobby think about this? Will the pirate parties go the same way as they have done, towards international cooperation?

- That is up to them, of course, says de Kaminski, but my opinion is that international issues should be addressed at an international level.

Is there currently any cooperation or contacts between said parties and the Pro Piracy Lobby?

- Regarding pirate parties, I don't have much to say. Piratbyrån and PPL works with lobbying and spreading information, not with party politics. We have made an active desicion on this matter. That's the only comment you will get from me on that topic.

It seems I will have to go to the parties themselves to learn about this. Which means I have to stick a "to be continued" here... ;)

Pirates unite!

2006-07-12T10:05:00.000+02:00

I recently wrote an article on why it is important for the pirate movement to organise. Obviously I am not the only one to make such an observation.

It is well established that anti-copyright groups in Sweden, Denmark and Norway are cooperating, that is Piratbyrån, Piratgruppen in Denmark and Piratgruppen in Norway.

There are now also pirate parties in:

Sweden
United States
Italy
France
Belgium
Austria (as part of the Austrian communist party, KPÖ)

The question is, how do these cooperate, if at all? There are several pirate movements - is there an international pirate movement? I intend to find out, it's about time!

Pirates in all countries - unite!

A generic chat session is not official policy

2006-07-07T12:15:00.000+02:00

Concider a group of people at a table, discussing something they all feel strongly about. These kinds of situations and talks tend to be quite informal, and thus sometimes, the discussion can become quite harsh. People will say things that the others, knowing this person, never would expect him to mean seriously - strictly speaking, there's alot of jokes.

This discussion is strictly personal, it is informal, and more than anything, it is non-official. It doesn't matter who is involved in this discussion. If it's the prime minister, if it's the CEO of a large corporation or if it's just two colleagues from the local factory. A chat between these people doesn't in any way determine the official position of the government, the business plan for the corporation or the plans for the factory union club, no matter what the discussion contains. If the prime minister says to his buddy in a private conversation that he thinks the head of the opposition is an SOB, that doesn't mean that the official position of the government is that the head of the opposition is an SOB.

It can also, under some circumstances, be a more formal or offical chat. Perhaps the prime minister invited one of his colleagues from the government to a job-related dinner. Perhaps it's a conversation which is about a political party's ideas or plans. Perhaps it's a public debate on the local library or an official meeting of the local union club. In this case, what is said there has more impact, and often one can assume that what is said there has officiality. What is said can have more repercussions.

This is how the IRC eseentially work. It is a discussion. People group together and talk. On this network of chatservers, a number of individuals have started a channel that they choose to name #piratpartiet. Members of the pirate party actually talk there. Even people that has had official positions in the party has chatted there. This doesn't mean that this channel is official in any way. If so, anyone could start a channel called #republicans and claim it to be the official chatsite of the american Republican Party. It's bullshit and has nothing to do with reality - even if the president himself visited the channel.

IRC channels have topics, that's supposedly an official statement of the channel itself - it's made so that visitors will know if they've come to the right place or not. The topic of the channel #piratpartiet includes the words: "Detta är INTE Piratpartiets officiella kanal!" - This is NOT the official channel of the Pirate Party. When you enter, you immediately get an official message from the channel that tells you that it has no formal bonds to the Pirate Party. Furthermore, Piratpartiet itself makes no claims at all to have an offical IRC channel and does not claim this channel as it's own, official channel in any way.

This should make it abundantly clear that this IRC channel is not official to the Pirate Party in any way - and consequently, that what is said on it, is not offical to the Pirate Party either.

But still, Expressen claims in an article that a discussion on this channel occured on "the pirate party's internal chat site".

It's time this Expressen reporter realized this: It's not a site - it's a chat. It's very internal - for the individuals that are involved, not the party it has taken it's name from. It does not belong to the Pirate Party. And it's not anything official from the Pirate Party, anymore than a statement from an average nobody is an official government statement because he begins with the words, "I am social democrat".

It's the same thing as when another Swedish tabloid, Aftonbladet, a few weeks back claimed that a lawyer had been threatened by Pirate Bay, because an anonymous user had written something that could be concidered a threat on an open forum - a message that was even deleted since it was concidered inappropriate.

One is wondering - is this a way for newspapers to join the judicial system to harass those that critizes the judicial system and the newspapers? Or do they feel threatened by the new technology making news, ideas and information available that the newspapers didn't come up with and control themselves? Or do they simply not understand that a chat is not the same thing as a press release?

Wikipedia: Internet Relay Chat

Head prosecutor calls file sharers criminals and compare them to criminal MC gangs

2006-07-07T11:38:00.000+02:00

It seems it has become a standard for various representatives of the judicial system to use large words and far-reaching comparisons to attemp to demonize file-sharers and pirates. Not long ago, prosecutor Håkan Roswall insultingly compared the thinktank Piratbyrån to terrorists, by pulling parallells between them and the IRA.

Today, Expressen has a piece on how some people has made some controversial remarks on the IRC regarding said prosecutor - I will come back to that topic later - and now it is head prosecutor Sven-Erik Alhem's turn to make the insulting comparisons. He tells Expressen that file sharing criminals (taste that expression for a moment, that's over a million people in Sweden and quite a few more million other people around the world he is referring to) are comparable to animal rights activists and criminal motorcycle gangs.

They have their own ethical system. Because of this they concider themselves in the moral right to attack anyone they concider opponents. It can be anything from an unfriendly tone to punishable threats.

There's a world of things to say about this. We have two leading prosecutors who have compared file sharers to terrorists and Hells Angels within the last few days - and now they claim the file sharers make unfriendly remarks? And based on unmoderated commnts on an open internet forum and pieces of a log of an open-for-all channel on the IRC, Alhem claim to have the right to make a general observation about file sharers, who are now called "criminals"? Pray, tell me - who has his own ethical system now?

Expressen: Åklagare smutskastas på Piratpartiets chatt (Swedish)

Anti monopoly ruling can make way to cheaper broadband in Sweden

2006-07-04T17:56:00.000+02:00

The Swedish company Telia Sonera, that under the name of "Televerket" was the government agency for the upholding of the telecommuncations monopoly. On July 1, 1993, the Swedish Parliament transformed it into a company under the name of Telia, and thus Sweden became the first European country to deregulate the telecom market, although Telia maintained in their monopoly position for a few years.

Nowadays we have several players on this market. But Telia Sonera, as it is now called, has had a very strong position, owning alot of the infrastructure, the cables and so on, that competitors had to rent themselves in to.

However, this might change now, as the administrative court of appeals (Kammarrätten) ruled that Telia Sonera has to give their competitors the same possibilities as themselves to use their infrastructure, in other words, to let them in without any terms that lowers their access or competitive possibilities. This is reported by Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter.

According to one of these competitors, Glocalnet's CEO Martin Tivéus, this might mean price reductions on broadband connections with up to 1,000 SEK a year.

Today there is a large difference in prices for broadband. In areas where we use the Telia net we have to, for example, charge a 100 SEK more for our 8 mbit service than in other areas. The decision means that we can lower the prices for a little more than half of the broadband customers in Sweden, says Martin Tivéus.

Finally there is some positive decisions made from the judicial system regarding the tech area, after so many setbacks and harassment from our legal system, it feels good to have some good news as well. It can't be said strongly enough what it means for development that society steps in and tries to stop private monopolies on tech development and the fact that a large segment of the population will have access to cheaper internet access.

We'll see what happens if and when Telia Sonera appeals to this decision.

Håkan Roswall shutting down freedom of press as well

2006-07-03T22:40:00.001+02:00

To many pirates and many of those visiting this blog, it is abundantly clear that the Swedish government shut down the Pirate Bay to satisfy the demands of the american film industry lobby. It is also been stated clearly that the prosecutor they use conciders pro-piracy thinktanks that hasn't broken any law to be terrorists, and is keeping their servers locked in simply because of this, without legal support, and without even attempting to explain why.

What many people doesn't know is that the government is also harassing a Chechen news agency.

In May, the news agency Kavkaz Center, that had their servers at PRQ, the same place as the Pirate Bay and the Piratbyrån, had their server confiscated because the Russian embassy had accused it of agitation against Russia. The person who gave the order to confiscate their server was the highly familiar prosecutor Roswall. But after agreeing to delete the texts accused of the agitation and solving some other formal problems, Kavkaz Center had their computers return, and one of the few existing news sources on the situation in Chechnya that are not Russian could continue their work.

Then came raid on the Pirate Bay. As we know, 60-ish police officers confiscated everything they could see, completely regardless of what they were, stranding over 200 companies, making them unable to conduct their business. When the raid progressed, the legal representative of PRQ, Mikael Viborg, pointed out about Kakvaz Center had their computers returned to them recently, and that there had been stated clearly that there was nothing illegal about the server, and that it was a news agency server and should be secured by the Swedish constitutional press protection.

The police in charge of the raid then called prosecutor Roswall for instructions regarding this case, and the prosecutors told him to "bring those servers anyway".

Just as one thought this affair couldn't get more dirty - the state shuts down 200 businesses to get to one activity that had already been decided to be legal, on behalf of a foreign power, and shutting down opposing political expressions for their own gain, the same prosecutor now also fights freedom of press in Russia on behalf of the russians.

The Swedish union of journalists now plan to take this situation up with justice minister Bodström in a planned meeting, seeing as how the unions in Sweden have close ties to the governing Social Democratic party.

Why the pirate movement needs to organize

2006-07-02T11:10:00.000+02:00

On May 1, 2004, the Swedish Justice Department released a report by the name of Digitala klyftor – förr, nu och i framtiden (Digital rifts - past, present and future). It investigated the rifts in society between those that are attuned to and able to benifit from the new technology and those that can not, made from a perspective of age groups, gender and social classes. It concluded a very interesting thing:

Age can, at a superficial concideration, look like an important factor. The reason, however, that people over the age of 65 are using the Internet less than those that are younger, is mainly because they were not introduced to the use of Internet during their professional lives. They were already retired when the Internet came. The age cleft will thus shrink as the new senior citizens will have a habit of using the Internet in their professions. People doesn't stop using the Internet because they retire.

[...]

Thus we see that the age cleft is significant in a short-term perspective, but it will diminish. It can only be diminished by a lesser extent from economical measures, however social networks can have a positive effect for those that already lacks these from the time prior to retirement.

This is an important conclusion, and one that works on several levels, the political level nontheless.

In the 19th century, freedom and equality for all was something that was seen as radical and was continued to be radical untill well into the last century. Although the struggle of popular movements and democracy projects have been vital for the breakthrough of democracy and its values in the western world, it would have been virtually impossible to make much progress in, say, the early 1800's, no matter how organized the democracy movement would have been.

The younger generations in any given time has always been very well attuned to new ideas and the flows of change, and the general regards for political ideas is something youths have brought with them into adulthood. Although the ideas might change in practice during the process of maturing and over time, this has almost without exception had the effect that the next generation "in power" has always had a slightly different onlook than the preceding one. This is simply how the political evolution has worked throughout western history - a youthfull radicalism has merged with maturity to a blend that the people have taken with them and worked to accomplish when it has been their turn to dominate their society.

Thus, for example, the democratisation of the western world, the civil rights movement and other important developments, have happened, simply because it has been a natural step for the generations that live during those eras have worked to carry them through.

So, it will be with us as well.

Right now, the things that the pirate movement is working for, from a long-term perspective the polical adaption of the world in which we live, based on our level of technology and conditions of life, seems quite radical. It is also often expressed by radical means.

With time, however, the generation that has seen the maturing of the internet, the pioneering, the rapid technological development, and all that it implies and means and holds for the future, will be the ones that dominate society. There is no reason to assume that we will not follow the same patterns as our ancestors.

Our radicalism will meet with our maturity, and the ideas that we hold will be the ideas that we carry through to influence the society that we are to give to our heirs.

Thus, time is on our side - eventually we WILL win the war against those that try to limit information exchange and personal integrity and our rights to freedom, simply because that is something that concerns this generation much more than traditional western parliamentary politics. The trends of waning voting percentages and decreasing party memberships shows this very clearly.

