‘Child Pornography Is Great,’ Anti-Pirates Say

It is no secret that pro-copyright lobbyists are exploiting child pornography to get file-sharing sites pulled offline. They have done so for years. Their ultimate goal is to use child porn as an excuse to impose a global Internet filter, and with a new directive being presented in the EU their strategy seems to be paying off. In 2007, a year after the Swedish police raided The Pirate Bay’s servers in Stockholm, there was a seminar in the same city titled Sweden — A Safe Haven for Pirates? There, in a room filled with like-minded souls, Johan Schlüter of the Danish Anti-Piracy Group took the stage with the ultimate plan to curb piracy. Child pornography is great, he said enthusiastically. It is great because politicians understand child pornography. By playing that card, we can get them to act, and start blocking sites. And once they have done that, we can get them to start blocking file sharing sites