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If that is even half true, that's just tyrannical.

The English translation of the law is here, and is a whopping 12 pages of sparse text, so no need to keep guessing.

But why didn't the summary just link to it in the first place?

That means even a church in Finland doing disaster relief cannot call together a congregational meeting and ask for funds without getting a "by your leave, sire" from a bunch of police bureaucrats.

That seems to be beyond the scope of the law according to Section 2. Also, the possible reasons for rejection are enumerated in Section 13, so it's not really in the power of a bureaucrat, who's role is limited to checking that the legal conditions are met.

It is not just a matter of needing permit, though, as the are strict requirements to obtain it. Namely, the permit receiver has to be a corporation or a foundation that has a strictly non-profit purpose ("yleishyödyllisyys", general benefit to society) and is registered in Finland (plus some other things). While Wikimedia Foundation probably satisfies the former requirement, it is not registered in Finland.

The reason Wikipedia is singled out despite not being a Finnish organization is because the donation page is in Finnish and is thus considered targeting Finnish people.
Money Collection Act (translation by Ministry of the Interior). (yes, it is mostly a non-sensical out-of-date law)

This law has previously caused issues for crowdfunding campaigns, which have difficulties on satisfying the ~non-profit/"yleishyödyllisyys" requirement or the non-compensation (the donator should not get anything in return) requirement. And it of course prevents private people from e.g. having Donate buttons without violating the law.

It is true.

Actually, AFAIK (and according to googling) churches in Finland can't even get the permit as they don't satisfy the "yleishyödyllisyys" (general benefit for society) requirement to get the permit. They co-operate with separate associations/foundations exist for that purpose, though, e.g. Finn Church Aid.

There is a change to the law being planned that would allow churches and universities to conduct fundraisers, but no big overhaul that would actually be needed for the out-of-date law...

Unofficial English translation of the current Money Collection Act by the Ministry of the Interior]

Getting a permit requires a corporation or association registered in Finland, so they actually can't give the permit to Wikimedia Foundation even if they applied for one. The permit is also not given to private individuals, so you can't e.g. have a Paypal donate button without violating the law.

Here's the Finnish constitution, translated into English. I haven't read it all, but it doesn't seem to say a lot about freedom of speech other than in the context of the parliament.

Section 12 - Freedom of expression and right of access to information
Everyone has the freedom of expression. Freedom of expression entails the right to express, disseminate and receive
information, opinions and other communications without prior prevention by anyone. More detailed provisions on
the exercise of the freedom of expression are laid down by an Act. Provisions on restrictions relating to pictorial
programmes that are necessary for the protection of children may be laid down by an Act.
Documents and recordings in the possession of the authorities are public, unless their publication has for compelling
reasons been specifically restricted by an Act. Everyone has the right of access to public documents and recordings.

Here's the Finnish constitution, translated into English. I haven't read it all, but it doesn't seem to say a lot about freedom of speech other than in the context of the parliament.

(There is also no legal requirement to provide such Finnish-on-Finnish transcription service, so the availability of such special-needs subtitles is pretty much limited to some select shows produced by YLE, the local public broadcaster.)

Actually, there is, but it only affects YLE. They have to provide hearing-impaired subtitles to 60% of their Finnish and Swedish programming, and the required percentage grows by 10 percentage points each year until 100% of Finnish and Swedish programs need to subtitled in 2016.

Source: Law (Valtioneuvoston asetus televisio-ohjelmiin liitettävästä ääni- ja tekstityspalvelusta)

I would guess you live somewhere libel laws are quite strict. The kind of country who would rather have censorship than gossip.

Not really. To be actionable in Finland, a libel or other form of defamation must be known to be false by the person making it in addition to being injurious to its target. Forget megabuck settlements also, as Finnish courts tend to award actual damages (without any wild-eyed interpretation of "actual") rather than exemplary or punitive amounts.

It's far more likely that either (i) some of the content at www.nationalenquirer.com is licensed by its providers only for the US and maybe Canada and some other English-speaking countries, or (ii) Finland is just in a blanket exclusion due to incompetence by the web site developers.

BTW, there are decent translations into English of the primary laws of Finland, but secondary laws (i.e. regulations set by government agencies), case law, and bills of parliament are only in Finnish and Swedish at FinLex. Regulations are sometimes translated by the relevant authority, and are often set quite sensibly - even reasonably - such as for private copying of all copyright materials published in Finland.

