Miljöpartiet selling out

I guess anyone who believed in Miljöpartiet's election promises on surveillance is feeling pretty ashamed today. Only 3 days after the elections a representative of the party, Isabelle Lövin manage to vote - brace yourself - in favor of the positively insane Gallo report, a report named after its equally insane (or completely corrupt) creator, Marielle Gallo. Read Isabelle Lövins pathetic excuse here. Notice how she uses a clearly fake petition signed among others by deceased filmmakers, to justify her vote for increased surveillance and oppression.

The report, for those of you unfamiliar with it, states on one hand that we don't know enough about the effects of file sharing (clearly all the independent research done over the last couple of years is irrelevant, as it doesn't support the view of the entertainment business), and on the other hand that this doesn't matter at all and that ISP's should be forced to monitor the users for illegal file sharing activities, and also risk liability should they not take action in a manner acceptable to the entertainment industry. In other words, legislation first, facts second. My oh my, if every industry could order oppressive legislation just like that...

Oh yeah, and the report also states that file sharing may lead to health risks. Really. That's just  how insane it is, and how dumb Isabelle Lövin and the other pathetic bastards voting in favor of this report are.

So, by voting in favor of this report, let's have a look at how this is honoring  Miljöpartiet's election promises, made only 3 days ago:

Att staten inte ska ha möjlighet att registrera och övervaka all internettrafik i Sverige. Right, we'll let the ISP's do the surveillance instead, and threaten them with liability if they don't cooperate.

Skapa en balanserad upphovsrätt och avkriminalisera fildelning för privat bruk.
Umm, yeah, a balanced copyright legislation is exactly what the Gallo report is all about...

Of course, traditional media refuse to pick up on this. Instead they're publishing a story on how 70% of Swedish voters have confidence in the politicians. Yeah, I wonder why.

The Swedish police: A complete embarassment

Well, it's official, not only are single policemen bought by the entertainment mafia, the entire Swedish police system seems to become a division of EMI/Universal/Sony/Warner, doing their dirty work extorting and bullying simple file-sharers in an organized way instead of prioritizing crimes that actually involve victims. Crimes that actually matter.

As a first step, nine police officers will be taken out of meaningful duty (and by meaningful I certainly don't mean the kind of appalling abuse of power displayed by these two pitiful clowns) and enrolled in the entertainment mafia division of the police, where they will knock down doors, seize computer equipment and threaten youngsters who are simply sharing their music or movies with friends or others.

In other words, it's some sort of reverse Ipred. In addition to outsourcing police work to private companies with financial interest in the work, the private companies are now also getting police staff working for them. And the police's excuse for this is probably the most pathetic thing I've heard:

Brott mot immaterialrätten är enligt Polismyndigheten ofta gränsöverskridande och beräknas omsätta stora belopp. Det nationella samarbetet är ett sätt att komma åt problemet.

Right. Non-commercial file-sharing generates a lot of profit.

This is a complete and utter disgrace for the Swedish police.

Original photo: Kike@

Shut Posten down now!

Right, that's it. I've had it. The postal services need to be shut down immediately if they do not manage to block packages containing illegal substances. I don't care if they need to open each and every envelope to do so. If they don't, they're guilty of accessory.

On second thoughts, though, drugs aren't really that bad. And opening everyone's mail just to get to a few people who are abusing the postal service is really quite out of proportion. Plus, you can't really hold the postal service accountable - all they really do is provide a service that lets people communicate with each other. That wouldn't be fair. Had this happened on the Internet though...damn we would've messed those bastards up real bad, right?

Now go figure why drug dealing in real life is considered much less harmful than engaging in file sharing activities on the Internet.

– Men vi har varken rättigheter eller möjligheter att kontrollera alla försändelser. Det faller under ”brevhemligheten”.

Another contribution to my list of shame

A bunch of movie companies have decided to test drive the infamous Ipred law, and have turned to the court in an attempt to gather info on the owner of an Internet subscription, in order to sue him or her for millions of dollars, obviously.

