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UK Becomes Sixth Country to Implement EUCD
orbital3 writes "The UK, as of October 31, 2003, became the sixth nation to implement the laws required to comply with the European Union Copyright Directive with its Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 2003 legislation. This is a short little article about it and here is a copy of the law itself."
I have many of my CDs ripped onto my hard drive for playing on my HTPC setup. I own the original CD for every single file, and never have a situation where the same file is used on more than one system simultaneously, and yet I'm all of a sudden a criminal. Thanks guys.
Ydco co
It's also the nation that puts up monitoring cameras in many public areas.
Oh, and it's also the nation that supports the U.S. no matter what, especially when it comes to invading another country in pursuit of "weapons of mass destruction" (wink, wink, nudge, nudge, *cough*oil*cough*).
The U.K. seems about as close to an Orwellian society as any "enlightened" country on the planet.
No, the real question is whether or not most of the other members of the EU will pass the EUCD. I expect they will, because they're all in the pockets of large corporations these days. Because money and control, after all, are the only things that matter these days, and nobody gives a flying fuck about liberty, freedom, rights, or the general well-being of the population anymore.
Cherish what few freedoms you have left. You won't have them for long.
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FYI, here in Denmark the interpretation of the EUCD has made DVD reselling illegal! That is all DVDs other than region 2.
It pretty much sucks, as you have to privately import, say region 1 and region 4 discs now if you still want to absorb some kind of foreign culture and art.
zWhat would an EWOULDBLOCK block, if an EWOULDBLOCK could block would? -- me
People may laugh at this. They forget that it's exactly this sort of reasoning (modified to sound more palatable to the masses) that was used to justify the last copyright term extension act.
In other words, don't laugh. It's a lot more likely to happen than you might think.
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Ah, but you haven't been reading the Evil Overlord manual.
The purpose of legislation such as this isn't to put everyone in prison, it's to make it possible to put anyone in prison -- whomever the government wishes, in other words. That way governments don't have to worry about pesky things like public dissent: they can just arrest the key players before they have a chance to make a mess of things.
Classic police state stuff.
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Indivuals [sic] who make a copy of a copyrighted DVD, CD or music file, whether for back-up or for use on another device such as an MP3 player, are committing a crime.
And here we all thought the DMCA was the state of the art in draconian intellectual property legislation. Amazingly, while the US Constitution stands eviscerated, America remains the sweet land of liberty in comparison to the rest of the world. Is it possible to feel patriotic and disenchanted at the very same time?
Part of the hardcore faithful who believed in Apple long before it was cool again to do so
Not that I care; I'm not even British.
what if we encrypted the songs with a key. A website held all the keys (which arent illegal to host). Now technically if any organisation (RIAA,ARIA etc etc) broke the encryption then they will be of their own act right? If they download the key and decrypt it...they will also be guilty of the crime..
maybe someone can implement this idea!?! or maybe im just smoking too much crack rofl
We played dungeons and dragons for 3 hours.....then i was slain by an elf
Article 6 of the EUCD is quite clear. What is illegal is to circumvent any copy protection technology for any purposes whatever. But if the material is not copy protected, and the vast existing stock of CD's are not, then it is legal to make a digital copy for personal use (as well as all kinds of fairuse, educational and club uses)provided that you own the original.
I don't really feel it benefits anyone for me to reiterate this for each and every post about digital rights, but this seems like a decent one to use my umbrella statement.
To all media distribution companies, big and small: You decided to go digital. Deal with it.
It is not your right to bend legislation at any level to secure your profit margin because that's not free trade. Go ahead and use any copy protection schemes you wish. But don't you even dare try to legally sanction somebody because they've figured out how to get around it: they've just acted more intelligently and more efficiently.
If you truly believed in free trade and the spirit of competition, you'd try to maximize quality while minimizing overhead. What causes so much overhead? Executive salaries and expense accounts, as well as advertising and payola. You've over-saturated your markets with expensive and inferior product, and people have gotten wise to you. The only companies who have any right to complain are the small independents, because the playing field isn't level to begin with.
This was the case with video games piracy and the resultant bankruptcies of production houses during the 1980s and 1990s. If only their distribution companies would have given more back to the people who originated these products instead of fattening their wallets, we might still have diversity in our software.
Creative people have a right to their intellectual property. Why not show them some respect by divvying up the rewards for their efforts more fairly?
This is really getting old. One reason there is a backlash from companies against "fair use" is because people decided to abuse it.
And the apologia for corporate usurpation of individual rights continues. "Hey, if everyone wasn't a criminal none of these laws would be passed" has got to be the one of the most naive arguments ever made.
