Sweden Bans Copyrighted Downloading

Xiar Prime writes "Swedish lawmakers have made downloading of copyrighted material illegal, one day after an 11-nation piracy crackdown. Prior to the passing of the law, it was only illegal to provide copyrighted material, not download it." From the article: " The law was drawn up to bring Sweden into line with EU directives and is also part of a wider crackdown on net piracy. It comes a day after the US Attorney General's office announced an 11-nation operation to catch and shut down net piracy groups."

Comments

This is a WASTE, unless...

[bigwavejas]

This is a step in the right direction; however, until the risks outweigh the rewards this will only serve to drive people into using more discreet tools for transferring these files, by utilizing applications such as "WASTE" http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/internet/07/29/privat e.fileshare/ which enables users to securely transfer copyrighted material with complete file anonymity.

This all comes down to being a stakes game. Are the rewards worth the consequences? I honestly feel examples are going to have to be made with *severe* penalties. I recently heard on National Public Radio http://www.npr.org/ one county was raising the fine for littering from $1,000 to $10,000! It may seem ludicrous, but I bet you one thing -- Mr Trucker is going to think twice about throwing that cigarette butt out the window. Same holds true for Piracy... make the penalties so severe that nobody in their right mind will want to partake.

Re:This is a WASTE, unless...

[lordsilence]

I dont think that $10000 fines for throwing cigarettes is the right way to go. Just as much as fining 14 year old girls for double that amount for downloading or sharing Britney Spears latest album.

Re:This is a WASTE, unless...

[JLF65]

It's good to see you have your prioirties right. Punish copyright infringement more harshly than murder or armed robbery!

Seems the world is headed toward imprisoning people for stealing a SLICE of bread, much less the whole loaf. Les Miserables for the new generation...

Re:This is a WASTE, unless...

[AresTheImpaler]

This all comes down to being a stakes game. Are the rewards worth the consequences? I honestly feel examples are going to have to be made with *severe* penalties. I recently heard on National Public Radio http://www.npr.org/ one county was raising the fine for littering from $1,000 to $10,000! It may seem ludicrous, but I bet you one thing -- Mr Trucker is going to think twice about throwing that cigarette butt out the window. Same holds true for Piracy... make the penalties so severe that nobody in their right mind will want to partake.

You are wrong. I've seen that raising fines or penalties doesn't lower the crimes. What lower the crimes is when you know that you are going to be caught regardless. If you know there is a big posibility of nothing happening to you, then you will do anything that is ilegal. If every crime is being punished and nobody is learning not to do it, then you can raise the fine/penalty.

Re:This is a WASTE, unless...

[Mantorp]

I dont think that $10000 fines for throwing cigarettes is the right way to go.

It costs many times more than that to fight the fires they start.

Re:This is a WASTE, unless...

[pipingguy]

The goal of these fines is deterrence, not punishment. Do you *really* think that caught downloaders/sharers actually pay what the news media reports? If anything, there is an out-of-court settlement which cannot be disclosed.

The innocent grandma/5 year-old getting sued is designed to get the media's attention, and that's all they really need since these guys are experts at one to many-type distribution (and intimidation fits nicely into this expertise) and use of traditional communication channels.

Re:This is a WASTE, unless...

[Spy der Mann]

this will only serve to drive people into using more discreet tools for transferring these files, by utilizing applications such as "WASTE"

You forgot to add the *wink wink, nudge nudge* in your statement. ;-)

Re:This is a WASTE, unless...

[10101001 10101001]

one county was raising the fine for littering from $1,000 to $10,000! It may seem ludicrous, but I bet you one thing -- Mr Trucker is going to think twice about throwing that cigarette butt out the window. Same holds true for Piracy... make the penalties so severe that nobody in their right mind will want to partake.

You know, that's exactly the right idea. Just like how the death penalty makes people think twice about murdering. In fact, if there was the death penalty for littering, I think people would think thrice. Why, we could make all laws (including the civil ones) end in death penalty. I mean, sure it's ludicrous. But not only do we get rid of all the criminals who dare step out of line, we also simplify the legal code and instill that sort of fear necessary to insure only the insane will ever be put to death--I mean, it'd be insanity to jaywalk if you knew the penalty was death.

