Svenska antipiratbyrån

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Svenska antipiratbyrån (the "Swedish Anti-Piracy Bureau") is a Swedish lobby group working against and investigating cases of alleged copyright infringement. Members of the organization are corporations active on the Swedish media and software market. Chairman is Björn Gregfelt while Henrik Pontén works as Jurist and the groups public relations man.

The group was formed in 2001 by the 3 groups Filmägarnas Kontrollbyrå[1], MDTS[2], and Sveriges Videodistributörers Förening[3] who together represents over 30 companies. The organization became widely known in the Bahnhof affair when it was revealed that they had paid an infiltrator to put copyrighted material on servers hosted by the Swedish ISP Bahnhof.

The organization is sometimes accused of having chosen a name which makes it sound like they are a government agency, whereas in fact they are a private industry group. They have also been criticized for their controversial methods which some see as unethical as well as highly illegal. In 2005 the government agency Datainspektionen ruled that their surveillance methods were in violation of Personuppgiftslagen (PUL) which is intended to protect people's personal integrety. However they later made an exception for the group as they felt that their methods were justified in the fight against crime.

[edit] Raids

An early morning in May, 2006, Piratbyrån was raided by Swedish police. The popular bittorrent tracker site thepiratebay.org was seized by the police. Antipiratbyrån took it to court. Thepiratebay consideres its activities legal under Swedish law.