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Sweden To Outlaw File Sharing, Crypto Breaking?
Martin Kallisti writes "The Swedish Department of Justice has today proposed a bill to be put into effect, if it passes Parliament, on the 1st of January, 2004. It is in accordance to EU directives, but will also criminalize the downloading of material from the Internet without the explicit permission of the copyright holder. Furthermore, it will become illegal to break cryptos, circumvent copy protection (mod chips et al), copy books, and as I understand it, use software that is designed to help with any of these tasks, and many other things." An anonymous reader points to an English-language article about this Swedish EUCD proposal, which also mentions a hefty $4 levy on blank digital media such as CD-ROMs.
Man and I thought the DMCA was bad. This law is just ridiculus. If sweden has any free speech rights in their constitution I doubt ths law will be enforcable. Does this law really have any support?
"It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists." -Ludwig Wittgenstein
Well I don't think this will do much. It's like when the US outlawed the selling of Alcohol. People continued to buy it, just illegally. It will be the same here, just with file sharing instead of alcohol.
It is about time a government started taking intellectual property rights seriously. I hope this same attitude will take hold in the US, where we are in danger of the creative people who bring us movies and records going bankrupt due to all of the digital pirating of their content.
This isn't going to affect Swedish porn is it?
My Blog
but will also criminalize the downloading of material from the Internet without the explicit permission of the copyright holder
How do you KNOW if what you're downloading is copyrighted or not and whether or not you have permission. For instance, variouis sites have ripped off Slashdot's icons, which I believe are copyrighted by OSDN and/or Rob Malda.
By accessing the above link, you are downloading copryighted material without the permission of the author.
My journal has hot
I'll bet it was an american company that paid off their law-makers.. Greed is universal.
And there'll be file sharing barons who'll send you your Britney Spears audio tracks in an iPod stashed in a bowling ball that rolls through a series of underground tunnels, with the authorities none the wiser
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
This will stop windows pirated windows landing on people's desktops, but will be no obstacle to GPL.
As for the draconian restrictions on personal freedoms like getting blank cds and researching crypto, that is good for the rest of the world, because it will allow us to continue on while they are slowed down by their laws.
Heck, imagine if they don't have any local researchers to validate their crypto because getting a licence to do so from the government is prohibitive? We'd become the sole source of decent crypto which we can sell to them at munitions rates! Or give it to them for free if we feel nice.
the free outrun the fettered.
Macht schnell mit die Artwork. I must get back to Dancecentrum in Stuttgart in time to see Kraftwerk.
there is no possible way for them to enforce this.Even if they did I could imagine the headline... 1/3 of population rounded up in latest crackdown on downloading.... story at 11
Is there any irony in this, given that Sweden produces so much porn? It's gotta be in there somewhere... someone, help me out here!
Greed is universal universal is a record company and a movie studio ergo record comanies and movie studios are greedy C.P.T.
"It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists." -Ludwig Wittgenstein
OK so another government is delivering to lobbiest what they want yet again. This is news? Besides the specifics of this case it's just the same old.
No sir I dont like it.
How'd he get the Swedes to do this?
Oh, and this law will suck too.
(I'm just joking, I have Swedish ancestors... it would be nice to have a little skin color, though.)
enjoy your fascism kids, while you pay off your trillion dollar debts, hahaha
If it were for Ol'n'Boring Sweden, the GOV would outlaw everything that's not allowed ;-) -it is a country of Limit Cycles About Prohibitions, RoboCop_Institutional_Mind AND Too Much of a Lutte Fisk Kind of "Who_Do_Yoo_Think_Yoo_Are".
That's why we mass-moved down to SPAIN!
VIVA ESPAÃ'A!!
This can't be true. All the draconian IP laws come from the US. The MPAA and RIAA come from the US. The DMCA and UCITA are US laws. Microsoft and its DRM partners are all lcoated in the US. Alan Cox is boycotting the US. Every few weeks some random Slashdot poster threatens to emigrate from the US to preserve their dwindling freedoms.
But this is Sweden! As with all non-US nations, it's a socialist paradise of digital liberty. Is Holland going to criminalize marijuana next? Either this is April 1st in the Mayan Calendar or this must be a transcription error...
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
$4 is awfully expensive for a per cd levy. The levy is 40 times what one would reasonably expect to pay for the media. If anything, this will simply cause the black market for blank media to explode. I'm already opposed to such levys, since this assumes that the only possible use of the media would be for piracy. From what I can tell, the only effect this legislation will be to elimante all IT from Sweden, since backups will be prohibitively expensive. Immagine trying to backup a 4TB database. Even backing up to 8GB tapes, at $4/tape it works out to $2048 per backup, plus the pre-tax cost of the tapes. Of course, I haven't even touched on the myriad of other issues this type of legislation brings with it, since I'm sure others will do so. This legislation is rediculous. I can only hope that the $4/cd addendum was attached so as to prevent this from passing.
Note: IANAROS (I Am Not A Resident Of Sweden)
There's no sig like SIGSEG
Freedom of speech is regarded by European governments as an important component of civil government, but they don't worship at it's throne like US Citizens regard the First Amendment.
It won't prevent pirating, I think the fact that the law doesn't address *use* is a concession to that point. It seems that they rather seek to prevent pirating from becoming a European industry. I think this is analogous to US laws against gambling, where they still exist.
IANAL, but in Texas, the law against playing poker for money actually makes the *house cut* illegal. I think the lawmakers conceded the point that people were still going to play poker, they just wanted to prevent it from becoming an industry.
The best way to do is to be.
Don't pirate anything, AND pay for not pirating anything.
Greedy and ridiculous.
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
Swedish computer users emigrate enmasse. When asked where he was going one Swede said "I have no idea where I am going but as long as it has internet connections, alcohol, and no silly laws against downloading other people's copyrighted works it sounds good to me."
The tax on recordable media is measured per MegaByte and indeed ridicilous. I'm pretty sure it will be greatly decreased from the current suggestion, but it will probably at least be a pax put in place, which is bad enough. Why? Well seeing as the tax is supposedly put in place to help feed some money back to copyright holders, we have a peculiar moral dilemma; Is it allright to illegally copy, say, a movie from a friend to a blank DVD? After all, the copyright holders still get some money through the tax on the recordable media! They're sending a pretty diffuse message there.
Second, P2P software will not be outlawed. Early articles on this proposal were all based on the same telegram, written by a guy who clearly had misunderstood a few things. Several of the more serious news sources later posted corrections to that statement. A ban on P2P software would ofcourse be impossible, seeing as the same technology is used for a lot of very legitimite purposes.
A crack on the other hand, which only purpose is to circumvent copy protection, will be made illegal as I understand it. This creates another conflict, as the law still states that one is allowed to make a limited number of backup copies of legally purchased media. But what if the only way to make a copy is to circumvent copy protection? We'll see DeCSS all over again, just on the other side of the atlantic.
I have yet to read this suggestion entirely, but from other comemnts I also gather that there are hints at diminishing ISPs status as a common carrier, which would be the truly disastrous part of all this.
However, have in mind that this is just a suggestion and it will go though several revisions after being examined by various expert groups. I hope and believe this is not as bad as it looks.
--- Life is funny.
is pretty popular in Sweden, is it not? I can't see this helping. They need to chill out - and change their ridiculously strict drugs laws. Really, sweden is just an uptight version of Denmark. So wonder they have such a problem with their beautiful friends to the west. Its like USA and Canada all over again!
2. Sell in Sweden after 1/1/2004.
3. Profit!!!
What a great idea! Imagine, indie bands having to pay $4 per blank CD for the privilege of recording their own original music without a label. The competition might eat into corporate-music profits, after all, so it must be piracy and the majors should be reimbursed somehow! [We all know that the reason for the RIAA's declining sales couldn't possibly have anything to do with their elimination of the single format or statements comparing Eminem to Sinatra.]
I also like the opportunity to inderectly pay the operating expenses of a large software company, whose products I utterly refuse to purchase or use, for the privilege of creating and maintaining bootable CDs for my Linux installation.
Way to go, Sweden!
Has anyone else noticed that Swedes are the some of the best file-sharers in the world? It's largely because they have such awesome upload caps, typically much higher than other European broadband, and maybe 10X that of standard North American DSL. If this turns out to be enforceable, expect online filesharing to get noticeably worse.
Oh wait, they probably already are. So if those laws aren't effective and crypto and copy protection aren't effective, then what makes them think these new laws will be the magic solution?!
I hope you're not pretending to be evil while secretly being good. That would be dishonest.
According to CD Freaks the levy can actually be significantly more than $4 since it is based on the size of the media.
with the levies, CD might once again become more expensive than HDD, per MB basis.
will most people switch back to watch downloaded movies, backing things up etc, on HDD again like in the old days? and maybe we'll have a $20 per GB levy on HDD then.....
The EUCD was supposed to be a law in all European Union member countries already by last December. That is after each parliament had two years to pass the law. As far as I know, only two or three EU member nations have modified their laws to comply with the EUCD.
On the other hand, sooner or later the national laws must be passed. I personally wish that at least one EU member would refuse to implement the law so that the issue would be brought back to the EU parliament.
After the fall of Soviet Union, EU became the new safe haven for bureucrates so it's really hard to say how the EUCD situation will develop due to lobbying and politics. What is clear, however, is that most of the national parliaments have not been all that happy with many regulations the EUCD is trying to enforce. I hope that the Swedish parliament will protect its citizens from this legislation that goes way over any reasonable balance.
(1) People/companies who are afraid that others might steal their copyrighted materials should just not put them up on the net.
(2) People/companies who are afraid that others might break the encryption on their products should simply use strong ecryption. There is no reason to outlaw the breaking of encryption because it really isn't all that hard to make encryption unbreakable. The only thing that was wrong with CSS was that the people who designed it made some serious blunders.
I have said it in the past and the same logic still pops into my mind.
How can a government body justify making honest people pay for "assumed criminal activity." When do they start adding cost to paper because someone might attempt to use it in counterfeiting?
If it's criminalized to use P2P networks, then it is unfair to charge more for media to "compensate" for criminal acts assumed to be occuring without proof and due process. I can see one act or the other, but not both.
Frankly, the act of purchasing CD media and being charged enormous prices because of assumed criminal use, then it should then be LEGAL for me to put anything on it -- legal or otherwise since I have paid for the right, in advance, to do something illegal. In effect, it's double jeopardy -- punished before the fact and then to be punished again, for the same crime if caught.
I have no idea what recourse EU-folk have against this, but I hope it can be stopped.
It says here that Swedish law currently includes a meatier fair use exception to copyright law than, say, US law; anyone can make one copy of a copyrighted work for personal use (computer software excepted). If this is right, then this new proposal is maybe even more surprising than it appears at first glance.
This post is dedicated to all of those
So if you share a file that isn't copyrighted, you risk being hassled about breaking that law? Guilty until proven innocent?
