MPAA and FBI Help To Train Swedish Police 165
Several readers let us know about a program in which a US FBI agent and employees of the MPAA led a seminar for Swedish police officers in methods of finding and stopping illegal downloading from the Internet. The writer at zeropaid.com says, "I bet the Swedish people are going to love to find out that the US government and a US lobbying group now have a hand in training their police personnel. So much for the notion of national sovereignty." Reader Oxygen provided a bit of translation from an article in Swedish on IDG.se: "According to Bertil Ramsell, responsible for the course, the purpose of the visit was to give the invited speakers a chance to explain to the students what their organization's purpose was. But in a report from the IIPA, the purpose was to educate students in anti-piracy."
Revolution (Score:4, Insightful)
It's time the governments of the world feared the people.
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The only people that took away your rights was yourselves.
Wake up.
stupid thinking (Score:5, Interesting)
NO, its the corporates that control things...like the mass media, party funding, and so on.
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Something happens that makes the Muslims look bad. It's the Zionist conspiracy.
Something happens that makes the Muslims look good. It's the Zionist conspiracy.
A company does something you don't like. Zionist conspiracy.
Your Eggos were burnt this morning. Zionist conspiracy.
We need a new moderation descriptor. -1 - Complete nutter
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http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/israel/nuke/ [fas.org]
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/corresponden t/2841377.stm [bbc.co.uk]
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Iran, on the other hand, would be happy to nuke them some Jews. They probably wouldn't be so bold as to launch a missile at Israel, but if a suitcase nuke should happen to find it's way in there, well then so be it.
Every country has a
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Errmmm, no actually.
There is something called the nuclear non-proliferation treaty which the US has signed and is the legal justification for the forthcoming attack on Iran.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Non-Prolifera tion_Treaty [wikipedia.org]
Israel would never just randomly nuke Iran.
Says who? If you go and ask people in Lebannon they might not be so keen to believe it at the moment being that their entire country has just
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I thoroughly agree. Maybe we should take all the religous leaders of the world and just let them slog it out to the death pitfighting style. That is something I would pay to watch.
PS - Who on earth is wasting mod points on a discussion in a three day old thread, go use them on new stuff instead where you might actually make difference rather than just hammering peoples karma.
PPS - If anyone wants to mod this down please be my guest as:
1) Anyone that daft doesnt deserve to moderat
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The people also include the voters of New York, Los Angeles, Orlando, Nashville, etc. Quite a number of whom have a direct stake in the entertainment industry.
Now and again, they become Governor of California or President of the United States.
Which "People" ? (Score:3, Informative)
The American government represents the American "people". But the question is, who are the American "people"? Sadly, the Supreme Court ruled in 1886 that a corporation is a person, with the same constitiutional rights as a human person. And as "people', corporations are immortal, incredibly wealthy, and exhibit psychopathic behavi
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It is revolution. Out with the old, in with the new.
Re:Revolution (Score:4, Insightful)
It is revolution. Out with the old, in with the new.
"Meet the new boss, same as the old boss."
-The Who Won't Get Fooled Again.
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Not People.
Re:Revolution (Score:4, Insightful)
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I bet Sweden has the exact same thing but I'm not sure.
OT just because it's such a cool fact: Our local HV guys
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The swedish defence whatever [www.mil.se] informs me that Hemvärnet got around 40.000 people of which 1.500 is musicans
Well, atleast our subs [naval-technology.com] kicks [nbc4.tv] american ass [filefront.com]
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It is this kind of talk, modded up "Insightful," that makes the world fear the Geek.
The bearded bomb-throwing anarchist who would be instantly recognizable in the editorial cartoons of 1906.
The old-time anarchist had at least some sense of proportion. His cause somewhat larger than having to pay for a print of a movie that cost
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I don't understand this. Theft is theft. If they went to charge $100.00 per track, that is within their right. It's called supply and demand -- the more people are willing to pay, the more they are willing to supply. If enough people are not willing to pay it, the price will come down. "Enough people being willing to steal it" does not factor into that equation. Your choices as a consumer are: a) buy it or b) don't buy it. Choosing option "c) download it" isn't some political statement, it's just t
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That's hilarious, thanks for the chuckle.