There are several reasons why "free speech" is important. One of the primary ones is that it allows people to criticize the society/government/etc. which is very important part of the democratic system. Another common one is that it is a human right to freely express yourself (creating whatever type of art, shouting out your sexual identity, whatever) without being restricted by laws. Actually, in most of Europe the constitutions are based on these two concepts. For example, finnish constitution states that you have (among other things): Freedom of religion and conscience (Section 11), Freedom of expression and the right of access to information (Section 12), Freedom of assembly and freedom of assosciation (Section 13) and so on.

Now... Free speech means that people who disagree with you also have free speech. Think that Hitler was a great fellow? Go ahead, blog about that. I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. If you really think that way, nobody should have the right to jail you for your opinions (or for expressing them).

But if you want to go to a funeral of someone you don't even know and shout obscenities simply because you enjoy causing sorrow to other people? With no other motivation (Such as political reasons for protesting outside a public figure's funeral) involved? I am more than happy to let the cops drag you away. I do not think that there is any reason why such activities should have constitutional protection (and on this side of the ocean, they don't). Now, there is always gray area: You think that it is art to mess with the feelings of other people? Well, in those cases I would be fine with everything from stating "Well... Fine, them." to declaring that as a crime against humanity. But in a case like this, there really wasn't any excuse.

Ok maybe I'm missinformed, but here is the finnish law, and it includes wireless networking, including the mobile network.

law in finnish: http://www.finlex.fi/fi/laki/ajantasa/2003/20030393
law in swedish:
http://www.finlex.fi/sv/laki/ajantasa/2003/20030393

Basically the law says if ur a major telekomunication company your forced to rent your bandwidth.
If your a small local company, this law will not apply.

Ok maybe I'm missinformed, but here is the finnish law, and it includes wireless networking, including the mobile network.

law in finnish: http://www.finlex.fi/fi/laki/ajantasa/2003/20030393
law in swedish:
http://www.finlex.fi/sv/laki/ajantasa/2003/20030393

Basically the law says if ur a major telekomunication company your forced to rent your bandwidth.
If your a small local company, this law will not apply.

That doesn't fly. The law permits only the censorship of foreign sites. It's unlawful to censor local sites. The police has exceeded its rights.

It's not so much about the police, as they only have the right to make the list as a reflection of the EU and other contractual responsibilities. The telecoms have the responsibility here. There are using the police provided secret document to preventing access to the sites and they are responsible for keeping the police provided List (obligatory South Park reference) secret. The law, that is the http://www.finlex.fi/fi/laki/ajantasa/2006/20061068?search%5Btype%5D=pika&search%5Bpika%5D=lapsipornografian%20esto*, apparently gives the right to the telecoms to prevent access or reduce the possibility of access to the relevant sites. The law also talks about preventive measures in general and not particularly about the list in its first section.
  The question might be raised whether a telecommunications company have a right to prevent access to a third party site for which the information is not obtained directly from the police provided list. The answer comes from the ambiguous law about the secrecy of the official documents and the data within them. The law references to the official document and the data in an interchangeable way, making it possible to demand from the telecoms in the above referenced law secrecy about the data within the police provided list. That's actually somewhat scary. I guess the general public has the right for independent research to construct a list of prevented sites but if the research is posted on the servers or is available to the public through the network of the service provider, the provider once again has the right (not responsibility) to prevent access to the list by the law. The law was probably written very hastily in response to the EU and the Council of Europe requirements, most likely.

But well... I don't know the Swedish law about the subject but I know Finnish law and more often than not, our law is quite similar to our western neighbour's.

Our copyright regulations (in Finnish) specifically excerpt libraries (and a few other sources) from the laws.

I am not allowed to collect tax from my neighbours but my government is. Similarly saying that "if libraries can do something, I should be allowed to" doesn't work.

The Finnish law concerning building, use and allocation of village's land (Rakennuskaari) dates back to 1734 (happy 274th!) and King Frederik I. It has outlived both Swedish and Russian rule and is still in use.

Finland most certainly does have product liability and tort damages, and claims are not limited to 100% refund of purchase price.

Yes, in case a commercial product causes unexpected damage. Warranty (the thing doesn't work as promised) is limited to refund.

Liability does extend to free products. See e.g., http://www.finlex.fi/fi/laki/kaannokset/1990/en19900694.pdf.

Yes, but that only applies to businesses (section 7 (1)). Most or at least not all free software is not business.

Where Finland does differ from many other countries is that product liability cannot be disclaimed. At all.