This sounds pretty severe to me. I can understand some of the other parts of the law, making it illegal to circumvent copy protection is well-intentioned, even if copy protection does get in the way of ethical use at times.
I certainly hope it's not as severe as it sounds.
Laws, laws, laws. When your business is failing, laws. When your prices are too high, laws. When you're exposed for the fraud you are, laws. Laws are supposed to ensure the safety and security of folks within a society. This round of DMCA-style laws is just the latest in series of laws designed to ensure that the few on top remain on top. Those who enact the strictest and most ridiculous laws simply hasten their own demise. The issue of copyrights will become an election-decider within two to four years. Folks like us who stay informed are the canaries in the mine shaft of laws. When those in charge get out of hand, we're the first to be alarmed, yet no one has taken notice since we started yelling about copyright abuses in 1999. What will make them take notice is when these broad, overbearing laws begin to affect a large portion of the population, thereby ensuring a backlash the likes of which copyright holders can hardly imagine.
I predict, on this day, that within 5 years, we will see the crippling or perhaps even the complete elimination of all copyright, patent, and trademark laws. Things will get worse, much worse, before they get better. But mind you, when things get rough, we must remember to continue getting the word out to the uninformed masses while we wait for our revenge to fully take hold, that it may obliterate the copyright bastards of our time.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
I hereby copyright this post. I expressly forbid these words from being read anywhere inside of Sweden.
Man I can't wait to see how many people end up in jail now.
"Derp de derp."
The whole hacker underground with l33t dude jacked into the net and useing cool crypto and avoiding "The Man" gets closer every day...
I've got a hankering for some Neil Stevenson now...
Also, how will they guarantee that the money goes to the artists and not back into the pockets of the European equivalent of RIAA? What's that? They won't? Gee, what a surprise.
I think that the most shocking story that could possibly be posted on
These "piracy taxes" are the stuff of the wet dreams of all the RIAA goons. They get money for nothing (and probably their chicks for free), without any collection costs, and with no right-of-reply on the part of the people who buy CDs for *gasp* backing up data.
"God, root, what is difference?" - Pitr, userfriendly
More and more we seem to be looking down the barrel of Average Joe vrs. Government. Oddly enough, they don't seem to be on the same side on this issue.
I work for a company selling network analysers for GSM and UMTS (3G) systems. Our product is not unlike the TCPDUMP network sniffer for IP networks.
First let me introduce the GPRS system. The GPRS core network elements (Base Station Subsystem, Serving GPRS Support Node) is normally stationed far away from each other. BSS is stationed at the site (which could be far away from metropolitan areas), whereas the SGSN resides in the area switching center. They connect to each other by means of a Frame Relay connection, which could be serviced by another vendor (a local ISP, for example).
Buying a Frame Relay connection is more affordable, but since there are privacy issues, operators are forced to turn on a cipher. For troubleshooting purposes, operators would need to look into the signalling traffic for given GPRS subscribers, but they would need to break the cipher.
Our new product line-up includes the deciphering capability for breaking the cipher code in the interface and looking at what's inside. Cracking should be the more correct word.
Are operators in Sweden (we have big customers there) free from breaking the cipher in their own network? Are we even allowed to deliver such a product in Sweden?
If not, we'd be out of business very soon. We have important clients in a big Swedish GSM vendor (guess who), and also the rest of the EU world (which, in my opinion, _is_ the GSM world at the moment).
Anyone in need for a GSM and UMTS support personnel? I need to look for a job.
About these stupid ass Nazi laws that are getting passed.
.. why would anyone be interested in XYZ without having evil intent?
The world is getting more and more screwed everyday.
You have to comply with the way the status quoi is, you have to do everything the way they say.
Be born. Go to school learn what they want to teach you. Study how they say. Get a job, doing some mundane task. Die.
That's life. That's where it's going. Fuck up any of those steps and your life becomes miserable.
Curiosity, creativity, tinkering, hacking, and having fun will become a thing of the past.
Thoughtcrime, guilt/conviction via extrapolation will be how the courts work. "Hey this guy is interested in XYZ
where XYZ = cracking and being curious about how things work so that someday when it becomes necessary to use those skills for good it will be existent.
For example, the document forgers in Nazi Germany were heroes (many people owe their lives to them). I'm not saying document forgery is good etc. I'm saying it's an example of a "criminal skill" that can serve a useful purpose.
Convict people of crimes (causing loss/hurt), not curiosity. How can figuring out how to crack software be a crime? It hurts nobody. And yes you should be allowed to distribute info on how you did it, so that others can teach you stuff they know and build on what you did.
I'm from there, and in many more ways than highlighted by the article, Sweden fails to excell. NB: comments are about the government, not the people, who I miss.
For some reason, the media and government are a bunch of wishy-washy whiners, incapable of seeing far beyond the end of their noses. I think the problem is that politics isn't really a road to fame and power there (egalitarian society, dontchano), so the people who end up running for politics are well meaning incompetents.(*) You know where you get by good intentions.
I could very well see them putting this sort of levvy on blank CDs and then be suprised when sales plummet. It's like the government doesn't realize they exist in a global economy.
Not that it is the worst country in the world, but there is a reason I don't live there anymore.
BTW: Can't say that I've ever come accross that much swedish erotica, in much the same way that swedish fish aren't terribly popular there. Gott-o-Blandat, on the other hand, rocks. Salt-o-Blandat even more so.
(*) with some exceptions. Apparently a girl I went to high-school with is the Green Party's spokesperson. Sharp as a tack, that one.
Sweden are rabid drug warriors, for instance. They are almost alone in Europe in advocating zero tolerance with vicious prison terms for those caught possessing/using/etc.
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
Well I for one have no problem with this law, unless it applies to property which I have bought and paid for. Obviously, anything which I have paid for is my own, and I can do whatever I like with it. Common sense. If the law is genuinely designed to prevent piracy, then it will only apply to pirates, ie, people who have not paid for the product. If, on the other hand, the law is designed to turn the country into a Nazi jurisdiction (see the DMCA for details) then it will apply to EVERYthing regardless of my personal property rights. Obviously.
The article wasn't clear whether *freely redistributable* copyrighted material was also to be outlawed. Linux is copyrighted. Is it illegal to download it? How do you determine, then what is legal and illegal to download. Isn't everything copyrighted, more or less?
=googol=
IP Law in two easy lessons
Theft by value: I take something that is yours.
Theft by reference: you think of something; I think of the same thing.
But, I thought Swedes don't download anything really all that infringing except for all that porn of their absolutely drop-dead beautiful women of theirs, right?
Why would you be downloading pictures of the hottest women in the world when Stockholm is lousy with them already?
Place your bets on which corporate organizations info is in the meta data as the original author! Favorates include:
1. The BSA
2. The RIAA
3. The MPAA
4. One of the above's overseas meatpuppets.
5. Cowboyneal's secret organization planning to take over the world.
Any sufficiently advanced influence is indistinguishable from control.
Unfortunately for some, US lobbying to make EU rules and regulations more like the US counterparts (in the name of free an equal trade, of course) is having an effect in Europe.
Some EU politicians are fighting it, but the governing body does, after all, mostly consist of older men with friends in the big industries, and little understanding of or sympathy for new technology or how the world is changing because of it.
This is as it always has been, just more so %-)
The problem is to get the lawmakers in Sweden and everywhere else to see what is happening, and how definitions of "fair use" necessarily MUST change in an information-based global society.
Local and world regional laws might serve as a temporary hinder, but the genie is out of the bottle, and starting to wake up. Short of turning the into a society modeled after the Orwellian 1984 (or Gillianian Brazil), there's no way to stop information from being free. It may take time, and in the mean time the big corporations and reactionary old politicians can do a lot of damage.
It will be temporary, though. Technology is getting way to advanced to micro-manage and regulate in detail, and lawmakers will sooner or later go back to making general laws like "It's illegal to steal no matter how you steal", which can be interpreted by judges and juries on a case-by-case basis, according to the common will of the people.
Regards,
--
*Art
"The computer is your friend. Trust the computer."
We're runnin 'Roms to Sweden!
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Asking them to clarify a few things.
It won't actually be as dreadful as the DMCA, since it will only be illegal to break a copyright protection system if you're going to make a copy, it won't be illegal to circumvent it to use it as it's meant to be used. I.e. watching a DVD movie on your linux computer using DeCSS to "break" the crypto won't be illegal.
Neither will these redicilous "region codes" be protected, they can still be legally circumvented.
Further, it won't be illegal to break the copyright protection system on these new "CD's", if you're only going to play them in your computer.
If anyone has any questions regarding this, just send them a well written e-mail, since they're very helpful and will answer all of your questions quite fast. (a few hours for mine) -L
That's too bad. One of my favorite things to do is crack the cryptograms in the newspaper. Now I guess all those cryptogrammists who read the paper will go to jail, and perhaps the newspaper publishers too for encouraging such illegal activity.
A few notes to put this in perspective.
Generally speaking, Sweden (or the rest of Europe, for that matter) is not at all as literal about their constitution as is the US. Occasionally, this is not so bad because common sense prevails over unexpected outcomes of ancient formulations. In this case and many others, however, politicians can infringe of freedoms of speach easier than in the US.
A second observation is that Sweden is a small country that always emphasizes international cooperation. In the EU this means that they are usually among the first to implement new EU laws. In the past, they have implemented crazy internet laws (such as making it illegal to write the name of any person on your web page without a written permission) before anyone else. Then the bigger countries thought it through they realized that it was too crazy even for Europe and sent it back Brussel to have it changed.
Tor
I've read parts of the law proposal.
The new levy for write-once media (like CD-R/DVD-R) will be 0.0025 SEK per MB and 0.007 SEK per MB for rewriteable media like CD-RW and harddrives.
For a single DVD-R disc this will add about 12 SEK (US$1.5) and a 120 gig HDD will cost about 800 SEK ($100) more..
At times like these I'm not proud to be a citizen of Sweden.
The directive doesn't specifically make it illegal to use such tools, but makes it illegal to distribute, sell and advertise such tools.
So does this means it's OK to have and use a dvd ripper as long as it's downloaded from somewhere outside the EU?
Sweden's proposal makes it also illegal to download copyrighted material from P2P networks
So what's the difference with the US?
...a safe haven for guilds and unions.
There seems to be an underlying belief in Europe that jobs must be preserved, no matter what. So if someone invents Desktop Publishing, people in europe think "Gee, we should tax laser printers to compensate the printer's guild".
Whereas in the US, the attitude is generally "I guess the printers will have to find other work"/
It is, in my humble opinion, immoral to intentionally circumvent copyrights, but that doesn't mean we should be implementing laws this broad. I was saying "RIGHT ON!" to this article, right up until the point where the author started talking about software "designed to circumvent" crypto and locking mechanisms. I assume people writing crypto would be allowed to attempt to break their own code?
Furthermore, I have always been against taxing blank media.
Making CD's expensive to legitimate users because some people use them illegitimately is akin to making medical equipment more expensive because some people shoot herion.
I'd like to discard the bathwater, but not at the expense of the baby.