Yep, that'd be a great legal system. Iran and Saudi Arabia are two countries which, AFAIK, are closest to this ideal. But they still have a lot of rules that don't involve execution. Well, here's hoping Sweden (and the US) moves towards the great and practical ideals that Iran is closer towards.

Re:This is a WASTE, unless...

[radish]

The standard penalty for murder in the UK is life in prison, which usually (with parole) works out at 15-20 years or thereabouts. In the US, it can be a longer jail term, or sometimes, death. The murder rate in the US is higher than the UK, which suggests that higher penalties don't work (or of course that there is another, more important factor in this case).

Re:This is a WASTE, unless...

[doubledoh]

That's true. But I think the issue was littering. if you throw out a candy wrapper, 10K is excessive.

Re:This is a WASTE, unless...

[eluusive]

Someone stole my bike, the police didn't even care. Are you telling me that music is more important than my transportation which cost me several hundred dollars? Get your damn priorities straight.

Re:This is a WASTE, unless...

[TheTiGuR]

It may be excessive until you consider the thousands of people who litter who don't get caught. Making the fine $10,000 just makes you REALLY not want to be the one who gets caught as opposed to just being annoyed that you have to pay a few hundered dollar fine. And, surprisingly enough, this correlates nicely with p2p....everyone does it, but if it truly is meant to stop, make it hurt for the right people (not the grandma's and pre-teens who can't afford it and will likely settle anyway)

Re:This is a WASTE, unless...

[tomhudson]

It's a good argument as far as deterrency goes.

Up here, our maximum fine for not poop-and-scooping is $300 (and the average is $35-$50), whereas the province next door is $2,000.00.

Guess what? With a $2,000 fine, EVERYONE gets their sht together.

Re:This is a WASTE, unless...

[NickFortune]

I remember readiing somewhere that the police maintain that the thing that deters would be lawbreakers is not the severity of the punishment, but the likelihood of being caught.

If that's correct, and I can't provide a reference I'm afraid, then raming up fines will do nothing to slow unauthorised distribution of copyrighted materials.

And it seems unlikely that the penalty will be widely applied. There will be too many people who can't pay for a start. If the person being fined is going to have to pay it in pennies a week, it won't matter wether the fine is $100 or $1,000,000. Then there are the six year old girls and the grannies who don't understand tech and any nomber of other PR nightmares...

But what it will provide is a law that can be selectively enforced. There have been cases where unscrupulous types have planted child pronography on a rivals computer as a means to discredit them. We can imagine MP3s and DVD images being used to the same purpose.

Same holds true for Piracy... make the penalties so severe that nobody in their right mind will want to partake.

There's a historical parallel. The Agricultural Revolution in England led to a large number of displaced smallholders migrating to the cities to lead to work. Unemployment was high and crime soared. Ever harsher penalties for crimes were passed until almost every crime bore the death penalty.

It didn't work.

For one thing, juries were loathe to convict when the sentence was unjustly harsh. It also meant that otherwise petty criminals came to regard all laws with the same contempt. This is the origin of the phrase "might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb".

The penalty as deterrent idea didn't work in the 1800s and had unwanted, unforseen and undesirable repercussions. Modern law enforcement thinking, as I understand it, is likewise sceptical about deterrence-by-severity. And you know what they say about those who cannot learn from history...

Re:This is a WASTE, unless...

[srb123]

Look how well the death penalty works for example...er wait..

Re:This is a WASTE, unless...

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

You mean like use acid. I heard that can raise your level of consciousness.

Re:This is a WASTE, unless...

[An Onerous Coward]

Raising penalties to an unreasonable level can have lots of effects.

1) It could make people less likely to commit the act.

2) It could make people lose respect for the law against the activity being punished.

