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Norway Considers New Copyright Laws
bizpile writes "The Norwegian government is considering a change to copyright laws that would make it illegal to rip a CD to MP3s when copy protection is in place on the CD. However, you would still be allowed to copy from one CD to another regardless of copy protection. Gisle Hannemyr, of the University of Oslo's Department of Informatics, responded by saying "We are going to be a nation of lawbreakers if this law is passed in its current form." The new proposal would allow fines and a maximum penalty of three years in prison for violating copyrights and engaging in computer piracy."
"For example, a CD's (security code) could be cracked to play a recording on a car stereo, since a CD-player would be seen as an appropriate medium," the news release said. "But the security code could not be cracked to copy the recording onto an MP-3 player, since such a device would not be seen as an appropriate for a CD."
I do security
And if you wonder what the InfoSoc directive is: It is basically EUs copy of the DMCA, only a bit worse.
Actually, the article says that you can't transfer music from CDs to MP3 *players*. So, not only can you still rip the CD to MP3 and play it on your computer, you could also rip the CD to AAC or Ogg Vorbis and put on a "portable music player" which isn't limited to only MP3. Technicalities, yes, but not violating the word of the law -- assuming, of course, that the author of the article correctly characterized the content of the legislation, which almost never happens, regardless of the country.
The law would require any backup to be made to the same medium, so a CD can only be copied to a CD and not be transfered to a harddrive or flash ram. In the CD to MP3 example they seem to imply that normal music CDs are copy protected, and that converting CD tracks to MP3s require some sort of code-breaking ("cracking") to occur.
Does anyone know if the law targets all CDs as seem implied or only CDs that have some form of DRM?
The law is in a large part proposed due to a EU directive (Norway isn't even a member the EU, but in the EC). Especially the parts about copy protection are there because the government has to follow this directive.
I believe Norway is the last country in the EC to do this.
Really, it's interesting that such anti-consumer laws can get passed in the first place.
It hasn't been passed, infact it's unlikely to ever get passed - besides the obvious problem of being stupid, it is seen as a direct threat to the whole norwegian justice system which is based primarily on legislation. Any unenforceable law, the police have already signaled that they opposed it and would not be able to enforce it in any meaningful way, like this weakens the whole system.
Unlike what the parent poster may think industry lobbying has virtually no influence on the courts and government here (DVD-Jon was aquitted remember?) it's quite unlikely that parliment would pass it (our government consists of ordinary people who are at the mercy of the voting public).
IANAL, but a quick search seems to indicate[1] that the penalty for theft is the same as in your quote: fines and up to three years in prison.
[1] http://lovdata.no/all/hl-19020522-010.html#257 (in Norwegian)
Not necessarily true. The RIAA was experimenting with analog watermarking a few years ago. If that were ever implemented on a wide scale, it would mean that the A/D converter in your sound card would refuse to output data if it detected any watermarking in the output signal of your CD player. I don't know how far they got (or if it is actually practical, it may have just been a political tool) but don't assume anything, anymore. We live in the age of cheap DSP and corrupt lawmakers. Anything is possible when it comes to controlling music distribution.
Of course, technically one could build a 16-bit A/C (or buy an off-the-shelf industrial A/D board from the likes of Keithley or Analogic) and record that way (it's what I'd do) but that's way beyond the average listener.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
When the directive was about to be implemented in Denmark, I spent some time studying the directive and the proposed danish law change. After I proposed an amendment to the proposed law change (in danish). There was some critique of this, and after some discussion I sent out a revised proposal for an amendment to the proposed law change (in danish).
My revised proposal fully implemented the directive, but would make it legal to:
I think this proposal worried our government, because the day after I sent out the revised proposal for an amendment to the proposed law change, our government sent out a press release saying "The law has to be interpreted so that it is legal to circumvent copy protections that makes it hard to use a legally purchased protected works on for example a Linux computer".
The law text itself was not changed, but the law notes that tell how the law must be interpreted was. The result is that I now legally can view DVDs on my PC, and that would not have been legal without this public pressure.
If you are interested in trying to change the norwegian implementation of InfoSoc, I think you will find a lot of inspiration in the two proposed amendments I have linked to above.
The maximum prison time for breaking the new law, is 3 - three - years, and probably as much to pay, as the music industry will claim they've lost! In Norway - three years in prison as a maximum sentence, is VERY strict, probably about the same as for manslaughter, rape or bank robbery, when the circumstances for the defendant aren't pointing in a serious direction. (If there is a bad family history, or anything that could explain the defendant's poor behaviour, and which could be corrected, you seldom get three years in prison for violence in Norway. A psychopath or someone who don't regret their actions, will get a more servere sentence - sometimes!)