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Denmark Poised to Legalize Music Sharing
Cryogenes writes: "Denmark's minister of culture is pushing a law that will legalize private music sharing. This is a logical step for a small country that has no music exports anyway: by weakening copyright they are making their citizens richer without losing revenue. And what with Denmark being an EU member, nobody will dare call them a rogue state or something. Further information on infoanarchy and on Politiken (in danish)."
DENMARK: What happen???
MINISTER OF JUSTICE: Someone set up us the lawsuit.
MINISTER OF STATE: Main screen turn on.
DENMARK: It's you!!!
RIAA: How are you, Denmark?
All your tunes are belong to us.
You are on the way to embargo.
DENMARK: What you say?!!
RIAA: You have no chance negotiate make your settlement.
DENMARK: Move 'EU'. You know what you doing. For great MP3z!!
--
"How many six year olds does it take to design software?"
dinner: it's what's for beer
The post says they will compensate copyright holders with a 60 cent CD-R tax.
How well would that go over in the US?
Imagine RIAA members getting 60 cents everytime you backed up your por^H^H^H hard drive.
Know what I like about atheists? I've yet to meet one that believes God is on their side.
...Big Swedish music exports include Abba, Ace of Base, Roxette...
...and as a result, Sweden is now classified as an exporter of weapons of mass destruction.
;)
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
What about Aqua? It says "music" ;-)
Cheers,
Tim (ducking and running...)
It's official. Most of you are morons.
Actually, there are those of us here in the UK who don't think that it's a very good idea at all, given the dangers of it starting another arms race.
After all, if you had been relying on your nukes to keep you "safe" in a "they'll never attack, it would be suicide" sort of way, then someone deployed a system to neutralise that "safety", wouldn't you try to reestablish the balance?
Still, this is a discussion for another time, methinks - we don't want to go to far Offtopic, do we?
Cheers,
Tim
It's official. Most of you are morons.
Hi
;)
Being Danish, I feel I must make a few comments here.
Currently, it's illegal to make a personal copy of a CD. Say, one for the car and one for the living room. I think this also includes MP3's, but the laws are hopelessly outdated. (Actually, it's illegal to make exact digital copies. If you run your CD through a Digital-to-Analog-to-Digital converter, you should technically be OK.)
The new law (in the making) suggests that it should be legal to make digital copies for personal use. Second generation copies (copy-of-a-copy) should not be legal, as a mean to avoid music piracy.
The artists should be reimbursed with funds coming from a new CDR-tax, of appr. $0.50 pr. disc[1]. (Good thing I just stockpiled 100 80 min. Kodaks, heh.
Of course, we copy stuff as crazy, so I don't see this being of much practical importance.
On a somewhat related note, this is the country that just ruled that *linking* to MP3's is illegal. Yes, two kids, 16 at the time of the "crime", had been having a competition of who could collect the most MP3's from their homepages. They weren't storing them, just linking to them. Just got a bill for about $15.000. Freedom of speech, anyone?
Bo
[1] I find this somewhat fscked up, as not all CDR's are used to pirate data. Granted, in reality, that's probably the vast majority, but take my friend for instance. He runs a small side-business (linuxpusher.dk) selling homeburned Linux-distros. If the new law comes through, he's going to be sending ~$100 away in taxes each month, for something he doesn't have anything to do with.
ala Amsterdam, though instead of hanging out in coffee bars getting stoned, they'll hang out in cyber-cafe's trading MP3s.
And when you get back to the States, Customs will go over your laptop and CDs with a fine tooth comb.
depends on your definition of 'friend' I guess. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. the RIAA is my enemy. anyone who downloads music is RIAA's enemy. And damnit, the RIAA will never tell me who is, or isn't my friend :)
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
You can read the lawproposal online at Forslag til lov om ændring af ophavsretsloven., it will help you if you understand danish, because there are no translations.
A quote: Forslaget indebærer, at der kun gives adgang til kopiering af tekst, musik og billeder m.v. i digital form til personlig brug f.eks. med henblik på optagelse af radio- og tv-udsendelser til tidsforskudt brug, kopiering af en musik-cd til bilen, til sommerhuset eller til en walkman, kopiering til en opsamlings-cd og kopiering til en pc med henblik på elektronisk afvikling inden for husstanden. Derimod vil det ikke være tilladt at fremstille digitale eksemplarer, der bruges uden for den enkelte husstand, f.eks. kopiering til bekendte og skolekammerater. Det vil heller ikke være tilladt for køberen af et digitalt leveret musikværk at videresende musikværket via e-mail til venner og bekendte. Kopiering til personlig brug omfatter endvidere ikke kopiering som led i arbejde eller undervisning.
A rough translation: The proposal implies that it only will be allowed to make copies of text, music and pictures and so forth, in digital form for personal use, for example the recording of radio- and tv-broadcasts for timeshifting, copying af music-cd's for the car, holidayresidence or for a walkman, copying of sample-cd's for use in the household. It will not be allowed to make digital copies, that will be used outside of the individual household, f.ex. copying for friends and schoolmates. It will further not be allowed for the buyer of a digital musicproduct to give away copies to to friends or aqaintances via email. Further copying for personal use does not imply copying related to work or studies.
So I don't see how this can legalize Napster, it will only decriminalize the downloading, but the users are not allowed to share their collection with the work, and isn't that the purpose of Napster?But at least it will be legal to use a Browser in Denmark now, because the existing law prohibits all digital copying, and as you all know, a browser allways makes digital copies, one in the RAM-cache and one on the disk-cache. That was an oversight in the old law, and it was never uphold.
US while allowing China to pollute as much as it wants
Ohh the big evil China.. anything can be justified because of the Chinease - i seem to remember anything being justified becuase of the Russians at one point... americans are fucking sheep... get a clue - your media & government whip up a public hysteria about 'the enemy' anytime it wants to do something stupid - are you people that fucking dumb?
this has nothing to do with China or other polluters - it has to do with bush repaying the big companies who elected him buy not upsetting the status quo (for any reason - no matter how grave) just to protect their pocket books. They are allowed to rape and pillage the commons now - they make profit now - they like it this way.
Who are the twits who go along with the 'china is an economic adversary - we cannot let the chinese any advantage!" propaganda? Maybe you could petition the UN to ask China to *ALSO* join Kyoto. That would be a solution - not *DROPPING OUT* just to maintain your economic imperialism... fucking assholes.
America is a rogue state. It is not a Democracy but a Plutocracy. It should be expelled from all international bodies - the world should end trade, travel and co-operation with the USA until they democratically elect a government and remove the puppets with Big Corp. up their ass.