To signify as to what kind of impact this law already made, Swedish internet traffic actually dropped from 120 Gbps to 80 Gbps on the very day the new law went into effect.
I'm not sure whether this should go in the Pub or the Tech forum...
I just hope it doesnt come my way to Australia... For completly un ileagle reasons though...
Australia already has ridiculous censorship and internet laws that are completely out of touch with the modern internet.
A similar law here was recently proposed (and defeated) here, but before it was passed it there were various work-arounds (the definition of ISP was so loose any person with a home network could be considered one). And all this will do is switch file sharers to encrypted/anonymous sources.
Also, the Pirate Bay trial is due for a verdict on April 17th.
I can't see this getting anywhere. If only due to flaws in the law that make hard to exactly difine who is who ("who is an ISP?" "Who is a leecher?" "Who is leeching illegal (copyrighted) material?" etc.). I remember a new article about year ago were somebody was prosecuted for file sharing (How do you differentiate between legal and illegal filesharing? Especially with different anti-piracy laws from country to country and state to state?).. But though they could proof that a certain IP was involved in distributing large amounts of copyrighted software they couldn't proof who actually was responsible for the file sharing. There was more then one person living in the house, nobody confessed to anything so they could't proof who was responsible. And it would not be possible to sentence an innocent person so they had to be let go...
So even if they track down IPs it doesn't garantee that they can prove which individual is behind the IP... an IP adress is not like a fingerprint. It can narrow your search down (like a blood group) but it doesn't single out an individual.
So I'd say "epic fail" : A silly law that won't work (if those that are prosecuted play their cards right and don't confess to what they are accused of) and only reduces privacy further (my ISP has no right to track what I do and do not do online, they don't need to know if, when or how often I visit forums, news sites, gaming sites, porn sites and such).
As with many other laws that have to do with privacy: The knife cuts on both sides. Less privacy might expose a criminal (which probably is a good thing) but it also exposes the behaviour and habbits of innocent people (probably not a good thing, not if you ask me anyway). Whenever you place a public camera or other such thing that may collide with peoples privacy a balance has to be made and one has to ask if it's worth to give up privacy over the number of criminals that may be caught or stopped from doing whatever illegal act it is they do.
If you ask me for example wiretapping a phone at will without concrete evidence is an absolute and obvious nono. Just a vague suspicion ain't good enough to tolerate or allow wiretapping. The number of innocent people being affected absolutely outweights the extremely low amount of criminals that they may catch (dig harder for evidence and try to get wiretap permission again...).
So I'd say "epic fail" : A silly law that won't work (if those that are prosecuted play their cards right and don't confess to what they are accused of) and only reduces privacy further (my ISP has no right to track what I do and do not do online, they don't need to know if, when or how often I visit forums, news sites, gaming sites, porn sites and such).
I would tend to agree. Even the prosecutors said the law is mainly to target "the big fish"; so people at home downloading their copy of X-Men Origins 20 days before the movie release would probably be quite safe.
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The Pub 
Sweden's Piracy Law comes into effect 
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