3) It could make law enforcement officers hesitant to actually inflict the punishment. In the case of littering that you describe, it's gone from a stiff, "that'll l'arn 'im" fine to an unreasonable fine that could be financially ruinous to just about anyone. If I were a cop, and I was pulling someone over for littering in that county, nothing short of driving a Lamborghini would keep me from letting the guy off with a warning.

Same goes for file sharing. The fines for copyright infringement are already so high that a serious violator can end up owing more than their state of origin is worth. But people keep doing it, because the reward is great (free music), the harm to artists seems miniscule, and the likelihood of getting caught is zero in most peoples' minds.

Re:This is a WASTE, unless...

[Anonymous Coward]

Then just punish murder and armed robbery more harshly , pretty simple ...

Re:This is a WASTE, unless...

[unitron]

"Punish copyright infringement..."

Everything I've seen so far (which, at this point is only the article linked on the story and an article on The Register) doesn't say anything about punishing copyright infringement, it just says Sweden is making downloading of copyright material illegal, so I guess no iPod for them.

(it's only infringement if you don't have the copyright holder's permission)

Re:This is a WASTE, unless...

[drsquare]

You are wrong. I've seen that raising fines or penalties doesn't lower the crimes.

Tell that to Singapore. Game. Set. Match.

In the words of the Singapore President: "People understand fines."

Re:This is a WASTE, unless...

[line.at.infinity]

Raising fines is meaningless without enforcement. In Singapore, people understand fines because people are caught. Getting punished for online piracy is like getting bit by a shark. People still swim in the ocean because they know that the probability of a shark attack is virtually non-existant.

Re:This is a WASTE, unless...

[SillyNickName4me]

The fines need to be high to act as a deterrent.

Logically, you make sense. Historically you don't.

Putting up extreme punnishment as deterent was the norm during much of history.

In ancient times, the Romans (among others) found out that it is a lot more effective to try to 'do justice' instead. (effective as in, reducing crime)

An absolute prerequisite for that is that crime and punnishment are proportional. There MUST be a direct relationn between the severeness of the crime. The first problem you get when ignoring this is what to do with a worse crime then the one you just punnished severely. The second problem is that in the end people (not just criminals) will not except this.

This was considered pretty important when the USA was founded and is reflected in how its justice system works.

People like you who just look at the potential deterent while ignoring the justice aspect seem to me to want to go back to the situation that was there before the French and American revolutions, which I find rather hard to understand. I am also rather surprised how your way of looking at this seems to be very popular in the USA, could that be because it is a young nation still that lacks the historical experience?

Re:This is a WASTE, unless...

[Simonetta]

It could make law enforcement officers hesitant to actually inflict the punishment.

In my experience and reading, this is rarely the case. Having insane punishments for common activities that are defined as crimes in order to harass a certain political or minority group often results in the increased willingness for the 'criminals' to kill the police when an arrest appears to be imminent. When the penality for killing the arrestor is the same as the penality for the minor offence, people have nothing to lose by just blasting away whenever it begins to appear like an arrest for some minor crime might happen. This sometimes happened in the early 1970's when returning Vietnam veterans found themselves facing long prison terms in the USA for being caught smoking marijuana. Marijuana use was common in Vietnam and was discovered to be harmless. Murder was common also in Vietnam, both of the enemy, the local civilians, and by the end of the war, of the butt-head officers as well. When the police in America found that returning veterans would actually shoot the arresting officer instead of face 10 years in prison for smoking a joint, the laws were changed to decrimialize marijuana posession in most states.
This is relevant to copyright 'crimes' because it is basically the same kind of legal situation. It is the use of extraordinarily harsh penalities to systematically imprison a specific and focused minority. In five years, no rich Republican (or local EU equalivent) will ever be prosecuted for copyright, but young people protesting the Iraq/Iran war draft will be sent to prison by the thousands. In the EU, the illegal listeners of music who are in unpopular minorities will be either deported or exiled to the poorest regions of the EU.
This is the way that the world works.

Re:This is a WASTE, unless...

[ScrewMaster]

I am also rather surprised how your way of looking at this seems to be very popular in the USA, could that be because it is a young nation still that lacks the historical experience?

