P2P and media firms' eyes on Sweden

Even a law criminalizing file-sharing - Sweden's new one - isn't likely to put a serious dent in it. The Associated Press reports that "Swedes are among the most prolific file-sharers in the world. Industry groups estimate that about 10% of Sweden's 9 million residents freely swap music, games and movies on their computers." So, the AP continues, "unless Swedes have suddenly changed their habits, about one in 10 became a criminal on Friday." That's when Sweden's new law banning the sharing of copyrighted media (following an EU directive) took effect. The country's justice minister said, however, that chasing down file-sharers won't be a priority for Swedish police unless their file-swapping's egregious. Meanwhile, while BitTorrent and eDonkey users are swapping movies, pay-per-film sites - the film versions of iTunes and Napster - are set to take off, the New York Times reports. "The [film] studios will most likely make downloads available to a wide range of online distributors. Those that are preparing to offer the movies include Movielink, MSN, Sony's Connect service, Target.com, and CinemaNow, an online movie rental store." Prices will probably be similar to those of DVDs. See also the San Jose Mercury News on "file-sharing's new era" and the Los Angeles Times's "Big Labels Have Digital Trust Issues" about what paying customers can do with their MP3s. "The music is the same, and the sound quality is hard to distinguish. But there is a wide gap between what buyers can do with a CD and what they are allowed to do with a legal download."