27.7.2006
Helsingborgs Dagblad: "The law against filesharing toothless"
"The Swedes continue to share files online despite it being illegal already for a year now. The strike against Pirate Bay and a few sentences have not scared them", concludes newspaper Helsingborgs Dagblad in its
recent story on filesharing. The only consolation for the copyright industry seems to be that after a lot of public debate more people now know that filesharing is illegal - not that they would care about it.
"My feeling is that the law has had no effect on Swedish public's views on filesharing", says Håkan Selg, a researcher from the Royal Technical University. His comment gets support from the representatives of both active parties in the Swedish filesharing debate that has run hot since the May 31 Pirate Bay raid.
"The law has had no effect. Stopping filesharing would require real hard measures. People can not be prevented taking part in the culture without establishing a truly brutal police state", says Christian Engström, the vice chairman from Pirate Party, a new political force aiming to get parliamentary seats in the autumn election. Ludvig Werner, a representative of IFPI, the roof organization for the record industry, admits that the law has had little practical effect. He notes though that since the new copyright law (in force from last July) the number of people buying music online or to their mobile telephones has grown.
According to the newspaper, the number of active filesharers in Sweden has stayed at around 700.000 since 2003 when research on filesharing started. A total of 1.2 million Swedes tell that they download music from Internet, according to
Mediavision that has conducted the studies.
When asked whether the new law is totally toothless, Christian Engström from Pirate Party said: "Yes, it is. But at the same time it means that over a million people, mainly young, now risk jail time just because they listen to music." Ludvig Werner from IFPI is still happy with the law. Even if it has not changed the filesharing habits of the Swedes, the issue of filesharing has gained publicity. He is happy that many more people now know filesharing being illegal, and he is also pleased about the debate that the law has generated. "These are the two main things that the law has brought about."