The problem, however, is the amount of ferocity that the now established part of society tries to fight this new development, simply because these ideas are not in tune with ours. This is leading, in our case, to a very strong movement against us from established society, a development takes place towards more control, and more limitations.

One of our most important jobs is to stop these limitations untill we are taking over, making sure that our ideas are not being made formally impossible within the current system (something that we risk to see happening, at the rate things are going). And our other, equally important job, is to bring our ideals up on the daily agenda, and preparing the kind of future that we want to see.

We're not the only ones with ideas and dreams of the future, and in a society that still has democracy, all groups with ideas will pull every string to realize their aims, and we must do this as well. This is why there is a need for pirates to organise. Not because we necessarily want to wipe the floor with those that does not share our ideals and values, but to make our voices heard along with the rest.

Håkan Roswall compares Piratbyrån with terrorists, and the Pirate Bay with... something even worse

2006-06-30T06:01:00.000+02:00

This is translated from Rasmus Fleischer of Copyriot, regarding the juridical aftermaths concerning the raid on the company PRQ, who had all their customers raided about a month ago. Some of their customers have had their equipment returned, some have not, and their own equipment, the equipment used for company administration, is still being held by order of prosecutor Håkan Roswall, without any given reason.

Now I've heard, by word of mouth from a person that was present in court in Stockholm on the Wednesday, what prosecutor Håkan Roswall said at the first negotiations that will be held regarding the seizure of various servers in relation with the Pirate Bay raid.

The company PRQ wanted their four computers back, computers used for book keeping and keeping tabs of customers (also necessary for PRQ to be able to pay their taxes). Håkan Roswall refuses and insists that the computers are to remain locked away for at least another year. He claims that this is important for the investigation.

When the court heard this case, it was thus time for Håkan Roswall to motivate his decisions. How did he do it? Well, first he allegedly talked about what bittorrent is in general for up about half an hour, and (nobody understands why) how virtual networking works. A guess is that the jurors were completely confused. Then Håkan Roswall said, according to what I have had told to me, literarily this:

I don't know how to say this, but one could say that Piratbyrån is like the IRA and the Pirate Bay is like IRAs armed forces.

It's stunning.

The ignorance of the prosecutor is one thing: the IRA is the "armed forces" of the Sinn Féin party, which should be part of anyone's general knowledge. What is more stunning is why he involved Piratbyrån in this at all. The negotiations was about the company PRQ, and the alledged necessity for the investigation to not return their accounts (not even a copy).

The worst thing, however, is what Håkan Roswall obviously is trying to say: the work to influence the public opinion that Piratbyrån is doing is to be compared to terrorism (and the Pirate Bay is terrorism squared). The fact that Piratbyrån is arguing that indexing services such as the Pirate Bay has an obvious right to exist, means that freedon of expression can be sorted away.

PRQ have appealed to a higher instance, but before that, the demands from more people and companies to get their computer equipment returned will be tried in the district court. Also the seizure of Piratbyrån's server will be brought up to trial, hopefully as soon as next week. But expect that Håkan Roswall will refuse to give an inch. This is of course a political question, where pressure has to be applied from as many directions as possible, if we are not to accept that prosecutors are going to be able to arbitrarily decide that one online voice or another are to be silenced for an unspecified timespan and without any suspicion of crime.

Report: File sharing does not influence movie theater ticket or DVD sales

2006-06-29T15:38:00.000+02:00

The Swedish daily GP (Gothenburg Post) had an interesting piece the other day. It claims that downloading of copyrighted materials does not cause much losses for the copyright holders.

Those that download movies from the internet does not shun the theaters and doesn't skip renting a movie. On the contrary, they are keen consumers of both movie theater visits and DVDs. This is revealed in a new report.

The movie theater visits in Sweden has steadily decreased. Last year there was 14.6 million visits to the theaters thoughout the country. Thirty years ago, that figure was almost three times as high and in the last two years alone the visits have decreased with four million. On the DVD market, the number of movies sold has increased, but the value of the total market has still been unchanged.

The movie industry has seen the illegal downloading of movies from the internet as one of the reasons that less people buy their products. But according to a new study from the SOM institute that is not the case.

- If you look at the population in general it is those who download movies who also visits the movie theaters most often and rents the most dvd movies, says Rudolf Antoni, candidate for the doctoral program in journalism and mass communication and the one responsible for the study where 1800 people has been interviewed on various topics, including movie theater habits.

Youmg men with home access to alot of technology is the group that downloads the most movies. The fact that they are also the most frequent movie theater visitors has been partially explained with notions that they belong to an age group that visits the theaters more often.

- But the downloading has no negative effect even if you only compare the age group up to 30 years old. There, everyone goes to the theaters equally much, if they download movies or not, says Rudolf Antoni.

This is a fascinating report with important results.

It shows that the panic over the waning sales of the movie industry can no longer be blamed on file sharing. File sharing is now documented not to influence the sale figures.

One might be urged to say that this report claims that file sharing is good for the sale figures. That may be so, but I'm quite sceptical about that - if an even larger segment of the population was downloading movies in the manner that the group "young men with home access to alot of technology" perhaps the general picture would be different, and it would lead to a slight decrease, albeit not a significant one.

However, it shows what file sharing advocates have claimed for quite a while by now - that the reason that people share movies with each other is that they simply like movies. In itself, that is a fact that should be received with big smiles from the movie producers, especially now, when it seems that the file sharers are not only the most eager consumers, but also the best customers as well.

In any account, the movie industry needs to find other reasons why their sales are decreasing. Perhaps they make inferior products. Perhaps they are marketing their products in a flawed way. Perhaps their distribution methods are outdated? Such things have been claimed by various file sharing advocates through-out the debate. If the movie industry is going to claim that their sales are decreasing in such a level that the very existance of their industry is at jeopardy, it would definately be in their interest to do an honest investigation of the real reasons.

But somehow I doubt that this will happen, something tells me that the movie industry will instead continue to blame their best customers instead of evaluating their own flaws. This is confirmed in the same GP article.

Jan Bernhardsson is CEO at SF Cinemas. Even if the new studies shows that file sharing on the internet might not be the explanation for the decrease of ticket sales, he doesn't feel calm at all.

- Absolutely not. Downloading is a real threat. Indirectly it provides a serious threat against the entire movie industry. If those producing the movies doesn't get paid there is no basis for investment. Then they can't produce any new movies, which also influence us negatively, he says.

This is a shame, since what they are doing is lobbying for a further criminalization of file sharers, and trying to push on us a concensus that file sharers are immoral and a threat. And now it seems that that those they want to outlaw and outcast are in fact their best customers.

Perhaps it is this arrogant attitude that is actually the bulk of the problem?

State is harassing pirates?

2006-06-29T13:46:00.000+02:00

Quite a bit over 100 servers and other equipment seized by police in the Pirate Bay raid is still in police custody. Internet company PRQ has now demanded the return of four servers and networking equipment currently held by police. According to Fredrik Neij, these computers are strictly related to the PRQ company and have no connection at all to The Pirate Bay.

The four servers contains the PRQ economic system, which is crucial for the company, who is providing over 200 websites with internet connections and other services, including a Chechen news agency. Without this equipment, PRQ will have to rebuild their financial department from ground-up, something that will not only cost a lot of money in new investments, but will also seize effectiveness and mean a lot of workload for the few employees, who are currently working hard to keep their business running as it is, as every one of their customer were raided less than a month ago.

At the same time, the political think-tank/group Piratbyrån is still waiting to get their servers back. For over a week, they have been waiting, ever since the responsible prosecutor, the now more and more infamous Roswall, told them over phone that they had concluded that the Piratbyrån servers had no relations to any crime investigation, and all they needed was his signature - a signature he has still not signed on a paper, more than a week later.

When Swedish daily SvD asks the court in question, they claim they have not managed to get in contact with anyone who has he authority to give them their stuff back.

This is such an obvious lie it is ridiculous. Do the court mean to tell us that Piratbyrån has an easier time getting in contact with Roswall than they do themselves? If so, they need to overlook their routines, maybe plug a phone line into the building and get all those clerks to actually show up at work.

The fact of the matter is that it is getting abundantly clear that this is nothing but authority sanctioned harassments, against the Pirate Bay internet provider and against the piracy advocates.

There has obivously been a political decision to shut down the Pirate Bay. This was ridiculously ineffective, as the Pirate Bay managed to get back on-line with donations from ordinary people after only a few days. They're now back at full capacity, but all this attention and the intensified, not decreased but increased trafic, has made creative businesses hounding them to be able to finance the whole thing. So, by a raid they did not accomplish anything - quite the opposite.

So a new tactic seems to have been deviced. Now the authorities hold on to all equipment they could find. The thought is that it should be very risky to have any relations at all with the Pirate Bay, that so far has never been convicted of anything. If you are their internet service provider you can get all your customers harassed. If you have the same internet provider as the Pirate Bay, you can get harassed. In the long run, if you can't take them out by force, you can harass them, untill they won't get hosted anywhere.

This is very similar to the strategies used in the wars between gangsters and police in the 1930's and 40's. It's standard mob policing, in other words.

The problem is that this strategy will fail, because the Pirate Bay have absolutely no problems what so ever to find willing providers of hardware, software or connection. The Pirate Bay is quite international in its decentralisation and simplicity - if no ISP would rent them bandwidth in Sweden, they simply move their activity elsewhere. And who lose from this? Not the Pirate Bay. They are already moving in a grey zone, legally and - some would say - morally. The ones that will lose from this is the Swedish authorities, that proves that when they can't get rid of something irritating and when the international lobby groups breathes down their necks, they will resort to mafia methods.

Perhaps even more disturbing is the even more obvious harassment being done against Piratbyrån. Piratbyrån is not the same as the Pirate Bay. Piratbyrån is a political think tank and lobby group. They are hardly revolutionaries in anyway. They have an opinion on certain matters of legislation and a view of culture that makes political opponents to Antipiratbyrån, which is the copyright holders' (that is, the movie and computer game development industry - book publishers and record companies have their own groups) interest and lobby group. Antipiratbyrån, however, has made themselves the prime source of information and decision foundation for the authorities - in itself a scandal that casts a shadow over the current fairness of Swedish authorities on these matters - and thus it is important for said authorities to come to their aid.

The problem is that Piratbyrån has proved to be a prominent political opponent. They lack the ear of the authorities, but instead they are often warmly welcomed by others, such as the bigger political parties' parliamental groups, and are frequently figuring in media. And more importantly, they have better arguments than the Antipiratbyrån, they know more on the topic than the authorities, and they have a large support among aware groups on the internet.

Thus they are also harassed, now by having their servers withheld without reason.

It's a shame that Piratbyrån hasn't managed to get the message through to the newspaper that Roswall has openly said that their equipment doesn't have anything to do with the investigation, but that he still keeps it in police storage. That is something that deserves quite some attention in the press, given the outcry about american interests being behind the bust in the first place. What would they say when they no longer could close their eyes to the fact that the authorities are also harassing political opponents for their own reasons?

For Swedish readers, check out Svenska Dagbladet.

Tip for Swedish readers

2006-06-28T17:53:00.000+02:00

Oscar Swartz has just had his report "Marschen mot Bodströmsamhället: Hur justitieministerns dubbelspel hotar våra grundlagsfästa fri- och rättigheter" ("The march towards the Bodström society: How the justice ministers double dealins threatens our constitutional freedoms and rights") published on Timbro. It is a available as a PDF in Swedish.

Download

Lobby boss claims freedom obsolete and transforms pioneers into activists

2006-06-28T17:04:00.000+02:00

Monique Wadsted is a lawyer, who works for the law firm Maqs. She claims to be Hollywoods (MPAAs) legal representative in Sweden, and her job is basically being the one coordinating the lobby on the juridical system and politicians in Sweden. With this area of expertice, and the experience in the field, one would think that Wadsted knew alot of what she was doing. But yesterday, June 27, she has written a piece published on Page 4 in Swedish tabloid Expressen that shows such a lack of perspective that I begin to wonder if the opponents of us pirates has any other assetts than money.

