Sweden enacts anti-piracy law.

• Position: LEGISLATION

Sweden's Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive (IPRED), based on a European Union directive, became law in March. The antipiracy law allows copyright holders in the film, music, and game industries to force Internet service providers (ISPs) to hand over identifying information on users accused of file sharing. It does not, however, require the companies to retain log data for any period of time.

According to enet news, the law states property rights holders can take their complaint to court, which will examine the evidence and extent of the file sharing to determine whether the Internet protocol address should be released. The copyright holder then can send a warning letter to the ISP subscriber and eventually file a civil case against the alleged pirate if the violations continue.

The anti-piracy law is not popular in Sweden, where file swap ping is ubiquitous, cnet said an estimated 1 in 10 Swedes engages in file Swapping. Sweden is where The Pirate Bay, the world's biggest bit torrent sharing site, is based. It is also home to the peer-to-peer telephony software Skype and has one of the highest rates of Internet usage in the world.

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A recent survey by Sweden's national newspaper, SvD, revealed citizens in general oppose IPRED in large numbers...