It is no secret that the US Government has been actively involved in copyright enforcement in other countries, including Sweden. After
the raid on The Pirate Bay’s servers in 2006, it became clear that the US had threatened to put Sweden on the WTO’s black list if they refused to deal with the
Pirate Bay problem.
But that was not the end of the ‘collaboration’ between the US and Sweden on this front.
According to an unreleased US Embassy cable in possession of
Swedish Television, the US pressure on Sweden to deal with file-sharing issues continued in the years that followed. In the cable, which dates back to 2008, the US Embassy presented a list of six items that they wanted to see addressed, all related to online copyright infringement.
A year later, five of these six items were indeed turned into action, including the appointment of more copyright police and prosecutors, backed up by educational anti-piracy campaigns. Of course, the Pirate Bay wasn’t left unmentioned in this cable either.
The cable writer mentions that it was hard for the Embassy to get openly involved in piracy related issues, because most of the press coverage was unfavorable towards the copyright industry.
“After the raid on The Pirate Bay on May 31, 2006, the issue of internet piracy was fiercely debated in Sweden. Press coverage was largely, and still is, unfavorable to the positions taken by the rights-holders and the United States Government,” the cable reads.
“The Pirate Bay raid was portrayed as the Government of Sweden caving in to United States Government pressure. This delicate situation made it difficult, if not counter-productive, for the Embassy to play a public role in IPR issues,” it adds.
In a response to the revelations, Minister of Justice Beatrice Ask denied that Sweden ever responded to pressure from the US Government. She hinted that the cable writer was making these remarks just to get a better payday.
Former Pirate Bay spokesman Peter Sunde was surprised about the leaked cable, although the fact that the US put pressure on the Swedish Government was not that new to him.
“We all knew for a long while that the US was behind the raid and pressured Sweden, but that they’re still doing it was news to us,” Peter Sunde told TorrentFreak. “And that the Minster of Justice just says that the cable writer is lying ‘to get a higher salary’ shows that she doesn’t even care if her government is corrupt.”
The cable in question has not been published by Wikileaks yet, but is expected to be released in the near future. This, and other cables, are likely to add more insight into the backroom deals related to file-sharing and copyright issues.