They think they are above the law

In the childhood of internet, it was a place where scientists and people interested in computers were at work. In its limited culture, the idea grew that all information should be free. It was natural in that environment and made it possible for internet to develop in the way it has done by the work of developing standard protocolls among other things. We should all be greatful for that.

The rest of society started to establish itself on the internet in 1995. Already early on, it was clear that this was a development that was not desireble for the internet activists. The were more and more marginalized and the idea that all information should be free was of course impossible to maintain when internet became part of the rest of society.

The debate has at times been heated and the internet activists have become more and more aggressive. This is something we've seen examples of lately with threats and harassments against people of different opinions and representativs för rightowners, such as me. They have also attacked the websites of the government, the police and Antipiratbyrån.

What initially was a culture that worked for peace and globalisation has developed to an unhealthy subculture where the members deem themselves above the law and have the right to do and say what they want.

They simply do not accept that the internet is now part of society as a whole. Many of them, like the guys behind the Pirate Bay, have also left the ideal state behind. By using the large trafic on the Pirate Bay they now make alot of money by selling ads, for example from gambling companies and from young women stripping for the webcam.

The necessity of freedoms specifically for the internet is of course nonsense. The existing copyright rules is also at work on the net. The adaption made by the Swedish copyright legislation last year clearified that copying an illegaly produced copy for yourself was forbidden. Such a change in legislation can hardly be concidered controversial. The internet activists have not given up, however, and the group got a renewal with the invention of file sharing programs. Swedish internet activists created nodes to simplify this illegal handling. A large part of these were placed in Sweden because of its large bandwidth capacity and the lack of police resources to handle this criminality. More and more people started uploading and downloading movies and other things without paying. Not primarily because they thought it was the right thing, but because it was possible.

To download a movie from Pirate Bay often take several hours. Many swedes can, during that amount of time, go to the nearest video store many times. For those living far from such stores there's a possibility to rent movies via mail. Sites with legal access to movies exists nowadays. To rent a new movie in Sweden costs 30 SEK; an acceptable price for someone with a slim income.

Why are people illegaly downloading from the net? My guess is that it is because it's cool, that on the net one can get a hold of illegal movies before they go up on theaters or arrive at the video store and that the risk to exposure has been very small. The fact that alot of youths and adults break the law is of course a problem. The cure against this, however, is not to legalize this activity. Just as little as any politician would get the idea to legalize speeding because many drivers drives too fast, there are no reasons to change the copyright legislation simply because many people are engaging in illegal up- and downloading. Nor is civil disobidience a good reason to take advantage of education without paying for it.

A large part of the Swedish economy is now based on trade with different types of immaterial rights. If the lack of respect for copyright and other rights gets further foothold, it will have effects also on the Swedish economy. The rightholders, not only in the US but also in Sweden and the rest of Europe, are concerned by the development here. The respect for copyright thus needs to be strenghtened also for the sake of Sweden.

Pioneers becomes activists
Wadsted somewhat accurately begins to describe the childhood of the internet as a place where universities, hobby computerists and scientists dominated greatly, and that the culture developed a culture of free information exchange. And she saw that it was good. We should be greatful, she says, for this development, making the internet what it is - possible for anyone to use.

But then something happens. The rest of society catches up, she notes, and moves onto the net.

When this occurs, something also happens to Wadsteds ideas on history and people on the internet. All of a sudden, the people that roamed the net in these distant, prehistoric times, the scientists and computer hobbyists and university people, all these dinosaurs, suddenly changes form. Now they are suddenly "internet activists". They're no longer the pioneers, the upholders of a free culture, the people making innovations, the highly educated, the ones that made the internet possible - they are "internet activists", with their own evil agenda. And this is the term by which these people, that happened to be on the net before "the rest of society" moved in, are henceforth to be known.

These "internet activists" have a very evil agenda - they are strongly opposing the idea that the internet should be extended beyond their own social circles and they definately don't want the rest of society to be represented on, or even have access to, the internet. This is a very strange assertion, concidering these "internet activists" (i.e. scientists, universities and computer hobbyists) have always maintained how much society benifits from a broader net access and lobbied for the internet to become more accessible to everybody. Guess it's only part of that obscure and outdated freedom agenda of theirs.

Freedom becomes obsolete
Other things also happened. Wadsted seems to want to claim that when the internet suddenly became something that concerned society as a whole, this idea of free information exchange, sharing ideas and concepts, helping each other find solutions and making things available for everyone in an equal amount and extent, became as outdated on the internet as it is in the rest of society.

This description of the history of the internet (once a playground for historical figures like scientists, hobbyists and students, now turned into a part of society), the people involved in it (the same scientists, hobbyists and students suddenly transformed into anti-social "activists") and the culture that developed on the internet (the concepts of freedom of equality that has always been obsolete in society but now is also obsolete on the net) is disturbing. But to be perfectly honest, it suggests more about how Wadsted views the internet, the people inovolved with the development of the internet, academics, and culture and society as a whole.

Go rent, damnit
Further, there's a suggestion that downloading of movies occurs because it can be done. This is absolutely correct. It can be done, and it will be done, and quite frankly, it's the only way to easily get a hold of a batch of one's and zero's and use it smoothly. Wadsted suggests that it's very easy for someone in Sweden to rent a movie - it only costs a tiny amount of money and if you don't live close to the video store, you can always get the rented movie via mail. Or use a legal access point.

There are some obvious problems with this. First of all, you might not at all be interested in watching the movies that the local video store (or legal online rental) happens to have in the shelves - most often the titles they believe will be rented out often. But if you have a taste that is somewhat different from the majority of the renters, these alternatives suddenly no longer give this possibility - the titles that interest people are not in the range of titles of all these stores.

The range of titles that you can access on the file sharing systems are by far greater than anything you can find in the videostore.

Wadsted also exaggregates when she uses the fictional sum of 30 SEK (roughly $4 or £2.25 or €3.25) as what it costs to rent a movie in Sweden. Some places offers you to rent for 30 SEK. Some offers you to rent for 20. New or popular titles will probably cost 50 SEK.

These 20-30-50 SEK might be a pity thing for many, but think about it for a moment. You can either pay 50 SEK to watch the most interesting movie that the rental place has on the shelf for a few times on your television set at 35-60 per cent of the cost of seeing it on the theater, but at a percent of the experience if you accept that movies should be seen on the white screen) and then go back to return it.

Or you could pay 50 SEK to have it mailed to you (waiting for a day to receive it, watching it and then go to the local post office - or store replacing the post office - and mail it back.

Or you can download it, and you use it at its own disposal. Since the downloaded version is a bunch of 1's and 0's you can basically do what you want to it. You can watch it whenever you want to. You can make a copy and give it away to someone else you know would like it. You can make your own fan subtitles for it. You can use samples of it, extract sounds from it to use as your windows startup noice, take screenshots and so on. You can also erase it. The only limit is yourself.

Obviously, there's no wonder why people download movies. It can be done, just as Wadsted notes, and it is downloaded into a form that is far superior than any form you can rent it in. And you can do whatever you want with it.

The only thing that Wadsted manages to do in her article is proving to have an outdated view on technology, a hostile view on both society and the internet, an absurd view on history, and an obscured view on what people might be interested in.

In her world, you pay for all forms of entertainment as a matter of principle and only take part of what entertainment a number of selected businesses have chosen for you to have access to, society is something that does not benifit from freedom or exchange of thoughts and ideas, and anyone not conforming to this weird view of the world is transformed from whatever they used to be (a scientist, a student, a geek, a lover of culture or simply a member of society) into a hostile activist with an agenda.

Guess what? I'm an activist with this agenda and take pride in it.

MPAA and friends vs Pirate Bay - The Movie

2006-06-22T15:47:00.000+02:00

Finally I found the big whistleblow from Swedish Television about what is probably the biggest fuzz in the computer world. the story on how the MPAA pressured the US government to pressure the Swedish government to pressure prosecutors to pressure police to take down the Pirate Bay.

Justice Minister Bodström: Trafficking the same as file sharing

2006-06-22T00:59:00.000+02:00

The Swedish blogger Johanna Nylander of Frihet, Fildelning och Feminism (Freedom, file sharing and feminism) noticed an interesting thing in that justice miniter Bodström said on a television show where he was debating against a member of the liberal Folkpartiet last night:

If this would have been about a letter from a norwegian woman's organisation asking us to deal more seriously with human trafficking, noone would have reacted. This is exactly the same thing.

I reacted as well to this statement, but FF&F pinned down the problem delicately:

Quite frankly it is insulting and a sign of bad taste on behalf of the minister making this parallell between trafficking and file sharing.

FF&F:

It's completely tasteless, and he seems to have forgotten that kiddie porn crimes is one of the crimes that has to stand back for file sharing under the ordered priority order of the police.

Bodström should really start concider his priorities and view on people, when he obviously thinks that file sharing is something much worse than trafficking.

When over 60 police officers are allocated to steal servers from everyone that happens to have it on the same ISP as a file sharing network, other things has to be put on hold. It is beyond me how Swedish police can put such priorities, especially as they keep complaining (in my opinion a just complaint) that they don't have resources to fight real crimes.

Bare in mind that the police force hardly took the new form of copyright law adopted recently very seriously, saying things like "police have better things to do than to hunt file sharers".

It would seem that the MPAA and the Swedish government have worked to change their minds on this subject.

The trade sanction affair spins on

2006-06-21T18:53:00.000+02:00

After the raid on Pirate Bay, Johan Linander, from the Center Party, has reported Justice minister to the Committee on Constitution, the executive committee of the Swedish parliament that checks to see if desicions and actions of government are in accordance with the Swedish constitution.

With the recent information from Swedish television that the raid was issued after trade sanction threats from the US and american movie industry lobby groups, he feels the matter more urgent than ever.

- That the prosecutor is called up to be informed that the US threatens with trade sanctions is highly incongruous, he says to Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet.

The Justice Minister Thomas Bodström claims that prosecutor Roswall was called up on a standard meeting, but that there were no pressuring involved.

Linander shrugs this off as a bad excuse.

- Of course he did. How else could he have received it? We must not forget that Roswall wrote a PM in november stating that the Pirate Bay was not illegal. Efter being called up [to the ministry] he suddenly decides to strike anyway.

Concerning the claims of ignorance from the Justice Minister, he says:

- It would be very strange if he didn't know what happened, but I am completely convinced he did. It doesn't matter what Bodström has said or done. As a minister he is responsible for the actions of his civil servants.

In november, following an earlier Supreme Court ruling, prosecutor Roswall concluded that the Pirate Bay was not illegal. Not long after that, because of a mail exchange between the MPAA and the Secretary of State, said prosecutor is called up to the Ministry of Justice, where he is told about threatened trade sanctions. The Secretary of State then sends a reply to the MPAA where he says he has let police and prosecuting authorities know that the government expects fast and effective results within a framwork of a few weeks.

We are first of all expected to believe that this did not involve any form of pressuring on the prosecutor, or orders, or involvement in the case of the Pirate Bay, even though the Pirate Bay had been specifically named in the MPAA to Swedish Government correspondence, and even though this was the only profiled case that could be prioritized.

We are also expected to believe that the Justice Minister were completely unaware of all this - demands from the RIAA to the Swedish government, trade sanction threats, the State Secretary making statements of police and prosecutor priorities and so on.

There is alot of large assumptions that our government expects us to accept

RIAA threatens YouTube users

2006-06-21T08:16:00.000+02:00

RIAA have hit another low in a desperate struggle to try to get rid of the piracy even themselves know they won't get rid of.

This time, according to Moneycontrol Tech Blog, they are sending seize-and-desist mails to YouTube users who are dancing to music they haven't licensed.

So, here we have a video taken of someone who's making a fool of themselves in front of the webcam, perhaps on a party, with someone expected to be a good friend on the other side. Perhaps the dance was recorded and put out on YouTube to the everlasting embarassment of the person in the video. Instead of focusing of the morality of someone actually putting out such a video on YouTube in the first place, the horrible crime in this is that there is music in the background, and the person posting the video doesn't pay royalties.

Or, we have the dancer himself making sure this is recorded and put on YouTube. Perhaps it's a call for some attention, the chance to become a meme, to become a new Gary Brolsma, or just because it was a fun thing to do. And again, he doesn't pay royalties.

