European Parliament
Carl Schlyter (Verts/ALE )
(SV)
Mr President, two weeks ago, the police in Sweden carried out a fifty-man raid in order to shut down a website that facilitated file-sharing. A large number of servers were confiscated in a string of different companies that had nothing to do with the activity in question, and operations in these small businesses were shut down. In addition, a number of people were forced to give DNA samples on the grounds of being suspected of committing what is a very minor crime.
Even more serious is the fact that a political opponent of the music industry – and it was the music industry that had forced this raid to occur – had his website taken offline in the middle of our election campaign and was thus unable fully to participate in the open debate by advocating a liberal form of legislation in respect of file-sharing for private use where there is no intent to make a profit. In the past, the music industry has always attempted to put a stop to every technical development, such as cassettes, digital music players and writable CDs. It has always been wrong – all of these new inventions have always led to increased sales. It is therefore regrettable if the police are assisting in stifling the debate.