I Geek
'It very clearly states that all tools and software that allow circumventing copy protection mechanisms (whether built by programming or by mechanical means) will be banned within the European Union. The directive doesn't specifically make it illegal to use such tools, but makes it illegal to distribute, sell and advertise such tools.'
So if you already have the tools, who cares? If you don't, make sure you d/l from a non-EU site or get your buddy to give it to you on a CD. Unless the authorities film the transfer, there's no proof of distribution.
'Sweden's proposal makes it also illegal to download copyrighted material from P2P networks (traditionally within the EU, downloading illegal material is perfectly legal, but distributing it -- such as sharing the material via P2P networks -- is illegal)'
Is IRC or IM services considered P2P?
The answer (whatever it is) begs another question - what is the exact definition of P2P software?
The GEEK shall inherit the earth...
This just makes me sad. I was under the impression that Sweden was far ahead of the U.S. as far as civilized intelligent decision makers were concerned. I was eventually looking forward to moving to a country that valued basic rights and understood the value of freedom. At a minimum in relation to humans vs. companies. Ah well, another country crossed off the list. Here's to hoping that the EUCD proposal gets flushed down the toilet...
(Sponsored by cheeseSource for President 2012)
"but will also criminalize the downloading of material from the Internet without the explicit permission of the copyright holder."
Which isn't a crime already?? One of the main reasons behind copyrights is to protect distribution rights...
Who doesn't like free music?
Sweden and many other countries have already used levies like this for decades, first on cassette tapes and then video tapes.
Sure, a lot of people have bought their media on the black market, but the majority has quietly accepted the extra charges, much like they accept a petrol price four times what it is in the US, and sales tax in the 20-25% range. Once people are used to it, they tend to accept things having a price -- whether it's high or low.
If the extra funds collected by this really went back to developers and artists IN FULL, it would be a good thing. Unfortunately, I predict it will go into the deep pockets of big corporations and their paid politicians.
I would love to be wrong.
Regards,
--
*Art
yes but you are then steeling the paper not the content. I do agree with you on the bob senario. It was just an example of where the law does not make sence.
"It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists." -Ludwig Wittgenstein
Reading the /. blurb (and not the full article), doesn't that mean no one in Sweeden can then download my (freely available), yet copyrighted dissertation without asking my permission first? That's nuts.
First off, it's tied to the web, and unless I specify, anyone can download the PDF we deliver to the ETD project. I don't care who dowloads this crap.
Secondly, I don't want emails asking for my permission to download this, or anything else I work on, yet copyright.
Ugh, this RIAA/DRM/patent nonsense really makes me loathe working with computers now.
Within a decade, the entire nation of Sweden will be composed of crypto specialists, for the sole reason that it's illegal.
IIRC, it didn't take that long for my entire nation to become aquainted with booze. Hell, some of my teachers still run moonshine after all this time!
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
Gee, that's odd, for the past, well, forever, US corporations, and their lackey government, have been the leaders in citizen oppression. Looks like we need to step it up a notch. Hilary, Jack, you guys listening? If Swedish parliament has a shot at passing such a sweeping law, you should be ashamed of yourselves for falling behind. What we need in the U.S. right now is $10 taxes on CDs. That'll teach those legitimate users who's in charge of the pictures they burn onto CDs and send to their relatives!
Anyway, in other news...
The sky is falling!
The sky is falling!
The sky is falling!
P.S. I'm trying to be funny, if you didn't notice. And yes, I DO know better than what I just said. Thanks.
Danish != nationality
How much do the paper for a book cost? Virtually nothing.
If you buy a book you buy the labour the author has put into it, not the paper.
Noo oonce-a zee IOoCD legeesleshun is sterteeng tu get implemented in fereeuoos deefffferent Ioorupeun Uneeun cuoontreees, peuple-a ere-a begeenning tu veke-a up und ooppuse-a zee chunges. Unffurtoonetely thees is tuu lete-a noo. Zee IOoCD, Ioorupeun Uneeun Cupyreeght Durecteefe-a ves epprufed by zee IOo perleeement elreedy in 2001 veethuoot furtooelly unyune-a nuteecing it.
IOoCD seemply stetes thet ell Ioorupeun Uneeun member cuoontreees (und thuse-a jueening tu IOo next yeer) need tu implement zee durecteefe-a intu zeeur neshunel levs. Zee ooreeginel deedleene-a fur dueeng su ves in December, 2002 boot es elveys, ell cuoontreees meessed zee deedleene-a. Noo, zee IOoCD legeesleshun is ecteefe-a in hundffool ooff IOo member cuoontreees -- und oonce-a egeeen, must ooff thuse-a leefing in zeese-a cuoontreees dun't ifee knoo ebuoot it. Sume-a ooff zee cuoontreees thet hefe-a -- es fer es ve-a knoo -- implemented zee legeesleshun elreedy ere-a Germuny und Denmerk.
Su, vhet IOoCD reqooures? It fery cleerly stetes thet ell tuuls und sufftvere-a thet elloo curcoomfenteeng cupy prutecshun mechuneesms (vhezeer booeelt by prugremmeeng oor by mechuneecel meuns) veell be-a bunned veethin zee Ioorupeun Uneeun. Zee durecteefe-a duesn't speceefficelly meke-a it illegel tu use-a sooch tuuls, boot mekes it illegel tu deestriboote-a, sell und edferteese-a sooch tuuls. Preeme-a ixemple-a ooff sooch tuuls ere-a DFD reeppers. Su, iff a seete-a is luceted veethin zee Ioorupeun Uneeun, it cun't deestriboote-a DFD reeppers (iff its neshunel cuoontry hes elreedy implemented zee IOoCD).
Es a durect resoolt ooff Germuny's IOoCD legeesleshun, zee must pupooler DFD reepping peck fur Leenoox, dfd::reep hed tu be-a mudeeffied su thet it duesn't incloode-a uny perts thet elloo curcoomfenteeng zee CSS cupy prutecshun.
Noo Svedee hes unnuoonced its prupusel fur implementeeng zee IOoCD intu its oovn legeesleshun. Svedee hes oobfeeuoosly deceeded tu teke-a theengs a beet foorzeer thun IOoCD vuoold reqooure-a. In eddeeshun tu bunneeng deestribooshun ooff cupy prutecshun curcoomfenshun tuuls, Svedee's prupusel mekes it elsu illegel tu doonlued cupyreeghted metereeel frum P2P netvurks (tredeeshunelly veethin zee IOo, doonluedeeng illegel metereeel is perffectly legel, boot deestribooting it -- sooch es shereeng zee metereeel feea P2P netvurks -- is illegel) und elsu edds a lefy tu blunk deegitel medeea tu cumpensete-a cupyreeght oovners fur lust refenooe-a (sooch lefy hes ixeested yeers in fereeuoos cuoontreees, sooch es Feenlund und Cuneda).
Zee must dremeteec theeng is prubebly zee prupused rete-a fur zee medeea lefy -- zee lefy (oor steelt tex oor vhetefer yuoo vunt tu cell it) vuoold edd a decent SEK31 (eppx. â3.4 oor $4.0) tu iech blunk deesc despeete-a its ixeesting reteeel preece-a.
Iff zee prupused lev pesses in Svedee's perleeement, it veell be-a implemented es a lev by ind ooff zee yeer.
Bork Bork bork "Bork Bork Bork bork Bork bork bork bork bork bork bork bork bork bork bork , bork bork bork Bork, bork bork 1st bork Bork, 2bork4. Bork bork bork bork bork BORK bork, bork bork bork bork bork bork bork bork bork bork Bork bork bork bork bork bork bork bork bork. Bork, bork bork bork bork bork bork bork, bork bork bork (bork bork bork bork), bork bork, bork bork Bork bork bork, bork bork bork bork bork bork bork bork bork bork bork bork, bork bork bork bork." Bork bork bork bork bork bork Bork-bork bork bork bork Bork BORK bork, bork bork bork bork bork $4 bork bork bork bork bork bork bork CD-BORKs.
How many copyrights are contained in one program?
If it's closed source, how are you to get permission for every copyright within a program when you don't know what copyrights are in the program?
Back in the day, being asked to give a couple bucks to King George III for some tea caused quite an outrage. First there were tea boycotts. Then some guys dressed up like Mohawk Indians, boarded three ships and threw their tea into the harbor. Later guns started firing. Lots of people died. A new country was born. And we're all (those of us in the US) very proud of all this.
/. high crime. Fomenting an uncomfortable discussion. And that's just talking! God forbid anyone ever actually did anything!
All because of tea.
Now money that is spent on the media used to promote free communication should be taxed? Certain senators want to destroy people's computers? The US attorney general wants to circumvent the right to a fair trial? Blowing up Palistinian families, children and all, with US missles is "defense", but the impoverished occupied Palistinian nation's response is "terrorism"? Launching thousands and thousands of sorties, killing tens of thousands of unwilling soldiers to prevent "mass destruction" by weapons that cannot be found is not ironic? Our economy is a shambles. The rich are laughing. And our commander-in-chief wants to appoint this penis to the bench!
Osama bin Laden is free today. US citizens are not. And we would like the rest of the world to follow our lead. God bless Sweden for seeing the way. I'm Swedish. American. And pissed.
Flamebait? It's a
--Lawrence Lessig for Congress!
It's good to know this type of legislation will be everywhere soon. It gives me time to prepare for my new life as a criminal. I used to joke about becoming a terrorist... I didn't think it would happen without me actually doing anything.
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
I am sure he would love it there.
My rights don't need management.
"[It] will also criminalize the downloading of material from the Internet without the explicit permission of the copyright holder"
Since copyright (US at least) attaches on creation, as opposed to registration, everything on the web (including this post) is copyrighted. When you go to a web site and download the page (e.g. index,html) there is an assumption of IMPLICIT copyright permission. The theory is, if the copyright holder put the web page up to be viewed, and the only way you can view it is by downloading a copy, the copyright holder must have implicitly granted you permission to copy the page to your computer.
If Sweden is going to require EXPLICIT permission before downloading, youâ(TM)d have to get an email giving you permission to download from every site you visit.
And, no Iâ(TM)d didnâ(TM)t actually read the article. What type of self-respecting Slashdot poster would do that?
Why do governments that set limited copyright terms, make laws that create a way to permanently copyright any work? Are they just stupid? Why do they give corporations the ability to instantly and permanently monopolize any product they make by adding the most simple encryption? Are they that naive? I think the problem is not these corporations doing whatever they can do to make a buck. They are just doing what any inherently amoral entity would do when confronted by the weak minded gullible little men we allow to lead us. The real choice here is to vote these ignorant fools out of office, and elect people who understand what the will of the people really means.
This law would effectively outlaw the Internet, which is based on the premise that it provides an infrastructure for moving data between consenting parties. In its place would be the presumption that moving data is illegal unless proven otherwise.
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
See the Government Site for more info.
Here's the coverage (in Swedish) from all the four major newspapers:
Expressen
DN.