This is clearly a desperate step in the fight against piracy, but it is highly misdirected. And it's so narrowminded and shortsighted I can't find words for it.

What do the RIAA expect? Are they expecting that millions of people will go to YouTube, find a video that happens to play their favourite song, rip the sound from the video, and sell it, and thereby cut the record industry's profits to half?

Sanction threat behind file sharing raid

2006-06-20T16:39:00.001+02:00

This just came in from news program Rapport on Swedish National Television:

The US threatened Sweden with trade sanctions within the frameworks of the World Trade Organisation, if Sweden did not stop file sharing sites such as The Pirate Bay.

On May 31 a large number of police raided the file sharing network on around ten spots in the country. Three of the prime suspects were arrested and a number of servers were confiscated.

Already from the beginning, Rapport showed that the raid was done after pressures from the US government. Justice Minister Thomas Bodström have consequently denied that he has pressured police to act against the Pirate Bay.

State Secretary Dan Eliasson, closest co-worker and confident of Bodström, denied already on the day after the raid that the White House had contacted the Swedish Government on the Pirate Bay at all.

Documents presented by Swedish Television today shows that Dan Eliasson has been deeply involved in this particular matter. The documents also confirm that the US has pressured the Swedish government to act against the Pirate Bay.

In March, Eliasson received a letter from John G Malcolm, chairman for the mighty Hollywood lobby group MPA.

In the letter, Malcolm reminded about a meeting he and Eliasson had in October, 2005, to discus the file sharing problem. Malcolm expressed concerns that "Sweden has become a haven for international piracy".

Malcolm also reminded that the American embassy had repeatedly "asked the Swedish government to act against the Pirate Bay" and finally asked Eliasson to "exercise his influence to urge law enforcement authorities in Sweden to take much-needed action against The Pirate Bay".

On April 10th, Eliasson sent a reply to MPA and John G Malcolm. In the letter, Eliasson explained about the government giving prosecutors and police the task of sharpening the struggle against copyright infringement and that the government expected immediate results.

Eliasson also wrote that he would follow the actions of the Swedish police against file sharers closely and that he, if need be, would not doubt to take actions to raise the efficiency.

Sometime this spring, Eliasson called chief prosecutor Sven-Erik Alhem to a meeting about file sharing. During the meeting not only file sharing in general was discussed, but also the particular case of the Pirate Bay.

- Dan Eliasson was interested in the process (with the Pirate Bay), how the land laid in Sweden, chief prosecutor Sven-Erik Alhem says.

The Pirate Bay was a big thing in the ministry, not only on white-collar level.

- Well, the Pirate Bay was the big case that existed on area of copyright and it was this case that had resulted, as I understand it, in the contacts from the US where they expressed concerns over the situation, says Sven-Erik Alhem.

Was Thomas Bodström also aware of these things?

- Well, I don't know that. But I assume that was the case.

Alhem brought up the Pirate Bay process to discussion with the Prosecutor General, Fredrik Wersäll. After the meeting, prosecutor Håkan Roswall, who had earlier investigated the Pirate Bay without result, were informed that copyright infringements were the new priority. The Pirate Bay suddenly ends up on the top in the pile of cases.

On April 7, Roswall is called up to the Ministry of Justice where two employees close to State Secretary Dan Eliasson explains to him what is really on the line.

- In this context it was mentioned things about black listings within the framework of the WTO and such, that such threats had been conveyed from the American government to the Swedish government, Håkan Roswall tells Rapport.

The ministry employees that gave these informations knew that Roswall were handling the Pirate Bay investigation, but claimed that the meeting was not an attempt to put any pressure on Roswall. He was told that the information he received were not to concider instructions.

- It was minutely pointed out that I under no circumstances should understand the information I received as any form of instructions of what to do or not to do, says Håkan Roswall.

One and a half month later, on May 31, prosecutor Håkan Roswall orders the raid on the Pirate Bay.

And today, state secretary Dan Eliasson confirms to Rapport the information that Sweden has been threatened with trade sanctions.

- I know that the US have opinions about the effectivity of our system when it comes to copyright. And if Sweden and other countries did not follow their international undertakings there are sanction mechanisms in the US, I know this. And it has been pointed out from the US side.

Has the Minister of Justice been informed that you and your employees in repeated contacts have discussed the particular and ongoing Pirate Bay case with officials as well as lobby organisations?

- Yes, he has received general information that there is criticism against the Pirate Bay and that police is working on the case.

So let us sum up what has actually happened:

The powerful movie lobby with the MPAA in the front line has pressured the American government to do something about the Pirate Bay. The American government has, in turn, threatened Sweden with trade sanctions if things were not done. Due to these threats, prosecutors sent out a large police force to confiscate all servers that used the same ISP as did the Pirate Bay. This includes, among others, political organisations and even a chechen news agency that can't work from inside Russia, for obvious reasons.

When Bodström tells Swedish media that he has in no way been involved in this scandal, he must have been lying. He expects us to believe that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have received trade sanction threats from the US, and that the Swedish justice system, which is under his command as he is the head of the Ministry of Justice, have acted on these threats, and that he himself have never been informed or involved in this process in any way.

Of course, this is extremely improbable, yes, I would even say that this is impossible. The only alternative would be that either the Ministry of Foreign affairs would have controlled the prosecution and police directly, which is even more impossible and improbable, or that Swedish police and prosecutors acted politically without him noticing and that the government doesn't tell each other of things that are as serious as trade sanction threats from the worlds only super power.

So, the only reasonable chain of events is that the Ministry of Foreign affairs have passed the ball over to the Ministry of Justice, since police and prosecutors sort under them. Then they must have given a green light, or an order, to execute the raid.

In no way, what so ever, can the Justice Minister, being the executive boss of the Ministry of Justice, have been unaware of this chain of events. If he were, he has shown extreme negligence and can hardly remain in office after this.

But if he knew, he either gave the green light, or did not stop this from happening. In any case, a Swedish minister has been involved, through direct actions or through negligence, in a ministry directly making themselves involved in one of the most serious abuses of power in Swedish history - by order from a foreign state.

And then lied about it on national television.

This is an excerpt of what John G. Malcolm from MPAA writes to Swedish state secretary Dan Eliasson on March 17, 2006:

Clearly the complaints that we filed on behalf of our members in 2004 and 2005 with the police in Stockholm and Gothenburg against the operators of The Pirate Bay have resulted in no action. As I am sure you are aware, the American Embassy has sent entreaties to the Swedish government urging it to take action against The Pirate Bay and other organizations operating within Sweden that facilitate copyright theft. As we discussed during our meeting, it is certainly not in Sweden's interest to earn a reputation among nations and trading partners as a place where utter lawlessness with respect to intellectual property rights is tolerated. I would earn you once again to exercise your influence to urge law inforcement authorities in Sweden to take much-need action against Pirate Bay.

Source

And here is an excerpt of the answer:

I can [...] assure you that I follow closely the actions taken by the police and the prosecutors in respect of copyright infringements on the Internet and I will not, if necessary, hesitate to initiate further measures to improve their effectiveness.

Source

Society benefits from file sharing

2006-06-19T23:47:00.000+02:00

The music and movie industry mixes up what is economics and what is business economics, claims debater and scientist Jan Kallberg. Mr Kallberg runs the blog Raka Puckar. This article was first published in Computer Sweden and is translated with Kallbergs permission - all eventual errors in the text are due to my translation.

I do not deny them their right to get paid for their word during a reasonable time, but I do question that there are equal signs being made between self-interest and public interest.

Let's take an example. The friends Magnus, Mikael and Motek downloads one movie a night for 365 days. According to the copyright lobby this means a hundered SEK per download with taxes excluded.

That means 36 500 SEK in lost income for the industry and 20 000 for society in lost VAT and taxes.

This is based on the assumption that there is a measurable correlation between download and purchase. The three friends would then spend around 154 SEK a day on buying movies and music.

Each of these youths would shun night clubs, liqour, cigarettes, travels, papers, candy, coffee and public transportation fees to be able to put all their money on copyrighted matieral sold by large international companies lacking the ablity to adapt to new technology. This chain of thought does not exist outside the music and movie industries. It is a chimaera.

There is no such thing as a binary choice situation where one have to consume copyrighted material or die.

Young people can do completely other things: vandalize subway trains, do drugs, roam the city at night and pick fights in pub lines.

Let's go back to economics. Society does not loose 20 000 SEK in taxes if these three younglings are downloading movies every day.

They would buy a fifth if they were forced to buy at all. So the theoretical loss of society is about 100 SEK a month per individual

The three of them means a public cost of about 4 000 SEK a year.

So is this a loss for society? No. It's gain. The cost is marginal compared to what is gained by calmer youths that watch movies at home instead of running around vandalizing, youths that gets their hands on computer programs they could never afford to buy and a transformation of kids from ignorant brats to technically knowledgeble adults.

They will be able to get into the labour market faster, since they know the tech. They are motivated since they haven't roamed around the city all the time growing up.

That's why the propaganda about how society loses from illegal downloading of copyrighted material doesn't add up. Society would lose large incomes, but the cost reduction is much larger.

Downloading pays off for society, with gain.

The complexity inherited in the software downloaded is marginal, so the real influence on research and development is limited.

Consumption is not about to disappear. It changes appearance and people go to concerts or see the movie instead of buying the album and the movie in competition with other purchases.

It is not certain that the youths would have had this focus on movies and music without downloading working as an initiator. If they would not have this focus, other choices would take a greater position, and that would influence the possibilities of the copyright holders' possibilities to make money in general and on the authortised market.

From an economical perspective - where only the costs and incomes of society and the way society is affected by downloads is weighed in - this is more of a gain than a loss to society!

The tale the copyright industry is telling about what Sweden looses from downloading lacks support from real facts.

Society doesn't lose billions in lost incomes and kept costs.

It is more likely that the long-term benifits from file sharing is much higher than the loss incomes. This is something that also the industry usually regards as profits.

Jan Kallberg, debater and scientist

Quick march against democracy?

2006-06-19T12:39:00.000+02:00

Regard these news stories, from various Swedish newssources.
April 4, 1998: Bugging proposed as new work method for police.
April 6, 2000: Justice minister wants to give police right to bug.
April 23, 2002: Surveillance cameras prevents crime in schools.
December 17, 2002: Secret registration of more than 100,000 Swedes by Secret Police.
December 19, 2002: Plans of mass arrests and lists of homosexuals in the Secret Police files.
December 20, 2002: Green Youth demands apology from Secret Police.
January 29, 2003: Bodström does not want to open the Secret Police files.
January 29, 2003: Secret Police registered people's opinions untill 1998.
January 30, 2003: Courts approved of 99 per cent of all requests for phone tapping.
August 30, 2003: Secret phone tapping has raised 34% in one year.
January 9, 2004: 230 unauthorised police officers have checked out the investigation about the murder of foreign minister Anna Lindh.
April 23, 2004: The government wants to store data on phone calls.
May 11, 2004: Bodström proposes possibilities to bug before a crime has been committed.
November 27, 2004: Sweden is behind a proposal in the EU to force member states to store phone trafic.
December 14, 2004: EU law is prepared to force tele operators to store data about cell phone calls, sms:s and e-mail for one year.
January 27, 2005: Government investigator proposes law that gives police rights to install spyware on suspects' computers.
March 31, 2005: Secret Police wants access to databases of social authorities.
May 24, 2005: Government wants to give police access to cell phone tracing.
June 2, 2005: Bodström wants storage of phone call times, SMSs, e-mails, MMSs.
September 8, 2005: British minister of the interior wants UN conventions redefined to meet terror threats.
September 9, 2005: Bodström gets outvoted on storing teletrafic data for three years.
October 12, 2005: If the EU parliament votes against storage laws, Bodström is ready to run the question around the EU system.
October 18, 2005: Bodström to propose a law giving house "preventive" house search warrants without suspicion of crimes.
October 19, 2005: Secret Police given right to break health-care secrecy.
November 8, 2005: Ministers look over possibilities to have more people use paycards.
November 11, 2005: Government proposes to let the Swedish Defense Forces Radio Fascilities tap phone calls and internet trafic.
November 23, 2005: Police officer charged with selling confidential data.
November 25, 2005: Entertainment industry wants to use anti-terrorist law to find file sharers.
November 29, 2005: Bodström wants to change the penal scale to achieve longer sentences.
December 13, 2005: 12 000 surveillance cameras in use in Stockholm.
December 19, 2005: Bodström wants to make it possible to take photos during trials.
December 19, 2005: Priests, journalists and lawyers worried about getting tapped during prison visits.
December 21, 2005: Police wants to forbid anonymous cellphone cash cards.
January 3, 2006: New law multiplies DNA tests tenfold.
January 5, 2006: Newly proposed law gives military more possibilities to give out telecommunication data to other countries.
January 5, 2006: Swedish Defense Forces Radio Fascilities wants to sell data to other countries.
January 13, 2006: Every other employer monitor the employee's surfing.
January 14, 2006: Swedish Defense Forces Radio Fascilities is expected to get rights to tap phone calls to and from abroad.
January 19, 2006: The government proposes to have military help police fight terror.
January 24, 2006: Chief of Secret Police wants Secret Police to work with informers among high school students to find potential terrorists.
January 30, 2006: Investigation proposes making it easier to obtain tele trafic data, even in lesser crimes.
February 2, 2006: Swedish television reports that justice minister Bodström has proposed at least 30 law proposals that might threaten personal integrity.
February 7, 2006: According to the Swedish Authority on Mail and Tele, a large part of Swedish tele operators break confidentiality laws.
February 7, 2006: New law to allow phone tapping, also on physicians' offices and news paper offices.
February 18, 2006: Law investigating board in parliament claims the government proposes so many new laws that they can not keep up, and that this is a threat to juridical security.
March 22, 2006: British Police officer sold nude photos from survelliance camera.
May 12, 2006: FBI to get access to Swedish computer trafic.

