Internet Movie Download Case to Be Prosecuted

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - A Swedish prosecutor has charged a man with making a movie available for download from his computer, the first such case in the Nordic country as it clamps down on sharing copyrighted material over the Internet.

The case follows a raid earlier this month by Swedish bailiffs and police on Internet firm Bahnhof, in search of pirated music and films, which drew applause from Hollywood but sparked fierce debate over confidentiality rights and file sharing.

The prosecutor in the town of Upplsala, 35 miles north of Stockholm, said Andreas Bawer had made the Swedish youth movie Hipp Hipp Hora accessible to the public.

"The reason for this prosecution is that (the movie) has been downloaded one time," prosecutor Chatrine Rudstrom said.

Bawer could be fined or receive a suspended prison sentence.

"It feels like they picked someone completely at random, but I don't want to talk any more about this," he told Reuters.

In Sweden it is legal to download copyrighted movie and music files, but making them available for sharing is illegal. The legal loophole, however, is about to be closed.

The Justice Ministry has just proposed a law to make both illegal, bringing Sweden into line with the rest of the EU.

Henrik Ponten, a lawyer representing the Antipirate Bureau, said the film and game industry in Sweden loses around 750 million Swedish crowns ($107 million) a year from piracy.

Pirates "are part of a hidden society," he told Reuters.

The Anitpirate Bureau, which represents the music and game industry in Sweden, lodged complaints with the police in both the Bawer and Bahnhof cases.

The raid on Bahnhof was hailed by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), which represents Hollywood's big studios, as a major blow to European piracy of movies and music on the web.

Rudstrom said Bawer's case would set a precedent in Sweden and that she had received 10 or more similar complaints.

It was not immediately clear when the court proceedings would start.

< And why shouldn't this be the case? Providing a market for something doesn't harm, getting something in the best available way only spurs competition and quality. The actual harm in the issue comes from those who provide material someone else should be getting paid for without paying them. This seems a common sense way to try to punish the ones doing actual harm while not punishing those who happen to be part of an issue which could go either way depending on how the companies holding copyrights choose to disseminate their product. >