I am not surprised but I am bitterly disappointed. And it has less to do with the age of our nation as it has to do with awareness of history. World History, which is more important in this context than U.S. History. Most people learn most of the history they will ever know from early schooling. Given the sorry state of America's school system it is hardly surprising that a lot of us don't have enough historical referents to make sound judgments regarding our current political system. I cannot say that the remarkable deterioration of our schools in the past forty-odd years was orchestrated in any way, but it is certainly convenient for the powers-that-be that the citizenry be ignorant of the lessons that history could teach them. We're a lot easier to hoodwink that way.

Re:This is a WASTE, unless...

[ScrewMaster]

Also, many social problems are very difficult for government to manage in any effective way, because there are fundamental problems with modern American cultural ideals and values. These are difficult issues, and resolving them is really not the purview of government anyway. Most of us are more than happy to let them try, because it's easier to just slap on a few more penalties than to address the underlying causes.

Re:This is a WASTE, unless...

[Xyrus]

I would like to draw your attention to the eighth ammendment of the US Constitution:

"Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted."

You see, our forefathers were smart enough to include such things just in case someone like you (or some of those already in power) decide to do something incredibly...stupid.

~X~

Re:This is a WASTE, unless...

[revmoo]

Assuming you are referring to the USA, Marijuana is not decriminalized in any of the 50 states.

Re:This is a WASTE, unless...

[Tony Hoyle]

Some of that will be the wide availability of firearms... it's relatively uncommon for even criminals in the UK to have guns (due to the punitive laws covering their possetion - you may get 6 months for robbing a store with a knife.. if you've got a gun on you (or at your home when they search it) - whether you use it or not - you can add 2-5 years to that depending on how pissed off the judge is that day).

That's probably not the whole story either... some cities in the US seem to be awash with gangs regularly shooting each other, which is just unheard of in the UK (at least on that scale... you ocassionaly hear of gangs but if someone gets killed it makes national news for days.. last one I heard of was in January).

Re:This is a WASTE, unless...

[flubbergust]

Ohh, but the politicians and a lot of people, for that matter too, in USA really don't seem to care about their own constitution, except when somebody actually forces something down their own throats. Blatantly ignoring their forefathers and the freedom that USA have been built upon and admired and respected over the world (used to anyway) is what Bush does so why shouldn't average Joe?
And speaking as a Swede, this really will only hurt the music biz itself here. Perhaps a few people will stop downloading but when police close cases without doing anything (even when there is such evidence as videos of the crocks stealing things) nobody is really that afraid that something bad will happen.
CopySwede (the organisation that handles the "tax" on MP3 players, CD and DVD discs) wanted to raise the fee to about 3 bucks per DVD-RW disc. So now people are buying from Germany and thus not paying any Swedish taxes and the music biz gets nothing. This behaviour will increase and people will buy more and more from other countries.
The Swedish government were pressed to do something so they didn't do any studies or anything like that but they did this, which is, mostly, a very harmless law for the average Sven. Other laws, like stopping men from beating their wife, takes ages.

Re:This is a WASTE, unless...

[towndowner]

Sorry about your bike. Okay, my first thought was, "Sweet, I pirated "The Bicycle Thief".".

Re:This is a WASTE, unless...

[Mehtuus]

This post is ©. If you are from Sweden you just broke the law and we are comming to arrest you. I hope you enjoy your new home...

Re:This is a WASTE, unless...

[Mac Degger]

Whatever happened to 'the time fits thecrime '? AKA comensurate punishment. Getting more jailtime for downloading a song, which is then still left on that server (so there is no loss of property, just copying) than an average rapist gets is really sending the wrong message.

Furthermore, if there is one thing so very fucked up about a justice system, it's one which sends 'messages' by 'making examples'. Whatever happened to that fundament of justice 'everyone is equal unto the law'? Making an example out of someone is per definition highly wrong, as you single out someone and give them a higher sentence compared to someone else, for the arbritrary reason that you 'want to set an example'. How the fuck is that justice?