Yes. It would be interesting to know which countries have what kind of rules here. In general Finland follows EU in this kind of things, but in some areas Finland (along with other Scandinavian countries) have been ahead, in particular in consumer rights.

This whole business of disclaimers is more or less entirely US invention, as far as I know.

It is not. Unfortunately, due to billing issues, I do not subscribe to international databases through Westlaw and cannot quickly or cheaply produce a list of cases. However, given that the law of contract in virtually all UN member states is such that terminology is presumed legal, here are a few from a cursory Google search:

England: http://www.solartronanalytical.com/legal/disclaimers.htm Finland: http://europe.nokia.com/A4164022

At least that Nokia EULA is for foreign consumption (mostly American, I suspect). In Finland it's mostly irrelevant (and if it were only readable after download, it would be entirely unenforceable). An interesting observation: I've never seen anything like that in Finnish, except where it's been directly translated from English.

I would be interested to see any Finnish law that specifies that an agreement with a warranty disclaimer, operative as specified under the laws of Finland, is not enforceable.

That sounds selfcontradictory. Finnish law does not talk about warranty disclaimers, but Consumer Protection Act, 38/1978, which in effect provides implicit warranty, states that "A contract term differing from the provisions of this chapter to the detriment of the buyer shall be void unless otherwise provided below." In a few cases defaults can be changed to seller's benefit, but even then only with a valid contract. And there have been court decisions declaring in-the-box contracts invalid.

Surely Nokia has been sued over a warranty claim; this issue would no doubt arise, and I have never heard of a Finnish citizen suing Nokia over a warranty claim such that the warranty disclaimer was held to be invalid.

I don't think Nokia or anyone else in Finland for that matter has ever even tried to use a warranty disclaimer in court. Indeed warranties generally only come to court when the interpretation of provisions that go beyond what Consumer Protection Act provides, which is rather rare nowadays. In general the law is enough, warranty statements are irrelevant.

excludes acts "done privately and for purposes which are not commercial

This covers private AND noncommercial. It does not specify that noncommercial use alone is non-infringing, particularly in light of the fact that "commercial" is broadly construed.

Could be. English patent law is notoriously most "US-like" in Europe. But even it provides such a limitation (even if limited), so your claim there are no such limitations is incorrect.

In Finland, accepting your translation, such a section would be enforceable

I vaguely r

I do not have time at the moment to address these comments fully, but I will make some initial responses.

Nor am I generally liable for what others' do with my product

Again, you are talking of a different situation entirely. Finland most certainly does have product liability and tort damages, and claims are not limited to 100% refund of purchase price. Liability does extend to free products. See e.g., http://www.finlex.fi/fi/laki/kaannokset/1990/en19900694.pdf.

Where Finland does differ from many other countries is that product liability cannot be disclaimed. At all. Thus that provision of the GPL is unenforceable, and in turn engages another miscellaneous provision: the litigation section. It specifies interpretation in the event of countervailing local law.

This whole business of disclaimers is more or less entirely US invention, as far as I know.

It is not. Unfortunately, due to billing issues, I do not subscribe to international databases through Westlaw and cannot quickly or cheaply produce a list of cases. However, given that the law of contract in virtually all UN member states is such that terminology is presumed legal, here are a few from a cursory Google search:

England: http://www.solartronanalytical.com/legal/disclaimers.htm
Finland: http://europe.nokia.com/A4164022

I would be interested to see any Finnish law that specifies that an agreement with a warranty disclaimer, operative as specified under the laws of Finland, is not enforceable. Surely Nokia has been sued over a warranty claim; this issue would no doubt arise, and I have never heard of a Finnish citizen suing Nokia over a warranty claim such that the warranty disclaimer was held to be invalid.

excludes acts "done privately and for purposes which are not commercial

This covers private AND noncommercial. It does not specify that noncommercial use alone is non-infringing, particularly in light of the fact that "commercial" is broadly construed.

In Finland, accepting your translation, such a section would be enforceable, but mooted by the offering of what appears to be a statutory license for private use.

The overall issue remains that there are conflicting laws in some of the places that GPL software is used. None of those places flatly prohibits the wide range of disclaimers, limits, notices, and limitations as a whole. The fact also remains that the GPL, should it wish to have a distribution license, should have one as a separate entity, apart from those terms which are effective and binding at acquisition. Rights of reproduction, modification, and distribution change the character of the entire instrument from a notice to a license agreement. One simply cannot create a document with binding notices and the licensure of protected rights, along with restrictions on their use, that is presented to everyone, and subsequently specify that it may be ignored.