SvD
Aftonbladet
Some great quotes from Mr BodstrÃm (Minister for Justice) include:
"We have not done this to satisfy the big record companies"
"The police will not come running into people's homes looking for these things"
He is clearly completely clueless. I bet he has no idea that it's even possible to trace people with their IP address.
This law is unenforceable and will not be enforced. The police can't even keep child porn off the p2p networks here, so really, this is ridiculous.
The real enforcers will be Antipiratbyrån, the anti piracy bureau, a group of lawyers representing a number of companies. You can see a list of the member companies here. Most should be familiar to non-swedes too.
This is the only organisation activiely looking for copyright infringement online. (and their efforts so far has been very sporadic, even they have the sense to mostly go after CD bootleg sellers). In practice this all means that if you are careful not to share anything from the member companies of Antipiratbyrån on your favourite p2p network, you will not get caught.
You've apparently never heard of Fair Use.
You don't own the bits. You own a license to play the music on the CD, for your own personal use.
If you own the CD, you've already paid for the license to listen to its contents whenever you want, at your leisure.
Since you are legally allowed to make a back-up of said music, downloading an mp3 file someone else made, is the equivalent of skipping that process. You could just as well have a friend come over and rip the cd for you on your pc, the end result is the same. You wind up with a perfectly legal backup copy of a song, for which you've already paid.
As for your last comment, it's quite idiotic, and seems more like a deliberate flaimbate or trolling, so I won't respond to it.
If I OWN something, I can do whatever the fuck I want with it. Period.
If I OWN a system, and forget my password, but can use another system I own to crack it, no law can stipulate that I cannot do that.
-- This sig for rent.
Until the 50's, we had 2 court systems in the USA, the legal courts and equity courts. It has always been known that justice has nothing to do with the law, but the lawyers won and the equity courts are gone. Now we have the Department of Justice, (which yields none), the banking secrecy act,( which insures the lack of secrecy), a thousand other such misnamed things, and no sign of truth, justice, or the "american way" anywhere in the land.
How does needing 'explicit permission' differ from standard copyright law (I'm assuiming Sweden has more or less standard laws in that area)? Surely that is always required. I guess the difference is that it would clarify permissions with publicly available material without special copying notices, but wouldn't that have the side effect of outlawing almost all webpage viewing?
Fuck. Sorry! Burning Hearts
Never fight naked, unless you're in prison...
I notice that even though they feel its illegal to download copyrighted material, they still feel the need to to TAX it.
Heres a little bet for you. If this law passes Sales of removable Hard Drives, external USB drive kits, and compact flash media, are all going to go through the roof in sweeden. I am also willing to bet you'll start seeing a brisk business in people smuggling spindles of DVD's and CD'S into the country.
Of course I could be wrong and Sweeden might not have realised Americas great contribution to the civilised world "Pretending your government doesn't exist and ignoring till it goes away"
wait, let's tax toilet paper since the water is wasted when you flush...
Furthermore, it will become illegal to break cryptos
So does that go for the government as well? Maybe file traders need to come up with a protocol involving PKC for future applications.
Why bother.
correct but you only need to buy that once. I'm just saying this is not the reason why you can't walk into a book store and "download" a book you already own. You could however download a txt file that has the contents of a book you already bought.
"It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists." -Ludwig Wittgenstein
If only noninfringing uses of blank media are allowed?
I agree with every one of you points. Well except for "If I OWN something, I can do whatever the fuck I want with it. Period." which is to broad. If I own a gun can I kill someone with it? But anyway yeah I agree with you. It is in fact for this reason I posted the comment. I am saying this would impinge apon this right to fair use.
"It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists." -Ludwig Wittgenstein
In my oppinion there is a part of the DMCA (or maybe it is the Patriot act, or both?) that is getting ignored, but in some ways more evil then the whole copyright bit.
It is the way they make it illegal to break encryption.
I see it like this. Encryption is made to be broken. Seriously. Walking around saying something dumb like 'It is illegal to break encryption, so we don't need better encryption.' makes as much sense as saying 'If we make gun ownership illegal, all criminals will stop owning guns.'.
In a way this mirrors the gun debate. There is nothing fundamentaly bad about breaking encryption itself, just like there is nothing fundamentaly bad about pointing a rifle at a target. But point that rifle at a person....
The thing about encryption is that if you want to know HOW a criminal or a corporate spy or anyone else might break your encryption you gotta do it yourself.
And once you do you roll better encryption.
Anyone else remember when 128 bit encryption was unbreakable?
Those students and geeks that get together and challenge themselves to break the latest and greatest encryption are doing buisnesses and geeks everywhere an enormous favor. They are pushing for better encryption.
We need this. This is not bad.
If you want an encryption law then put it in perspective. How about we just change it to 'Breaking encryption on a product you are not licensed to use is illegal.'.
I think I could live with that. Seems like a nice middle ground to me, it protects those people that, well they are risking jail time now.
Simple transition: in an information economy, e.g. the IT sector (and everything tech related), the more information moves around the more innovation happens -- and the more that innovation helps everyone in the entire sector. If you're too slow to follow, that means increased business investment. Basic economic theory dictates that the more you slow information flow down, the less innovation you will get, and the more stagnant business investment will become.
Our intelligent designer has never created an animal that we couldn't improve by strapping a bomb to it.
What if we slashdotters united and bought one of the mini-countries in europe?
Im fed up with people without knowledge of technology restricting it by law. A geek-only government would be nice.
How broad is the law? Does it include (accidentally) copyrighted web pages? Do they know that a page must be "downloaded" before viewed in a web browser? Then there's the whole issue of disk caching... And what about Google? Are they going to take them down for caching copyrighted pages?
will copyright their ledgers, will encrypt their communications, etc... how do you enforce a law to protect encrypted "legal" works and not hinder law enforcement against organized crime.
meh
1. You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any warranty; and give any other recipients of the Program a copy of this License along with the Program.
Other, less rigorous open or public domain works may have problems.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Hmm, since cdr drives, burning software, magnetic disks, and every modern computer and OS facilitates the ability to copy digital data of any form, plus networks allow users to send and share files in many different ways, well Should those then be an illegal facilitating technology in sweden? Hell, if someone's damned enough persistent, they could set up a printing press to copy books, perhaps those should be illegal too?
I guess the Swedes really want that "Most Idiodic Law" trophy that the US has held on to for so long.
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
all tools and software that allow circumventing copy protection mechanisms
Just wondering, how many programmers use compilers, tools that can be used by a programmer to circumvent copy protection mechanisms. I would hope that the law isn't this generic.
Ask me about repetitive DNA
"A geek-only government would be nice."
How is this different from say, Bolshevick-only, NAZI-only or millionaire-only governments?
haha, I'd like to see the agriculture policy of a geek-only govt.
The same suggestion made for Canada works here.
.sig
Sell a R/W CD with a song recorded on it. This is a triple win;
You beat the tax.
You become a music distribution company eligible for a share of the tax (paid by your competitors no less)
You can sell the title of your song to advertisers, since it's likely to be a #1 best seller.
(How many recording artists can boast repeat sales?)
-- this is not a
Outlaw the transmission of emotions conveyed through copyrighted materials. Expressing any emotion, thought or idea that you have gained through experiencing copyrighted material is illegal to share with persons who have not paid the licensing fee.
The article does a good job of showing how the quality of government legislation drops with competing legislatures start injecting directives into the legislation.
Each member country of the EU is passing laws based on directives of the EU. This is impeding full debate on the issue of copyrights and patents. A partial debate about principles takes place in the EU, and a partial debate about implementation takes place at the country level. The result is that you end up with convoluted, fractured laws.
States in the US have the same problem. They are often forced to pass compromised legislation as the result of incomplete directives coming from Washington. State education policies end up with all sorts of diversions as the result of acts passed by Congress.
hahaha... so true.
will they blow up your computer if you download files?
I'm sure the street vendors will let the hollywood execs take stuff for free off their carts till they can get themselves back on their feet. Hollywood is that type of place, unlike those no good small town fileswappers.
First of all, this is a proposal; so everyone can quite referring to it as a "law"
Secondly, consider the applications: A website may now be created that denies all rights of access to it; it never gives explicit rights for anyone to view it, or it may explicitly deny access. Those who break the law are able to access pr0n, WAREZ, and MuZic; however, the webmaster may not be prosecuted because all of the content cannot be accessed .
I bet they would have fun with that one! Let the lawyer fees roll . . .
>>you are then steeling the paper not the content.
That's not the main problem because, as someone else pointed out, the actual printing costs are pretty cheap. The problem is that if you take a book from a bookstore, you are also preventing the store from selling said book.
Sweden is a small country - very useful for a guineau pig.
Know your pads. One time pad: good for cryptography. Two timing pad: where to take your mistress.
You know we can absolutely destroy the content industry, hold them hostage IF and this is one hell of a big IF, if we all band together and as one refuse to buy any music, movies, and see any videos.
If we do this for one month, we will have the content industry to their knees. And there is NOTHING they can do. No lobbyists, no nothing. You'll probably see a massive media campaign and discounts but it's nothing compared to the pleasure of destroying an industry by doing nothing. Whatever law is on the books will be worthless. You'll probably see some major backpedaling by lawmakers too.
(then we can go after everyone who did that)
But it would take a grass-roots movement that starts at the college and high school levels. It would absolutely panic a lot of people. I'm not sure how that would be possible.
sri
Hmmmm....late night rants seem to have me all worked up again.
>I don't get it. Don't pirate anything, AND pay for not pirating anything.
The same thing happened in Canada several years ago when a CD levy went on blank CDs--we paid a penalty for the pirating we're not allowed to do. And half the people in my dorm building who hadn't previously used filesharers said, "If we're doing the time, we're entitled to the crime" and started downloading and burning away. I sure did; I was paying a license fee to record my own original music.
I'll say it again: treating your customers like criminals is an unworkable business strategy. And making laws that a majority of your citizens don't think are fair undermines the laws that are fair.
Ken:> http://keneckert.byus.net
I've been living in sweden (southern sweden) long enough to forsee that this law will have the same fascinating impact as the very harsh drug-, youth curtain- and traffic laws in sweden.
;)
:)
none at all
sweden is known europe-wide for a very strict law reglementation. but, it is a land with more than enough democratic culture to differ between real dangers to society, and laws simply passed to appease the industry. just remember norway's decss-hacker jon johansen. by the written law, he could have ended up in prison for years. but the judge fined him to, what, 30 days community service on probation? sweden and norway are very similar in this, although inhabitants of both lands would kill me if I ever stated this in public
Karma
If I own a gun can I kill someone with it?
umm, yes you can. there is no law saying that you cannot shoot people with it. there are however multiple laws dealing with the various consequences of your actions. if there is somebody in my home and threatening me with bodily harm to the point where I think I might die or believe myself to be in great danger, I have the legal right to defend myself. while I prefer not to kill, I will if I think that my injuring of you will not deter you from returning to exact revenge for me shooting you.