Excuse my swearing, but judicial prejudice is something which flies in the face of justice and democracy in such a fundamental way that to ignore that basic axiomal principle is to turn your back on the whole idea of 'law'.

Re:This is a WASTE, unless...

[SillyNickName4me]

These are difficult issues, and resolving them is really not the purview of government anyway. Most of us are more than happy to let them try, because it's easier to just slap on a few more penalties than to address the underlying causes.

First of all, thanks for the serious reply, I did not really expect one. What follows is a bit of a rant, don't take it personal :)

I am also dissapointed (besides surprised) by it. Eventho I am not an American, I care deeply about the ideas and concepts that the US constitution and the USA as a nation and society are built upon. Seeing them being forgotten or possibly consiously ignored nowadays is quite sad. Worse even are the arguments that are used for ignoring those ideas and concepts.

You are probably right that education is important in this, but this seems to be so deeply ingrainded that I wonder.. Even when ignoring world history and only looking at the USA itself, there is a lot to learn about this. The founding fathers have written lots of letters that are now publicly available, which document many of their choices and the reasoning behind those.

Just readinng those will tell you about concepts like justice instead of retaliation, why it is better to have a criminal not being caught then having an innocent person in jail etc etc.

Those same people knew they were a part of this world, and while having to concentrate on building a nation, they realized that that would not work without involving the outside world, and learning from mistakes made by others.

Ah well.. to me it seems that at least in the last few decades, arrogance and ignorance are key and actual knowledge is irrelevant... or is it?

Many of the 'ignorant' people are very noisy, whereas many of the people who actually know a bit about this are not very noisy at all, which just means that ignorance is being heard, the rest is not. Doesn't mean everyone is ignorant.

Re:This is a WASTE, unless...

[hackstraw]

Someone stole my bike, the police didn't even care. Are you telling me that music is more important than my transportation which cost me several hundred dollars?

And how much money do you kick back to the government and police for the priveledge of owning a bike?

Re:This is a WASTE, unless...

[fitteschleiker]

it is not necessary to make huge fines as a deterrent. a much more effective deterrent would be to catch the people who do it. and lets face it, this is trivial. just make a petty cybercrimes unit, let them log on to copyrighted torrents, allow the fact that people are connected to torrents as evidence they are infringing. make it trivial for law enforcement to compell isp's to give out names and adresses, go knock their front door down, take their computer for several weeks, fine them some not palty amount and you will see it drop to zero. of course until the next generation of p2p comes out... and as always the people who know what they are doing can continue to pirate shit, and give/sell it to their friends family and workmates.... and the stupid n00bs who plague bittorrent sites will magicallly disappear, back to paying paying paying like those stoopids should hahaha god i'm a prick...

Re:This is a WASTE, unless...

[bentcd]

While I am sure this approach is effective, there is also the question of how draconian we want our laws to be. I personally prefer not to live in a tyranny.

Re:This is a WASTE, unless...

[tomhudson]

I personally prefer not to live in a tyranny.

Is it a tyranny to ask people to pick up after their dogs? Or is this something that is reasonable, and affects the health of everyone?

As the owner of 3 VERY LARGE dogs (total weight close to 400 pounds), I would be quite happy to see the fine for not "stoop and scooping" raised to $3000 *plus* 1 month in jail, convertible to community service.

There are so many people with "rats on a rope" who don't pick up. And some of the owners of larger dogs are also at fault.

Fines only work if they hurt. Otherwise they really aren't a disincentive, just another "nuisance tax" grab.

Re:This is a WASTE, unless...

[rtb61]

Consider the true ramification of a stupid law like this. A consumer in sweden now logging onto the internet trying legally to buy content has to confirm wether the person or company is legally entitled to distribute that content because if they are not, then the consumer is legally liable for it. Individual consumers in Sweden must now be global repositories for what is and is not copyrighted content, they must be able to instantly indentify every copyrighted work ever produced (books,music etc. and in digital format - telepathicly ?, after all you really can't tell what it is until you have downloaded it).