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The theory of supply and demand was created explicity to deal with situations where the supply is limited. Todays market where coorporations tries to artifically limit supply using different means is nothing more than an abomination that spits right in the face of the words "free market".
Also note that while the free market is the most efficent way to deal with supply and demand issues, it may not always be the best way. I personall
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Please don't cite supply and demand when discussing intellectual "property".
The theory of supply and demand was created explicity to deal with situations where the supply is limited. Todays market where coorporations tries to artifically limit supply using different means is nothing more than an abomination that spits right in the face of the words "free market".
Artificial limitations are still limitations -- it is still a scarce resource if it's not being produced. Whether it's not being produced because the supplier doesn't wish too or the supplier cannot do so is irrelevant.
Also note that while the free market is the most efficent way to deal with supply and demand issues, it may not always be the best way. I personally am against pure free market on labor, not because it isn't efficent, but because it also has a huge impact on the happiness of society due to the large salary gaps between different people. Treating humans as things without feelings is a fault and downfall of many economic theories.
That's a completely separate discussion. I'll say only that I believe that the underlying assumption that all humans have equal potential is flawed -- and that a free market seems to be the only one that recognizes this.
Bloc-ization (Score:5, Funny)
As time goes on and power is consolidated in the world, smaller powers will find themselves increasingly strongly attached to the main power bloc with which they are affiliated. Thus European nations find themselves increasingly Americanized, Asia finds itself increasingly Sinicized, and the Islamic world finds itself increasingly dominated by relatively uniform fundamentalist thinking, as opposed to the diverse, relatively secular regional ideologies that prevailed in the last century.
Eventually, the three nations of Eurasia, Eastasia and Oceania will settle down into their near-endless cold war.
P.S. Eastasia will win.
Re:Bloc-ization (Score:5, Funny)
What are you talking about?
We've always been at war with the pirat...terroris...er...EastAsia
Good article, trolling comment- (Score:5, Insightful)
There are United States military troops in Germany, Italy, South Korea, Japan, Colombia, the Phillipines, Indonesia, Kosovo, Egypt, Singapore, Thailand, the UK, Spain, Turkey, Portugal, Qatar, Bahrain, Cuba, etc. etc. etc. We run the Iraqi and Afghanistan governments. Training Swedish police is not a threat to national sovereignty, and if you dispute this, it still barely scrapes the iceberg. It's hysteria to complain that training foreign governments is intruding on their sovereignty if they request it.
We train police around the world, in almost all situations, our assistance is requested and welcomed. (by the governments, at least) If the wholly independent Swedish government and the people were opposed, there might be a case.
Complain about training them in bad DMCA-style law enforcement, or in RIAA-scare-tactics. Don't complain about a foreign country asking and receiving assistance.
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That the other speaker at the conference was the swedish version of RIAA that have tried to use scare tactice already, doesn't make it better. The only problem with FBI is that they are talking together with MPA at this occation.
Re:Good article, trolling comment- (Score:5, Insightful)
The MPAA aren't soldiers, they aren't police, and they aren't a neutral public institution. Their concerns isn't for the citizens. They're there solely to make sure their profits are safeguarded and that things will go exactly the way they want them to. They've essentially bought their way into law enforcement and there's something profoundly unsettling about that.
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Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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Cultural nationalism can put piracy on the public agenda.
The domestic product withers in the face of the big-budget foreign film or video. You have no hope of building an export market if your rare commercial success abroad is casually pirated.
Re:Good article, trolling comment- (Score:5, Interesting)
What the big fuss is about, is that the Swedish police is tacitly agreeing that it will follow FBI:s and MPAA:s anti-piracy policies and do their dirty work for them. Which means do everything they can to shut down thepiratebay.
