Nordic file sharers form pressure group
'Don't touch our internets!'
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Following the raid against the popular Swedish file sharing website The Pirate Bay (Piratbyråns), several Nordic organisations have launched an international pressure group The Pro Piracy Lobby, which is seeking "common ground for further discussion and cooperation".
The founders of the alliance, including Artliberated Network, Piratbyrån from Sweden, the Berlin-based project piratecinema.org and the Danish and the Norwegian Piratgruppen, say they will copy "whatever we want" adding "Don't touch our Internets! We live it and we are here to tell the world that p2p will never be stopped, can't be stopped and shouldn't be stopped."
The issue of compensation for lost royalties, however, isn't addressed, other than that “the freedom of developing and offering networking services of any kind should be considered a self-evident right."
The Pro Piracy Lobby says it will continue to grow along with the expansion of a “positive understanding of piracy and file sharing”. The intention is to operate globally in the near future.
One scheme it is already heavily promoting is a new type of insurance. For just 113 Danish kroner file sharers can now join tankafritt.nu's service in Sweden, which compensates for financial persecution. Additionally sharers receive a t-shirt which reads: "I was convicted of files haring and all I got was a lousy t-shirt". Danish tankafritt.nu is pondering a similar service, but is still examining legal grounds.
Meanwhile, the recently seized Piratbyråns server remains in custody until further notice. "We need the server and its contents to be able to use our democratic rights to work to influence public opinion," Rasmus Fleischer from Piratbyrån says. Swedish prosecutors are currently combing through the servers looking for evidence. According to Swedish newspapers they are going to give special attention to any profits made by The Pirate Bay.®
