New Swedish Copyright Law Cuts Internet Usage in Half

Swedish Internet traffic measurement firm says it fell from almost 200Gbs to 110Gbs on the day the new law came into effect.

Swedes are apparently scaling back their Internet usage after that country’s controversial new copyright law went into effect last Wednesday.

The new law, if you recall, allows copyright holders to seek a court order requiring ISPs to divulge the names of accused file-sharers.

After going into effect, Netnod Internet Exchange, an Internet traffic measurement firm, reported that Internet traffic in that country by almost one half, dropping from almost 200Gbps to 110Gbps on the day the new law came into effect.

One Swedish ISP is not pleased with the drop and I’m sure he’s not alone.

“Half the Internet is gone,” said Jon Karlung, chief executive of Banhof. “If this pattern keeps up, it means the extensive broadband network we’ve built will lose its significance.”

Sweden is, or was, one of Europe’s most Internet-enabled countries.

Not surprisingly, Anti-Piracy Agency lawyer Henrik Pontén was actually pleased to see the plunge in traffic.

“The majority of all Internet traffic is file sharing, which is why nothing other than the new IPRED law can explain this major drop in traffic,” he told Metro. “This sends a very strong signal that the legislation works.”

Swedish Party vice-chairman Christian Engstrom played down the data and predicts the drop is only temporary.

“Today, there is a very drastic reduction in internet traffic,” he told the BBC. “But experience from other countries suggests that while file-sharing drops on the day a law is passed, it starts climbing again. One of the reasons is that it takes people a few weeks to figure out how to change their security settings so that they can share files anonymously.” [link to www.zeropaid.com]