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Sweden wants to shed the pirate haven image |
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Written by Felix Da Silva (fdasilva@bitnip.com)
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Saturday, 15 March 2008 |
 The Swedish government is working on legislation that will force Internet
service providers (ISPs) to disclose IP addresses used for
illegal file-sharing to the legal owners of those rights.
However, the owners of the rights must get a court order and furnish proof
supporting their allegations of infringement.
The proposal was put forth in an op-ed piece in the Swedish newspaper 'Svenska Dagbladet' by Minister of Justice Beatrice Ask and Minister of Culture Lena Adelsohn Lilieroth.
If passed, the proposed legislation will be a dramatic change for Sweden, whose laws protect ISPs from being sued for anything passing through their networks.
Sweden is one of the most wired countries on the planet and has average broadband speeds up to five times faster than those in the U.S. Sweden even has a pro-file-sharing lobby group, Piratbyrån.
After one of the most notorious bit-torrent tracking site, The Pirate Bay, was shut down by a raid on a Swedish ISP, pro-Pirate Bay rallies throughout the country drew thousands of supporters.
This is the latest move of a war between music industry giants and The Pirate
Bay, which is facing lots of lawsuits.
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