7 ms·

US government dictates Swedish copyright laws

133 points by moeffju 15y ago

morganpyne 15y ago
Unfortunately, this scenario is being played out all over the world. We had similar revelations in New Zealand a while ago. http://www.nzcs.org.nz/newsletter/article/119 http://www.nzcs.org.nz/newsletter/article/119 It's disgusting, but not surprising. US has been desperately attempting to export it's draconian grip on copyright to the rest of the world at all costs for quite a while now.
- kragen 15y ago
  A lot of these changes actually go beyond what the copyright industry has been able to do in the US. There's no data retention provision in the US, for example.
  - pasbesoin 15y ago
    I think some of this is a two part play against domestic policies. Bully foreign interests to implement, and then push the same policies domestically, using the foreign implementations as part of the argument. ("Compliance", "even they're doing it", "parity", "protect domestic interests", etc....)
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
dhughes 15y ago
If any other country even thought of doing such a thing the USA would be claiming it was an attack on its sovereignty and declare war.
jtwb 15y ago
Why? What does the US have to offer to Sweden in return for implementing this legislation by their design?
- dexy 15y ago
  The US wields all kinds of influence over a nation like Sweden. If the US raised a few barriers to trade with Sweden, it would have a drastic effect on Sweden's economy. Many Swedish industries depend on exporting to the US, and while US citizens could just import similar goods from elsewhere if Swedish goods became more expensive, Swedish businesses would lose a gigantic and wealthy market that they depend on selling to. I'm sure that Sweden depends on the US as a military ally as well, it provides visas for many Swedish citizens regularly, and much more. At the end of the day, Sweden just needs the US more than the US needs Sweden, and that's why the US can argue from a position of power for its own industries.
  - burgerbrain 15y ago
    I think Sweden might overestimate their dependence on the US. The military threat to Sweden is currently rather low, (and there's always the rest of NATO). Countries just need to all agree to start ignoring the US. I bet doing so would be a positive gain for economies in the long run.
    - chc 15y ago
      Ignoring the US effectively means shutting yourself off from the global culture, because like it or not, America's entertainment industries are the biggest in the world. American movies play everywhere. American music is heard everywhere. Last I heard, America is about half of the video and computer games industry. And even the Internet is dominated by America unless you're Chinese or somewhere similarly insular (this site you're on right now? American). Some examples of things you'll have to boycott to truly ignore America: • Google • Bing • Blekko • DuckDuckGo • Facebook • Macs • Windows • iPhone • iPad • Android • MS Office • Photoshop • MySQL • Java • C# • Red Hat • Firefox • Chrome • IE • Safari • iTunes • Final Cut • Premiere • Avid • ProTools • Logic
      - Too 15y ago
        > MySQL Actually, Mysql is Swedish :P
CWuestefeld 15y ago
Leading off with a hyperbolic statement like "every law proposal, every ordinance, and every governmental report hostile to the net, youth, and civil liberties here in Sweden in recent years have been commissioned by the US government and industry interests." -- I can only take the whole thing with a grain of salt. I'm quite willing to believe that the US government exerts a large influence. I'm absolutely unwilling to believe that the Swedes are angels, and never do anything wrong on their own; that every problem in Sweden is a self-inflicted wound as directed by America.
- danssig 15y ago
  Why would Sweden be making laws to protect US IP? Why would they care?
  - tokenadult 15y ago
    Why would Sweden be making laws to protect US IP? International treaty obligations, negotiated on the basis of some advantage perceived for Sweden. A lot of what countries do in law enforcement protects the nationals of other countries or protects the interests of another sovereign state. The usual reason for that is mutually negotiated agreements.
duncan_bayne 15y ago
This is just one of the reasons I got out of politics several years ago. Simply put, things don't work the way most people think they do. Policies are decided behind closed doors, by people with vested interests, and then presented to the public - who are by and large uninterested, uninformed, insufficiently educated and unwilling to consider anything but their immediate short-term interests. As Mark Twain is supposed to have said, "If voting changed anything,they'd make it illegal."
- gwright 15y ago
  Thus the interest that many of us have in reducing the size of government and in general the concept of limited government. Unfortunately the general direction seems to be in increasing the size of government and the rationale seems to be 'so it can fix everything'.
  - winestock 15y ago
    Bless your heart, I truly and sincerely sympathize with the concept of limited government, no joke. However, limited government is to political science what perpetual motion machines are to physics. Whatever body limits the government is itself sovereign. What limits that body? Are written constitutions supposed to limit the power of government? Who implements those provisions if not the government? The concept of limited government, as it is typically expressed today, had its origins in the Enlightenment. It was all the rage among the cool people in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. That idea deeply influenced the constitutions of nearly every nation in the West. Look around. All of those nations now have large and growing governments. The idea of limiting the scope and reach of government by popular will or by written charter has had a track record of perfect failure. A government of limited and specifically enumerated powers is too weak to resist pressure to make it larger. The best way to get big government is to start with a small government. The way out of this is to think sideways.
    - Gormo 15y ago
      > Whatever body limits the government is itself sovereign. Why does this need to be a formal body? The public itself - in the form of a dynamic and multi-polar civil society and not a single formal institution - is an appropriate counterbalance. The catch is that this isn't really possible if the entire system of government is organized on democratic principles - we currently have too much democratic process to achieve appropriately democratic outcomes. Tweaking the balance between various co-equal government institutions is a good way to limit the capabilities of the overall system without having to rely on any permanent external force to restrain it. If we returned to dealing with social problems via judicial means on a case-by-case basis, instead of giving legislative and executive authority a priori top-down control over everything, we'd be much better off.
user9756 15y ago
I wonder if there is a country on this planet independent from US policy? I wonder how such a state would be portrayed by the "free" media...