Those swedes must be pretty smart because I can tell you there would be no way in hell I could memorise every title for every copyrighted piece in every language and unfortunately I lack the telepathic ability to read online digital content prior to downloading it. I will just have to brush up my mind reading skills so that I can safely confirm from the mind of the content distributor that they are in fact legally entitled to distribute that content.

Re:This is a WASTE, unless...

[npsimons]

What lower the crimes is when you know that you are going to be caught regardless. If you know there is a big posibility of nothing happening to you, then you will do anything that is ilegal.

Not necessarily. I know that if I throw trash out the window on the highway, I probably won't be caught. But I don't do it, because I believe that it is wrong to do. However, I copy music because I don't believe it is wrong. In fact, I believe it is good: if I like the music, I will look into more of the same, and probably purchase it. If I don't, I will delete it, and the money I would have wasted on music I don't like will now go to something more worthwhile.

Re:This is a WASTE, unless...

[Tekdemon]

You have to realize that in Singapore people get caught for almost everything because there are cameras EVERYWHERE. There's even cameras outside public toilets, so that if you don't flush, the next person can rat you out and they'll hunt you down and fine you.

That's why the harsh punishments there work, since everyone knows that doing anything stupid *will* get them punished, or at least has a very high chance of getting them punished.

Re:This is a WASTE, unless...

[Tekdemon]

Let's not forget that even the regular police in England don't carry firearms. The US is definitely way more gun-happy than pretty much anywhere else on the planet. (that's not to say that they don't have people with guns ready to stop a gang of gun toting criminals though...one call and a SWAT-type team will come down on you hard)

Im swedish ;) are you?

[lordsilence]

Analyzers of this law has deemed it to be pretty toothless against piracy. The police themselves has announced that copyright crimes wont be prioritised. It's not even clear if they will investigate things further on invidual downloaders/filesharers since they consider this a crime which will not be a jailable offence. Most likely a smaller fee like for speeding or parking ticket. But we'll see what the antipiracy groups comes up with before we know anything for sure.

Re:Im swedish ;) are you?

[hostyle]

"Swedish lawmakers", "Analysers of the law" - screw that. What about the real spokespeople - has anyone sent thepiratebay a cease and desist notice yet? I want to hear their reaction.

Re:Im swedish ;) are you?

[lordsilence]

They are still fine. They dont provide any copyright material. They simply provide links which is entirely fine by swedish law. Untill then they will continue providing their bittorrent tracker service.

Re:Im swedish ;) are you?

[A beautiful mind]

They are still not hosting any copyrighted material, so i don't get what changed since they opened that site.

Re:Im swedish ;) are you?

[Iriel]

Here's something to chew on that's even more fun that the priority that this law's enforcement receives:

Sweden has been a known safe-haven for downloading while the rest of us hear about everything from Napster to Bram Cohen. With that kind of well rooted status among the people, how will any anti-piracy agency stem the tide of people refusing to give up the right that they just lost? It's still a pretty scary idea to take on all the downloaders (of the illegal kind) in the US even after all of our new lawsuits and regulations. With legal online music stores, there is now a problem that virtually replaces it in movies now that broadband is so much cheaper; the problem perpetuates in a new form now.

How will Sweden really enforce something like this to a people who could rebel against it after enjoying this 'freedom' amidst everyone else's DRM troubles over the years?

Re:Im swedish ;) are you?

[Jugalator]

Hmm...

As others have replied, they aren't hosting copyrighted material, so they aren't subject to this new law at least.

They have been sent such "scare mails" earlier, but just ridiculed them. But that was before this law. However, the interesting part is that some were sent because they didn't comply with the DMCA, so it seems the law enforces working for the movie companies etc use that law in specific as support.

And the thing is -- even if it's now illegal to download copyrighted material in Sweden, we still don't have an identical copy of the DMCA. We got a new law together with this though against reverse engineering. However, The Pirate Bay doesn't do that either.

Re:Im swedish ;) are you?