Much like the first Ipred-case a couple of months ago, where a bunch of publishing houses presumably broke the law in order to gather "evidence", and still had the court ruling in their favor instead of throwing them head first out of the court room (yes, the legal system in Sweden is that corrupted at the moment), these morons from the movie industry are doing the exact same thing: Illegally gaining access to a private torrent tracker, SweTorrents.org, trying to secure some sort of "evidence" that it contains copyrighted material:

- Swetorrents tillhandahåller upphovsrättsskyddade filmer som de inte har rättighet att sprida på internet. I vissa fall gäller det filmer som inte ens har kommit ut på marknaden. Det handlar om relativt omfattande verksamhet. Det blir ett dränage på filmbolagens intäktssida, säger Antipiratbyråns ordförande Björn Gregfelt.

Riiight, so we're still not past the completely misleading "torrent trackers contain actual movies that can be downloaded by anyone" reasoning.

Luckily, and quite surprisingly to be honest, the ISP in question, Telia Sonera, has decided to fight this, and not give out any sensitive information to the movie industry without a proper court ruling. Let's just hope this case doesn't end up in the hands of those baboons over at Solna tingsrätt...

I can hereby add the following movie companies to my list of shame, to mock and to boycott for eternity:

• Svensk filmindustrin
• Pan vision
• Filmlance international
• Yellow bird

I wish you all an ever decreasing profit with a future of really crappy movies that absolutely no one will pay to watch. That would serve you right, you criminal bastards.

Donald Duck enters the file sharing debate

I had to admit I thought the comic strip where Donald Duck is illegally downloading music was a joke, a product of a creative mind who had replaced the original, harmless text with his or her own.

Imagine my surprise when I realized this was in fact an official comic strip released by Egmont! These unscrupulous bastards may have come to the conclusion that it's too hard trying to change the minds of thinking adults, so they've started printing pure propaganda in childrens comics instead, trying to mold them into obedient consumers when they grow up. Mind-boggling, absolutely mind-boggling. Had it been even slightly funny, the propaganda a bit more subtle, they might have gotten away with it, but this is just ridiculous.

What's next? Hidden messages in Britney Spears songs? Subliminal pictures in Disney movies? Hey, for all we know it's already in there. Nothing surprises me anymore.

Have a look at the original propaganda cartoon to the left, and a "remix" done by some creative soul.

Retarded journalism

Realtid.se published an article today about artist Ayesha Quraishi, who has just filed for bankruptcy. Sad news, of course, but what impresses me is the author's bold statement that "The Pirate Bay - and Skatteverket (the Swedish equivalent to the IRS) broke Ayesha Quraishi's record label":

Pirate Bay – och Skatteverket knäckte Ayesha Quraishis skivbolag.

Say what??? Are you sure The Pirate Bay isn't in fact responsible for the entire financial crisis, for the Iraqi war, and for the polar caps melting?

Of course, the journalist - being the pro he is - has done extensive research:

Efter första cd-skivan Jade Fever 2004 gav hon ut uppföljaren The Lobby på egna bolaget Aqueen Enterpisez för två år sedan. Men skivan var snabbt uppladdad på Pirate Bay.

Ah, yes of course. Someone placed a tracker to her album on The Pirate Bay. Oh dear. Nevermind the experts and artists claiming file sharing gives little known artists a boost and is good for the economy, they're just full of it anyway.

Just for the heck of it, I did a quick search, and sure enough, I found both her albums, however there were no seeders, meaning no one is sharing it:


So, the journalist is assuming that because there's a link to an album on The Pirate Bay, even though no one is sharing it, no one will buy the CD either, and the artist will instantaneously be thrown into bankruptcy. Sounds like someone has been spending too much time with fat, lying record label execs, or just smoking too much pot.

Ipredator going live

Good news. Swedish newspapers DN and SvD, as well as frontman Peter Sunde himself, report that the anonymity VPN-service Ipredator is in it's final beta stage and could be going live any day now.

Of course, in an ideal world Internet users wouldn't need such a service, but in a world where our civil liberties are constantly under fire by repressive governments and private interest groups, it's a necessity.