Washington Post confirms US meddling and Swedish compliance

2006-06-19T09:25:00.000+02:00

On June 15, the Washington Post staff writer Frank Ahrens wrote a piece on the ongoing attempts by the US government to make an effort in the international piracy war. While making a few points that would point in the direction that the US is in fact meddling in internal Swedish affairs, the article shows some incredible gaps in its insights.

It is some interesting reading about examples on how the US government threatens other countries with various sanctions if they don't comply with the White House view on piracy, a view that just so happens to coincide very closely with that of anti-pirates, indicating that the US government has taken the same losing side in the war as has the greater part of the Swedish ruling party.

The U.S. government has joined forces with the entertainment industry to stop the freewheeling global bazaar in pirated movies and music, pressuring foreign governments to crack down or risk incurring trade barriers.

In Sweden, it might be rough to accuse the US of being able to meddle successfully in Swedish affairs, and the Social Democratic party, with a long standing tradition of claimed neutrality, has a leadership that seem to think this is a touchy subject. But in fact, Sweden has several times complied with US demands, both by harassing people suspected by the US for terrorism, and by aiding in the shut down of the Pirate Bay.

When Swedish national television news program Rapport claimed that the shut down on the Pirate Bay was a job order from high levels of the US administration, this was regarded as an insult for the person that would be best targeted for these accusations, justice minister Thomas Bodström. But not only Rapport claims this - the Washington Post seem to agree whole-heartedly. But the Post seems a bit more positive to this than the very critical Rapport.

Last year, for instance, the movie industry lobby suggested that Sweden change its laws to make it a crime to swap copyrighted movies and music for free over the Internet. Shortly after, the Swedish government complied. Last month, Swedish authorities briefly shut down an illegal file-sharing Web site after receiving a briefing on the site's activities from U.S. officials in April in Washington. The raid incited political and popular backlash in the Scandinavian nation.

One thing the Post have misnoticed, however: the Swedish government can not have needed a briefing on what the Pirate Bay is. That information is well-known by all involved in Sweden, since the Supreme Court of Sweden has already deemed the contents of the Pirate Bay legal. This means it has been tested by three instances - and freed. Thus the US have hardly informed the Swedish authorities about what the Pirate Bay, something they probably know better than the US government.

What remains is simply an expression of desires to see the seizing of Pirate Bay's activity. But if the Swedish government has decided to try to nullify a Swedish Supreme Court on the wishes of the US government, this is a scandal that is difficult to compare to anything else in modern Swedish history.

Meanwhile, a high-level Sony executive expresses doubts that the current hard line on filesharers that are being used by the anti-pirates in the US is not having an effect, despite RIAA claiming it "has the problem contained".

The perils of surveillance

2006-06-17T10:03:00.000+02:00

Below is my translation of the text "The perils of surveillance" ("Risker med övervakning") from the Swedish website Stoppa Storebror (Stop Big Brother). run by master of engineering, IT strategist and author Pär Ström. The text, available in Swedish at the website can be freely used, if stoppa-storebror.se is stated as the source. I, who have made the translation, honour this license, and add to it - this translation can be used freely, if stoppa-storebror.se is stated as source. I would also be greatful if you add this webste as source for the translation. All additions of links to the text are mine and not included in the original. Furthermore, I have edited out links in the orginial text, because they linked to material in Swedish only.

Digital surveillance can sometimes make crimefighting and cheating easier. At the same time new threats arises - against the individual's integrity and freedom, against their happiness and success in life, against legal security and democracy. Sometimes, digital surveillance can even introduce new physical threats against people, and thus be counterproductive. These are the most important threats:

1. Information in the wrong hands.

Digital information have an inherent tendency to spread. The personell controlling the systems can be curious or greedy, hackers can break into the systems and bugs can make the protection of the databse non-functional. All this happens again and again.

Thus exists a real risk that gathered information comes into the wrong hands - information that can expose sensitive things such as a person's social network, interests, political opinions, health, habits, personal relations, travels, purchases et cetera. This can be used, for example, to attempt blackmailing.

Sometimes the perils connected to information in the wrong hands can be very far-reaching for the individual. A man in Oslo, Norway, pursued and threatened his ex-wife, who were afraid of him and kept herself hidden. The man then called the company taking care of the city's congestion charges and queried her license number, whereupon he received a list on exactly when and where she passed with her car. The electronic footprints gave her away. It could have ended in tragedy.

2. Innocently suspected

Electronic footprints can easily give a midleading picture, which can result in innocent people being falsely accused of crime, cheating or other irregularities. In the US a man spent five months in custody, suspected of arson, because the police demanded a printout of his purchasing list from the supermarket and found that he had bought material of the same kind that had initiated the fire. The man was released when another person reported himself to the police and admitted the crime.

That far-reaching police powers can have serious concequences for innocent citizens was illustrated with all clearity when british police in July 2005 shot dead a brazilian electrian in the London Underground, believing he was a terrorist. He had been in a building that was concidered conncted to people suspected of the failed attacked on July 21, and he was said to be carrying a thick jacket (information that later came under scrutiny), and he was running towards an exiting train. These circumstancial evidence put together resulted in seven rounds of fire in the head and one in the shoulder (another four bullets missed).

A Swedish example of how very lose suspicions resulted in blacklisting, where the black list later were spread (according to the principle 'digilat information has wings'): In June 2005 it was discovered that the telecom company Ericsson had blacklisted coworkers that had behaved unappropriately or was suspected of have unappropriate opinions or be unrealiable. The list eventually ended up on the company intranet.

Even worse example can be found if one looks back in time. During several decades the secret police were registering opinions of swedes on very loose grounds. It was well enough to be a subscriber of the wrong newspaper. The registered people were - without knowing why - denied jobs that were security classed within the military, radio or television, some parts of the industry, and other places. In 1990 more than 400 000 jobs were security classed in Sweden. The initial report of the State Board of Registers showed that at least 1001 individuals had had their careers ruined or delayed or been thrown into unemploment because they had been registered on opinion basis without any good reason. The figure is probably significantly higher.

3. Legal security made hollow

There is a tendency to let electronic footprints base black listings, that are informal and outside of the established routines of the judicial system, and because of this there are no possibilities for the individual to defend themselves or appeal - since there are no formal charges. Because of this people can end up in a legal grey zone impossible to get out of - they are not guilty but nor completely innocent. They can be the new lower class of tomorrow - "the marked".

In the US reports have already started circulating in the press about people that has a name resembling that of a known terrorist. These completely normal people are put under what they feel is harassments going on for several hours every time they try to use an air plane. This harassment includes questioning, violating cavity searches, confiscated passports and things like that. Their attempts to be excluded from this list are unsuccessfull. They simply cannot be exculpated, since there is no formal charges to be exculpated from.

In Sweden, the security police long-standing opinion listing of 100 000 swedes were a form of informal black-listing.

4. Purpose glide

Experience proves that when information has been gathered, or when a technical control system has been built, the probabilities are very high that the information gathered, or the system used, will start being used for other purposes than the one originally intended. This is called a purpose glide.

- In England, for example, the congestion charges around London were soon used as a survelliance tool by the police (the registration plate were automatically read and matched against a database).

- In Sweden we can study the purpose glide that has taken place in the database over blood samples from newly born. Orignially it was promised that it would only be used for medical research, but it has now begun to be used in crime investigations against the person who have left the sample.

- Another example are the log files from phone calls, e-mails and web surfing that tele operators and internet service providers needed to bill their customers correctly. These files have now become central tools for the police in various crime investigations.

5. The threat to anonymity in the press

For misconditions in society to be exposed it is very important that any person can safely tip off journalists without risk of exposure. The secrecy related to the journalist's sources is therefor stated by Swedish law. The storage of electronic footprints from electronic communication poses a threat of this protection being hollowed out, and the most extreme effect is a threat to democracy. For exmaple it has been noticed that in the US anyone can buy information about which calls bave been dialed from any phone.

6. Adaptability hollows out democracy

If people are getting used to the fact that their electronic footprints from everyday life are gathered, store and used for controls we can expect an adapted behaviour. To avoid potential problems in the future, perhaps people avoid buying certain books, visiting certain websites, mailing certain people, travelling to certain countries et cetera. This limits freedom, shrinks the frame of reference and prevents information gathering, and therefor it is a threat to democracy. And furthermore it limits the quality of life significally for people.

7. Feeling of unease

The subjective feeling that it is unpleasant to be monitored should not be ignored. To be without external control of ones private sphere is a human right that the individual should not be forced to claim. Concider the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (article 8, point 1), where it is said: 'Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.'

8. How can the information be used in the future?

Digital information, once saved, have a tendency to stick and never be deleted. How can electronic footprints and other detailed information about people's lives becomes utilized in the future? It is not self-evident that Sweden will always remain a democracy. If data bases had existed in the 1940's, Adolf Hitler and the nazis would have been able to find their opponents with much more ease, both in Germany and in the occupied countries.

9. The balance of power between state and individual is displaced

Information is power. Information about a person's location, travels, friends, purchases and other things that can be derived from eletronic footprints displaces power from people to the part that has access to this information. Thus, digital surveillance displaces the sensitive balance of power between state and individual to benefit the state. This means in reality that the politicians strengthens their own power at the expence of the voters.

Reponsible decision-makers often answers criticisms against survelliance measures and data gathering with the statement that "of course there must be guarantees against misuse". The sad thing is that such guarantees can not be made. All databases leak, and as long as there are going to be people, there are going to be abuse of information.

Sticky wings. Many tend to forget two fundamental and very important qualities of digital information. It has "wings" - which is to say it has a gargantual ability to spread. It is also "sticky" - which means that it is very hard erase permanently and totally. These two qualities are decisive for the fantastic advantages of information technology - but they also provide the hazards.

Violations in the Pirate Bay raid - the list

2006-06-17T07:16:00.000+02:00

I probably should have posted this first of all. ;)

But here it is. The Swedish blog gardebring.com has listed the faults and abuses involved in the raid on the Pirate Bay. An English language version of the list can be found here.