Actually, as I understand it it *will* be legal to use cracking software to enjoy copyrighted material for private use. Not the other way round. The downloading part is correct though, although I do believe that they intended it to be for film, books etc. /M.
All computer information is a stream of 0s and 1s. It all looks like code. It could even be all garbage.
If people store their data as binary files with no obvious way of telling what the bits mean, no one is going to be able to point the finger at anyone.
What I would like to see is an Internet so fast that no one will have to copy anything to their own machine. Everything sits on mirror servers. People can download, but the speed of the Internet should make downloading a nuisance.
Content producers can be paid by the government just like road builders and sewer builders, etc. Private contributions can be used to encourage people who are exceptionally good.
Technology is supposed to make it easier for people to get information. If it makes it so easy to copy information, let's help out the good content producers with tax money. It's a good deal since everyone benefits. People can choose which producers some of their tax dollars go to and a general pool of money can be used to support all producers.
Some people can choose to make content production their primary source of income but the Internet should provide such a rich body of information that most people would choose more lucrative endeavors.
Know your pads. One time pad: good for cryptography. Two timing pad: where to take your mistress.
Ok, Ill bite, but for different reasons.
I hope this same attitude will take hold in the US,
You had better be careful about wishing a certain 'attitude' takes hold anywhere. Especially one like this. After all, once everyone doing this is a criminal and all 'dealt with', a new bunch of over the mountain sherrifs will come in to make what you do perfectly legally now into a 'criminal act'...and maybe then you will see the increasing gap between morality and law, since so many like to equate file-sharing with some sort of moral character.
I remember being very young and going to a RV show up in chicago, I went into quite a large vehicle and started to listen to the radio, even turning it up to see how it would sound. Suddenly the salesman walked(ran) up to me and said I couldnt listen to the radio here. He explained that it was illegal to play music in a public place at a volume for others to hear. Back then it was ASCAP running around like todays RIAA. Needless to say, I was confused. In my years I have gone from being confused by stupid laws, to realizing they were written by stupid people. Enjoy
in danger of the creative people who bring us movies and records going bankrupt
This is capitalism, duh! If your product is horrible you loose money, if people like it, you gain money. We dont need Milton Freedman here to explain this do we? I could care less that the company that makes music I dont even listen to goes bankrupt. As it seems the ones that DONT treat their fans like criminals are doing quite nicely in the digital age. Ill leave it up to you to find the work Im referring to.
By the time these companies are dragged kicking and screaming into the reality that the PC has made, some other intelligent person will have already been there for years, making people happy, which also makes them give that person money...again, duh!
since the original poster was out in the left-field of reality, Ill quote the same line again for the purposes of demonstrating how out of touch the post was...
creative people who bring us movies and records going bankrupt due to all of the digital pirating of their content.
And its obvious that before the internet came along all the creative people and artists in the world were just rolling in dough, in fact it was general knowledge of the day: Parents would become dissapointed at their sons and daughters for wanting to be a doctor, lawyer, etc. and wonder why they didnt go for the big bucks of the creative and art industries.
If I own a gun can I kill someone with it?
Absolutely. You sure as hell can. You might even get away with it if you're smart enough.
Otherwise, don't drop the soap.
Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
Only 8 million people live in Sweden. Many of them are experts at making themselves miserable.
That was trying to look on the bright side....for those of you IN Sweden......I will continue infringing copyrights in your honor!!!
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
In the US at least, this is quite wrong in the case of all media except for software. Here you are sold music and books, not licensed except for digital distribution, but even then I've yet to see a license agreement stuck in front of all but a few instances.
In the case of an audio CD, you own the bits itself. You can hand your CD to anyone else or sell it without contacting the copyright holder. You are restricted by law against copying it and using it in public performances.
More importantly, with a license the company handing you the media can restrict how you use copyrighted media. A record label can not mandate that you can only play a CD on weekends no more than a book publisher can say you can only read a book once.
One might argue that the government is issuing an implicit license for copyrighted media on behalf of the copyright holders, but even then the contract contains only things you can't do, not things you can.
The world is neither black nor white nor good nor evil, only many shades of CowboyNeal.
$4 levy on blank digital media such as CD-ROMs.
So I assume blank DVD's have a levy of $28 since they store ~7x the data?
Now a spindle of 100 CDR's will be $420 instead of $20?
Will a spindle of 100 DVD-R's be $3000?
I suppose I will have to begin importing DVDR's instead of Heroin into Sweden now.
Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way...
Just like the JEW$ that bulldoze 4 city blocks just because *one* Palestinian blew up a bus or a nightclub, Sweden is going to punish everyone collectively just because a few whiggers are downloading some SnoopNIG jungle bunny bongo rap.
BULLSHIT.. The JEW$ own all the music companies on earth, it's documented fact.
They've just found a new way to fuck everyone for a few more sheckles because that holocau$t whine is going a little flat these days..
$100 tax I'll have to pay for a harddrive just because it's ASSUMED I'll use it to store pirated shit like NIGGER "music" or shitty trash WINBLOZE WAREZ???
Right.. I'll go get my $100 rebate out of someone's ass.
I concede that filesharing can be amounted to theft from artists, but all I see here is a method that is very unlikely to actually do anything about it and furthermore only hurts artists by forcing them to be with record labels because distributing CDs on your own becomes impossible at $4.00 a pop.
That a 50 pack of CDR's costs $220 in Sweden?
... Don't move to Sweden!
---- "Excuse me. Where's the children's gun section?"
Fuck that filthy socialist hellhole
Qba'g gel gb oernx guvf ryvgr rapelcgvba fpurzr rvgure, be bs gb wnvy sbe lbh.
that's "be bss gb wnvy", you illiterate fuck!
Warning: This post is lacking in seriousness.
Bear with me-
So, the Swedish government levies incredibly high taxes on hard liquor and beer >3% alcohol content. OR something like that. My memory isn't perfect, I just returned from Goteborge two weeks ago. So, moving along with the story - You can only buy alcohol at Systembolaget, the state owned, state operated liquor store. They have bankers' hours. To their credit, the selection is amazing and the employees are incredibly knowledgeable about the product.
To buy alcohol cheaply, Swedes from Gothenburg and the surrounding area take the ferry to Denmark. And do they. The day I rode the ferry was two days before the Derby - The big soccer match between two Gothenburg city teams. The ferry probably had 200-300 people on it. They were using airline carry-on bags, shopping carts, little wheeled dollies - all LOADED with liquor for the 20 minute trip back to Sweden.
So Swedish merchants will be forced to sell CDR's for $4/ea. This means what, exactly? The little shops that stack FORKLIFT PALLETS full of wine, liquor and beer at the curbside in little towns on the Danish side will just add blank CDR's for $1/ea to the pile.
I really dislike the implication by the government that ALL CONSUMERS are purchasing CDR's to further CRIMINAL ACTIVITY.
This is really about the recording industry being slow to evolve and adapt to a changing marketplace. Kudos to iTunes & Steve Jobs. When the customer is given a fair and realistic alternative to buying a CD for $20 with two good songs on it or pirating it off Kazaa, they'll probably take it - As evidenced in iTunes runaway success.
These laws are being created by men and women who call tech support three times a week with Outlook Express questions.
THIS SPACE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK.
I'm sure that's how most people behave at the moment, but I like to think that I am, on the whole, law abiding. This is unwanted.
Laws like this are not only draconian, but confusing. How long will it be before someone pleads "I don't know" at a court hearing because they truely have no idea if they broke the law or not? How much longer before a judge dismisses a tech case because the law is simply unintelligible?
If they're putting a levy on blank media, and this money goes to artist's representative groups, then shouldn't copying be legal? Otherwise we're giving the money to them for nothing.
-- Even if a god did exist, why the fsck should I worship it?
In fact, it actually widens some rights, for example, the right to copy digital materials to help disabled people and easing the process for schools to make digital copies of material. But alot of people read the article and got up in arms. *Rabble rabble rabble*. The real proposal from the Justice department (in Swedish):
Press release
Part 1 of the proposal
Part 2 and appendixes
its wrong. don't do it. what's the big fuckin deal? Why have copyright laws if they can't be enforced at all? Most of you seem to suggest that we just forget copyright law enforcement. You seem to suggest that copyright law only be enforced when it comes to large corporations or large groups (hm, I wonder why?). Now, I don't agree with Corporations like RIAA or MPAA playing vigilante and doing it on their own. Thats also illegal.
Its really interesting, seeing it from my perspective:
1) Write P2P software to distribute copyrighted material
2) Goverment takes action to stop distribution of said materials
3) ???
4) Bitch at government
5) With new ways to circumvent goverment's means to stop copyright infringement, you download more music.
6) Government enacts more laws, now more draconian than before, to stop this
7) ???
8) Bitch at government
Hm, looks to me like the problem started with us.
Sure, the RIAA and the MPAA didn't give a flying fuck about John and Bill making taped copies of the latest White Snake album back in the 80's. Sure, there were some bootleggers selling copies of tapes en mass back then too. But they were few and far between and John and Bill probably only made copies for a few friends. Now, we have people downloading songs that were downloaded from a person who dowloaded from someone else who might actually have owned the CDs. Now, I am not all that sympathetic towards the big industries seeing as the exploit their artists and keep most of the profits for themselves but c'mon people, this is an intelligent crowd, you can see where i'm coming from, right?
The way I see it is like so:
You can GPL your software, you can put your music under public domain, and you can give your literature out for free. Its your choice. But when someone decides to put a copyright on a piece of material, you should obey the law. It's only fair.
Does that mean that we could see hefty levies on empty containers (because it could be used to transport pirated milk)?
The milk industry is dying due to the increased level of milk pirating (according to the MIAA--Milk Industry Association of America). The only solution can be to make transporting pirated milk expensive.
Stop Milk Piracy Now! Adopt Levies on Empty Milk Cartons Now!
Sen. X (R-Utah) added that we shoud develop technology so that those thieves (those who use pirated milk) should explode. That will teach them the lesson.
Thank you
GrimReality
2003-06-19 06:00:03 UTC (2003-06-19 02:00:03 EDT)
I agree IP will go away, but I wonder about the timeframe. It may come as a consequence of a much huger change, where we go to complete anarchy.
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
A message to all the snobby Eurotrash who constantly brag about how their precious EU intellectual property laws are so superior to their draconian US counterparts:
<nelson> HA HA </nelson>
This message brought to you by the Council of People Who Are Sick of Seeing More People.
Yes, you're stealing the paper and the ink and the 'cost' of manufacturing the book. But the book has more value than that:
Compare the value of two books. Both are printed using the same process, contain the same number of pages, the same amount of ink. In one book the ink is arranged in such a way that it conveys some meaning (ie a novel, essays, etc...), the other book has pages that are just a bunch of random dots.
Which book has more value?
That value is what is being stolen.
a hefty $4 levy on blank digital media such as CD-ROMs.
Is it not a bit strange to outlaw copying and then add a $4 levy on blank media because everbody is going to do it anyway...
