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First off, there is no law 1 and law 2. Its two sections of the same law. Second, the law is the Danish implementation of the EU Copyright Directive which mandates that subscriber countries implement it exactly as its been implemented, i.e. circumvention is illegal EVEN THOUGH it makes some other rights unexercisable. No Danish judge is going to repeal that. Finally, civil disobedience and testing a law are two different things. Civil disobedience can be used to force a test of a law, or to call attention to an unjust law. The latter is what is happening here, but there are any number of asshats here on Slashdot that seem to be implying that because the laws seem to conflict, one of them is going to get struck down. I'm just saying thats not the case. The only thing this guy is doing is making a spectacle of himself, a fine Danish tradition since the time of Hamlet.

Look, if it makes this easier to understand, consider a city ordnance that forbade publishing anything about the mayor of that city within city limits. Would the local newspapers be bound by that ordnance and punishable for breaking it, or would the First Amendment overrule it? Those are two different bodies of law. This issue is over two sections in the same goddamn law.

But no law may completely infringe upon a right totally.

Yes it can.

Else there is no right.

So?

In point of fact, the article only cites a single law as the point of contention. It says

12.-(1) Anyone is entitled to make or have made, for private purposes, single copies of works which have been made public if this is not done for commercial purposes. Such copies must not be used for any other purpose.

Which is a specific exemption to copyright law as a whole. It means you can use your own xerox machine to make a copy of a book you own if its for your own private use.

75 c. It is not permitted without the consent of the rightholder to make circumvention of effective technological measures

Means its illegal to circumvent copy protection.

The first part protects you from being prosecuted for violating copyright if you make a copy. It doesn't protect you from prosecution for circumventing copy protection.

So your point about exemptions being very specific is valid. The problem is that the issue here is one specific exemption (for private use) and one specific prohibition (circumventing copy protection) in a larger body of law. As I said before, the exemption doesn't override the prohibition. It just means you're only prosecutable under one section of the law instead of two.

Actually Denmark "crossed" the line some years ago, when the cultural department of the goverment in an official statement allowed the protection on any media to be circumvented so the content could be used, in particular systems (OSes) which didn't have any "legal" players (BSD, Linux etc.). That is, you are free to enjoy the content you bought in any way you please, as long as it didn't break any copyrights. And even returning/exchanging a media that can't be played if the protection on it prevented it from being used. One place to look is here http://www.kum.dk/sw5335.asp (Danish only, sorry).

From 1st January 2007 every household in Denmark that has a PC and an Internet connection will have to pay a "media license" of DKK 2090 (EUR 280) annually, even if you don't use your Internet connection to watch TV streams from DR (the national Danish TV station).

The FAQ (in Danish) is here.

It sucks.

well, it might be illegal in your country. My Danish government (and neighbour-countries) allow DeCSS, because of unfair treatment to Linux or other OSes.

This is not something I made up. I went into my government homepage on Digital Rights, and it clearly states: "You are allowed: to break codes and encryption of a DVD-movie, a music-cd or netradio in that extend, that it is necessary to see the movie or listen to the music in private. It is for example not illegal, that if you break the encryption on a DVD, if it is necessary to play the DVD on your private PC by help of an Linux Operating System". (Excuse me for the bad translation ;)

"The provision of subsection (1) does not provide the right to ... make single copies in digital form of other works than computer programs and databases unless this is done exclusively for the personal use of the copying person himself or his household."

I can see that things are very different around here. For one thing, kids have formal power from the time they begin at school. From about age 12, kids elect representatives among themselves to represent them in the School Board. In some schools, these representatives may be ignored, in which case they may have a hard time being heard the way they are entitled to, but in my school, when I was in the pupils council in 7. grade, they sure listened to us.

Secondly, censorware doesn't have a good name around here. Especially in Denmark, they have a few highly clued people in high positions. Recently, the Danish Minister of Culture said she would consider a ban on censorware in public libraries! What happened is that one small public library put up censorware on their computers "to protect the children". Both the largest associations of librarians in Denmark oppose this, and the minister said she hopes the librarians will sort it out themselves, but also that she felt that the filters threatened free expression, she would interfere. She also was also cited saying that people seeking legitimate sex education would be hindered by the filters as one particular concern.... I have a link to the story in Norwegian newspaper, in Norwegian.

First, I would go to my parents and voice my concern to some of my best teachers first. For one thing, the Univerals Declaration of Human Rights states in Article 26 that parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children. Thus, the school should be careful about restricting you internet access more than what your parents say. If you find some good teachers who agree with you, preparing an argument as to why censorware is bad and illegal, is a really good school project, especially if you're preparing a lawsuit! :-) It would take an understanding of relevant laws that are beyond the curriculum, for sure...

However, I don't think a lawsuit would be your best primary move, I'd say first go for your school to drop it. Now, if you had the formal power we have, you would have a nice paved road to follow, but since you don't, I guess there are other people's advice here will be useful than mine.

Around here, I think the best way to kill censorware as a commercial product is to refer to fair trade practices regulations. It sounds to me like you don't have the same regulations like we do. For one thing, if someone advertises their product saying "our product protects your children from seeing pr0n", they would have to prove it. Of course, the censorware of today is pure snake oil, and all you would have to do is a short demonstration of that fact, and they're out. I think it would make a hell of a lawsuit here, I would consider it just for the fun of it.... :-)

Since you don't have a paved road in this case either, would have to work hard to get someone in power to understand that censorware is snake oil, and that it is not only that current block lists are poor, it's that any AI based software just can't work, it will remain snake oil for all foreseeable future. If you are able to get them to understand that, I think you've come a long way.

It's good that you're going to take up a fight! There are probably many who are suffering from these filters but who are not as intelligent, enlightened and resourceful as you, and who are not able to take up the fight. So go get 'em! :-)