Chairman Bodström on pirate raids

2006-06-16T21:26:00.000+02:00

After the raid on over 200 servers, some that still haven't gotten their equipment back, to get to the Pirate Bay, parliament member Johan Linander (c), sent a question to justice minister Thomas Bodström:

Early May 31 a large police raid were done to stop the bittorrent tracker The Pirate Bay. Except that people were taken in for questioning, there was a raid on the company that keeps the servers that, for example, contains the site Pirate Bay. The police, however, did not stop with taken with them Pirate Bay's servers, but emptied the entire server hall and thus also took server that only contains insignificant legal sites.

Completely innocent companies have been affected, their sites have been closed down and this of course means both an unacceptable infringement in their freedom of speech and financial losses. For me it is unbelievable that raids are done against other servers than of those belonging to a company suspected of crime. It is as if all the companies renting space in an office building were to be closed because there's one company in the house that committs crimes from their space.

Of course the justice minister can not and should not talk about a specific case. But the justice minister must understand the very large problem with all the innocent that can be affected when raids are done on an entire server hall, instead of the suspected company's servers.

What actions is the justice minister ready to take to hurridly make sure that innocents are not affected when servers are being taken?

The answer, according to Intrikat IT, is more or less that the situation is fine as it is.

The legal measures should therefor be in proportion to what is expected to be gained with the measures, in matters of the nature, degree, range and lasting time.

In other words, what the minister is actually saying on this topic is that this was an excellent way to deal with a problem - to, in order to get to one site, shut down sites of, among other things, a chechen news agency and two hundere companies, none with relations to the suspected company, and take their computers for an unspecified amount of time.

And, since this is such a good idea, and so proportional, we can probably expect things like this to happen again.

"Concentration and education"

2006-06-16T07:47:00.000+02:00

Three months ago, the government gave the National Police Board and the National office of the public prosecutor a mission to investigate how they could make their work against file sharers more effective - or, seeing it from my perspective, how to more effectively hunt closing to 15% of the population. They formed a committee, and yesterday came their report.

Their first conclusion is that any investigation of cases of immaterial right infringement provides special difficulties for police and prosecutors. The body of law is complicated and the number of cases is small. This leads to a lot more workload for especially the prosecutors if compared with "comparable crimes". The investigations are divided among a large number of prosecutors and police personell, and the result is that competence is hard to build up and keep. The individual people involved does not get the chance to build up the competence needed to take care of the matters quickly and effectively.

There, it is proposed that all cases of immaterial rights infringements are centered to a small number of highly specialized police and persecutor personell, concentrated densly populated areas.

The second conclusion is that since the right-owners are an instrumental part of the investigations, and that the investigators are often dependent on the right-owners to be able to conduct their investigations. The right-owners want a central node where they can query for investigation on the ongoing investigations.

So what are my own conclusions?

Well, first of all we can state clearly that nothing has really happened on the actual matter. The report more or less talks about "focus, education and more evaluation", which in Sweden is more or less the same as saying, 'We haven't come up with any ideas, and we're not going to do much untill someone does'.

Also, the report clearly states that the number of crime investigations concerning infringement of immaterial rights are few, compared to "similar" or "comparable" crimes, and thus creates special problems. Indeed it does! If the 'crimes' are so few, why are they such a big problem, that the committee proposes a centralisation and a specialized education for the lucky few? And, more interestingly, if this is such a problem, why is it so important for the government that they allocate resources, that could be used for something else, to put on an investigation on how to intensify the fight against a crime that occurs so rarely in relation to other 'comparable crimes', and which are these crimes that are comparable?

We can easily see, however, how the investigation is very concerned about seeking the approval of the right owners. The right-owners, in most cases, are not the originators themselves, but more often large companies that have bought owning rights, and they have large lobby groups speaking of their behalfs. To quote Rasmus Fleischer of Copyriot, with my translation, and in-text linking:

A detail that can be noted is that they feel it is important to meet wishes from the anti-pirate organisation for "a central point to which they can turn to receive information about ongoing investigations". Without being a jurist legal expert, this sounds striking. In normal crime investigations, usually nobody, not even the person filing the report, gets any information untill an investigation is finished. Why should APB and IFPI be exceptions from this? What information are they suppose to receive?

Even more worrying is how these anti piracy lobby groups, according to this report, plays an instrumental role in the investigation and is dependent on their cooperation. APB are already under a bit of suspicion from being able to cuddle with the prosecutors as it is. It's only nice to hear representatives admitting to that. Again, APB is a lobby group, not a govermental body.

The Pirate Party made a press release about the investigation, now quoting party chairman Rickard Falkvine, again translated by me:

The proposal of this investigation is an acknowledgement by the judicial system that it today lacks knowledge and competence. This brings the raid on the Pirate Bay to a head. What competence and knowledge was behind for it? Internet is home ground for a younger generation. Youths live, breath and sleep with this technology. To believe that it's possible to learn this technology in all its complexity throughly in ten days only goes to show one thing: the National Police Board is naive and have not understood the complexity of the matter.

The Swedish word for a body of decisions from an authority "författning", the word commonly used in the report. It has two meanings, according to Swedish Wikipedia.

1. Constitution; documents with the juridical decisions on how a country should be governed, how the top state authorities are to be organised and how their activity is to be run. The Swedish "författning" consists of four basic laws: the governmental form, the procession order, the "förordning" on the freedom of press and the "förordning" on the freedom of speech.

2. Collective nomenclature for laws, decrees and directions made by authorities.

Perhaps its about time someone actually starts to question which of these two meanings the report is using. Do we need a change of decrees, or a change of constitution to be able to chase more than a tenth of the population?

Funny debate in Swedish daily

2006-06-14T00:02:00.000+02:00

Between 1991 and 1994, Sweden had a party called Ny Demokrati (New Democracy, abbrev. NyD) with representatives in the parliament. NyD was little more than a right-wing populist gang with no more ideology than the idea that they could win votes among insecure people by stating that people that are not Swedish is the reason for all problems, and that all problems will be solved if Sweden did not allow non-Swedes to live there. The party was surrounded by controversy from day one, basically, because controvery and media coups were what they based themselves on - given they couldn't compete in debates, since its hard to debate about ideas when you lack ideas. So, they made some high profile media happenings, were shunned by some of the parties they were suppose to build a government with, and then they simply ran out of fuel and disappeared.

One of the two front-men and founders of this party was Bert Karlsson, a record-label owner from a small town in western Sweden.

On April 11, Bert Karlsson wrote a debate article in the large Swedish daily, Aftonbladet. In the article he went on some form of crusade against pirates, which point was basically that file sharing is the same as stealing, that the Pirate Bay is founded by right wing extremists and pedo-porn, and that the Pirate Bay is corrupting the Swedish youth into rampaging right wing extremists.

On April 13, there was a response Marcus Kaarto and Rasmus Fleischer from Piratbyrån. They responded that piracy is not theft but copyright infringement, that the Pirate Bay tracker website is not illegal, that right wing extremists are not about to take over society and that the people behind the Pirate Bay are not right wing extremists. The concluded the irony that a person that has been in parliament for a right-wing populist party is accusing others of being right-wing populists.

I have translated Bert Karlssons article and the response. First Bert Karlsson:

The other day we found out that the Swedish Democrats will be the third biggest option when the youths of Sweden gets to vote. Most of use probably think this is sad, but I hardly think it should be a surprise.

The traditional parties have completely ignored the currents that flow through the younger generation. They dry to fix the holes in times of election by visiting schools, but never without a large trail of media following. There is not often a spontaneous visit in a school or a place where youths hangs out. This would have given the youths a feeling of sincere interest for their situation instead of, like now, the needs for politicians to be seen.

While this is occuring, the class gaps and the differences between have-nots and haves is getting bigger and bigger. Youths sees through this, it cannot be painted over every four years.

Who goes on the class trip and who doesn't is a question of social class, so is who can afford to play hockey or not, which families that can afford to keep up with the technical development and which does not. Jobs during the summer is a luxury, and real jobs for younger people is virtual non-existent.

Youths are in the same trap as our Swedish businesses. The flow with ideas and ambition but the politicians would much rather speak of replacement jobs and artificial breathing than giving them real tools in the form of money and help with investments. It is a language that they youths do not understand, and with all rights.

The people behind the Pirate Bay, which are dealing with illegal spreading of music on the internet, has understood how to speak the language of the youths. They offer free music and movies for those that want it, spreads the idea that they are doing an act of cultural good, and gets full support from children and youths.

This is a serious moral dilemma in itself for everyone that thinks that theft is theft, but in the long run it has consequences that are even worse. Behind the Pirate Bay we find people that are active supporters of right wing extremist groups and that are financied with ads from the porn industry with a focus on teenage girls.

After the closing of the Pirate Bay homepage last week, which sprung alot of attention, the Pirate Bay easily manages to get their customers to wreck and in sympathy shut down the servers of both the Swedish police and government.

This is a serious threat against our Swedish democracy that can quickly get consequences hard to imagine.

The Pirate Bay have, by simply offering movies and music for free, managed to get an entire generation into its own hands. They obey every little move and this of course also includes political opinions. That's why I am not surprised that the Swedish Democrats celebrate successes in the election among young people.

The fact that the established parties does not understand the power in this movement is sad.

The fact that one paty after another also conforms to their philosophy is even worse.

Without blinking, the entire copyright is sold out to win quick votes. This is simple populism but they are digging their own grave quicker than they anticipate with their cowardly acting, the backlash can be enormous, for them but even moreso for democracy and for Sweden.

I would not be surprised if we can count the Swedish Democrats into the established parties by the next election, supported by the Pirate Party.

Following is the response:

In the backwaters of the debate about file sharing they emerge like fungus - the failed record company bosses. Like zombies they walk around in a media landscape that ran past them long ago. The most current one is Bert Karlsson.

New technology is to be slandered at every cost and even though the calender says it is 1996 they do not shun any way in which to make us believe that music consumers are still passive recepients av one way communication. When the arguments are not there anymore, they simply make new ones, everything to achieve their five minutes of fame. In the debate pages of Aftonbladet, Bert yesterday got himself entangled by a web of lies that would make even his iraqi role model blush.

Some of the things that Bert claims:

"Copyright crimes are comparable to theft." - No, Bert, those that break a monopoly are not thieves, no matter if its aout selling headache pills in the grocery store, bring an extra bottle of booze from vacation or ignore the record company monopolies on copying songs.

"The Pirate Bay indexation of torrents is criminal." - No, Bert, it is not illegal to link to copyrighted material, in that case it would be impossible to run a search engine like Google.

Bert continues by accusing us behind Piratbyrån and the Pirate Bay and also entire generation of youths for being right wing extremists. This is comedy on a high level, based on two false claims:

"The Swedish democrats are the third largest party among youths." - No Bert, that figure is based on an unserious poll on the web community Lunarstorm and has been shunned by scientific polls.

"The people behind the Pirate Bay are right wing extremists." - Have you gone completely mad, Bert? What the failed record company boss is probably referring to is the "breaking story" from his colleague Brunmark, that the Pirate Bay once hired the Rix Telecom as their ISP, and Rix Telecom is ran by a member of the Swedish Democrats. According to the same line of reasoning, the People's Party, Sverok and all other current or former Rix customers would be racists.

The ideology of Piratbyrån and The Pirate Bay is spelled "Copy me" and our politics is a nice mix of everything between neo-liberals and the radical left. We have never seen any right wing extremists, and we have no idea what their opinions on copyright are. What we do know, however, is that the last time there was a right wing populist party in the parliament, it was ran by a failed record company boss. Don't accuse others of your own crimes, Bert.

Secure computing and NGSCB

2006-06-13T22:34:00.000+02:00

I guess I am kinda late in covering this, but I've actually missed it untill now. Nontheless, I feel it worth a few words, if naught else for me to try to understand it myself.

There has been alot of talk about the new Microsoft & Friends system lately, and quite a few have expressed critique. Not long ago I encountered a rather hysteric site that more or less claimed that Microsoft is developing a system that will make it possible for the FBI to monitor the whole world (whyever american police would like to take over very specified international intelligence gathering was not explained however), and pointed to NGSCB.

All this prompted a few questions for me as well: What is this NGSCB thingy, what's the idea, how does it work and what is the claimed problems with it? Anything beyond the usual pointing out that "Microsof Works" is one of history's greatest oxymorons?