They may feel free to distribute their work with a simple copyright notice, which would indeed permit use in any way not inconsistent with copyright law. But they cannot add any non-notice, non-scope restrictions without becoming a license agreement, regardless of whether the rights being conveyed are done by statutory license or by express license. All recipients of GPL software receive the rights to use, modify, reproduce, and distribute. All recipients are bound to honor the various restrictions and conditions of exercising said set of rights. That there is no restriction on use simply signifies a nonexistent burden, not that the remaining 99% of the text may be ignored.

If they wish to make a distinction, then they should make a separate grant.

Product warranties aren't statutory, and what statutory rights may be waived by contract depends on the statute and on established rules of jurisprudence.

Right. Here the established jurisprudence is that nothing can be waived by one-sided disclaimers. Nor am I generally liable for what others' do with my product, only in cases explicitly defined in law (the notion of common law doesn't exist here), and those can not be disclaimed.

This whole business of disclaimers is more or less entirely US invention, as far as I know. But please, educate me, and point out even one court case outside North America where such a disclaimer has had any effect or even been considered relevant. (I am sure there aren't any in Finland, I'll be very surprised if you find one in continental Europe, and mildly surprised if you find one even in the UK, or anywhere in Asia or Africa. Some Latin American countries are more likely to have followed USA here.) Disclaimers in actual contracts are another matter, of course - but no contract can be formed by one-sided declaration within a product (again, counterexamples of court cases outside USA would be welcome).

A minor point on warranties is that here they're limited by 100% refund and thus don't apply to free stuff at all. (The notion of punitive damages is also unknown, awards are limited to actual demostrable damages.)

A patent is an exclusive right to make and use, period. There is no limitation on commercial exploitation.

That is not true. You are correct that there is significant variation between countries here, also within Europe, but all I know of exclude non-commercial use one way or another. Two examples:

Finnish Patent law, para 1, defines patent as "exclusive right to professional exploitation" of an invention (my translation, original at http://www.finlex.fi/fi/laki/ajantasa/1967/19670550).

UK Patent Act of 1977, 60.-(5) (a), excludes acts "done privately and for purposes which are not commercial" (http://www.ipo.gov.uk/patentsact1977.pdf).

If you can name any European patent law which does not have a similar limitation, please do so. (Non-European ones, apart from US, would also be of interest.)

You're right... but then the court either smokes too much crack, is populated by demented baby boomers, disagrees with the law or all of the above (if I understand Valimaki's post correctly).

I think it's this one: http://www.finlex.fi/fi/oikeus/kko/kko/2003/20030088 (I don't have time to verify it, though).

A commentary on the case: Ostajalla oikeus myydä ostamansa tietokoneohjelman kappale edelleen — KKO:n ratkaisu levittämisoikeuden raukeamisesta (Rough translation: "Buyer has right to resell the copy of a program he has bought - Supreme Court decision on the ending of distribution right").

All the companies involved were: Adobe Systems Incorporated, Autodesk Incorporated, Borland International Incorporated, Lotus Development Corporation, Microsoft Corporation, Novell Incorporated and Symantec Corporation.

There is also another route.

Police blocking page gives link to law: http://www.finlex.fi/fi/laki/ajantasa/2006/20061068

In here there is link to "Valtiopäiväasiat": http://www.eduskunta.fi/valtiopaivaasiat/he+99/2006

And as an anecdote, i'm on university network and nothing seems blocked (yet, anyway).

FUNET (Finnish University and Research Network) does not do censoring.

And DNS based censoring is not even possible on that case, because every university uses own DNS. ( So censoring may require proxy based approach, which is more expensive. )

Universities can not do that censoring. They do not get that censorship/filter list from police (law gives special permission police to deliver that censorship/filter list to ISPs only.)

I live in Finland. I got a personal identity number ( unofficial translation ) when I was born. So does everyone else within hours of their birth. ( All the hospitals that have maternity wards are wired to the Population register centre. )

If I fly, I need to identify myself, and all the proper ids have the number.
If I leave the country, I will naturally have to identify myself to get through the border ( to outside EU that is. ) The same applies to entering the country.
I need to identify myself to vote. How else could the election official be sure that I am me? We, however, do not need to _register_ to vote.
If I buy gas for over 50 euros, the clerk will want to know my number to be sure I am me and he/she check it from an ID-card.
Yes, every legal Finnish citizen has a personal identity number. What's the big deal over that? How else could the state be sure that you are you, and for example are getting the right benefits.

