While there has been plenty of teeth gnashing by the entertainment industry, it still does appear that The Pirate Bay is legal under copyright laws in Sweden. While there is a trial going on, there is also already plenty of accusations of corruption involved in the trial (the prosecutor had a business relationship with a record label), and many still feel that The Pirate Bay will eventually be vindicated. However, there has been tremendous international pressure (much of it coming from US diplomats, with soundbites written by the US entertainment industry) to get Sweden to change its copyright laws. And, now, apparently some new "antipiracy" legislation is about to be introduced.

The plan is to require service providers to hand over the details on anyone who a copyright holder has "probable cause" to believe is file sharing. How that probable cause is determined remains something of an important open question. Just seeing the IP address shouldn't be enough, but it's not clear if the courts will agree. What will be more interesting is to see how the Swedish citizenry reacts to the introduction of this bill. While it hasn't caught on much elsewhere, the Pirate Party actually does have a decent following in Sweden, and the political party has already expressed its extreme displeasure over the wording of the bill.

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