Swedish court upholds file-sharing conviction ????

[Gary D]

Swedish court upholds file-sharing conviction

A Swedish court of appeals on Tuesday upheld the country's first conviction for sharing music files over the Internet without paying, in what the recording industry hailed as a victory.

But the Pirate Party, a political group that wants Sweden to re-legalize file-sharing, also claimed the verdict as a success--saying it meant Swedish police would have a hard time finding file-sharers since they could only access Internet records for a crime that carries a jail sentence.

"The verdict confirms that the penalty for file-sharing in Sweden today is a fine," the group said in a statement.

"For trifling crimes such as file-sharing, they are instead obligated to uphold their customer's right to anonymity," the group added.

OK, it is illegal to share files but you can not be prosecuted because the crime has no jail time?????????

Almost equivalent to fair use in the US.

Are you confused??? I am.

LINK to story

[blutach]

Instead of the movie "Let's Go To Prison", it should be "Let's Go To Sweden"!!!

Regards

[cynthia]

You also have to remember that we have to pay a fee for blank discs and harddisks if we buy that stuff in Sweden. Mail order from other EU countries is nice...

There are also a lot of regions (50%) in Sweden that the police don't even bother to deal with these issues - due to the low outcome in the courts. I guess that amount will rise in the upcoming time after this court ruling.

I also think that I read that this verdict in the middle court will be appealed to the highest court for a final verdict posted by the guy that was charged.

OK, it is illegal to share files but you can not be prosecuted because the crime has no jail time?????????

Only that you can't get a search warrant if the crime (in this case - filesharing of copyrighted stuff) is not likely to give you atleast two years in prison based on previously verdicts for the same crime.