Sweden’s Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive (IPRED) law went into effect on Wednesday, reducing the amount of internet traffic in the country by 33 percent, according to the BBC.

Two days later, two 29-year-old Swedes from Skövde have been arrested, according to Aftonbladet (via TorrentFreak). Their computers were seized, and  the two were questioned at a local police station as part of Europol’s “Operation Carbonite” — an international anti-piracy initiative reportedly involving agencies from Belgium, The Netherlands, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States.

The IPRED law forces ISPs to reveal the names of people attached to IP addresses suspected of sharing copyrighted music, movies, other files without permission. Before it went into effect in Sweden, only option for copyright holders there was to report alleged infringement to police, who were apparently reluctant to do much about it. (via Wired)

It seems to become a trend to award (large) copyright holders with powers that dwarf and bypass the judicial system. IPRED in Sweden, Hadopi in France — judges seem to become optional when it comes to file sharing. Looking at that a fully fledged copyright police seems to be the next logical step, like the GVU in Germany, but a lot more powerful.