2.7.2006
One year of stricter copyright law behind
The new, stricter Swedish copyright law criminalizing 1.3 million Swedish filesharers came into effect a year ago, 1. of July 2005. At the time, only Center Party and Green Party voted against the new law, while five other parliamentary parties voted for it.
The practical effects of the law on filesharing in Sweden have been minimal at best. Swedes were and continue to be among the most active filesharing nations, hosting the world's largest BitTorrent site Pirate Bay, being the superpower of Direct Connect with the largest number of hubs and users, and so on.
Six months after the new law came into force the first Pirate Party in the world was founded in Sweden, capitalizing on the political education work by the activist organization Piratbyrån (Pirate Bureau). The public opinion in Sweden is strongly for legalizing filesharing, and the media industry has failed miserably in its efforts to impress guilt about p2p downloading on the minds of the Swedish public. In Sweden being a 'pirate' is a positive thing.
So the will of the Swedish citizens is in direct crash course with the will of the media cartels and the copyright laws they have managed to dictate down to the EU member states from WIPO and EU Commission. The extent of this conflict will be measured on September 17 this year when the Swedes have their parliamentary election, with Pirate Party giving a democratic voice to the filesharers for the first time anywhere during the 6-year history of p2p.
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