Re:Good article, trolling comment- (Score:5, Insightful)
Firstly, I expect the FBI and MPAA will be tainted to train to American laws. Obviously the Unless copyright laws are aligned between the two countries we're likely to see the Swedish Police overstepping the mark, like they did when they confiscated TPB servers previously - didn't that turn out to be against local law (TPB was working within the law?).
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didn't that turn out to be against local law (TPB was working within the law?).
That hasn't been determined yet. The police have imaged their servers, but refuse to give them back. They probably intend to keep them forever, maybe sell them to some criminals to make a tidy profit, as has been recently reported in local newspapers.
The case main prosecutor actually wrote in a PM six months before the raid that TPB was probably not doing anything illegal, or at least not doing something that they could prosecute. You can't prosecute someone for contributory copyright infringement witho
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Sidenote: The US militairy troops in e.g. Germany have no authority outside the borders of their camps, also not over the German military. Also, in many
Re:Good article, trolling comment- (Score:4, Insightful)
I doubt very highly, that the people of Sweden are in any way interested in copyright infringement law enforcement. Its lunacy to even be talking about it, copyright infringement is our countries way of trying to hold back the tide of an every increasing momentum of free expression. This isn't book and print. You put something out on the net or make it digital it no longer has any substance. It exists in the minds of the people that create it and experience it. Sharing ideas whether they originated with you are not is a natural part of how we express our selfs. Get over it, and move the fuck on.
I'm Swedish and I think like this: (Score:2, Interesting)
A) Copying IS NOT stealing.
B) As long as the people that made the data that is being copied has a roof over their head and food to eat they can't complain too much. If they have more they should just STFU.
C) A pirate is not bad if he does not use copied content to make money. Pirates that profit is however an issue to talk about.
D) We live and die. If somebody copies a file in order to increase their life's value I say go ahead and let him. It's all about making people's li
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In this respect, how is the Internet different than analog broadcast? I can't touch or hold any broadcast any more than I can touch or hold a digital stream.
The reasoning you have on sharing ideas seems pretty odd on a site whose constituents routinely say that the recording and movie industries and their products don't have any ideas.
I think your argument is specious in another way, because it is continually getting easier
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I bet the Iraqis disagree.
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The reasons why are almost entirely covered in the other replies, but I would add the following:
America's interference in matters of copyright and DRM is *never* welcomed , it is simply tolerated because:
1. the US is a significant market for all kinds of good and the world's leading producer of media, and therefore it's trade agreements are a serious bargaining chip
2. the US is also the world's leading military power, which gives it power in other domains (e.g. in
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It is called international cooperation. There are also students from many nations in US universities and researchers from many nations at US labs as well. These are good things.
Now the MPAA in Sweden... What ar
Uh (Score:5, Insightful)
FBI agent Andrew Myers and the MPAA have given a group of six Swedish police officers extensive training on how to effectively combat piracy and catch people who engage in illegal downloading from the internet.
How exactly is the MPAA able to teach Swedish police how to "effectively combat piracy", when the MPAA themselves fail to achieve that?
Re:Uh (Score:5, Interesting)
Is it a law? Or it's an abuse?
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More importantly you shouldn't do it on your webpage
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To my fellow Swedes: Maybe it's time to try qnext? I like it, it must mean something (I don't use it for filesharing thought, yet...)
In next election.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Thank you, RIAA, this was the most intelligent thing to do.
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and if this Geek fantasy doesn't materialize, what then?
Sweden has 800 movie theaters for a population of nine million, tickets cost about $10 US. Film in Sweden [sweden.se] That suggests something less than a blanket popular endorsement of piracy.
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You seem to have a very fixed opinion of who a pirate is... my guess is that many people treat the theatre as a social outing, and have no qualms downloading the movie they see either before, so they can pre-screen what they want to see, or after, if they found they really enjoyed it.