Also if you put a $4 levy on media you can argue that the user has allready paid the copyrights of the material he or she is copying and thus it should be legal to do so.
Since this hasn't been mentioned yet I'll let people know that Denmark has already implemented the EUCD, which was voted for in December last year. We were the first country to vote as I recall.
I have elaborated on this previously when Finland voted against the EUCD and will be so bold as to link to my previous comment.
Again, for a status of the implementation of the EUCD, check this site.
Support you local interest groups! Thanks for listening.
Sweden - welcome to the party.
zWhat would an EWOULDBLOCK block, if an EWOULDBLOCK could block would? -- me
This is from an article at Aftonbladet (swedish);
:-( The minister of justice even admits the law is created to spread fear (!). It's a very controversial law that judge people before they violate it (much like the discussed $4 CD fees) and I especially don't like how they seem to be willing to ban an entire software genre (P2P software). Amazing...
- It will still be allowed to make a "few" copies of CD/DVD's for personal use, and also to use VCR's and similar devices.
- You will only be allowed to copy parts of a book (right now, I suppose you can copy entire books), to prevent the large scale copying of those especially on universities.
- A quote from the swedish minister of justice: "We have not done this to meet the demands of the international movie and music companies. Ultimately, it is about preserving earlier views on copyrights, and when the technology evolves, so need the laws to do."
- The penalty for violating them by sending or receiving illegal copies on the internet will normally be fines. If it's about organized violations (read: warez groups, etc), the penalty can be prison for up to two years. The law will mostly be used to give copyright holders a right to demand compensation from the person violating the law.
- The swedish minister of justice hope that these laws will frighten people from using file sharing software. He admitted that the law will not get a high priority by the swedish judicial system, and continued: "It's not like the police will run into peoples' homes to look for these things. It is also obvious that some persons will continue, but that is not a reason to not do anything".
So it seems like this will be another low-priority law that won't be very enforced, which mostly just adds unnecessary complexity and "grey zones" to the judical system.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
In the English language article, the levy tax is said to be set to ~$4 on blank CD-Rs. This isn't true. As much as I hate to "defend" this new ridiculous law, the suggestion is to impose a levy tax of 0.25 Swedish "cents" per Megabyte of storage space on the media. (one Swedish "cent" being ~ 0.11 US cents.) So the levy tax on blank CD-Rs will be 0.25*700*0.01 SEK, totalling 1.75 SEK, or less than a quarter in US coinage.
;-)
/Switz
I spent some time yesterday reading through the damn suggestion and it's filled with weird stuff. For instance, it will still be legal to create "fair use" copies, for your car CD player, etc. BUT, it's illegal to produce or sell software that hacks the copy protection scheme on CDs and DVDs...BUT I still have the legal right to make personal copies.. So, HOW DO I DO THAT, THEN, My DEAR GOVERNMENT??? If I have a legal right to make copies of a CD for my own use, will the Government aid me in suing the record companies that put out copy protected CDs?
I suppose they won't.
So, Yeah, the initial reaction at work yesterday was "Welcome to the DDR". Fsck.
While Sweden may make it illegal to copy media on P2P networks it would seem that the tax on CDâ(TM)s would be unworkable due: 1; to CDâ(TM)s many legal uses: and 2; to the very porous nature of European National boundaries. I am sure the Swedish Police relish the thought of random searches for CDâ(TM)s in motorist cars.
âoeAre you just commuting to work in Denmark or are a Smuggler.â
The RIAA and MPAA don't really agree. They seem to claim that you purchased a license to the music. So yes, I think I have a right to those bits in other forms. It is the same song that I purchased the rights to listen to no?
... just can't seem to hit the deer with my conventional rifle (SKS semi-auto) maybe if I vaporized the woods I would be able to see the deer!
As someone that is about to finish his Ph.D. dissertation, I have to copyright my work as I publish it to my school's on-line dissertation initiative. I don't care who dowloads this crap.
Definately somebody who cares deeply about their dissertation.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
Man did they try to sneak this one on us! (I'm swedish and only heard of it yesterday)
I've just read the bill and the illegal downloading part isn't that bad (downloading copyrighted content is already illegal in some ways, this only makes the law stronger), however it is possible to interpret it as making P2P software illegal! what the fuck? Fortunately that is what will stop this bill from passing... at least without a re-write.
What about DVD ripping tools and others distributed as source code? Will that count as free speech here in Sweden to? It actually isn't a DVD ripper until you compile it on your own is it?
X-Copyright: You are hereby authorised to download this material for your own personal, noncommercial use... blah blah blah lawyerspeak blah blah etc.
From the sounds of things, you could download MP3's an album you own, and you'd still be considered a criminal.
Don't believe "it's only for pirates"... It may START that way, but once the door is open, it's goodnight Sweden.
Consider the fact that VDSL is just rolling out in Sweden and that it is quite affordable. Imagine 26 mbits/sec for $40 euros a month. In fact, it's a much better deal than almost anywhere else. Especially Greece, where broadband will run you approximately 850 times as much.
Now what can someone legally do with that bandwidth under the new law? You guessed it. They can watch government-okayed programming channels and view government-okayed content. These are the websites that will have gone through some sort of copyright review and approval process.
With these new laws, the powers that be will have successfully turned the European internet into something resembling interactive television. The existing media lords are of course quite happy with the new laws as their sphere of control has been strengthened. And the existing governments are of course quite happy with the new laws as it gives them even more control over their respective populaces.
It's hard to say how the Swedish populace and the rest of Europe will react to these new laws. Most likely nothing significant will happen beyond a few protests. But as someone pointed out, sooner or later the government will put one too many chains of laws and taxes on the people and the people will start to exhibit some very interesting non-linear behaviors. As history has taught us, there is only one way to take liberties back from an oppressive government.
However, for the time being, we do know one thing for sure. Sweden's rank ranking on the "most corrupt governments list" is going to take a hit. And it's about time -- Sweden is the only country on record for filing criminal charges against a news company for second guessing URL's.
Murder through self defence is an accidental killing, what you propose requires some thought and is therefore premeditated, albeit not planned very far in advance.
HAHAHAHA, You basterds!!! .. You slashdotted our goverment!!!.. HAHAHAHA.. This is funny ;-)
It is a nation of blondes after all..
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
Yeah, and we aren't all religious about our "constitution" like you US people. If the constitution doesn't fit what we want to do, we change it. Happens all the time. Seriously. Has both its ups and downs.
"The most dramatic thing is probably the proposed rate for the media levy -- the levy (or stealth tax or whatever you want to call it) would add a decent SEK31 (appx. â3.4 or $4.0) to each blank disc despite its existing retail price."
Hmmmm....
Memorex 32024581 CD-R 80 Minute, 700MB, 48x (100-Pack Spindle) - $29.99 on Amazon.com
Hmmmm....
A 1333 1/3% tax... Well, that seems fair.
Over in Germany, we have the VG Wort, the interest
group of publishers.
And for every photocopier, fax machine and scanner
sold, a fee goes to the VG Wort. It is supposed to
pay a compensation for fair use and breaches of
copyright.
The most ridiculous part is, that the fees on
machines vary with their speed. So if you buy a
scanner in Germany, it often is slower than the
ones sold in the US.
In many cases, downloading english drivers will
speed up your machine.
Sad but true.
Please be aware that (c) doesn't have legal
implications. You have to use the copyright
symbol, or write out the term Copyright.
Read carefully. It says it's illegal to get files without the permission of the copyright holder. So in other words, P2P porn will still be legal in Sweden
AIDS drugs anyone?
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
Being a Dane myself, I know that free speech is not that well integrated into Scandinavian constitutions. It is possible, however unlikely, that this completely outrageous violation might actually pass in Sweden. In Denmark, general taxes are already being levied on CD-Rs, which means that the government has to some extent sanctioned a reversal of the burden of evidence: as a user of blank media, you are assumed to be a criminal until you specifically sign a document guaranteeing you won't replicate copyrighted material. Personally, I'm still reeling from that one, but as this Swedish example points out, things might get a lot worse in Scandinavia.
Fortunately, as others have pointed out, free speech is a human right, and issues such as this may ultimately have to be resolved by the Human Rights Tribunal. Interestingly enough, the amount of Danish cases that are being referred to that particular institution is skyrocketing these years, which is good in a sense - people are aware that their rights are being violated. I just think it is infinitely sad that Scandinavian countries that have prevoiusly been shining examples of well-tuned democracies choose to shaft basic human rights For a Few Dollars More.
Finally a law everyone will break. Bad laws are there to break them, until the idiots who made them realize they are just, well, bad.
Excerpted from 2003-06-17: The Underground Railroad, Intermission 1
Face: Why destroy copyright?
Machinator: Because it is a legal solution to a social problem. And as always, it creates more problems than it solves.
Face: Like, individual copyright?
Machinator: All copyright. We should still have social expectations of crediting people. And creators *will* profit, I think considerably better than now. Plus, the quality of art will improve, because it won't reward the same sorts of commercial behaviors.
Face: I'm not sure how creators will profit better than now in, say, literature. Or books. I don't know. Music: I think I agree, at this point.
Machinator: Because people will pay authors to write.
Face: [Laughs.] Fair enough.
Machinator: And publishers will not capture the main part of their revenue.
Face: Which is?
Machinator: Publishers take (I think) well over 95% of the revenue that would go to the author.
Face: I'm just curious, though; if company A pays an author to write a book, and company B copies the book and reprints it sans royalty, how does this one work?
Machinator: If you're thinking corporations, they need to go too. [Smiles.]
Face: But they won't.
Machinator: Think people. People will pay authors to write because they appreciate their work, and because they want to read more.
Face: Consider the SoulSeek model. Less than 1% of the user base pays Nir.
Machinator: So? Nir is profiting handsomely, I think.
Face: True.
So say that group A agrees to publish a random author.
Machinator: You're talking about printed matter?
Face: Yes. Or electronic.
Machinator: Then they can print it...and they must credit it (or be considered very rude). And if they promote it successfully, they make lots of money selling books for awhile. Then maybe another publisher picks it up, and makes money too. And meantime, the author gets famous, and people pay him to write more.
Face: Why do they pay him?
Machinator: Because they want him to write.
Face: Fair enough. Any proof for said model in human history?
Machinator: Yes. The Italian Renaissance.
Face: Good one.
Machinator: There was *no* copyright. It was one of the most artistically amazing eras, including literature.
Artists create to be appreciated, anyhow. Not to make money. If you just want to create product, maybe this model doesn't work as well for you. So? Boohoo, no Britney Spears; I'm crying in my coffee.
Face: Yeah. But you have to convince people of that. And they *like* Britney.
Machinator: Did I convince you?
Face: I'm not your typical audience, by far.
Machinator: Yes, you are. I only try to convince intelligent people. I don't *care* what the mainstream thinks. Truly. They will be led to whatever, because they don't think, period.
Face: Literally. They don't think, but they shell out money, and detest change.
