“The Swedish copyright assocation and the Swedish Association for the Protection of Industrial Property (and its Finnish, Danish and Norwegian counterparts) are not lobbying organisations, but places where *all* IP experts (regardless of whether they represent industry or not) come together. Claiming that a judge is biased in a copyright infringement case because he’s a member of a professional association of IP experts is analogous to claiming that a judge is biased because he is a member of a bar association and clearly believes in the rule of law.”

The Swedish copyright assocation is a part of Association Littéraire et Artistique Internationale that has as a requirement for membership that you support the following:
“Any person or legal entity interested in authors’ rights, and not at risk of being influenced into taking up positions that are inconsistent with the principles of literary and artistic property, may make application for membership of ALAI.”
What kind of “open” discussions is possible with such constraint on membership? You are not even allowed to be at risk of listening to arguments from the other side.

If we turn to Swedish Association for the Protection of Industrial Property that is very not just a discussion club. This group is involved in feedback on new laws and is documented to openly argue that that the EU regulations about providers of services on the internet having a safe harbor if they don’t know about the crime, should be ignored, and the provider should be held responsible for everything the customer does no matter if they know about it or not. Not by coincident Tomas Norström in the Piratebay case refused the defendants to bring up the binding EU regulations as defense. This is one of the reasons the defendents have appealed the trial outcome to a higher court.