Sweden

The Pirate Bay Permanently Shutters File-Sharing Tracker

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on November 17, 2009 - 8:41am.
Stockholm, Sweden - Marking "the end of an era," the operators of file-sharing hub The Pirate Bay on Tuesday shut down their BitTorrent tracker, which grew over six years to become the largest hub for finding copyrighted materials for download in the world, TorrentFreak reported. "Now that the decentralized system for finding peers is so well developed, TPB has decided that there is no need to run a tracker anymore, so it will remain down! It's the end of an era, but the era is no longer up2date," the Pirate Bay wrote on its blog. "We have put a server in a museum already, and now the tracking can be put there as well."

Swedish ISP Black Internet Appeals Pirate Bay Shutdown Order

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on November 10, 2009 - 10:36am.
Stockholm, Sweden - The Pirate Bay's former bandwidth supplier, Black Internet, has been given leave to appeal a Swedish court's order to disconnect the file-sharing hub, TorrentFreak reports.

Pirate Party Gains Second Seat in European Parliament

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on November 4, 2009 - 12:28pm.
Brussels - The Pirate Party, a political party centered on less-restrictive copyright schemes, has won its second seat in the European Parliament, TorrentFreak reported. Following the election of a Swedish Pirate Party candidate to a seat in the European Parliament in June, the signing of the Lisbon Treaty by all EU member states this week means that 22-year-old Swede Amelia Andersdotter will take the Pirate Party's second seat in Parliament.

Sweden's Voddler Introduces Video-on-Demand Site

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on October 28, 2009 - 11:49am.
Stockholm, Sweden - Voddler on Wednesday debuted its online video-on-demand service in Sweden, which features movies, TV episodes and music from partners including Paramount and Disney, Variety reported. The service, which is expected to launch across all Nordic countries in a year's time, is also reportedly close to signing a deal with Sony Pictures.

Pirate Bay Appeal Postponed Until Summer 2010

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on October 19, 2009 - 9:20am.
Stockholm, Sweden - The appeal of the copyright infringement convictions of the four operators of file-sharing hub The Pirate Bay has been delayed, likely until at least next summer, as questions over potential conflicts of interest of several judges assigned to hear the appeal are considered, TorrentFreak reported.

IFPI Planning Complaints Against Swedish File-Swappers

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on September 8, 2009 - 10:27am.
Stockholm, Sweden - International record label trade group IFPI is observing enforcement actions taken by the publishing industry under Sweden's new IPRED anti-piracy law before it launches its own crackdown on file-swappers, TorrentFreak reported. Six months after the IPRED law was enacted -- which compels service providers to identify suspected file-swappers -- no litigation has been launched in the country by the recording industry. In April, on the first day the new law was in effect, file-sharing in Sweden saw a precipitous drop in traffic.

tags: Law | Lawsuits | Music | Sweden | Copyright | IFPI | IPRED |

Appeal of Pirate Bay Convictions Set for November

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on September 4, 2009 - 6:33am.
Stockholm, Sweden - The four operators of Swedish file-sharing hub The Pirate Bay, who were convicted of copyright infringement in April and sentenced to a year in prison and nearly $1 million in fines, will be back in court in November for their appeal of the ruling, TorrentFreak reported. The Pirate Bay continues to operate, although now on new servers after a recent court ruling compelled its Swedish ISP, Black Internet, to take the site offline.

Swedish Anti-piracy Bust Nets Server with 10,000 Movies

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on August 28, 2009 - 10:44am.
Stockholm, Sweden - A 33-year-old Swedish man was arrested and charged with copyright infringement, after a raid on his residence found a server housing 10,000 movies, or 88 terabytes of data, TorrentFreak reported. The raid was carried out based on a tip from Swedish anti-piracy agency Antipiratbyran. The man reportedly told authorities he believed there were only games residing on the server.

Spotify Making Labels More Money than iTunes in Sweden

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on August 26, 2009 - 9:17am.
Stockholm, Sweden - Spotify, the Sweden-based ad-supported streaming music site preparing for its U.S. launch, now generates more revenues for record labels in Sweden than does Apple's iTunes Store, Swedish Wire reports. "In five months from the launch Spotify became our largest digital source of income and so passed by iTunes," Per Sundin, head of major label Universal Music in Sweden, told Swedish Wire.

Pirate Bay Buyers in License Talks With Swedish Rights Society

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on August 18, 2009 - 11:04am.
Stockholm, Sweden - Global Gaming Factory (GGF), the Swedish firm in the process of acquiring file-sharing hub The Pirate Bay and turning it into a legal, paid site, has announced licensing talks with the Swedish Performing Rights Society (STIM), TorrentFreak reported.