Machinator: So, they can detest it. Change happens.
Hey. What if someone makes an *encrypted* P2P distribution application. It would be illegal for them to crack the encryption in the first place and obtain proof that you are indeed distributing illegal content.
"You really wanna save those crazy Swedes, huh?"
erroneous: look me up in a dictionary
This fee isn't meant to pay for illegal copying. It's purpose is to compensate for one of the legal exceptions to the law: it is, and it will continue to be, legal to create copies of copyrighted material for private purposes.
I.e., it is perfectly legal to burn a few copies of the CD you just bought and give to family members.
There is also a "common sense" clause in the new law that gives a court right to lower the fee "in case" fast technical evolution makes the fee unreasonable.
The article is a bit wrong - as the only EU countries, Denmark and Greece implemented this before the time limit. Even though there was a lot of protests against it and a lot of suggestions to make it less bad (countries have some flexility in the way it implements such EU directives), our (completely clueless) minister for that area pretty much ignored them and they implemented a very confusing law. Even the state financed "consumer advisory council" (dunno if that's the correct term) is so confused about the law that they simply forward questions about it to the ministry that handles that because they don't know how to answer the questions!
There are actually a few exceptions in how the proposed law might be used, it is not going to affect crypto research, and can not be used to stop rverse engineering or decompilation of software
Why do you keep talking about your own country? In Sweden you OWN the bits if you have bought the record! At least you used to. That's what makes this so stupid.
The gun example doesn't hold water, as you would be killing something you don't own... Owning something doesn't mean you have the right to impose your will on other people (or things) outside your possesion...
I guess some international treaty has banned owning people, but if you want to kill your own cow you'd certainly be allowed to use your gun (and your bullets) for that...
0.025 SEK per *minute* not MB => 70 minutes x 0.025 = 1.7SEK per CD /Skion
For the law to punish Bob for breaking his own cryptography, Bob would have to press charges against himself.
Kind of like how breaking into your house is illegal. Since you don't report the crime, it goes unpunished.
Remember, the only thing needed for evil to flourish is for good men to do nothing. So get cracking and report yourself right away!
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
is that with the new legislation, cafés will be forced to have a non-smoking area for their personnel to work in. And guess which establishments fall under the same law: coffee-shops :).
there is no possible way for them to enforce this.Even if they did I could imagine the headline... 1/3 of population rounded up in latest crackdown on downloading.... story at 11
In fact, the swedish minister of justice said something to the effect of: "This is not a law we will try to enforce."
Great! Why don't we just make some new laws for a few special interests, lets make 'em so broad that they criminalize a large part of the population... and then we pick and choose where to enforce it.
I don't feel very good about beeing swedish today.
We just got our own DMCA+.
"First lesson," Jon said. "Stick them with the pointy end."
Having seen too many "no more free speach in Sweden" quotes, I don't think the majority of slashdot users really know about the current laws in Sweden.
The laws PROTECT anyone downloading copyrighted material. ISPs are not allowed to snif or analyse your IP trafic. That means, if you set up a warez site at home and do >1 TB/month (yes TERAbyte), they cannot do anything (and the networks support this amount of trafic without being congested). Try that in other countries.
Broadband (10Mbs) connections are very common. No need to download movies to disk anymore, you can watch them on-the-fly =) Last summer, some CTO/CIO at one of the broadband companies sayd (can't remeber which one) "We think it's good thing that people use their broadband connections (read: download movies). Otherwise, we would not get as many subscribers, would we ?"
Also, the swedish police lack in funding and hardly investigate crimes anymore.
Being a first class computer geek and living in Sweden, i'm not worried at all.
Or download the page and find the permission is missing.
Or as this is Sweden who's going to bother in the rest of the world to add a spurious header (or meta-tag)?
The CD tax basically presumes the CD will be used for piracy and is compensating the music industry so you've effectivley paid for the music so you might as well download it and get your money's worth out of the CD.
If the tax really is $4 per cd (sounds like this isn't the case) then would it not be cheaper for everyone just to buy loads of hard disks, DAT tapes, CD-RAMs or anything else not covered by the tax.
As for making it illegal to download copyrighted material, isn't that just reiterating whats already illegal?
Good one Sweeden, this gets my vote for one of the most pointless laws in recent European history.
There's three different issues here.
// hdw
1. It will become illegal to download material that have been made available in an illegal manner.
It's simply the law about recieving stolen goods applied to electronic media.
If it's illegal to make copyrighted material available for download, it's only logical that it's also illegal (albeit to a lesser extent) to download it.
The right to make private copies are made clearer and allows anyone to make backups or move material to another media for private use.
Including recording of TV, radio or other streaming media for private use.
2. The law makes it illegal to create and distribute tools for breaking copy protection and likewise to use such tools.
It does _not_ outlaw generic crypto tools, just tools used to bypass copy protection.
This will not make it illegal to backup your DVD, but you can't rip it, recode it and store it in another format.
It will make it illegal to decode encrypted DVDs using anything else than the tools blessed by the copyright holder.
But that's a commercial decision taken by the DVD distributors.
3. The levy on recordable media has been there for ages, it has been extended to cover new forms of media.
It's intented to cover the _legal_ copying, like recording streaming media.
Executive Pope (small) Kallisti Engineering
You are wrong.
The law specifiec that it is only illegal to circumvent encryption in order to access copyrighted material illegally. If Bob only has legally obtained data on his machine you would not be breaking any laws.
The law may sound stupid when paraphrased, but actually alot of it makes sense when you read the whole text. The only thing that I have a problem with in the law is that i can't do whatever I want with what is basically a large number in the privacy of my own hard drive. That is I can't crack a copy protection even on bought data that I own.
1. To high like everyone says 2. Not really a problem as long as you live close egough to a border to a country there this dosen't apply. Fx we got that (about paying for every mb to the music industri) here in Denmark, so then I run out of empty cd's I just ask my uncle to take some with him from Germany... I'am not sure about this but I don't think they got it in Norway, and that, I think, wouldn't be to long a way for most living in Sweden, if you buy for egough ppl.
A few years ago secret documents concering the DC3 was released, including information about its purpose and equipement. This DC3 was no regular DC3 (airplain) but actually equipped with sensitive radio & data-collection equipement supposedly from the UK (originaly from the US). What made this airplain so famous was the fact that during a flight across the Baltic Sea the radio-contact with the DC3 was lost and no more signs heard from. The Swedish military suspected that the Russians had shot down the airplane, the only thing that was found from the plane was a lifeboat with bullet-holes in it. The suspections was more or less confirmed when the Russians shot at the search-party which had been sent out to find the airplane even though they were on international-water. Fifty yearslater, at the 16th of June a civilian company announced that they believe they've found the remains of the DC3 at the bottom of the sea outside the iceland of Gotland on International-water but in the Swedish economical zone. The pictures they published of the plane has confirmed that this finding is related to military operations since it had cone-formed equipement (supposedly radio/data-gathering antennas). Not many other documents has been released concerning data-gathering in swedish military. But no doubt they have been conducting such activites. But if this airplane was indeed used for radio and data-gathering, it is suspected that the swedish-military is or was conducting deciphering of ciphered information. If the swedish-military still conducts deciphering of cryptographical information, would the law also include the swedish military and prevent them to do research on deciphering? What if the UK and those who helped (Sweden?) deciphering the german crypto had had a law against deciphering , would they had been decipher the crypto which the Germans used during the second world war?
mozilla has the option to not allow any script to take over browser controls. so you can still use the bells-n-whistles of the webpage you are visiting (javascript et al still active) but any attempts to change status bar, clicking abilities of your mouse or any other control tools will just go by with no effect. example: any popup-request rendered by mozilla will be silently ignored, if you enabled this behaviour in the config. very sophisticated eh?
Ok, so then tell me this about copyrighted CD's that will not let you create MP3's from the CD? Oh, wait. I just bought a Sony music CD and want to put the entire thing on my Sony MP3 player so I am able to listen to this with my portable MP3 player or in my truck with the MP3 deck. But here is the kicker.....I am not able to create all the MP3s from the CD either because it is mixed media or copyright protected. So why is this wrong? Should I beable to download the MP3 from where ever or who ever has this? YES! Even if Sony would have a site that would allow you to download the tracks it is still not right. In the long run this is not going to win with these big corperations. File sharing is here to stay and if they want to stop this then the internet should be closed. We lived without it before it could be done again. But wait....No internet? How would the recording industry get new music of a artist that they are promoting to the radio stations? I guess they would have to pay to have it put on a CD and shipped all over the world again..... Does downloading an MP3 of a song that you already have on CD even matter? NO! My personal thought is this. Everyone knows that all CD's have at LEAST one bad song on there or one that you really do not like.....Let the record companys get together and come to an understanding so we can order custom CD's or MP3's for all I care at a store or online at a fair price. Cut out the other stuff and make it like 75 cents per song.....This dollar thing is way out of reach for ONE cd filled with Mp3's 200+ songs.
I live in sweden, and my prediction is that we will probarly be seeing alot more of heavily* encrypted distributed filesharing networks. (* By heavily i assume someone will ahem, borrow the RSA algorighm, and integrate it into the software, and release it on the major filesharing networks, making it impossible to determine the author). The problem with this is that it will be possible to share anything, including childporn and snuff since these are no-control networks (anarchy model).
GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
They have socialism, government provides most services. Now they want the government to control all digital content. The government will handle who has copyrights to what and what can be downloaded free of charge. The effective tax rate just went UP. If it werent for bad karma Id have no karma at all
"You are restricted by law against copying it [a music CD] and using it in public performances."
Out of interest, where is the point in law which forbids public performance without the copyright-holder's permission?
I will cease buying cd's, dvd's, films and more, just to stop the companies that support this law being passed from taking my money.
I have always used the p2p progs to download music and then buying it if i like it, deleting it if i don't like it. I've watched movies at home to see if they're worth paying the $10 they charge at the cinemas (and yes, it's still worth going to the cinema after watching it at home since it a whole different thing on the big screen). P2p progs are also a great way of finding a new movie/series to buy on dvd when browsing a persons share, this other night i saw Kindred: The Embraced on some guys share and just had to order it.
Anyways, i've prepared a little example of how much the industry would lose per year just because i stopped buying the stuff they claim to lose money from cause of pirates.
Note, these are not exact prices since pricing differs alot from store to store, specially on the VHS
Cd's, 18 - $414
DvD movies and series 15 - $650
VHS movies 30 - $360
Makes for a total of $1424 per year spent only on entertainment at home.
I'd like to see the catastrophic downfall in revenues to the companies involved if more people would do just like me.
Shrink-wrap license agreements are dubious. I don't think there is a strong case where they have held up or struck down actually, and the software industry is in no hurry to have them all declaired null and void. In fact, there was a case fairly recently where (and my memory is not 100% on the details) where I believe someone wrote a review about some security software without getting permission from the publisher (was this NAI?) and got sued. The reviewer won and the court stated that the restrictions in the "license" were unenforcable. -- Can anyone give a pointer an the article on this? The bottom line is that publishers can't just stick any old restrictions in the agreement and have them be enforcable.