If police suspects me of a crime, I am a witness etc. I of course need to identify myself to the police. What possible right would that violate.

We, however, also have for example Personal Data Act ( English translation here that ensures our

IDs per se are not bad. In fact they can help a lot. ( I really would not want my bank to identify me by my name alone, or that I know my home address.) It is the way ids are used.

As a sidenote, when you start to change what you are because someone else threatens you, that someone has already won.

Maybe it's not a right where you live. Move elsewhere if you want that right or influence your government through the standard means to get it where you live now. For example the Finnish constitution states in chapter 2, section 19 ("The right to social security"): "The public authorities shall guarantee for everyone, as provided in more detail by an Act, adequate social, health and medical services and promote the health of the population."

The sad part in what I have seen of countries like U.S. with their money-first policies is not that they just stare at the money, it's that they fail to realize that there's more money to be made by keeping your citizens healthy. Ill and dying people can't work so they need wellfare money from the state (or, in the best/worst case, they just die), people who are healthy and motivated go to work, and pay the state their income taxes. I know that in the U.S. there's also that silly "the federal government won't do federal healthcare because we don't do federal healthcare" thing, but that's, in my opinion, bullshit. Taking care of your sick and poor makes sense from both humanitarian and monetary viewpoint.

"Tehokkaalla teknisellä toimenpiteellä tarkoitetaan tekniikkaa, laitetta tai osaa, joka on suunniteltu tavanomaisessa käyttötarkoituksessa estämään tai rajoittamaan teoksiin ilman tekijän tai oikeuksien muun haltijan lupaa kohdistuvia tekoja ja jolla tavoiteltu suoja saavutetaan."

An "effective" technical measure refers to a technology, device or component that has been designed to block or restrict actions without the permission of the copyright holder, and which do accomplish the intended protection.

I am not a lawyer, but I have read the applicable law reasonably carefully, and I'm familiar with the cases mentioned here.

Redistributing the Flash player is less a patent problem than side effects of a restrictive licence. For example, openSUSE goes out of its way to install browsers compatible with its bundled Flash player; Novell apparently has a deal with Adobe to allow redistribution of acroread and flash-player. Debian seems to circumvent this problem by having the package installer download Flash straight from Adobe. Nice and legal either way (assuming Adobe isn't violating a patent somewhere or something like that, which I doubt).

libdvdcss2 is trickier. Using Finland as an example of an EU country (applicable law), the situation seems to be that you are allowed to circumvent CSS to watch a movie, but I'm not lawyer enough to tell whether CSS qualifies for legal protection (that depends on whether it's an effective copy protection mechanism, I think) and whether the law requiring the copyright holder/distributor to provide a circumvention device, if necessary, is applicable. You'd also be very hard pushed to argue substantial non-circumventing use, making redistribution quite risky. In conclusion, I think libdvdcss2 users in Finland are safe, but redistributors may have a harder time. Other EU countries should be similar, as most of this legislation originates with the EU.

The win32 binary codecs are, in part at least, straightforward copyright infringment (unlicensed derivative works), but haven't been subject to any legal action I've heard of. Some of the codecs developed from scratch (e.g. some MPEG variants) seem to need patent licences in some areas; this is the primary cause of problems with MP3 (openSUSE circumvents this by using Real's Helix engine for MP3 decoding, which is licensed).

In conclusion, the situation is a mess and if you want to be safe, stick to what the major corps tell you is OK. If it isn't, they take the heat.

Actually, cracking a program you've acquired legally for personal use is (as far as I can tell by reading the copyright law, paragraph 25 j) explicitly permitted by law in Finland, and I've never heard of a EULA sticking in court (especially if the hypothetical cat or whatever clicks "I accept" in the installer instead of the user); clicking a button in a program you've already paid for in order to use it in response to an illegible tirade in a foreign language is hardly a binding contract. I believe several other European countries have similar laws.

Seriously, making it harder for legitimate users to use the software they've paid for is just plain silly, and I'm surprised that US law actually gives these "copy protection measures" legal protection.

Several nations have indeed set special laws governing the use of the emblem and if they've signed the Geneva Convention, this falls under it. In Finnish law, you face fines or up to 6 months of jail for misuse.

Then again, as some western administrations have recently demonstrated, why should the Geneva convention apply to them, even if they've signed. Torture is ok if you don't call it torture, misuse of the Red Cross emblem is really just trademark dispute, and so on....

J