Slashdot Mirror
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."
Sooo... copy from protected to unprotected CD... then rip to MP3 :-)
Bringing up the subject of a recent Slashdot article-- what's the penalty for actual theft in the traditional "go in, take it and walk out without paying for it" sense in Norway? Would the penalty for copyright infringement be worse or better by comparison?
All I know about Bush is I had a good job when Clinton was president.
Why shouldn't you play the music on your jogging belt ? That's fair use !
What if it turns out I had given you permission, but I just wanted you to be put in jail ?
How about OGG ?
How about uncompressed stuff ? USB sticks are getting bigger by the day.
How about an encrypted MP3 ?
What if it turns out I don't hold the copyright. Are you still in jail ?
And what happens when they start to crack down on people? They gonna jail everyone? Will the police arrest people with earphones and check if they have a MP3 player?
Yup, and just a quick one: how would MP3 player manufacturers and resellers feel about such a move ? I hope they would feel reaaaly bad and make something about it.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
Elected officials have always made bad laws, and it has been very noticeable in recent years since technological changes have occurred so quickly, and most elected officials are too old to have caught on with what is happening. Even most of those who have adapted to technology have only done so in a superficial way.
But beyond this, elected officials generally reflect the views of society at large, including hysterias and short-sighted selfishness and everything else. It is the chief pitfall of democracy, and it the reason why the writers of the U.S. Constitution did not institute direct democracy. Unfortunately, the direct election of Senators and other changes have gradually worn down that protection. In any case, I presume things are similar in Norway.
I'm afraid that any investigative journalism will have little effect, as journalism also tends to reflect the idiocies of the public.
Baldur of Asgard
Even some of the drug rehab centres understand that most of the problems lies in bad laws, not bad drugs. When you take one illegal drug, and turn out fine, why not try another one?
The system had the verbosity of HTML combined with all the readability of compiled assembly viewed as bitmap images
I use Linux, thus, I wouldn't even notice any "copy-protection" schemes based on having Windows autostart files on the disc. I use cdparanoia to rip, and its anti-jitter, anti-scratch, error-correction features will probably blow past the remaining "copy-protection" schemes based on adding deliberate errors to the disc. Are they going to provide me with tools to detect the presence of "copy protection" that I otherwise wouldn't even be able to notice? Or are they simply planning to outlaw Linux?
/. summary, which I realize isn't a reliable guide to what's actually been proposed). I hope that European Free Software and Consumers' Rights groups are all over this one.
This legislation seems insane and miguided (at least from the
Well, IANN (not Norwegian) but will it even stop ripping?
If I rip files and I never participate in file sharing, how the hell would they know? I rip my music for use on my own machines or on my MP3 player.
Would they outlaw the simple posession of MP3s under the argument that someone must have ripped it so you're guilty? What about albums that have been re-released so the version you had didn't have DRM, but the newer version does? Will that become a legal gray area for this?
It just seems really odd to outlaw the act of ripping unless they can substantially prove that it was for an infringing use.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
You drive the car at 200mph and you're breaking the law?
legal on your own property.
You sharpen the sword to the point where its a concealed weapon and you're breaking the law?
legal on you own property. except for peasants in a fuedal society.
You use said VCR and videotape to record a movie you rented from Blockbuster and you're breaking the law?
SHOULD be legal on your own property. Thats our point.
Even granting you ridiculous leeway in the use of analogies, your arguments suck.
...is that these kinds of directives are impossible to fight. Look at the date for the InfoSoc directive. 2001. Yes, four years ago. Yet we have no choice but to implement it, except for a highly theoretical veto right (from not being in the EU, only EUs lap dog).
What can public pressure do? Implemented by 2005. Uproar by 2006. New proposal to EU in 2008. New directive in 2010. New law in 2015. Try keeping the public's attention for ten years while playing the ladder game with the corporations. They'll slide you right back to square one when people aren't looking.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
No, actually the law says that ripping the stream for playing on devices that are "irrelevant" for the CD-format, is illegal.
So ripping, or copying to a CD for playing on a CD-player that cannot read the copy protected original CD is allowed, but not ripping/copying for playing on an Ipod or any other type of device (non-CD player) that plays an other (compressed) format.
Yes, 99% of us norwegians (probably) stalls on this use of the term "irrelevant" in the law.
And what about those players which plays 8cm CDs , which can play *.wav OR *.mp3 - are they in some kind of borderland here, noone really knows!
If I had to bet, I'd say they were illegal, as it seems the law ONLY make an exception so you can override faulty copyright protection when it prevents playing of the CD on a regular CD player.