[Jugalator]

Sorry, I might have been sloppy in "against reverse engineering". Now that I think more hard about it, it was about "removal of copy protections". Like cracks. It may not cover reverse engineering. However, it doesn't matter since TPB do neither remove protection, reverse engineer, or download/upload copyrighted material.

Re:Im swedish ;) are you?

[jorgen]

The police themselves has announced that copyright crimes wont be prioritised.

It's even better than that; swedish law (PUL) forbids any registering of IP addresses if the suspected crime isn't serious enough to render a prison sentence if caught.

This effectively means that the small scale pirate copying that most people do on DC++ etc (which not even in theory can get you in prison) isn't even possible to investigate.

This is a pure bullshit law, and everyone knows it.

Re:Im swedish ;) are you?

[js7a]

This post is Copyright (c) 2005, James Salsman. All rights reserved.

Report to jail at once.

Fair Use is dying

[casings]

Our rights as consumers are dying.

RIP fair use.

Re:Fair Use is dying

[ScentCone]

Our rights as consumers are dying.

But you've never had the right to copyright infringement. And, the typical use of the word "consumer" includes that person's participation in a commercial relationship with the provider of the goods and services in question. Sneaking off with a copy of a movie doesn't make you a consumer. It makes you someone who's too cheap to pay for the movie. Since it's rampant, the only thing dying is the artist's hope of actually seeing a little compensation for your enjoyment of her work. Does your idea of "fair use" include making that artist your personal little entertainment slave?

Re:Fair Use is dying

[HughsOnFirst]

But every work of original expression is copyrighted unless the owner explicitly gives up those rights. Even this post is under copyright according to the law. If it is illegal to download copyright material, then it is illegal to download almost everything. Of course one hopes the law is written to recognize that fact but I wouldn't bet on it.

Re:Fair Use is dying

[rackhamh]

Yes, now I can't download games, music or videos that I never purchased! LIFE IS SO UNFAIR! KILL ME NOW!!!

Re:Fair Use is dying

[ModernGeek]

You know, before everything go so easy to use, and all open to the whole public, none of this was even a political issues. Used to be everyone used IRC and DCC for filesharing, and everyone was too stupid to use it, so it wasn't an issue. First napster, then kazaa, now bittorrent have made it easy so now all of this is mainstream. If it would have stayed low profile like it was about 8 years ago, noone would even care.

Re:Fair Use is dying

[orasio]

Fair use is downloading the show you already paid for.

And your definition of copyright is very creative.
Copyright is a monopoly granted by governments to encourage creators to create. Not an inherent right of the creator.
Not a form of intellectual property, because there is no such thing as intellectual property. Property is physical, and finite, and can have an owner. Intellectual stuff does not have an owner, it has a creator, who is granted by governments a monopoly on distribution, because the nature of intellectual works make impossible for them to have an owner, like actual property, once you distribute them.
Even if you keep you works a secret, some other guy could even create the same by himself, and get the copyright himself, although it's highy unlikely.

Re:Fair Use is dying

[Wile_E_Peyote]

RIP fair use.

What exactly does this have to do with fair use?

If fair use does die, it will be the fault of software/movie/music pirates. It's because of all the copying going on out there that the various industries are making it harder and harder for me to make a personal backup copy or a copy on my HDD for streaming throughout my home.

Re:Fair Use is dying

[Depris]

Considering these industries (movies/music) have screwed more people than any other known to man I can't help but not feel bad that the technology today allows us to collectively screw them out of some monies. :)

Re:Fair Use is dying

[SeattleGameboy]

Your argument would only be valid if current implementation of copyright was a balanced contract between artists and consumers as it was in the beginning (when first copyright laws were adopted).

Copyright laws are not just for the creators, it is also for consumers. It is a social bargain struck to balance the need to protect and promote creativity while ensuring free exchange of ideas.

To achieve these goals, the original copyright was structured so that after a relatively short period of time (20years), the original work would be available free through public domain.

The problem is, while consumers are getting forced to accept more and more onerous terms where no work has joined the public domain in 100 years, the punishment for the infringement has goteen harsher and harsher; thus breaking the covenant orignially set.

