Slashdot Mirror
E.U. Commission Suggests Permissive Copyright Rule
An anonymous reader submits "ITworld.com is reporting: 'The European Commission on Thursday presented a draft directive that punishes copyright infringement for commercial purposes, but leaves the home music downloader untouched, infuriating the entertainment industry.'"
Because a lot of European states, including the UK, do not have any meaningful right of Fair Use for consumers.
In the UK it is illegal to make an MP3 of a CD you have bought in a shop. It is illegal to make a backup copy of that CD, so you can take the cheap backup with you on holiday rather than the expensive original.
If the EU and governments want to enforce the previous EU directive on Copyright, which imposes restrictions on breaking 'Technical Protection Measure' aka DRM, then to keep the system of copyright balanced they need to give consumers more rights to use stuff how they want.
"Free software as in beer, copy protection as in racket" - Telsa Gwynne
"There is also evidence that counterfeiting and piracy are becoming more and more linked to organised crime and terrorist activities because of the high profits and, so far, the relatively low risks of discovery and punishment," the Commission said in a statement.
-Kevin