New anti-file sharing law = more legal downloads

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On April 1, 2009, a new law was passed in Stockholm; that being the Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive (IPRED) law. It gives copyright holders the opportunity to receive information about file sharers released from an Internet Service Provider through a court order.

The law was the result of the much publicized Pirate Bay trial in Sweden. Just this morning, Pirate Bay’s four co-founders were found guilty of assisting the distribution of illegal content online. They’ve been sentenced to a year in jail and a hefty $3.6 million dollar fine.

Since the implementation of this new law, there’s been a few interesting statistics floating around the interweb. An example -- “The first week after the introduction of IPRED, (legal online and mobile phone file downloading services) sales increased by 100 percent compared to the previous weeks. I don’t know if this is only because of IPRED, but it is definitely a sign of a major change,” said InProdicon’s managing director Klas Brannstrom. InProdicon is one of Sweden’s main legal file download services.

Now it’s expected that the outcome of this trial could spawn a variety of other trials as both the music and film industries continue their battle to regain the upper hand in the war on file sharing. Or, this case could help other files sharers figure out how to avoid the same legal pitfalls.

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