Womble used our news submit to tell us that according to The Local, Swedens daily news in English, the MPAA and the RIAA have made a road trip to Sweden throwing themselves on the mercy of the government there. Stating that the illegal tradiing of files upon the Internet has devastating financial effect on copyright holders, they were able to get the offficials there to make an effort to stop the practice.
Members of parliament stressed in a debate prior to the vote that musicians, writers, filmmakers and others ought to receive fair payment for their work. "Every worker should be entitled to a reasonable salary," Left Party member of parliament Tasso Stafilidis said. Swedish government and industry officials have claimed that unlicensed use of copyrighted material is rampant in the country. "Since 2001, the record industry in Sweden has seen its revenues drop by more than 30 percent," Lars Gustafsson, chief executive of the Swedish branch of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, IFPI, told AFP recently, insisting that at least part of the decline reflected illegal downloading. |
If the report's figures are accurate, it also indicates that Sweden harbors more illegal file traders than anywhere else in Europe, per capita. Apparently, 7,000 such cases are identified per million inhabitants per year, compared to 2,000 on average in the rest of Europe!
On a side note, another law was piggybacked that is most interesting. The new copyrighting law will also apply to photocopies of whole books, this is apparently a common practice in Swedish universities, as some students consider required reading material too costly to purchase. We have to wonder if this will set a precedent for other parts of the globe, this is the first I've seen of this anywhere.
Special thanks to P2Pnet.net for discovering this story for us.
Source: The Local
[edited by BigJas on 31.05.2005 00:16]
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