IP: Swedish Teen on Trial For Linking to Music Files from Telecom Digest

[David Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

Date: Sun, 12 Sep 1999 20:47:40 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <monty () roscom com>
Subject: Swedish Teen on Trial For Linking to Music Files


Excerpts from TBTF for 1999-09-11
        http://tbtf.com/archive/1999-09-11.html

Digital technology is the universal solvent of intellectual property
rights

Is it piracy to put up a page of links to music files? Tommy Ols-
son is waiting to hear a Swedish court's ruling on that question
[18]. Olsson didn't create any music files, copy them, or send them
to anyone. The case is the first to go to trial of some 1000 Web
sites challenged over the last two years by the Swedish branch of
the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, which
represents record companies. If convicted Olsson could be fined a
few hundred dollars, which is about how much he made from ads on
his Web site. But a conviction could leave him liable for damages.
 
Thanks to TBTF Irregular [5] Chuck Bury <cbury at softhome dot net>
for the tipoff. And thanks, indirectly, to Tom Parmenter
<tompar at world dot std dot com> for the subtitle -- it's been
his tag line on the now-revived Desperado mailing list since the
early 1980s. (Send the message "subscribe" to early 1980s. (Send the message "subscribe" to desperado-request@-
world.std.com. Drop the quotes.)

18] http://www.mercurycenter.com/svtech/news/breaking/merc/docs/043449.htm
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[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: That greedy bunch of jackals! They are
like so many others of the companies which have taken up residence
here in recent years; they want all the benefits of the web but
absolutely none of the ethical or moral obligations that go along
with being a member of the community. If this kid prevails in the
litigation brought against him, I hope he slaps them so hard they
decide to take all of their web presence off line for good. Anytime
a large organization like that decides to sue a netizen merely
because the netizen used the web in the way it was intended, they
deserve to be driven off the net using all tools at the net's
disposal to do so.  PAT]