Anti-Piracy Bureau's request for warning letters completely misses the mark

Comment from IT&Telekomföretagen: Antipiratbyrån, which represents producers and distributors of films, reiterates to TT its recent request that rights holders who suspect that their rights have been infringed should be allowed to send warning letters to the customers of internet service providers. This is because it is often difficult to legally prove who has committed copyright infringement on the internet.

The fact that the assessment of warning letters, as proposed by the Anti-Piracy Bureau, should be done by someone other than the right holders themselves, does not change the fact that internet subscribers who have not committed alleged infringements will be singled out as guilty of illegal activities. If public courts have difficulty assessing culpability in this type of infringement, how can any other type of body do so with legal certainty?

The sending of warning letters to subscribers would therefore rest entirely on assumptions, not evidence.

Based on these assumptions, the ISP would be forced to match individual subscribers' customer data with IP numbers alleged by third parties to be involved in illegal activities. A warning letter system would also risk normalizing a practice of monitoring the actions of internet users and collecting their IP addresses on a very large scale. It is clearly questionable whether the above approach to personal data processing is even compatible with the EU Data Protection Directive.

Consider that it is less than a year since the so-called Ipred Directive was introduced into Swedish law to give rights holders powerful tools against infringement. That last year saw the launch of a number of good, legal services that responded to consumers' pent-up needs and desires. The number of moviegoers is steadily increasing year after year. The Swedish Film Institute is proposing legal opportunities for audiences to watch new films online. And not least, for the first time in a long time, there is a positive dialog on how best to support consumer-oriented, legal alternatives.

Positive cross-sectoral cooperation and good market conditions for the services consumers demand are the only way to effectively reduce illegal file sharing and, above all, guarantee future revenues for rights holders.

In light of this, the Anti-Piracy Office's request for warning letters seems completely beside the point.