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Network operator forced to reveal file sharing site

National News | 2009-12-05 | 1 comment
Sweden’s largest network operator, TeliaSonera, is forced to reveal the identity of the persons behind the file sharing site Swetorrents.org. This after a ruling yesterday in a district court. But TeliaSonera is considering an appeal.

TeliaSonera will have to pay SEK 750,000 in fines if they do not reveal who is behind Swetorrents, a site like The Pirate Bay. The information has been requested with the assistance of the IPRED-law, the Swedish implementation of the EU Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive.

“The district court has made an assessment that the conditions for granting an information injunction are satisfied, i.e. that film companies should be given the name and address of the holder of a particular IP number”, says Annika Rygart, assistant judge, in a statement to Computer Sweden.

Because of the large number of members and the site´s ‘structure’, the district court consider the spread of movies to be of such a large scale that the IPRED-law can be applied.

In the first case where the IPDED-law was used, a number of publishers wanted to find out who was behind a server that was used for the dissemination of audio books. The district court ruled in favour to the publishers, but the Court of Appeal made a contrary assessment. This because the server was only available to members with their own login details and therefore copying is not counted as available to the public.

TeliaSonera may appeal

Also in this second case there may be an appeal. This says Patrik Hiselius, Senior Advisor of Public Affairs at TeliaSonera.

“But I can not yet say whether we will appeal. I have must first read the district court´s decision and wait for a decision within the company”, he says.

“It is not just about this individual case, but first and foremost about important principles for our users”, Hiselius adds.

“Incompetent judges”

Pirate Party leader Rick Falkvinge is upset about the verdict and accuses the district court for being incompetent.

In a debate article on opinion site Newsmill he quotes the verdict, where it is stated that the movies have been made available through the so called torrent files. He writes that this is wrong, something that “anyone with basic knowledge about internet can see directly, but that the judiciary base real judgments on this”.

“This teaches the whole rising generation that the judiciary is completely and totally unreliable, and that they also always put the U.S. big business interests before the interest of their own citizens”, Falkvinge writes.

“The courts have a huge uphill battle in restoring public confidence in this type of case”, he concludes.

 

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Readers' comments

2009-12-09 17:35 Urban Sundström wrote:
This story is digged: http://digg.com/tech_news/Network_operator_forced_to_reveal_file_sharing_site


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