What is NGSCB?
The Trusted Computer Group (TNG) is an initiative or group consisting of several computer related companies, and is led by AMD, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Infineon, Lenovo, Microsoft and Sun Microsystems. The aim of the group is to implement "trusted computing", which is their concept of what is known as "trustworthy computing" (in other words, trustworthy and trusted computing are not the same, and ironically, I would have you note the difference in terminology . that the TNG trusts something, it doesn't necessarily mean it is trustworthy). Basically the idea is to achieve a high level of security for computer systems, basically through limiting what the computer can do and thus making it less vulnerable.

Basically, this is achieved though the general principle that no software can be run on the computer, unless that software has been "approved". Responsible for approvement is a combinatin of OS software and basic hardware built into the computers mother board or CPU.

Based on this group's work and strivings, Microsoft is now labouring with implementing trustworthy computing in its next generation of operative systems. Or rather, they are working on implementing uses for hardware designed by the TCG in future Windows systems.

The concept is called Next-Generation Secure Computing Base.

The idea would be that on the computer CPU is placed a so called Trusted Plattform Module (TPM), with secure storage of cryptokeys, and also a co-processor doing the encryptions and decryptions. Applications can access the cryptos on this unit.

Also, there is so-called curtained memory, and the data on the memory can only be accessed by the application to which it belongs, and no other programs.

A good initiative?
One might think that it's good to see how Microsoft, who have a long-standing history of non-reliable and buggy operative systems filled with security holes, now finally takes a step to resolve these problems. Cryptos and such must be good for personal integrity, doesn't it?

Problems
Well, first of all, those that will be cheering the most about this, will be the anti-pirates and the DRM fanatics. What it simply means is that copyrighted files can be encrypted, and the decryption key only made available to the trusted applications. It's not a problem to create files that can only be read three times, or will be deleted after one day, or only be read by the Windows Media Player.

Another very important problem is what in business is called vendor lock-in. Already today, many businesses buys the Office Suite, simply because every one else uses the Office Suite, and thus they want to be compatible. I would be quite irritating to send over something to a business partner, and he can't open it, because his software can't handle the file format.

This is a problem for concepts of free competition on the computer market, as it gives Microsoft a very unfair position in the competition.

This can be solved today, because we have stuff like Open Office that are, at least for the most part, compatible with the Office file formats. People can open a Microsoft Word file with Open Office Writer, and in most cases, unless the file formatting is too advanced, it'll work just fine. I for one use Open Office, and I have yet to find a problem with making solid word files and reading them, but on the other hand, my uses of such files might not be the most advanced.

This solution will be easily circumvented in the era of trusted computing, however. It's not a problem to make a trusted version of Office, and the output files would only be readible by trusted software. Now you can't use any other software for these files, that are not on the trusted-list.

Anyone dare to believe that Microsoft will leave their Office suite open for anyone to use?

And suddenly, Microsoft has the golden opportunity to once again engulf itself in practical monopoly on the home computer software market, choosing the trustees and business partners as they wish - only this time, their possiblities to do so will be guaranteed by hardware, built in by the manifacturer.

Room for conspiracies?
And if this is the case, what prevents Microsoft from coworking with say the RIAA to effectively try to eradicate the concept of mp3s that are not being sanctioned by the record industry, or with the MPAA to make movie files not authorised non-trusted by proxy? And if they could do this with the RIAA and MPAA, what prevents them to do similar things with the FBI, to take away access to documents that are threatening to various political interests?

Now I am not too prone to sign all these very elaborate conspiracy theories - I don't that Microsoft will cowork with security and intelligence organisations to make freedom of speech on computers impossible forever and so on, I find the thought absurd. But for me it's enough that the theoretical possibility exists, to make me feel unease.

Doesn't solve real problems
Furthermore, it is widely claimed that NGSCB is not able to solve the computer security problems that are actually the most urgent today, such as trojans and viruses, which costs businesses alot of money and efforts when they hit. To begin with, Microsoft claimed that NGSCB was not just able, but necessary, to protect Windows users from future virus attacks, but now they have backed from those assertions, admitting that NGSCB can't solve these virus problems at all.

Funny trivia
It's however fun to notice, that Microsoft had to change the name of this concept. It used to be Palladium, but due to a copyright conflict with Palladium Books, Microsoft had to change the name. Let's just hope that this, if anything, makes them realize something about the problems with the copyright concept.

Swedish Television on how MPAA and the Swedish authorities shut down the Pirate Bay

2006-06-12T20:25:00.000+02:00

Fredrik Neij's speech

2006-06-12T20:13:00.000+02:00

This is my translation of the very well received speech by Fredrik Neij on the same demonstration and in the same video as the one occuring in the last post.

During a little more than three years, the Pirate Bay has grown from a small file sharing site on a crappy ADSL wire in Mexico to the biggest distributor of all kinds of culture and media in the world.

During a little more than three years we have continued heckling the threats of the copyright fanatics, and worked to make as much as possible available for as many as possible.

The last two years, we have built up a file sharing empire that the world have never seen before, a cluster of pages and servers that is used by millions of people every day. An ordinary working day, the Pirate Bay has 15 million page requests!

What other culture site could even dream of comparing with that? Despite the fact that we spread more culture than anyone else, it's the movie- and music mafia itself that has fought to shut us down.

During these years, we've had numerous threats sent to us... and everyone has gotten fitting insults back!

And still, our work has conitnued, without any disturbances what so ever.

The Internet is fantastic. Every day The Pirate Bay users, all us together, send data corresponding to fifty DVD-r's a second. A SECOND! That's enormous amounts of happiness and pleasure!

So, how about the future then, how will it look? Now that the Swedish state and Hollywood are cuddling, like a loving couple?

Well, we will continue to mock their threats and ridiculous attempts to stop us! The Pirate Bay will be even more international, decentralized, and invincible!

Now that Bodström and the police have tried to attack us, help has flowed in from all over the world. Servers, bandwidth and finiancial aid has been offered completely without demands on anything returned or paid. People everywhere have seen how incredible effective BitTorrent is!

And people everywhere is beginning to get seriously pissed off about being pushed around by the mafia of the movie and music industry.

I can happily announce today that the Pirate Bay is up again! After not too much hard work everything is up just like it did before the raid this wednesday. This time we fire the big cannon, and say, "In your face, Hollywood!"

So the people at the MPAA, the Anti Pirate Beaureu, Bush, Bodström, or whoever gave the order for this pathetic attempt to attack:

Stop messing with the Internet! It's a battle you will not win! We're a hydra, your attack only strengthen us, soon you will be the only ones left with your out-of-date views.

This speech would, with the retorical figures and the edged formulations, have all potentials to become a classic when history on the Piracy War is written down one day. The only thing really speaking against this, is that Neij is simply following the standard outlines that the Pirate Bay normally use when they respond to attacks or threats - the Pirate Bay has always had a sharp tongue and always been keen to use it. As stated in the speech itself: "During these years, we've had numerous threats sent to us... and everyone has gotten fitting insults back!"

Speech from a pirate

2006-06-12T19:57:00.000+02:00

The following is the translation of the speech, held by Pirate Party chairman Rickard Falkvinge on the June 3rd pirate demonstration in protest to the raid on The Pirate Bay.

Friends, citizens and pirates.

There is nothing new under the sun.

My name is Rickard Falkvinge, and I am chairman of the Pirate Party.

In the last week, we have seen a number of breaches of legal security take place. We have seen the police misuse their privilleges of force. We have seen how innocent has been affected. We have seen how the media industry acts. And we have seen how politicians on the highest international level acts to protect the media industry. All this is scandalous beyond comparison, that's why we are all here today.

The media industry, the record and movie industry, they want to make us believe that this is about models of payment, that this is about how people of a certain profession are to be paid, that this is about their decreasing sales, that this is about dry statistics. This is a pretext, an excuse. This is about something completely different. So, to understand the situation today in the light of history, I would like to go back four hundered years.

I want us to think back four hundered years, to when the church had a monopoly on culture and knowledge. What the church said, that was it. Pyramid communication, there was one source for all knowledge and culture, and that was the church. And woe to he who dared to challenge the monopoly on culture and knowledge. They were subjects to the worst thinkable breaches of legal protection in that time. The possessor of the culture and knowledge monopoly had at its disposal the entire legal system to persecute, punish and harass all involved in questioning their monopoly, and everyone that had been close to them.

There is nothing new under the sun.

Today we know, today we know that the only thing that is right for the development of society was to release knowledge. That Gallileo Gallilei were right even though he challenged the monopoly of knowledge. Again, we are talking about a time when the church, with full force, said that it was unnecessary for the citizens to learn how to read and write, since the priest could tell them everything they needed to know anyway. The church understood what it meant to lose control of culture and knowledge.

Then came the printing press.

Suddenly there were not only one source of knowledge to listen to, but several. The citizens, now learning to read, could take in un-sanctioned knowledge. The church was furious. The royal houses were furious. The british royal house even went so far, that they instituted a special law, that stated that only chosen printers, printers approved by the royal house, were allowed to print books, create a multitude of culture and knowledge among the citizens.

This law, this law was named "Copyright".

Then there were a few hundered years. and we had freedom of press. But everywhere there were still the same old model for communication. One in the top that talks to many people downwards. One that is the source, and many listening. This made it possible for the state to appoint responsible publishers. They thought that citizens should surely be able to get knowledge, but woe to the person who spreads the wrong knowledge.

And it is this that is under a process of foundational change today, because the Internet is not following this model. We are not only downloading culture and knowledge, we are also uploading at the same time. We're not only downloading and uploading, we're file sharing. Culture and knowledge has, amazingly enough, lost its central control node. And this this is central to this entire speech, so I will go into greater detail:

Downloading is the old mass medial model, where there is a central control node, a control node that is the responsible editor, publisher, that can be held responsible, that can lose benifits, et cetera. Where everone can download knowledge from the central control node, after the control and arbitrariness of that control node. Monopoly on culture and knowledge. Control.

File sharing, that means simultaneous uploading and downloading from every connected person, and lacks this central control node, but where are culture and knowledge flows organically between millions of people at the same time. It is something essentially different, something completely new in the history of human communication, and there no longer is anyone to hold responsible if the wrong knowledge is spread.

This is why the media companies speaks so much about "legal downloading". Legal downloading!. Because they are trying to make it the only legal option to get from the node that they control. Downloading, not file sharing. And this is exactly why we should change the laws.

In the past week we saw how far a player is prepared to go to prevent the loss of control over culture and knowledge. We saw the constitution itself being violated. We saw how repressions and violations of integrity were used by the legal apparatus. Not for fighting crime, but with the obvious purpose to harass everyone that had been close to this, and those that had been close to them.

There is nothing new under the sun and history always repeats itself.

This is not about payment to people of a certain profession. This is about control over culture and knowledge. Because he who controls those, controls the world.

The media industry, the music and movie industry, have tried to make us feel shame, to say what we are doing is illegal, that we are pirates. They want to hide us under a rock.

Look around yourselves today. Look have they have failed!

Yes, we are pirates!

But whoever believes there is something shameful is mistaken, it is something we are proud of! We have already seen what it means to be without central control. We have tasted, and felt, and smelled freedom without a top-down controlled culture and knowledge monopoly. We have already learned to read and write. And we do not intend to forget how to read and write. We do not intend to forget how to read and write, only because it does suit the music and movie interests of yesterday.

My name is Richard, and I am a pirate.

The speech has been made available through Google Video, appearantly by a user calling himself "Piratpartiet", which is the Swedish name of the Pirate Party. I have no reason to doubt that this user is a member or representative of the party.

Anyway, for you who know Swedish, and have missed this speech, you can watch the video here.

In the end of the video, Falkvinge will turn the word to Fredrik Neij from the Pirate Bay, a speech that has every possibility to become a classic. Translation will be right up.

