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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)."
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.
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 I think this also includes MP3's, but the laws are hopelessly outdated.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.
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.