Germany's Version of DMCA/DRM

ribbiting writes "Germany has prepared the first draft of legislation (in German) to implement the provisions of the EU version of the DMCA/DRM. Aside from the well-known issues, this draft specifically requires that private copies also require some form of payment to GEMA, the German version of RIAA, regardless if the copying process is using digital or analog technology. DRM technologies are explicitly protected/encouraged by this legislation. The law also "clarifies" that people do NOT have a legal right to fair use, ie making copies for their own use. Pre-payments of royalties are required by levying taxes on media (how about paper?!?) and any device that could be used for copying (HP is in a major legal battle with GEMA about royalties on CD-burners). The article does not state if/how individuals are to pay GEMA for the actual copies they make." Google's translation is useful if your German is a little rusty.

Comments

How bad this will get...

[mirabilos]

I fear more and more Americanism get imported to
Germany. If this gets through, rights that were
deeply ingrained into our behaviour change, and
no one will be able to see what's next...

I found that Symlink (http://www.symlink.ch/) has
an article of a member of the German Party SPD
covering this very topic. See there if you understand
German, the article is from this week - dunno
exactly.
Symlink is quite a nice Slashdot on German.

Re:How to explain this to unknowing people

[Machuidel]

I'm working on a website about this
issue, easy for everyone to understand ;)

I hoped this article to make it on the
frontpage, but there are only 10
comments currently.

You can mail me at machuidel@NOSPAMyahoo.com
without the NOSPAM of course :)