File sharing

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On 2005-07-01, it became illegal in Sweden to download material from the net which had been put there against the copyright owner's permission. Previously it was only illegal to put things there in the first place.

I have three things to say about this new law.

  1. The issue has been called file sharing, and I deplore deeply that such a wonderful term as sharing files with people becomes connected with copying music, films and software illegally. The issue has also long been called piracy, which is just silly. I'd prefer calling a spade a spade, and calling this copyright infringement.
  2. People who download files illegally don't usually consider it very bad. I think it is bad, not because it's illegal, but because it's a sign of disrespect against whoever produced the material. If I make something and copyright it, I would very much appreciate if people followed the directions I leave as to how that something may be distributed. If people don't follow it, I would no doubt be angry. Not only is the new law sensible, it's even surprising that it doesn't follow immediately from copyright law in the first place. Copyright infringement is morally wrong, but the problem seems to be that it's much simpler for people my age to just ignore this fact and keep downloading, occationally half-heartedly justifying their actions by saying that only the big players get hurt, and not even very much.
  3. I can't imagine that many people actually consider copyright law to be wrong here. Copyright law only grants the author of a work his or her ultimate rights to how the work is to be used and distributed. Maybe what most people object to is that much of today's movies, software and music have copyrights that are so strict that they don't allow sharing through networks. If so, aggravating the authors by abusing copyrights is a bad idea. What I would like to see is people finding a good compromise that both would allow commercial authors of copyrightable works to feel safe and people who want to share the latest and greatest material for free on the web to do so within the limits of the law.

See also

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