Report: Swedish File-Sharing Down in Wake of P2P Law

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on July 15, 2009 - 7:41am.
Stockholm, Sweden - The conviction of the operators of file-sharing hub The Pirate Bay, paired with a newly enacted law aimed at prosecuting suspected illegal file-swappers has pushed the level of file-sharing down by 40 to 50% in Sweden, the local Dagens Nyheter reported.

The Pirate Bay Acquired for $7.8 Million; Will Go Legit

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on June 30, 2009 - 5:11am.
Stockholm, Sweden - Swedish software firm Global Gaming Factory (GGF) announced on Tuesday that it has paid $7.8 million to acquire notorious file-sharing hub The Pirate Bay, and will turn the site into a legitimate business that compensates copyright holders. Under the term, the operators of The Pirate Bay -- who were recently found guilty of copyright infringement, sentenced to a year in prison and ordered to pay fines totaling $3.9 million -- will receive half of the payment in cash and half in GGF shares.

Swedish Court Rejects Bias Charges Against Pirate Bay Judge

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on June 25, 2009 - 7:57am.
Stockholm, Sweden - A Swedish appellate court has rejected charges from the administrators of file-sharing hub The Pirate Bay that the judge who found them guilty of copyright infringement was biased because of his ties to several pro-copyright groups, Ars Technica reported. Judge Tomas Norström is a member of the Swedish Copyright Association, and sits on the board of the Swedish Association for the Protection of Industrial Property, which the Pirate Bay administrators charged would bias him in the case against them.

Crispin Porter & Bogusky Acquires Swedish Ad Firm Daddy

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on June 11, 2009 - 8:23am.
Miami - Ad agency Crispin Porter & Bogusky, a unit of MDC Partners, announced on Thursday that it has acquired Swedish digital ad agency Daddy for an undisclosed sum.

John Nilsson Demos his jDome Gaming Invention at E3

Authored by Jay Baage on June 9, 2009 - 9:28am.

Los Angeles - In this DMW Vlog, John Nilsson, voted Geek of the Year in Sweden, demos his half-spherical rear projection gaming screen called jDome at the Nordic Game and Film Lounge during E3, produced by Nordic Game in Association with Digital Media Wire. The patented innovation combines off-the-shelf hardware and software to give a low cost immersive Omnimax-like gaming experience at home. More information can be found at http://www.jdome.com.

Sweden's Pirate Party Wins Seat at European Parliament

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on June 8, 2009 - 7:42am.
Stockholm, Sweden - The Pirate Party, a political party founded in Sweden in 2006 to protest copyright laws, took 7.1% of the vote in the country's elections over the weekend, and won one of the country's 18 seats at European Parliament in Brussels, TorrentFreak reported. The Pirate Party more than doubled its membership to 40,000 in the wake of the conviction of the operators of file-sharing hub The Pirate Bay in April, and the enactment of a new intellectual property law that gives copyright holders the right to unmask suspected file-swappers.

EU to Sue Sweden Over Lack of Data Retention Law

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on May 27, 2009 - 11:23am.
Brussels - The European Commission is filing a lawsuit against Sweden for failing to implement data retention policies at ISPs and search engines, as outlined in the 2006 Data Retention Directive, Ars Technica reported.

Poll: Sweden's Pirate Party Will Win EU Parliament Seat

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on April 30, 2009 - 10:42am.
Stockholm, Sweden - Sweden's Pirate Party, formed in the wake of law enforcement actions against file-sharing networks there, is expected to garner 5.1% of votes in the upcoming European Union election, according to a poll conducted by a Swedish newspaper, TorrentFreak reported. If the results of the poll are duplicated in the actual elections, the Pirate Party would get a set in the EU Parliament. "This poll confirms our recent phenomenal growth in support, and says there will be pirates in Brussels after this election," Pirate Party leader Rick Falkvinge told TorrentFreak.

Swedish ISPs Stop Retaining User Data in Wake of Piracy Law

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on April 28, 2009 - 12:24pm.
Stockholm, Sweden - Two Swedish Internet service providers have said they will no longer store identifying IP address data on their subscribers, in the wake of a new anti-piracy law that compels them to turn over any such data they have to copyright holders in the face of an infringement complaint, TorrentFreak reported.
tags: Law | Lawsuits | Policy | P2P | Piracy | Music | Sweden | Tele2 | Banhof |

Defense Fund Hatched for Swedes Accused of P2P Piracy

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on April 24, 2009 - 11:00am.
Stockholm, Sweden - One of the four associates of The Pirate Bay, along with several Swedish Green Party politicians are launching a defense fund to help those accused of copyright infringement under Sweden's new anti-piracy law pay legal costs, CNET News.com reported. Peter Sunde, who was sentenced to a year in jail for his role with The Pirate Bay, told CNET that the fund hopes to be able to provide $6,000 to $12,000 in legal aid per criminal case defendant.