A presentation of the Pirate Party

2006-06-12T09:01:00.000+02:00

Piracy in Sweden
Sweden has always been in the forfront of most technology since the start of computers, and here, fast and cheap broadband connections, effectient computers and wireless technology is widely available. The open source society has quite a bit to thank Sweden for, for example. Linus Torvalds, the creater of Linux, belongs to the Swedish minority in Finland. All of this is often attributed to a combination of factors, a strong tradition of technology, far-reaching consent about the equality of all people, belonging to Western Europe, but still being scarcely populated for such a large country, an effective - and free-of-charge - educational system, and major investments in high-tech are some of the factors.

Thus, it's not surprising that Sweden also is a country where the contested boundaries of piracy has been pushed far and early in Sweden. When Napster were sold out to the anti-piracy legislature and lawsuits in 2000, many alternatives were tested in a short amount of time. One of the more popular examples were Kazaa, developed by Swedes. Now the Kazaa system has a bad reputation among file-sharers, but before its commercialisation integrated alot of malware into it, Kazaa was very popular.

In the latest generation of file sharing, the flag-ship system is called BitTorrent. Compared to previous and alternative systems it has a name of being effecient, safe (in terms of escaping prosecution for piracy), powerful (with abilities to download a season of a TV series at a time, for example) and user-friendly. Most of the traffic is made possible by so-called "tracker sites", that might best be described as databases, keeping track of roughly what is where and thus keeping the system rolling.

The largest tracker site is called the Pirate Bay. The tracker site is by far the largest spreader of cultural material in the world, and through the help of the tracking done by the Pirate Bay, BitTorrent circles data amounts equal to fifty DVD-r discs around every second, every day.

Linked with this website, but not official the same thing, is the website Piratbyrån (meaning "The Pirate Group" or "The Pirate Agency"). Piratbyrån works as a think-tank and a lobby group, providing information about technology, sharing of culture, and the on-going pirate war among other things, and lobbying about their views on said questions. Among the more influental people from Piratbyrån is a guy called Rasmus Fleischer, who is a journalist who's blog Copyriot is an influental one in the movement. And as of January 1 1996, there is also the Pirate Party (Piratpartiet), which this article is based around. This is the main actors in what some people call the Swedish "Pirate movement".

What is the Pirate Party?
The Pirate Party is a political party that was formed by IT entrepeneur Richard Falkvinge on January 1, 1996.

The Pirate Party are running three main questions, that can be divided into several others:

Strengthening of rights and freedoms, particularily concerning personal integrity of the individual.
The freedom of cultural materials of all sorts.
The principle that patents and private monopolys are harmfull to society.

The party does not run any other questions, especially not questions on wealth distribution and organisation of society as a whole, or the general economical policies of Sweden. Thus, it cannot be fitted into a left-right political scale.

Aims and strategy
The Pirate Party aims to get into the Swedish parliament in the general elections that are taking place in September 2006. The hopes is that the elections will be even, so that none of the two major fractions in Swedish politics (the left-wing fraction and the right-wing fraction) can easily form a government. If so, the Pirate Party will support any government agreeing to run "their" questions, and thereby tipping the balance of power. The Pirate Party will then run their questions aggressively, but support the government unconditionally in every other question as long as the cooperation holds.

Even if the Pirate Party does not achieve this important role of maintaining the balance of power, it claims to be able to do a lot of important work in the parliament committees. Much of the legislation that the party disagrees with, is there much because the established parties does not know or does not care enough about the internet and new technology. The established parties, the Pirate Party claims, have not thought through the concequences of building up a tightly monitored society to maintain old structures instead of using the possibilities of the future. Often they blindly trust claims by media market lobby groups and civil servants, since they are not interested enough in these questions to form an educated opinion of their own.

The Pirate Party hopes to be able to change this, simply by being there insisting that these are important issues. None of the major parties in practice does not actually want to make it harder for small businesses to develop software, and they doesn't really want to criminalize the majority of everyone under the age of 30. The Pirate Party hopes to be the ones that can run these questions, by their own words: "We run only three questions, but on the other hand, we are the ones that knows these three questions better than anyone."

Patents and monopolies
Perhaps the most ideological question of the Pirate Party is the principle that patents and private monopolies are harmful to society and must therefor be worked against. This concerns fundamental principles on how to run a society and is also the question I'm most interested in.

Patents have many effects that are dangerous to society. Patents on medications is the reason why people are dying in diseases they would would have been able to afford treatment of, if the patents didn't exist. It is also the reason why the priorities in research is being twisted out of line, and why medication is getting more and more expensive in the rich parts of the world.

Patents on life and genes, such as patented seeds, leads to unreasonable and harmful effects. Software patents cripples the technological development in the IT sector, and poses a serious threat to the small and medium-sized IT businesses in Sweden, Europe and the World.

Patents are claimed to promote innovation by protecting those who invents and invests in new inventions and manifactural methods. But more and more often, patents are used primarily by large companies to prevent smaller competitors to compete on equal terms. Instead of promoting innovation, companies are now using their "patent batteries" in a warfare against other actors to get rid of the competition, and these are often patents that the owner have no intention of developing themselves.

The Pirate Party belives that patents have played out its role and that they are instead actively preventing innovation and the establishment of new knowledge. One can also see on all areas of products and innovation where patents can not be applied, that patents are not necessary to create innovation. Inventors should compete with innovation, the good of the customer, price and quality, instead of being given a monopoly on knowledge, financed by the state. If a company no longer have to pay salaries to armies of copyright legal experts and lawyers, they can instead free these resources, that can be used to create real innovation and better the products at a quicker pace, which will benifit everyone in the end.

The Pirate Party wants to gradually abolish the patent system.

Also in other ways than through patents, large companies are trying to gain monopoly positions by other means. By keeping formats of computer storage secret and in other ways make intercompability more difficult or impossible, they create an effective of imprisonment, that limits the possibilities for competitors and puts the free market out of order. This leads to raised prices and a slower pace of development. When the public sector buys up or produces information it has to be done in a way that actively works against the preservence and establishments of private monopolies on information, knowledge, ideas or concepts.

Private monopolies must be fought against.

Rights and freedoms
Protection of the privacy of the individual is established in the Swedish constitution. From this basic right evolves several other important human rights, such as freedom of speech and opinion, freedom of information, rights to culture and rights to personal development. All attempts from official sources of power that would limit these rights must be questioned and met with powerful resistance.

All means of power, systems or methods that the state can use aganst its citizens must be under constant reconcideration and monitoring by elected representatives. Whe the state monitors citizens that are not suspected of crime it is a violation of privacy for the individual by a fundamentally unacceptable way. Each citizens must be guaranteed the anonymity that are today provided and expected by the constitution and the rights of the individual to decide about the handling of their own personal data must be strengthened.

The secrecy of persnoal mail must be evolved to a general "secrecy of communication". It should also be forbidden to monitor other people's phone calls, read other people's e-mails, SMS'es or other messages in the same way that it is today forbidden to read other people's letters, regardless of the technology used and where you get it from. All exceptions from this rule must be just that, exceptions, in every single case. Employers should only be able to get permission to get a hold of the employees messages, only when it is necessary to secure technical functionality or in direct connection with the employees work tasks. The authorities should only be able to secure evidence or monitore its inhabitants in concrete suspicions of crime. In all other cases, the state should concider their citizens innocent and leave them alone. This secrecy of communication must be given a strong protection, because the state has on numerous occasions proved incapable of handling the information it has access to in a responsible manner.

The Pirate Party wants to abolish the so called directive of data storage and instead strengthen the general protection of privacy for individuals.

Culture must be freed
When the rights of originators were originally established, they regulated only the rights of an originator to be recognized as creator of a work. Later, they were expanded to also encompass commercial copying of works and now it also regulates the rights of individuals and non-profit groups. The Pirate Party claims that this slide is a development that is unacceptable from a society's viewpoint. Today the economical and technological evolution has made copyright completely imbalanced and instead it has become a system of unfair advantages for a few large actors of the market, on the expense of the consumers and society in general. Millions of classical works, songs, movies and artpieces are held hostages in the vaults of media companies, not enough sought after by their focus groups to be profitable to release, but potentially to lucrative to be released. The Pirate Party wants to make all these works free and available to everyone, before the celluloids of the movies are destroyed by deterioration over time.

Immaterial rights is a way to legislate about material qualities for immaterial values.

Ideas, knowledge and information is by nature non-exclusive, their common value lies in the fact that they can be shared and spread.

The Pirate Party believes that these laws needs to be returned to their origins. The legislation should be chanced so that it is completely clear that it only regulates use and copying in commercial context. To share copies, or spread or use other's works in any other way, should never be forbidden as long as it is done on an non-profitable basis.

The commercial part of these laws should remain, but it also needs to be fundamentally changed. The thought behind these laws have always been to find a balance between various conflicting interests on the commercial scene. Today this balance has been completely lost, and needs to be restored.

The Pirate Party wants the protection time, which is to say the exclusive rights to make copies for commercial use, is reduced drastically to be active during for example five years from the first publishment of the work. The commercial grasp of protection shold be regulated so that in principle, it is permitted to create a new work based on an old one without regulations. In cases where it is necessary or desirable to make exceptions to this, for exmaple direct translations of books or the use of new music in commercial movies, these exceptions should be clearly stated and accounted for by law.

The Pirate Party wants to create a reasonable and balance legislation on immaterial property rights.

All non-commercial obtraining, using, refining and spreading of culture should be clearly promoted. Technology aimed to limit the legal rights of the consumers to freely copy or use information and culture, so called DRM technology, should be forbidden. In cases where this is not possible, or where a ban would mean great difficulties for the consumer, the product including DRM technology should in any case be provided with a warning label.

All clauses of agreement that aims to limit this kind of legal spread of information should be concidered as nullified and without legal value. Non commercial spreading of published culture, information or knowledge - with the exception fo private information - are not to be limited or punished. A natural effect of this is that the Pirate Party wants to abolish taxes on private copying.

The Pirate Party want to create a right of common access for culture.

Note that large sections of this text is my own translation from the party's Declaration of Principles, available from the party's website.

A Statement of Principles

2006-06-12T08:51:00.000+02:00

There are several blogs on the topics of freedom of information, piracy, file-sharing, privacy, many of which are specified, others more general, yet others very personal. Some are news listings, some might more or less be riot promotion.

So what category does this fall under?

To be perfectly honest, I have yet to find out myself. As of now I don't know what will become of this blog, nor do I know which tone will be used on it. But I have a few intentions for the site.

Intention 1: This blog is, and will probably continue to be, pro-piracy. This does not necessarily mean I promote activity that is unjustfiably criminal in some countries, althogh it might possibly be the case.

Intention 2: Readers will notice that I am very interested in a Swedish political party by the name of Piratpartiet, the Pirate Party.

Intention 3: Aside from comments on current events that involves things like privacy, piracy, file-sharing, integrity, democracy and other things, I also want to be able to share ideas provided by others on the matter. I might also be interested in informing readers on concepts surrounding these idea, obivously coloured by how I tend to view things.

Intention 4: There is no claim of any absolute objectivity on Piracy Unlimited. As a matter of fact, I deny the existance of absolute objectivity. Looking anywhere for absolute objectivity, is like looking for sparrow's milk and rabbit feathers, or the end of the rainbow. I will try to state facts and back claims up, but readers should always be aware that everything occuring on this site is filtered through my brain, which wiring and content have been edited by heritage and environment. If you disagree with my views, please feel free to start your own blog on the topic, or leave a comment.

Intention 5: I don't claim any copyright on material occuring on this blog. In fact, I strongly encourage everyone to copy it. Much of what occurs here won't be my original work. But the same way I will try to state my sources, for credibility and common respect for the originator, I am hoping people who frees information from my site also state their sources. In that case some people might even find this blog, and nobody would be happier than me.

Piracy - a definition

2006-06-12T07:32:00.000+02:00

pi·ra·cy

n. pl. pi·ra·cies

a. Robbery committed at sea.

b. A similar act of robbery, as the hijacking of an airplane.

2. The unauthorized use or reproduction of copyrighted or patented material: software piracy.

3. The operation of an unlicensed, illegal radio or television station.

[Medieval Latin piratia, from Late Greek peirateia, from Greek peirates, pirate; see pirate.]

Source