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A series of documents released by the US Department of State have revealed how Sweden was pressed to take action against The Pirate Bay. According to US officials, this directly led to law enforcement's decision to shut down the torrent site more than ten years ago. Sweden, meanwhile, avoided a spot on the feared US Trade Representative's 301 Watch List.
[...] The trail starts with a cable sent from the US Embassy in Sweden to Washington in November 2005. This is roughly six months before the Pirate Bay raid, which eventually resulted in criminal convictions for four men connected to the site.
The Embassy writes that Hollywood's MPAA and the local Anti-Piracy Bureau (APB) met with US Ambassador Bivins and, separately, with Swedish State Secretary of Justice at the time, Dan Eliasson. The Pirate Bay issue was at the top of the agenda during these meetings.
"The MPA is particularly concerned about PirateBay, the world's largest Torrent file-sharing tracker. According to the MPA and based on Embassy's follow-up discussions, the Justice Ministry is very interested in a constructive dialogue with the US. on these concerns," the cable reads.
"Embassy understands that State and Commerce officials have also met with Swedish officials in Washington on the same concern," it adds, with the Embassy requesting further "guidance" from Washington.
Source : How The US Pushed Sweden to Take Down The Pirate Bay
[...]
Then the 'inevitable' happened. On May 31, 2006, The Pirate Bay was raided by 65 Swedish police officers. They entered a datacenter in Stockholm with instructions to shut down the Pirate Bay's servers and collect vital evidence.
A few weeks after the raid, the Embassy sent another cable to Washington informing the homefront on the apparent success of their efforts.
"Starting with the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) visit to post last fall, Embassy Stockholm has engaged intensely with our Swedish interlocutors in efforts to improve IPR enforcement, in particular with regard to Internet piracy. The actions on May 31 thus mark a significant victory for our IPR efforts."
(Score: 5, Interesting) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday December 19 2017, @07:11PM (5 children)
Hollywood asked our local coppers to get their guns out and raid Kim Dotcom's house. I'm not sure any threats were needed as they seem pretty keen to act like Rambo if they can. It turns out some of what they did was actually illegal, but I don't imagine anything will change.
Here's Kim settling [arstechnica.com] out of court over the actual raid. I would imagine that everyone involved was keen to keep the details hushed up.
I am still unsure why copyright infringement is even a criminal offense.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bob_super on Tuesday December 19 2017, @07:23PM (2 children)
> I am still unsure why copyright infringement is even a criminal offense.
Because life is all about making and spending money. Anyone trying to enjoy themselves without spending money is a dirty commie hippie unamerican terrorist.
And also because distributors and agents need to be paid, so that some money may trickle down to the original "artist" entertaining you.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Bot on Tuesday December 19 2017, @08:13PM (1 child)
Copyright infringement is not IMHO the problem. We put broadcasts on tape and taped TV shows and the entertainment industry was stronger than ever.
The problem is the P2P nature of the early internet. Which meant YOU could pick ANY song from ANY one without leaving a trace.
In other words, the propaganda, pardon, entertainment industry was losing CONTROL OF DISTRIBUTION CHANNELS.
When you fsck with money, nobody important cares, because you inherently submit to its power by stealing it.
When you fsck with wealth, yellow card.
When you fsck with control, you are enemy of the system, which will look for any way to restore its proper authority.
The two pronged approach has been 1. criminalizing p2p 2. offering next to free, but CONTROLLED channels of distribution. Being centrally controlled they can be made for profit as soon as the people is not likely or able to return to p2p.
Instead of the old charts we have page/video views, which are easy to manipulate. Instead of djs we have influencers.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by crafoo on Tuesday December 19 2017, @10:18PM
Pretty accurate. Money is more or less just a proxy for power. Power, as in, I can make you do something you do not want to do. I can make bad things happen to you and you have no recourse. Mess with the source of power and expect to be targeted.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday December 19 2017, @07:23PM (1 child)
I am still unsure why copyright infringement is even a criminal offense.
cui bono... there's always somebody
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Bot on Tuesday December 19 2017, @08:16PM
cui bono?
Bono
(oh wait that was the joke? autowooosh)
Account abandoned.