Battleangel

Sweden’s anti-piracy organization, Antipiratbyrån (APB), established to combat the illegal downloading of copyright-protected films and games, has been accused of illegally downloading copyright-protected films and games - in an attempt to plant evidence against internet service provider Bahnhof.

The APB was behind a raid against Bahnhof two weeks ago, which resulted in the confiscation of servers containing thousands of film, music and games files. APB lawyer Henrik Pontén declared that “this is just the start” and brazenly admitted that the organization had used a paid infiltrator at Bahnhof.

But on Tuesday Bahnhof released the results of its own internal investigation. According to managing director Jon Karlung, the APB infiltrator had himself carried out over 68,000 uploads and downloads of copyright-protected material on Bahnhof’s servers.

As Expressen pointed out, if APB were found to have planted evidence then individuals there would be facing charges of incitement to commit a crime and of being an accessory to that crime.

Source: The Local

I had a feeling this was only the beginning. And how fortunate that the “anti-piracy” / IP lobby gets triggerhappy and chooses to act before there even is a law to back them up. No one is happier than me that their little ruse has backfired. By revealing their hand and tactics before the game has even started, anti-piracy has been dealt a heavy blow by public opinion at the very least. They would be very lucky to avoid having a legal aftermath blow up in their face.

This farce will undoubtedly continue for months until the futility is evident even to the industry. Sweden, together with South Korea and a few other countries are the best IP pirates in the world. Among comparable western countries our position is probably unique. We have internalized it to such a degree by now that as long as we draw breath, we will defend our rights. People like myself have even gone one step further, turning attention to the entire concept of intellectual property. This could in the end cost them more than just imaginary profit. Let sleeping pirates lie, is my recommendation to the industry.

It is also interesting how Americocentric these people think and operate. Incitement is something that doesn’t work and is in fact strictly prohibited in Sweden. For good reasons. Another indication of who is behind these people, financially and ideologically.