Fact is, if everyone is breaking a law then something is wrong with the law. The idea that people obey laws only out of fear of punishment is the argument of the dictator and his adoring fans, who use this as an excuse to drop-kick anyone who happens to disagree with them or refuse to play ball. It should be rather clear by now that the 20th century business model employed by the rabid and frantic RIAA/MPAA doesn't cut it in the 21st century, but rather than try to develop a new business model they buy off politicians to pass laws in an effort to shore up their eroding economic monoliths.
And why not? There are plenty of Joe Idiots sitting about just waiting to kiss ass and jump on the bandwagon, supporting any legal inanity proposed by these modern-day rail barons just so, for a few brief seconds, they can feel morally superior to their neighbors.
My only question is: where the hell were all you losers when the buggy whip industry was demanding that the automobile be banned? If you'd gotten off your lazy asses then we could've saved those poor oppressed corporations and done away with the evil automobile forever!
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
I went to see my MP (Member of Parliament) about this and explained to him that because it was similar to the DMCA which the US has had for 5 years, we could expect it to have the same unintended consequences.
A few days later I received a letter from him saying that he was asking questions of the Government's Department of Trade and Industry, and would get back to me with their responses.
Have others here tried this course of action? / Is there a coordinated effort out there?
What can be done after this?
- Brian
...at least in part as being unenforceable.
Several years ago the Home Office introduced a law banning VCR owners from keeping off-air recordings for more than 30 days.
The police declared it unenforceable and the govt. had to back down.
Now I don't know about you but I think the police have got more important things to do than checking to see if Kylie's latest warblings are on little Johnny Smith's MP3 player.
Perhaps a test case against sony would force some sense to be seen in such matters. After all sony seem to like to take PSX mod chip makers to court for doing exactly what they are.
I just want to focus on the timeline of EUCD implementation over European countries. Delaying the implementation among each country keeps the number of oppositors against it divided (and thus weakened), just those of one nation each time. They would have faced a different (and more consistent) opposition to EUCD if they had set it on in all countries at the same time. Obviously they did ponder it and act consequently. In Italy where it has been implemented on 29 April 2003, street prices raised a new level as a consequence of the EUCD act, yet original CDroms, DVD, book and other intellectual material are still remaining at untolerable high prices. This seems to me a confirmation that EUCD is only helping great companies to earn even more, without giving anything better (in price or quality) to the public. Sadly.
Do or do not. There is no Fry.(Bender after vaporizing Fry)
is that, traditionally at least, laws in the UK have never counted for much. Bad laws get broken all the time - but only criminals and minor traffic offenders get punished. If the politicians want to make stupid laws, it's easier just to let them - and then go ahead and carry on doing what we used to do anyway. The police have a hard enough job dealing with real crimes that they haven't time to waste on trendy new crimes. I guess it comes from the same thinking that gave us the class system: there are Law Abiding Citizens {who like to remenisce about the old days when you could leave your front door unlocked} and there are Criminals {who shoplift, litter, vandalise property &c}. Even amongst Criminals, there are Good Criminals {stealing from the rich without hurting anyone} and Bad Criminals {stealing from the poor, violence, sex offences &c}. Merely re-branding something that Law Abiding Citizens do as a crime will not turn L.A.C.s into Criminals.
If the police don't actually want you for something, you're fine. What this law - or any new law passed since the infamous Criminal Justice Bill of '94 - actually means is that if they do want you for something, they will have an easier time pinning something on you. For instance, it's a common trick for the police to pick you up on a charge unrelated to your normal activities in order to be able to search your home without a warrant. This is usually a little easier than getting an actual warrant, but any evidence it turns up will be admissible in a court of law. Conversely, if a sufficiently high-ranking officer requests that the ordinary plods turn a blind eye to a particular activity, and they do, then the only thing the government could do would be to place the area under martial law - which would be political suicide and to the best of my knowledge has never happened outside N.I.
It's technically already against the law in the UK to make a copy of a CD or LP you own onto cassette in order to listen to it in your car. But I'll dare bet you what you like if you went through a copper's car, or even a government minister's car, you'd find something taped at home; and to the best of my knowledge nobody has ever been sent down for that. Nor are they likely ever to start.
Those at the top have lost the plot and the rest of us - who do all the real donkey work - just have to put on a bit of a show for them. It's a grossly inefficient system, and it carries with it the possibility of misuse; but as long as it works, it gets left as it is because any attempt to change it would probably make things worse.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
"It's basically a super DMCA act. It kills your right to make personal backups and prohibits copyright circumvention of any kind. How nice of them."
The article also mentions that the use of iPods, Nomads, and other MP3 players will become impractical, as it would be illegal to convert your CDs into suitable formats.
As someone about to buy such a device, I'm going to have to ask the manufacturers, and possibly an MP or two for advice, as the last thing we want is a $400 device being confiscated for holding a copy of the music I purchased at full retail price.
I presume that Apple, Creative, Dell, and other manufacturers are writing to the government to enquire whether they mean to deprive UK customers of these products? And no "the Europeans told us to do it" doesn't count as an excuse.