| Sweden passes law to ban music and film downloads from internet without royalty |
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The law, which was approved by a large majority in parliament, will go into effect on July 1. Those who violate the law will be ordered to pay damages. Members of parliament stressed in a debate prior to the vote that musicians, writers, filmmakers and others ought to receive fair payment for their work. Swedish government and industry officials have claimed that unlicensed use of copyrighted material is rampant in the Scandinavian country. Parliament also approved a proposal to sharply raise the price of blank CDs, DVDs, videotapes and cassettes to compensate for legal copying of material. The new copyrighting law will also apply to photocopies of whole books, which is common at Swedish universities where many students consider required reading material too costly.
Source: Forbes.com
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