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DMCA, Auf Deutsch
Kavau continues: "The law does not directly prohibit the fabrication of private copies, but it offers the copyright holder the right to do just that. And we probably can expect the majority of copyright holders to make use of this right. The law simply takes away what US citizens would call the consumer's right to fair use. An exception is made for schools and research institutes, which may provide excerpts of copyrighted media to a group students or researchers.
One of the most important maxims of European law is "in dubio pro reo" (if in doubt, rule in favor of the defendant). While this principle applies to the judicature, and we are talking about the legislature here, the new law nevertheless seems to have perverted this principle: it treats every computer owner as a potential copyright pirate. Thank you, government, for the trust you are showing in your citizens! What's next? Special taxes on pen and paper? Note also that we are likely going to see similar laws in other European countries soon. The law follows guidelines imposed by the European Union in 2001."
The upper house (Bundesrat) in Germany is only 'allowed' to intervene under certain circumstances. Since only the FDP - who have around 7% of the vote - are against this, consider the Bundesrat to be a formality.
What this law represents is making a decision already passed at EU level a law valid in Germany, they did not have a lot of room to maneuvre.
Mielipiteet omiani - Opinions personal, facts suspect.
I dont know if these are dynamically created URL's, but here is a link to the Babelfish's translation - a bit ropey, but for those who dont read German at all, its a start :)
link
"Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in, get the hell off my property!!"
Well..
US is definately important and your trade-policy is currently aimed to secure markets to Disney and Microsoft, what ever it takes. In this sense it's very important what happens in the "new continent".
Never the less, EU is still independent and currently there are some indicators that the wind is really changing here to more reasonable direction. For example European Parliament (which nowadays has even some political power) has taken so far a VERY interesting stance on software patents:
ITRE
CULT
Anyway most of this laws are based on international treaties and unless the lobbying will start in WIPO and WTO, the fight is futile..
Ville
PS. We (European Digital Rights) are starting a campaign to minimize the damage coming from EUCD in Central and Eastern Europe. If you are from the region and want to actually do something, please contact me!
The German parliament which has just adopted DMCA-style provisions to outlaw the circumvention of technical protection measures that control and curtail the fair use of intellectual property (and only needs the other House's assent for part of the new legislation) makes Germany the third country, following Denmark and Greece, to implement the highly controversial "monstrosity" known as the European Union Copyright Directive 2001/29/EC.
This move, allegedly a "propaganda victory" dubbed "lex Bertelsmann" (after the giant media conglomerate expected to line their corporate pockets under the new laws) in furious disapproval by tech-savvy parts of the news media, makes Germany one of the early adopters setting an unfortunate precedent for further European countries like the UK and France whose citizens, and notably developers like Linux kernel guru Alan Cox, will probably not be spared from similar legislation for much longer either.
Although open-source researchers, cyber-rights activists and even the ruling Social Democrats' very own IT experts as well as hardware manufacturers underlined the severe dangers and inconsistencies of this new and doubtful philosophy extending copyright law to reduce many of the general public's rights to insignificance, in a debate focusing only on academic exemptions from the publishers' power grab, the opposition even tried to tighten the government's bill, ignoring widespread experiences of Chilling Effects such as censorship and assaults on the Freedom to Tinker during the past four years under the EUCD's U.S. counterpart of draconian "bad law and bad policy", the flawed Digital Millennium Copyright Act, another overreaching implementation of the
punished.
The draft text of the law states that circumvention for private use is not allowed, but cannot be punished. It also states that you have the right to make a private copy. It doesn't say you have the right to a private copy.
Private use means that you can give a copy to people you have immediate private contact, i.e. friends and family.
***Quis custodiet ipsos custodes***
http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/urltrurl? tt=url&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.spiegel.de%2Fnetzwelt% 2Fpolitik%2F0%2C1518%2C244345%2C00.html&lp=de_ en
The very last part de_en can be substituted with your language but I don't have a list handy.
Sometimes the translations are very funny.
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
Ring tones. They are delivered via SMS, and the potential exists to re-distribute them to your friends via SMS as well. At $2.00 per instance, they pay better than full length songs which various comercial download sites are trying to get $1.00 each for.
-Rusty
You never know...
This shouldn't be a suprise to anyone. This is just the next step required of each signatory to the 1996 World Intellectual Property Organization Treaty. First the DMCA, in the US, then legislation in Mexico and now Germany. It's important also to note that the DMCA is only the first step with regard to amended copyright legislation in the U.S. It only partially brings the United States into complience with the 1996 treaty. The german legislation comes closer to bringing that country into compliance, than the U.S. legislation. Expect far more stringent laws to be passed in the U.S., updating the DMCA, and also additional legislation in Germany (after passage of the bill currently before their legislature) to bring that country completely into compliance with the treaty as well.
--CTH
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
The protection of DRMS - the controversial part of the DMCA - has never been an US-only law. It is also part of the WIPO Copyright Treaty (WCT) currently signed by 51 countries, including the European Communities and all of its member states.
While the WCT could theoretically be ignored by its signatories as there's no legal system to enforce its implementation, this is different for the European Communities member states: The EC has implemented the WCT as a EC Directive (Directive 2001/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 May 2001 on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society), which is binding to all EC member countries. It had to be implemented until 22 Dec 2002 (yes, last year).
So, one should note that:
To really change something, you have to address the WCT (and the EUCD).
Claus