

På svenska: Hollywood planerar blockeringsmål mot Teliasonera

In november 2014, the Swedish branch of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry together with a local association of tv and movie producers filed a site blocking case against ISP Bredbandsbolaget, owned by Norway’s Telenor.

The rights holders demand that Bredbandsbolaget blocks access to file sharing site The Pirate Bay and illegal streaming site Swefilmer. The case has already been widely debated in Sweden and is scheduled to appear in a district court later this year.

However, this is not the only site blocking case expected in the Swedish courts this year. In secret, the Motion Pictures Association, MPA, for more than a year has been planning at case of its own, against Sweden’s largest ISP Teliasonera.

The demand is that Teliasonera blocks access to five movie streaming sites: Swefilmer, Dreamfilm, Sweflix, Viooz, and Primewire.

This is revealed in documents published by Wikileaks, documents that have leaked as a result of the major hacking incident targeting Sony Pictures.

The leaked documents gives an unprecedented look into the anti piracy operations of the big movie cos and their representatives.

The MPA har already begun preparations for it’s case against Teliasonera when they early last year was informed of another case in the works in Sweden, that of IFPI against Bredbandsbolaget.

This prompted a series of meetings and phone calls between the MPA and the Swedish organisations.

The MPA’s problems were twofold. One, the Swedes demanded a blocking of streaming site Swefilmer, a web site also targeted by the MPA. The other concern was the Swede’s legal counsel.

The reason IFPI was suing Bredbandsbolaget, a smaller ISP, and not Teliasonera, the country’s largest ISP, was that IFPI’s counsel represents Teliasonera in other matters.

The MPA was now worried about a lawyer they had ”no control over” dealing with a streaming case, especially since the counsel’s firm, Delphi, was also representing Teliasonera.

The Americans tried to make the Swedes to drop it’s case, or at least withdraw Swefilmer from it. But after negotiations it was made clear that IFPI and the tv and movie producers already had signed a binding agreement on how the case should be financed and conducted:

But the MPA did not leave the negotiations all empty handed. The IFPI group had formed a steering committee to manage the case and the MPA was offered a seat on it.

”The benefit is that we will be able to exert influence over the case, review briefs, and add evidence, stats and our know-how. Should we have material concerns on the way the case is conducted (particularly as it pertains to the Swefilmer part) we would be in a good position to push back strongly”, the MPA head of legal Okke Delfos writes in an email.

Now the MPA could finalize their strategy for the case against Teliasonera:

Plaintiffs in the case would be the MPA member companies and local association Nordisk Film

Counsel for the MPA would be Monique Wadsted, who also was the lead counsel in the case against The Pirate Bay some years ago

The case will require evidence on at least 100 films

The estimades budget is 350 000 euros, assuming the case will go all the way up to the Swedish supreme court

The chances of success is estimated at 75-85 percent

Legally, the case is based on an opinion by counsel Monique Wadsted and an opinion commissioned by the MPA from professor emerita Suzanne Wennberg.

So, why Teliasonera? The MPA lists a few reasons: It’s the largest ISP in Sweden with 35 precent marketshare, it’s partly government owned, and it has

been blocking copyright infringing websites in other countries.

”In particular in Denmark, TeliaSonera’s cooperative attitude towards website blocking is noteworthy and might be replicated in Sweden”, the MPA writes in its strategy document.

Teliasonera has declined to comment on the issues raised by the leaked documents.

Ahead of the filing, the MPA plans a large scale PR effort, with opinion articles, a set of materials to be used in schools including a dedicated website which will feature the materials that is being made available to teachers and and a consumer information campaign.

”All these activities will help foster a more ‘friendly’ environment for when we launch our legal action”, the MPA writes.

For PR, the MPA is closely aligned with Per Strömbäck who is coordinating the PR efforts for the IFPI case. He acts as the official spokesperson but has the PR firm JKL, one of Sweden's largest, supporting him as back office.

"Per has gained a lot of credibility and is a prominent figure in the Swedish media landscape since he ran the Netopia Swedish platform for over 3 years", the MPA writes.

Netopia is an "idea forum", nowadays working mostly out of Brussels.

The leaked documents also reveal that the case against Teliasonera is the latest in a combined strategy targeting the Nordic countries.

”Together with positive verdicts in Finland and Denmark, and pending cases in Norway and Iceland, a case in Sweden would complete the Nordics site blocking strategy”, the MPA writes.

All documents referenced in this article can be downloaded from Wikileaks.