WastedTimes

[hbgator]

Sweden's justice minister denied on Friday that U.S. government pressure had led to a crack down on Internet piracy this week in an escalating row over copyright protection and freedom of information.

The row started on Wednesday when police detained three men on suspicion of breaking copyright law for involvement in a file sharing Web site, The Pirate Bay. Police closed the Web site and seized Internet servers.

Swedish public television said on Thursday an official in the Justice Ministry had put pressure on the police and prosecutor's office to act against the Web site on a request from the U.S. government and the U.S. movie industry for action.

Justice Minister Thomas Bodstrom rejected the report.

"I have not had contact at all with the U.S. government as regards this question and I have not had any meetings or discussed this matter," he told Swedish radio.

He said he had never given instructions to the police or the state prosecutor in individual cases.

But two parliamentarians reported Bodstrom to a special house committee which probes government actions.

In a further response to the raid this week, which grabbed front page headlines, the Web site of the Swedish national police was shut down all day by what local media said was a concerted attack by hackers to overload it.

Sweden only last year made the downloading of movie and music files from the Internet illegal after being singled out for criticism by Hollywood.

But some have seen the law and the police crackdown as going against freedom of information and openness linked to the development of the Internet.

"This is not a matter of file sharing, it is a matter of control of the flow of information," said Rickard Falkvinge, who has launched the Pirate Party to fight for changes in copyright law in a September general election.

Recording industry lobby the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) and the U.S. Motion Picture Association have waged a global campaign against online piracy and previously saw Sweden as a weak link.

"It is not a question of freedom of information. Of the top hundred files to be shared, 90 percent were Hollywood productions," said Monique Wadsted, a lawyer at Stockholm's MAQS firm, who represents the MPA in Europe