An article in The Inquirer brings the news that a 45-year-old man has been fined by the Appeal Court in Gothenburg, Sweden, after making four music tracks available over the internet.
The ruling confirms the punishment handed down by Borås District Court in October. The man had appealed against his conviction, the prosecutor having demanded he be given a suspended prison sentence.
Further in the article was an intriguing statement by Pirate Party's Tobias Andersson: "The court is confirming that file sharing is only punishable by fines. This means that the police are not permitted to demand details of the addresses behind IP addresses and cannot carry out house searches." he said. In Sweden the police are only allowed to access internet records if the prosecution would result in a jail sentence.
He continued: "This means that small-scale file sharers are immune. And I believe that the industry will slowly but surely come to realise that this is a pretty fruitless tactic", he added.
Oh well; what price the music?
Thanks to heystoopid and Gristy McFisty for independendently submitting this story
