DMCA-Alikes Sweep Europe

D4C5CE writes "The number of European countries enacting their ignorance of the sad experiences from Four Years under the DMCA has just risen to 5, as the Upper House (Bundesrat, incidentally) of the German Parliament on Friday failed to veto (sorry, some press releases are only available in heavily spin-doctored German Legalese at this point in time) and is hence considered to have consented to the adoption by the Lower House (Bundestag) of a federal law implementing the dreaded DMCA's European sibling known as EU Copyright Directive 2001/29/EC." Read on for more on the copyright laws being considered around the EU.

D4C5CE continues: "Earlier implementations have been reported from Austria, Denmark, Greece and Italy.
Legal scholars consider the directive itself an invalid "monstrosity", and the German law unconstitutional. In fact, this legislation is viewed as so terribly awful that even from the U.S., the EFF tried to prevent it in a rare intervention overseas.

Declaring that the circumvention rather than the use of Copy Protection is a Crime, the German parliament threatens to make things even worse by adopting a "second stage" with further steps to impose DRM and additional levies later this year, but unsurprisingly, all of the issues that DMCA-style laws have become notorious for are already there: Overbreadth, overprotection of technical measures, and Chilling Effects aplenty.

Record companies eagerly awaiting this "lex Bertelsmann" have already caused ISPs to send out warning letters to P2P users for alleged copyright infringement, and are expected to take legal action against individual users of file-sharing networks, following in the footsteps of RIAA.

Confirming the fears expressed by Alan Cox on Slashdot, computer gurus will soon find no place left to go even on the European side of the pond, and the Free-X "Independence Day" XBox exploit posted by one brave German just in time before this dismal day may well have been one of the very last legal disclosures in this part of the world as well."

Comments

Say it together now....

[Madsci]

Ich bin ein Evil Pawn of Hillary Rosen.

Re:no more MP3 players

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, I see what they're doing now...

1: People buy LP's
2: People buy the same music on MC to have it in their car
3: People buy the same music on CD to have it in their car
4: People start to carry music with them on mp3 players
5: RIAA makes it illegal to make mp3's from CD's
6: People buy the same music AGAIN on LP's, in order to make legal mp3's
5: PROFIT!!!

The question is, when we all have bought all the LP's, how will they make us buy the MC's again?

A brilliant idea

[SubliminalLove]

I just had the greatest idea. The law states that you get up to nine months in prison for violation, right?

Okay, everyone in Germany needs to turn themselves in for... oh, say, copying a CD that had some sort of protection on it. I can't wait to see the innovations they come up with for storing five million new pale and obese felons.

Stupid Americans and their DMCA

[Anonymous Coward]

er... oops.

That's the last straw

[Kphrak]

I've had enough of draconian legislation that infringes on my rights online. I'm moving to Europe!

Oh...wait...