Update: According to police lawyer Fredrik Ingblad Ipredator will only make it a bit more difficult, but not at all impossible, to track down users of file sharing services. Of course he refuses to give any examples of how this would be done...

The VPN-solution I use at work, or rather when I'm not at the office but want to access the company network, encrypts the traffic from my client and to the VPN-server, and the only visible IP-adress is the one of the VPN-server. I'm assuming Ipredator is working more or less the same (except, obviously, my company keeps logs of what I'm doing when I'm using their VPN service), so I would like to know which rules Mr. Ingblad and his comrades intend to break in order to get past this. Install spyware on every Swedish citizen's computer (would be all the more reasons to switch to Linux)? Either way I'm sure they could get plenty of good advice from sleazeball extraordinaire Henrik Pontén and Antipiratbyrån on this.

Another miscarriage of justice

The Swedish ISP Ephone has in an utterly bizarre verdict by Solna tingsrätt ("Framgång för bokförlagen i det första Ipred-ärendet", skriver tingsrätten i ett pressmeddelande) been forced to provide personal information about the owner of an internet subscription to five publishing firms. Why? Because someone using this internet subscription had set up an FTP-server, a private server requiring authentication to access its content. Supposedly this FTP-server contained copyrighted material, which Antipiratbyrån gained access to, presumably either through hacking or just by plain and simple threats. Remember that the next time you upload that MP3-file, image or XVID-movie to your personal online storage facility - the mafia entertainment industry might hack into your account and then accuse you of making the material accessible to the public.

Anyway, this personal information will of course help the publishing firms hunt down and take legal action against the owner of the internet subscription (not the actual perpetrator, mind you!), and most likely be responsible for yet another miscarriage of justice. We all know the court will find him or her guilty without a shred of credible evidence, a screen shot and an assumption that the internet subscription owner and the perpetrator are the same, is enough these days. Recent verdicts in the previously civilized part of the world has shown that one is in fact no longer presumed innocent until proven guilty when it comes to acts of copyright infringement. Instead, we've taken a giant leap backwards in time and embraced the principle of "guilty until proven innocent". Makes it all a lot easier for the court, doesn't it? "So, you can't prove that you're innocent? Can't prove that somebody else was using your WLAN that night? Too bad, that'll be 15 millions in fines. Next!"

Also, I can't help but wonder how the judge in Solna tingsrätt is affiliated with the mafia entertainment industry in this particular case. Or perhaps he too was promised a well paid pro forma job in the industry if he helped them along by making a decision that went against all common sense?

If anyone should be on trial here it should be Antipiratbyrån and Henrik "Pirate" Pontén, as they have illegally gained entrance to a private FTP server. Somehow these computer crimes, regularly performed by Antipiratbyrån to secure "evidence", are never an issue.

Clearly, those with enough money and lobbying power own the justice system.

Sweet deal...ummm, or not.

Virgin, or the ISP-part of the company, has revealed a sweet deal for it's broadband customers. In fact, you could say it's "an offer you can not refuse":

1. Download or stream MP3-files legally, for a monthly fee, and...

2. Get you internet activity closely monitored by Virgin, who reserves the right to terminate your internet connection if they suspect you're engaged in file sharing activities.

No, thanks, Virgin.

The fine art of prioritizing

DI.se and Aftonbladet.se, SVD.se and DN.se all report that the Swedish police will hire 15 policemen who will work exclusively on trying to track down those illegal and dangerous...wait for it...copyright infringers. Those vicious, lethal bastards who threaten to tear apart our society by performing acts of, yes you got it, copyright infringement...

Upon reading the articles it becomes clear that these 15 policemen will not be new hires, but will instead be transferred from other police departments where they have hopefully been busy doing important work up until now. Well, not anymore, they won't! Instead they'll be busy upholding laws created by the entertainment industry to protect their obsolete business models instead of developing like the rest of the world, and to help them maximize their profit. What a brilliant way to spend my tax money. I mean, who really cares about rapes, murders, kidnappings, arson, robberies and random acts of violence when you've got the massive threat of kids (and grownups for that matter) who simply enjoy sharing art, entertainment and information with each other?