Illegal sharing of Roxette music takes Swede to court
Written by roxeteer on October 5, 2006 to Music Business.
STOCKHOLM - A 44-year-old Swedish man is being prosecuted for illegally sharing thousands of music files on Direct Connect network. He’s the first person to appear in court for such activities in Sweden making this a test case for the Swedish copyright law.
According to the music industry body IFPI, the accused has made 13,000 MP3 files available online. However, the prosecutor is focusing on just four songs: “It Must Have Been Love” by Roxette, “There Must Be An Angel” by Eurythmics, “Sarah” by Mauro Scocco and “Vara vänner” by Jakob Hellman.
The man claims that he intended to upload just a few individual songs to be shared, but instead uploaded his whole collection of songs. He believes the case against him is unfair. “It’s wrong to find someone guilty for something that millions of people do,” he told Borås Tidning.
Other articles with the same topic
- More than 100 million SEK to Swedish songwriters (June 16, 2008)
- EMI, a company in deep crisis (January 13, 2008)
- iTunes adds unprotected Roxette music to its catalog (May 31, 2007)
- EMI ditches copy-protection on iTunes Store (April 2, 2007)
- EMI abandons CD copy protection? (January 8, 2007)
13 comments
daniel_alv said on October 5, 2006 21:02:
This person has confessed. The other person was found innocent beacuse their evidence was not good enough.
I think this Borås man will be found guilty, but I have only read this article so maybe I’ll change my mind when I read more about it.
denny said on October 5, 2006 22:49:
“It’s wrong to find someone guilty for something that millions of people do,”
I think he’s right. I don’t think they should bring people to court as long as there are countries in which there is no law against it. And the whole world is involved in that.
I’m not sure I’m making any sense here.... :/
rossyrox said on October 5, 2006 23:42:
I’m not sure how the law operates in Sweden but unless they have video footage of the guy uploading the files or they have proof that a username/password was used that only he has access to - I don’t see how there is a case against him. Silly man for confessing!
Nati80 said on October 6, 2006 03:20:
Well, if millions of people do something illegal, that’s not an excuse for him to do the same. I mean, if millions of people kill other people, would he do the same?
Millions of people do it, but it’s still illegal. Everybody knows that. “I’m doing something illegal, but it doesn’t matter because lots of people do the same.” That’s not an excuse at all!
Floepie said on October 6, 2006 06:17:
Nati80, you tell me you never recorded a song from the radio ever in your life? It’s ridiculous to take someone to court for this. They should chase the real criminals instead of this. Hail hail uploaders!
Baby-C said on October 6, 2006 07:47:
Recording a song from the radio on a casette for me to listen to, is not the same thing as upload and share that song on the net with the whole world.. I think.
RobS said on October 6, 2006 08:12:
“something that millions of people do” - That’s not the best defence.
Also the recording off the radio analogy isn’t really the same.
Will be interesting to see how this turns out.
Falco said on October 6, 2006 09:04:
I agree with Nati80. Recording a song from radio is not the same as sharing mp3s on Internet. Even if you download the illegal music it’s not the same. Uploading will always be considered the worse breaking of law, I guess.
Floepie said on October 6, 2006 18:48:
Damn you guys are lame. Welcome to the real world.
It makes me sick to be honest to hear you say this. Recording from a radio is just the same as dowloading. Besides that, playing a cassette, recorded with songs from a radio at a party or something else is also sharing it to the world! As long as they keep up the high prices for cd’s I will NEVER stop downloading or uploading!
Let alone bringing out a greatest hits out over and over again!
Like Per said, if you don’t like it don’t buy it! And heck, Per even admitted that he illegally downloaded himself before!
Nati80 said on October 7, 2006 18:18:
I did record songs from the radio, but I have always listened to them alone. Yes, it’s illegal too, but I’m not going to buy a whole CD of an artist if I just like one or two songs...
Recording a song and then sharing it with a friend is not the same thing as sharing it with millions of people on the Internet. If they want to fight downloading, they have to fight uploading first.
I’m not saying what I do is right, but at least I do it for myself.
GT_85 said on October 5, 2006 20:00:
The first case like this in Sweden was about a man who shared a film. That man won his case. This guy will probably win as well.
They couldn’t prove that the file (a film) was uploaded from his computer or something.
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