Movie piracy doesn't hurt theatre sales, it hurts DVD sales. Of course, I have a feeling you'll find plenty of DVD rental and sales outlets in Sweden
Now there is a thought. (Score:5, Funny)
UK children (Score:3, Interesting)
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Er, children don't study computer science in the UK. They might have a GCSE in IT, but that's totally different to computer science. Generally, people don't study computer science until they are adults at university. I did exactly that, and have never heard of this so-called software license module.
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Well, they call it ICT.
I did exactly that, and have never heard of this so-called software license module.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/ict/leg
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/ict/lega [bbc.co.uk] l/
A scary questionaire. Aside from the didactics, which are poor, there were a surprising number of factual errors.
"If you buy a legal copy of a CD, it's okay to copy it"
was marked as wrong when it could be true or false. It was riddled with this sort of error.
If you are going to talk about the law, then you should get
it correct.
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In my university we used so much free software that it would be strange to have a course teaching students that "it's illegal to copy software". :)
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I hope they cover all the basic types from closed source commercial to BSD and GNU. When they understand the licences, they can make good choices in software selection.
I used to buy software just on features alone. Now I select software based on TCO, liability, usefulleness within the license, and features. In short, I use the best value. Low value restricted use software at hi
I know, it's premature and immature, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Comment from the Pirat Party (Score:5, Insightful)
"The judicial system is make a mistake a see these lobby organisations as some sort of private police corp. Their only interest is to keep their old profitable monopoly. There organisations have nothing to do in our judicial system, says The Pirate Partys partyleader Rickard Falkvinge."
That pretty much sums it up if you ask me.
Re:Comment from the Pirat Party (Score:4, Insightful)
It's called politics.
No way to do anything to it, as long as they have at least a little of their reputation left. Which is not much, anyway.
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The most wonderful irony... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Fight them abroad... (Score:2)
well... (Score:1)
but why the heck is a lobbyist group involved? yeah, sure. they could give a speech on the matters of piracy and on how we all are doomed if we don't stop the uberevil pirates of the world from ruining markets, margins and stuff. they could even hand out some flyers. a nice powerpoint
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Wrong perception in the USA (Score:4, Insightful)
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we'd never do that (Score:2, Informative)
Why Am I Suddenly Thinking (Score:1)
Because you have a narrow, naive world view (Score:2)
So ? You swedish are going to let this slide ? (Score:3, Interesting)
There are no news around to that extent yet. We are waiting to see some swedish democracy in action.
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The Reason as I see it (Score:1)
Why are we doing this?
Well because the US has put some pressure on the last government, so slowly changes are being made. Why do we care what the US says?
We don't want to be the next Cuba (or Iraq before the invasion), our biggest export market is the US (ok it's only 10% but still).
So to please our economic ove
MPAA and FBI Help To Train Swedish Police (Score:3, Funny)
Isnt it also curious that FBI spares resources (Score:3, Interesting)
Very curious that, one important government agency can spare resources to spend for a PRIVATE organisation's whims, whereas there are army units deployed in iraq, afghanistan, pakistan is battling a lot of internation terrorist organisations trying to get roots in there, and terrorists are constantly trying to sneak into major western countries ?
Either they are screwing us over terrorist threat level, or they are screwing us over our taxes.
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CIA: Edward Wilson [imdb.com]
FBI: Fox Mulder [imdb.com]
2 different agencies which have different responsibilities. I'd suggest, again only from watching popular culture, that the CIA is more focussed on your 'worldwide battle against terrorism' than the FBI.
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Do you understand what the FBI actually does? It's a little bit of everything. But being the son of a retired police officer, I know they do a lot of training. If someone requests help, they provide it... it's pretty simple.
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Sweden: Grow a Set (Score:2, Informative)
All jokes aside, this is very disturbing. Even more disturbing is the fact that I have read several comments that don't seem too troubled by this behavior. People have forgotten that the police are a resource used to protect the physical well-being of their fe
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If other countries give into our corporate attack animals then that is their problem and they deserve everything they get. If other countries see their own sovereignty as something to be given away to US industries then they deserve everything they get.
Justice? (Score:2, Interesting)
Thank God for priorities... (Score:2)
End Run (Score:2)
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