Slashdot Mirror
UK Prepares Own Version of the DMCA
philkerr writes "I've just been informed by the UK Patent Office, below, that the EUCD (European Union Copyright Directive, the equivalent EU legislation to the DMCA) consultation paper has been released. It's important that we give feedback to the UK government that this legislation will have a chilling effect on the software industry." NTK has a few choice words on the subject as well. We've done several articles on the EUCD before, and Alan Cox has been campaigning against it, but it appears that the fix is in: Europe is going to get DMCA-like laws implemented in each nation by the end of 2002.
This development is, IMHO, a very interesting follow-up to this posting about an article on the Register.
A hack is just an idiom waiting for wider use.
Could a European more familiar with EU laws comment on this?
http://saveie6.com/
The same European patent office employee who got his iterview pulled from /.
Overrated / Underrated : Moderation
all of those wankers who won't travel to the USA because of the DMCA are now screwed at home. Ha, well enjoy sunny China,Africa, or South America. It will be interesting to see them stick to their high and mightly morals and actually move.
It will be interesting to see them stick to their high and mightly morals and actually move.
;-) but it's currently overstaffed.
:-(
Your sarcasm is well put, and you're right.
Every time there's a 'crisis' or an 'injustice' of some sort in the UK, you end up with numerous celebrities and public figures bleating on about how they'll 'leave the country' if such-and-such happens.. AND THEY NEVER DO!
I remember that thousands of contractors were going to leave the country when IR35 came into force, and they didn't. If they did, there'd still be a contracting industry in the UK
Perhaps people WOULD change countries if it was an easy thing to do. I want to move to the USA, but you can bet sure as hell that they won't let me! I'm stuck in the UK till I get a degree, to the front of the visa queue, or come into $500k I can invest over there
mogorific carpentry experiments
Very interesting point. I'm not sure if that justifies not attempting to oppose the legislation though (but I doubt that's your intended point).
Actually, instead of 1984, I was thinking of "Atlas Shrugged" where the one washington scientist points out the Rearden that the laws which had been passed were not intended to be followed, but passed with the intention that people would not be able to continue unless they broke them, thus putting everyone in the power of those who pass and control the laws.
Who said Freedom was Fair?
For all you cynics out there that think you can't do anything to stop this:
1) The UK Patent Office undertook a consultation exercise into extending European patent law to cover software and business methods in the same way as in the US. They only had 285 responses - 241 individuals and 44 organisations. See their conclusions from the exercise. In particular:
"To extend patentability so that these developers have to divert time and effort into making sure they are not infringing patents, and seeking and enforcing them, would impose a major burden. The necessary case for believing that a significant extension of patentability would increase innovation in this field simply has not been made. In fact, as many respondents suggested, it could have the opposite effect."
They will have an influence on the European patent office. Other influences may prove stronger - the battle is not yet over.
2) A couple of months ago, the government in the UK was planning on making everyone's phone records (including mobile phone location data) and internet data (URLs visited and emails sent and received (header details, I think - not sure) available to many government departments, local councils and even private utility companies. There was a large outcry here. People were encouraged to fax and write to their MPs. What happened? The legislation was withdrawn, and the minister responsible, David Blunkett (a SENIOR government minister) even apologised about it.
Yes, these ARE different issues. But when a change in the law like this is being proposed, if you go about it in the correct manner you can have a (small) influence on what happens. If enough people get involved, you can have a major influence.
It goes even further than the US DMCA, in that it EXPLICITLY makes publishing information (not just code) for circumventing copy protection illegal. Guess without a 1st amendment, they didn't have to pussyfoot around.
You make a very important point, but I personally have not lost faith in pure democracy. Rather, I have lost faith in:
1) Our paticular democratic implementations. ( Which are NOT pure democracy, but rather a democratic republic. )
2) My countrymen. ( Most of whom still think that digital watches are a pretty neat idea. )
Also, it is my humble opinion that the larger a democratic country is, the more disgruntled it's population will be on the whole. This is because decisions can be made with only a fifty-one percent majority ( in most cases ). In smaller countries, this only leaves the potential for 49 people, or 49,000 people, etc, to not get thier way. In larger democracies, like ours, you have the potential for millions to be 'in the minority'. I don't believe that the opinions and beliefs of 101 million should supercede those of the other 99. If we were split into smaller countries, or more independant states ( 5 points to the American who can tell me where we've heard THAT before ) then each side will get what they want, without trampling over what millions of others want.
Of course, this will never happen, because we Americans ( I can't speak for Europe ) have become soft, fat, and lazy. As long as there's plenty of Hostess Snack Cakes in the cupboard, and something mind-numbingly violent is on the boob tube ( to keep us from thinking about how mind-numbingly useless our paticular cog in the machine is ), then we shant lift a finger.
Warning: This is not a flame, this is an opinion, which just so happens to be mine. This also isn't an entry for the national spelling bee. So unless your response is insightful or informative, kindly fornicate yourself with a sharp iron stick. ( This warning was meant for the public at large and is not directed at the parent of this post. )
Go Robo
Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.
That would be true in an ideal world. But before you really believe that, consider this:
So it's not the fault of the citizens that things are the way they are. They really don't have much of a choice: the large corporations have arranged things in order to ensure that.
It looks to me like there is no solution to this problem short of violent revolution. There is simply no way to get "there" (a government that listens and responds to the actual wants and needs of the people and not those of the corporations) from "here", because the system itself has feedback mechanisms (see above) in place that make such a direction impossible.
This is why a corporate-run police state is inevitable, at least in the U.S. It's why the average person in the U.S. today has (as far as I know) longer hours and less real vacation (a "vacation" in which you take your cellphone and laptop "just in case" the office calls is not a real vacation!) than anywhere else in the first world (people who work harder have less time to think about politics, so it's obviously in the best interests of the corporations both from the standpoint of overall profits and from a political standpoint to give the working people as little free time as possible).
Sorry for the rant, but we really are falling into a bottomless pit and it sure looks like there isn't a damned thing any of us can do to stop it.
Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
The thing that really scares me about the EUCD is the total lack of media coverage that this las has recevided here in Sweden. I don't know about the rest of Europe but here I've never seen it mentioned in any newspaper or on television. All information I have found about it has come from reading Slashdot and other independant online sources.
Somewhere in the heavens... they are waiting.