Filesharing in Sweden is once again under scrutiny this week with news of the Swedish government putting pressure on ISPs. Apparently, Swedish Culture & Justice ministers are on the verge of giving sufficient power to courts to allow them to force ISPs to hand over details of subscribers IP addresses.

What this means is that people caught filesharing or getting illegal music downloads in Sweden can be traced and then taken to court. It’s another Big Brother move that will put enormous pressure on ISPs, whose entire business is based on giving people the chance to do more or less what they want on the Internet.

Continual pressure from anti-filesharing bodies in the US may mean that this gets approval in Sweden, the former home of Pirate Bay. With Britain and France following the US crackdown on filesharing and Australia looking to join in the fun, it looks like the developed world has a full-scale filesharing battle going on

An ISP in Ireland has come under fire after four major record labels took out a High court injunction in a bid to crack down on illegal free music downloads. Eircom is accused of allowing its networks to become a haven for the music downloads.

This is first time in Ireland that an ISP has been taken to court, rather than an actual Internet user. Eircom is Ireland’s largest ISP.

The Irish music industry (yes, they do have) is said to be suffering at the hands of illegal music downloads with a 50-million-euro decline in sales since 2001, which has, of course, been attributed to filesharing, illegal music downloads — the usual suspects.

Eircom has steadfastly refused to filter filesharing programs and suchlike, although this may all be about to change. There are now calls for Eircom to monitor and restrict all dodgy Internet activity, which could see a cutback in access to filesharing and music download websites.

A bunch of filesharing rogues in Iceland were convicted of their wrongdoings last week. Each of the nine convicted had been using the DC++ filesharing website for sharing music and movies. DC++ is a filesharing service used by hordes of Icelanders, so it’s anyone’s guess how many more convictions there will be.

Those poor Icelanders. They spend their windows in darkness, freezing cold, just wanting to get a few tunes. Now they will likely think twice before turning to the filesharing networks.

Bjarki Magnússon was given a 30-day provisional sentence because he established a filesharing portal. The rest of them got a couple of years on probation. $39,000 in legal fees also have to covered.

Snaebjörn Steingrímsson, chairman of the Association of Film Right-Holders in Iceland and opponent of filesharing, was outraged at how lenient the sentences were, citing that filesharing is a serious offense and should be treated as such in a court of law.

Evidently scared of being punished for getting their free music downloads, Iceland’s net traffic has dipped 40% while high-profile raids and court cases have been going on.

It seems like tons of new filesharing programs have popped up in the past few months. One more to consider is DropBox, which claims to make filesharing and storage simple. As a filesharing program, DropBox is easy to use and works perfectly with Windows and OSX.

It’s in Beta at the moment. DropBox works by users putting a file in a DropBox folder that is then synced up across your computers. It’s probably not going to change the world, but it is supposed to be a very fast way of sharing files.

This is obviously not a service for getting free music downloads, but if you have music you want to share, DropBox might be worth a try. One cool touch is that if you accidentally delete a file, you can un-delete it and get it back. If you’ve got a decent-sized group of friends who like filesharing and swapping music, you can get a network up and running.

Filesharing in Israel became a whole lot harder recently after the Haifa District Court ordered the country’s three largest ISP to block access to the Israeli filesharing site httpshare. The move came after a petition was put together by Israel’s 12 biggest record labels.

Although httpshare contains no actual music or movie files, the site does have links to various filesharing sites, which is why the record labels are up in arms. Site operators have been outraged at the decision, citing that the filesharing site is perfectly legal. The filesharing site changed its IP address but the ISPs caught on and blocked the site again.

Israel’s filesharing battle has now begun. This again raises the debate whether filesharing websites like this should be targeted. They don’t, after all, host any files themselves, but merely offer access to various sites. However, Israelis keen on filesharing can still access external sites, making the whole ordeal seem ultimately pointless.

Obviously very chuffed with itself, the RIAA has announced that its aggressive campaign against filesharing has worked in so far as it has, allegedly, reduced the volume of illegal filesharing.

We got this story from a student reporter at the University of Minnesota, so this may be the reason for holes in the report, but from reading the article, the RIAA has no proof that its methods work. All it can offer is references to well-documented cases, such as Jammie Thomas or countless students, as proof that its tactics have had an impact on illegal music downloads.

We already know that student filesharers are getting letters telling them to pay $3,000 or else end up in court. But what does that prove? RIAA spokesman Jonathan Lamy provided the “evidence” for this particular report. Good job of proving the sky is blue there, Jon.

As for filesharing and illegal music downloads, we can’t say how effective the RIAA’s methods are, but we do know that filesharing has not stopped.

Although we aren’t really behind the RIAA and the war it has been waging against students accused of filesharing illegally, we would strongly advise any student who is caught out for filesharing to pay the out-of-court settlement fee rather than let the case go to court.

It’s not a matter of principle, but rather common sense. The law is the law and if you find yourself with a hefty fine, you have to pay it. One student at the University of Maryland University College, who goes by the name of Jessica, refused to pay the out-of-court settlement after being caught sharing nearly 300 songs with the filesharing program Limewire.

We commend Jessica for standing up against the RIAA, but is it really worth ruining your education over? There are other ways to make a stand. As Jessica says, the $3,000 settle is ridiculous, but this is the risk we all run by using filesharing programs to get free music downloads.

In their defense, the RIAA did offer Jessica a six-month payment plan, but that wasn’t enough and the case will now go to court where, in all likelihood, Jessica will be slapped with a hefty fine.

Dark days.

The fallout from the announcement that the UK government is working to come up with laws to tackle illegal filesharing is starting to show. Already media outlets are questioning the logic behind such actions.

The Guardian published an opinion piece showing that attention has been drawn by the government’s threat to introduce legislation if ISPs can’t come up with a way to deal with filesharing.

The move has been hailed as a victory for the music industry, but a worry for everyone else — including the millions of people who use filesharing services like Ares.

According to a survey, 43% of respondents had engaged in shady filesharing activities. We expect that figure translates to the wider world, meaning that half of the Internet may be targeted by this new filesharing legislation.

Bad news, right?

Another study has shown that about 70% of Internet users would stop filesharing if they knew it was being done illicitly. We’re unsure exactly what that means.

There are lots of jokes that could be made about the Aussies following the Brits, but what’s the point in joking when the subject matter is a clamp down on filesharing? It’s certainly not funny news.

Australia, however, looks set to follow suit in a bid to take on illegal filesharing. With France also on the verge of coming down on filesharing, the Western world looks all set to wage its war on illegal music downloads. That’s great, in theory, but negates the fact that there is a rest of the world out there.

The RIAA is obviously chuffed with this news, as the British and Australian governments debate new laws that could rid their respective countries of filesharing. No word on how they will differentiate between legal and illegal filesharing. No word on if they even know the difference.

As I write this from Thailand, I’d say that Asia is the place to be if you don’t want to be taken for a ride for filesharing. Anyone with me?

We knew it was going to happen. The UK Government this week has turned the screws on ISPs to crack down on illegal filesharing. New laws have been promised if ISPs can’t come up with a solution to tackle filesharing.

Illegal filesharing needs to be stopped, apparently, and legal music downloads need to take its place. Yeah right, like that’s going to happen. There have been rumors that illegal filesharing will be combated with a “three strikes” system leading up to Internet connections being cut.

The new filesharing law won’t come into effect until next April. ISPs, however, seem reluctant to come out with plans to deal with filesharing. After all, filesharing is incredibly popular and the backlash will be enormous.

It’s all very vague at the moment but filesharing in the UK could soon leave a lot of people without access to the Internet, greatly affecting the business of ISPs.