133 points by moeffju 15y ago

Unfortunately, this scenario is being played out all over the world. We had similar revelations in New Zealand a while ago. http://www.nzcs.org.nz/newsletter/article/119 http://www.nzcs.org.nz/newsletter/article/119 It's disgusting, but not surprising. US has been desperately attempting to export it's draconian grip on copyright to the rest of the world at all costs for quite a while now.

kragen 15y ago
A lot of these changes actually go beyond what the copyright industry has been able to do in the US. There's no data retention provision in the US, for example.
- pasbesoin 15y ago
  I think some of this is a two part play against domestic policies. Bully foreign interests to implement, and then push the same policies domestically, using the foreign implementations as part of the argument. ("Compliance", "even they're doing it", "parity", "protect domestic interests", etc....)
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]

dhughes 15y ago

If any other country even thought of doing such a thing the USA would be claiming it was an attack on its sovereignty and declare war.

jtwb 15y ago

Why? What does the US have to offer to Sweden in return for implementing this legislation by their design?

dexy 15y ago
The US wields all kinds of influence over a nation like Sweden. If the US raised a few barriers to trade with Sweden, it would have a drastic effect on Sweden's economy. Many Swedish industries depend on exporting to the US, and while US citizens could just import similar goods from elsewhere if Swedish goods became more expensive, Swedish businesses would lose a gigantic and wealthy market that they depend on selling to. I'm sure that Sweden depends on the US as a military ally as well, it provides visas for many Swedish citizens regularly, and much more. At the end of the day, Sweden just needs the US more than the US needs Sweden, and that's why the US can argue from a position of power for its own industries.
- burgerbrain 15y ago
  I think Sweden might overestimate their dependence on the US. The military threat to Sweden is currently rather low, (and there's always the rest of NATO). Countries just need to all agree to start ignoring the US. I bet doing so would be a positive gain for economies in the long run.
  - chc 15y ago
    Ignoring the US effectively means shutting yourself off from the global culture, because like it or not, America's entertainment industries are the biggest in the world. American movies play everywhere. American music is heard everywhere. Last I heard, America is about half of the video and computer games industry. And even the Internet is dominated by America unless you're Chinese or somewhere similarly insular (this site you're on right now? American). Some examples of things you'll have to boycott to truly ignore America: • Google • Bing • Blekko • DuckDuckGo • Facebook • Macs • Windows • iPhone • iPad • Android • MS Office • Photoshop • MySQL • Java • C# • Red Hat • Firefox • Chrome • IE • Safari • iTunes • Final Cut • Premiere • Avid • ProTools • Logic
    - Too 15y ago
      > MySQL Actually, Mysql is Swedish :P

CWuestefeld 15y ago

Leading off with a hyperbolic statement like "every law proposal, every ordinance, and every governmental report hostile to the net, youth, and civil liberties here in Sweden in recent years have been commissioned by the US government and industry interests." -- I can only take the whole thing with a grain of salt. I'm quite willing to believe that the US government exerts a large influence. I'm absolutely unwilling to believe that the Swedes are angels, and never do anything wrong on their own; that every problem in Sweden is a self-inflicted wound as directed by America.

danssig 15y ago
Why would Sweden be making laws to protect US IP? Why would they care?
- tokenadult 15y ago
  Why would Sweden be making laws to protect US IP? International treaty obligations, negotiated on the basis of some advantage perceived for Sweden. A lot of what countries do in law enforcement protects the nationals of other countries or protects the interests of another sovereign state. The usual reason for that is mutually negotiated agreements.

duncan_bayne 15y ago

This is just one of the reasons I got out of politics several years ago. Simply put, things don't work the way most people think they do. Policies are decided behind closed doors, by people with vested interests, and then presented to the public - who are by and large uninterested, uninformed, insufficiently educated and unwilling to consider anything but their immediate short-term interests. As Mark Twain is supposed to have said, "If voting changed anything,they'd make it illegal."

gwright 15y ago
Thus the interest that many of us have in reducing the size of government and in general the concept of limited government. Unfortunately the general direction seems to be in increasing the size of government and the rationale seems to be 'so it can fix everything'.
- winestock 15y ago
  Bless your heart, I truly and sincerely sympathize with the concept of limited government, no joke. However, limited government is to political science what perpetual motion machines are to physics. Whatever body limits the government is itself sovereign. What limits that body? Are written constitutions supposed to limit the power of government? Who implements those provisions if not the government? The concept of limited government, as it is typically expressed today, had its origins in the Enlightenment. It was all the rage among the cool people in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. That idea deeply influenced the constitutions of nearly every nation in the West. Look around. All of those nations now have large and growing governments. The idea of limiting the scope and reach of government by popular will or by written charter has had a track record of perfect failure. A government of limited and specifically enumerated powers is too weak to resist pressure to make it larger. The best way to get big government is to start with a small government. The way out of this is to think sideways.
  - Gormo 15y ago
    > Whatever body limits the government is itself sovereign. Why does this need to be a formal body? The public itself - in the form of a dynamic and multi-polar civil society and not a single formal institution - is an appropriate counterbalance. The catch is that this isn't really possible if the entire system of government is organized on democratic principles - we currently have too much democratic process to achieve appropriately democratic outcomes. Tweaking the balance between various co-equal government institutions is a good way to limit the capabilities of the overall system without having to rely on any permanent external force to restrain it. If we returned to dealing with social problems via judicial means on a case-by-case basis, instead of giving legislative and executive authority a priori top-down control over everything, we'd be much better off.

user9756 15y ago

I wonder if there is a country on this planet independent from US policy? I wonder how such a state would be portrayed by the "free" media...