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Switzerland is not a member of the EU at all.

Switzerland is party to the EFTA (European Free Trade Agreement) together with Norway, Iceland and Lichtenstein.

EFTA has an agreement with the EU on trade that makes EFTA part of the EU's inner market. However Switzerland is not part of that agreement either.

Why join? Iceland is already covered by the same acts for all intents and purposes through the EFTA and the EEA-agreement between EFTA and the EU.

The browser election update from Microsoft is even called the European Economic Area (EEA) update :)

As a Norwegian I think of Iceland as family, and we would rather help Iceland in any way we can than see it fall to the EU. Like my own nation your country was only recently freed from a neighboring colonial power, stay independent, Iceland, stay free.

In fact I can go further and inform you that Swiss law is the only real issue here.

Switzerland did not enter into the EEA-agreement and only has bilateral agreements with the EU on trade etc.

All EU related law is processed by the EFTA Court (not the EU equivalent).

The Schengen agreement only relates to travel.

See more at http://www.efta.int/

Look again. They (Norway) are only bound by some of them and more importantly, they only have to make laws resembling the EU's. They don't have to adopt EU laws

I never wrote that - I wrote that "Norway was bound by EU rules and regulations". The implication is that they have to pass laws that implements the said regulations.

They are in no way required to impose the energy tax like the one the EU did in 2003 nor do they have to impose all of the laws. But more importantly, the energy tax was an environmental move not a EEA action to which norway would be obligated to.

In fact both the environment and energy are covered by the agreement. See chapter 3 and chapter 4, article 24 of the EEA agreement. If you take a look at page 9 of annex 4 in the agreement, you will see that the 2003 EU directive is actually explicitly mentioned and in force.

First, the DOE report did include taxes.

Yes - I was actually contradicting myself there. As for the rest of your argument - line charges are not regulation.

No, Switzerland is a member of EFTA, the European Free Trade Association. Switzerland is also the only member of EFTA that is not a party to the EEA (European Economic Area), which it is usually called, not EEC. EEC stands for European Economic Community, which is now EC, the European Community. (The name was altered by the Maastricht treaty establishing the European Union.)

The EFTA members which are parties to the EEA are Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein. Sweden, Finland and Austria were previoulsy members of EFTA before joining the EU in 1995.

The Norwegian "green paper" on the implementation of the EUCD/Infosoc is available online, as a PDF file, but it is in Norwegian. This is just draft-draft legislation, asking for the opinion of various affected parties (a "hearing"). The final draft has yet to been issued. Norway has not yet implemeneted the EUCD in its copyright act.

The decision-making process leading up to the passing of the directive 2001/29/EC (EUCD) can be found at PreLex.

The status of the passing of the EUCD in various nations can be tracked.

An appeal to the Supreme Court is possible on legal grounds (i.e. wrongful interpretation of the penal code) and faulty legal proceedings, however, the acquital stands unless the case is remanded and a whole new trial takes place.

No, Switzerland is a member of EFTA, the European Free Trade Association. Switzerland is also the only member of EFTA that is not a party to the EEA (European Economic Area), which it is usually called, not EEC. EEC stands for European Economic Community, which is now EC, the European Community. (The name was altered by the Maastricht treaty establishing the European Union.)

The EFTA members which are parties to the EEA are Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein. Sweden, Finland and Austria were previoulsy members of EFTA before joining the EU in 1995.

The Norwegian "green paper" on the implementation of the EUCD/Infosoc is available online, as a PDF file, but it is in Norwegian. This is just draft-draft legislation, asking for the opinion of various affected parties (a "hearing"). The final draft has yet to been issued. Norway has not yet implemeneted the EUCD in its copyright act.

The decision-making process leading up to the passing of the directive 2001/29/EC (EUCD) can be found at PreLex.

The status of the passing of the EUCD in various nations can be tracked.

An appeal to the Supreme Court is possible on legal grounds (i.e. wrongful interpretation of the penal code) and faulty legal proceedings, however, the acquital stands unless the case is remanded and a whole new trial takes place.

Brief pedant point;
It doesn't really affect your argument in any way, but there's one fact wrong in your post - Norway isn't actually a member of the EU (It is, however, a member of Europe's 'other trading bloc', EFTA).

luckily the error doesn't change the territorial bugbear it illustrated.

The bugbear is the same. That is, how the (non)exhaustion of rights at first sale and commercial import interact.

I am not fond of community exhaustion, as set forth in the EUCD. It sounds too much like creating a 'Festung Europa' for copyrighted works.

in about '94/'95 my boss at the time ordered laserdiscs from the US. They were stopped at the border because the discs hadn't come through the official release channels and weren't officially available in NZ.

That sounds like an example of parallel import laws.

can you tell us if the EU 'fair terms for consumers' directive applies in Norway?

The directive is 93/13/EEC

According to the EFTA Surveillance Authority database, this directive is implemented in Norway.

If the case against Jon Johansen initially stems from the resctrictment that the user used only autorised playback equipmen is it "reasonable" to claim a consumer is prohibited playing a legally purchased dvd on a linux box ?

_I_ would say that it is unreasonable. :)

Please note that the Økokrim indictment does not claim that a customer is contractually bound to only play DVDs on 'authorised' players. It claims that the DVDs were sold with the expectation that they would only be played on 'authorised' players.

I don't know what Økokrim is thinking, and to me it seems like they have an extremely weak case. After all - there is no contract. Once you buy a DVD record you should only be bound by copyright law regarding what you can or can't do with the content of that DVD.

A judge might not agree, though, and that scares me.

What would be your advice to his legal team?

Focus on two questions:

- The question of legitimate/illegitmate access. If you own a DVD, why would you not have legitimate access to the content?

- Ask the MPAA to show why some DVD players are more equal than others. That is - why are only DVDCCA-licensed players authorised to access DVDs? Why and how is it possible that the 'right to access' is attached to the DVD player and not to the DVD record?