New File Sharing Law Makes Internet Traffic Drop Radically

As new Swedish law came into force April 2 giving the copyright holders the right to ask details about the person behind an IP address, the Internet traffic takes a dramatic plunge

As of the first day of coming into force (Wednesday) the new Swedish file sharing law based on the European Union's Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive (IPRED) had a great impact on the digital territory. This new law which now allows copyright owners to request personal information about suspected illegal file-sharers has revealed perhaps just how much traffic came from p2p networks and file sharing sites. Fearing the newly-extended arm of the (rather controversial) law many Internet users have taken a break from their online activities which has resulted in a huge drop in Internet traffic altogether.

Netnod, which establishes and operates National Internet Exchange Points in Sweden, has reported a 30% decline of the country’s Internet traffic.

Metro quoted lawyer Henrik Ponten of the Anti-Piracy Agency as saying:"Most traffic on the internet is file sharing. Therefore there is no other explanation to this sizeable dip in traffic than the new IPRED law."

Ponten's agency was involved in the recent Pirate Bay trial which P2POn covered throughout its course.

"We have identified an IP address from which an enormous amount of titles are distributed. In all several thousand different audio books, which is almost the complete Swedish audio book production," said Kjell Bohlund, head of the Swedish Publishers' Association, in a statement made to the online edition of daily Svenska Dagbladet.