The problem with shrink-wrap licenses as I understand it is that you don't have the ability to negotiate, and there is no explicit legally binding acceptance of the agreement. Of course, IANAL, but this has been an issue for Many years. Some software publishers actually have some of the text of the license agreement on the outside of the box now, to cover themselves better.
Anyway, as to your last sentance, there is no contract - only copyright law. A contract is a legally binding agreement, Usually written but some times spoken, that both parties agree to.
Would somebody please inform the RIAA of this? Owning a copyright on a song does not give you the right to shut down peer to peer networks and force the government into imposing taxes on blank media for your personal benefit either.
Today the leader of the global Empire, George strongly condemmed violent actions by foreign protesters and terrorists who attack the very symbol sof our nation's supremacy...
The USA is becoming the very thing it fought so hard against.
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
See section 106 and the definitions at the beginning of this page
You know, the Internet isn't there just to allow annoying kids to get free music.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Since you are legally allowed to make a back-up of said music, downloading an mp3 file someone else made, is the equivalent of skipping that process. You could just as well have a friend come over and rip the cd for you on your pc, the end result is the same. You wind up with a perfectly legal backup copy of a song, for which you've already paid.
If I OWN something, I can do whatever the fuck I want with it. Period.
Copyright explicitly forbids copying, unless excepted. And here at least, the exception states that you, the owner, must make the copy of your own media. You may argue that the result would be exactly the if done by another person or with an identical media, but it is not permitted by law.
IANAL, check local laws, etc. etc.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Agreed, it was a happy accident of history that the music industry was able to make their billions in the 60s, 70s and 80s, and what companies want is unreasonable. They want the courts to force the market to continue it's bubble of growth.
Making the companies succeed really shouldn't be the concern of the courts.
The technology itself demands some readjustments in the contract between buyers and sellers. The last step of the technology worked against the producers big time because it made it easy for customers to make unlimited downloads of a works and pretty much eliminated the need for a costly distribution chain.
There needs to be stronger protection against unlimited copying, but the consumer should benefit from tremendous increase in efficiency.
Um... The second book is in Braille, those dots aren't random, they represent letters. Blind people use the indentations to read.
Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
If I am defending myself and I kill you, THAT was not an accident. It might have been incidental. It definitely wasn't pre-meditated, but accident it isn't. It may or may not be legal, depending on the circumstances of the attack and defense, BUT you better believe I know the difference between killing and crippling or detaining.
Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
Conventional war, whether it is applied to military or civilian targets, means to do just that. Terrorist war is an indirect approach. The idea is that you don't have enough strength to wage conventional war, but you have enough capability to inflict enough damage on the other side to provoke a violent response, and that retaliation against your own side serves as a recruiting tool for your guerrilla militia or to harden the resolve of your civilians to perservere.
By my definition, the Israelis are terrorists, and they are much better terrorists than Arafat and company.
The Israelis may have the military power, but they lack to alliances, political support, and other factors to wage conventional war on their Fatah, Hizbollah, Hamas, and their backers. So they conduct raids where they assissinate Palestinian generals. Note that when Palestinian civilians get killed as "collatoral" damage it is not that big of a deal, but when one of these generals gets killed, the Palestinian suicide-bomber machine gets into high gear. Now what do the Palestinians do with their limited amount of explosives? Do they ambush Israeli tanks in the fashion of the Chechens (they have tried it, but either the Israeli military is too good or they have not stuck with it)? No, they go and attack Israeli civilians.
Are these attacks on Israeli civilians putting pressure on Israel to sue for peace? Quite the opposite -- they are silencing any opposition to the Sharon government -- the attacks are what elected the Sharon government.
The Israelis were losing big time in the First Intifada where the TV images of soldiers shooting and rock-throwing crowds made them look like the old South African regime. The Israelis are winning in this Intifada because they are able to serve up their own civilians as victims -- Churchill won the Battle Britain when he got the Germans to stop bombing airfields and radar stations and to dump their bombs on central London. And Palestinian leaders are too dumb or too undisciplined to know what is going on.
Nor is it there for idiots to post inanity incarnate on slashdot. Get a clue.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. It's just that yours is stupid.
Use ISO 8601 dates [YYYY-MM-DD]
Actually, they are discussing making it illegal to sell weed in coffee shops as it is currently. Too many rediculous Americans (I'm American, I'm not America bashing, I'm American out of control teen druggie bashing, I'm not pot smoker bashing, I'm pot-head bashing) are causing problems in Amsterdam apparently.
I haven't posted in so long, my sig is out of date.
Failure to respect this request is punishable by a lifetime behind bars as Jocko's prison-bitch.
Tip: Don't drop the soap.
This post encoded with ROT26. If you can read it, you've violated the DMCA. Handcuffs please, sergeant.
will also criminalize the downloading of material from the Internet without the explicit permission of the copyright holder
Damn! This law will require express written consent and not implied oral consent.
Hey, these criminals use Microsoft Windows to engage in this illegal activity, in fact it just so happens that just about every one of their apps has an Edit->Copy command! get Microsoft up against the wall.
Perception *IS* reality with these droids people, play off their flawed assumptions. Legislators will silently kill legislation if the alternative is exposing their own clueless ignorance. The issue will disipate with reality.
-edfardos
No. You DO own the bits. You own the one copy of those bits that you've paid for and are free to use them in any way you like - within the limits of copyright law. You no more 'license' a cd or word processing program than you do a book. You own it in exactly the same way as you own anything else.
-- Give me ambiguity or give me something else!
> You know, the Internet isn't there just to allow annoying kids to get free music.
Nope. That is just one of its wonderful functions!
-- Give me ambiguity or give me something else!
i repeat, fuck you sweden
(The collective sound of RIAA execs collapsing in sheer euphoria)
One country down, hundreds more to go!
We talk about it cause we love it.
We dont really care about sweden.
I suspect most people who file "share" would agree that someone who walks into a store, pockets a CD, walks out without paying for it, takes it home and makes thousands of copies of it that he gives away free to strangers has committed more than one crime.
Yet, file "sharing" differs only in that the bits that represent music are stored on hard drives, not CD's, and distribution takes place over the Internet, not via a bricks-and-mortar operation.
People who buy a CD own that little piece of plastic, they don't own the music.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Does a clause like that exist in the proposed Swedish law? You'd have to AASL (ask a Swedish lawyer), but I would think there has to be...
Killing someone with your gun isn't wrong because of what you do with your gun, but because of what you do with the other person.
Perhaps the original point would have been better made as "If I OWN something, I can do whatever the fuck I want to it. Period."
Having the entire population breaking the law every day is the oldest and easiest way to establish a police state, since it means that the authorities can arrest whoever they want whenever they want.
If the populace thinks it's just an unfortunate legislative mistake it makes things that much easier for them.
I can just hear a former college student moaning to his cellmate: "I don't know if I'm in jail for downloading Kazaa, or using it to download Britney Spears...".
Cellmate: "Neither. You're here because you like Britney Spears."
Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
One thing this act will do is provide opportunities for blank CD "Import".
I have much hate for the spongman!
Let me get a hollah
WOOOP WOOP
So fo shizzle my nizzle you lil fuckin dirty bitch.
We all are fucking sick and tired of hearin you, bitch. you better wipe your mouth because you just talking SHIT.
The levy is not as much as $4, but it is true that it is proposed. Though I dont like it (and I hate the new law), somehow I can accept such things. I much rether pay artists by such fees or taxes, than having crazy copyright restrictions placed on me, useful program forbidden and a RIAA guard att every computer.
The law stated above was made for the people of Finland. Finish law has no jurisdiction outside the Finland. I believe that the law enforcement services of the rest of the world need not fear being a 'ruby ridge' victim by Finish Law Enforcement 'Services'.
They probably won't return to hurt you. AFAIK from watching crummy comedies, you will be sued so much you'll want to shoot yourself.
Shoot to kill, if you must.
Those licenses certainly can't stop you from doing anything allowed by law, at least somethings. You can reverse engineer software if your country allows it, regardless of what the shrink-rap says. In the particular case you are citing, reviewing is allowed by copyright law. In fact, I don't believe you need to own the copyrighted material to write a review, you just need to state where you got it, etc.. So technically you might be able to pirate something legally to write a review (and then delete it).
Otherwise I don't know how those stand up as contracts. You could be agreeing to the contract because you are paying money, and if you don't agree you can get your money back. This is why I should be able to buy any game and return it. Microsoft Windows has something like this in the EULA, so if you buy a machine with it installed, you should be able to get a refund because you don't agree with the EULA. In fact, the Windows license actually says you can return the software if you don't agree. Thus, the people who sell that software must be agreeing to that too.
I understand there was a case where someone told somebody to stop posting screenshots of their game (Rainbow 6 maybe) because and the EULA didn't allow that. I don't know what happened though.
There is also something in the EULA of Half-Life stating you cannot trade time playing Half-Life for money, which could be used to potentially stop Cafe gaming. Then again, Cafes could argue they are selling time on their computers, not the game.. and so on. But obviously Valve doesn't want to be seen as an ass, and Cafes buy all their games. The games get exposure and perpetuates the community too.
Law is tricky though, so it would be interesting to know how this sort of contract works.
how about this, if there is something you want, but cant own, just get a liscense to it, then what you should do is get a virgin *ITEM TYPE* creator that has never experienced the product to recreate it, then you would own an original version of whatever.
Fine! I'm moving to Norway!
I think I speak for everyone when I say: Huh?
-- This sig for rent.
Ok, sorry, i am somewhat knew at writting to people and dont explain stuff well when written.
Think back to the first Clone PC's, they weren't made by IBM, but did the exact same thing.
Friend of mine just got 512k ADSL @ 50â/mo in .fi
I'd receive him with great hospitality.
In fact I have a special Viking horned helmet that he can wear during the imminent moose hunting season, where I will expect him to take joyous part, being a good host and all.
(disclaimer: completely offtopic)
I side with the courts on this one. A significant minority call that event a "demonstration". The rest of us (including people who witnessed the event) called it a "violent riot".
Never have I seen such a call in Sweden for MORE police violence in order to protect the beloved city.
So I do not agree with your exception... the courts definitely side with the public on judging rioters.
As for the Hvitfeldska event, the courts have decided (sensibly) that the police went out of bounds and should be held responsible. Which, again, I think is siding with the public.
The police needs a search order equivalent ("husrannsakan") to be able to enter your house. To obtain such an order, the crime you are suspected of must carry a maximum jail sentence of OVER TWO YEARS.
Note how the law said "maximum two years in jail". The police cannot get a search warrant under this law.
However, with traffic logs from your ISP, it is unlikely that they will need one, either.
That's a lot of bandwidth. When I was filling up my new hard drives, I was maxing out at 20-25 gigs a day on my 10 Mbit connection.
:-)
Which ISP do you use?
(and yes, I'm Swedish)