Consumers have no incentive to abide by copyright anymore. They have no benefits whatsoever. To increase the punishment for infringement while doing nothing to balance the benefit, I would CERTAINLY agree with the sentiment that our right as consumers are dying indeed.

Re:Fair Use is dying

[t35t0r]

My idea of fair use is a majority of the royalties actually going to support the artists and the studio producers not the execs and RIAA/MPAA. So if piracy takes money out of those bullies' pockets then so be it.

Re:Fair Use is dying

[mOdQuArK!]

But you've never had the right to copyright infringement.

Making a copy of your own private property is a "natural" right. Being able to stop someone from make a copy of their own private property, i.e., holding a copyright, is a _privilege_ which is granted & enforced by law.

Re:Fair Use is dying

[d34thm0nk3y]

But you've never had the right to copyright infringement.

Actually (in the US at least) you do have the right to copyright infringement. Though only in very special circumstances. This can include personal backups etc. though it is only useful as a defense on a case by case basis.

Re:Fair Use is dying

[Cyclops]

Our rights as consumers are dying.

But you've never had the right to copyright infringement.

One of the good things in copyright law is that you can use a small portion of some copyrighted work to do another piece (it has to be very small).

If downloading is criminalized, than to exercise your right you have to first commit a crime. Interesting...

Re:Fair Use is dying

[angle_slam]

Consumers have no incentive to abide by copyright anymore. They have no benefits whatsoever.

Bullcrap. Consumer's benefits have stayed exactly the same. The only thing that has changed is that it is much easier to copy and distribute works. To many here on /., that means the artists should be giving their stuff away for free.

Re:Fair Use is dying

[rzbx]

"Since it's rampant, the only thing dying is the artist's hope of actually seeing a little compensation for your enjoyment of her work"

Why use lies to evoke emotion? You want emotion. How much does the average artist make? How much has copyright done for the average artist? How much has the MPAA and RIAA, and lobbyists for expanding and extending of copyright and patent law done for the average artist, inventor, scientist, researcher, author, programmer, engineer, musician, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.?

Let me make this very clear, the continual expansion of these various property-like laws are a means for protecting certain groups (instititutions, organizations) and individuals from competition. The laws are NOT being pushed forward by most average contributors to society. It is being pushed by those that have an interest in protecting investments (and others being payed to do it, such as lawyers) and generating the largest possible cash flow possible.

No person has any right to tell another that he or she can not use an idea because someone else thought of it first. If someone has an idea they do not want others to use, then they should keep it in their head or in a safe.

"Does your idea of "fair use" include making that artist your personal little entertainment slave?"

That really is sick. Please do not make this argument any more emotional. If you want emotional, I could point you to many resources outlining how these various laws have been used to keep those starving for some serious cash artists you speak of in big business.

You really don't want to bring slavery into this topic, because the fact is, in reality, slavery is more likely with an increas in the power and scope of these laws. If you would like, I could destroy any argument you have for the continual hardline protectionism of copyright you appear to support using the argument of slavery, but I'd rather keep it simple and to the point. Add to this that there is both an increase in the scope and power of many laws not just copyright and patents. These laws are NOT for the mass population, nor for the majority of artists, scientists, etc.

Re:Fair Use is dying

[Beetjebrak]

Ever heard of the Mickey Mouse copyright extension? Copyright gets to last longer and longer and longer while society and culture in general (I'm not talking greedy consumer here) misses out on a lot of great works. Why is it that the heirs of Elvis should have the copyright over his work? Elvis created it, he's dead (and if he wasn't already, he'd be by now from old age), so all his works should go into the public domain. Sure record companies may charge for the CD they put his songs on and they may also charge for the time some studio technicians spent cleaning up the originals for digital playback. But they sure as hell can't charge for the creativity of Mr. Presley who made plenty of money from his creations during his lifetime. Same goes for Walt Disney. Corporations are immortal though, so Mickey Mouse will never be public domain.. even though Disney is making billions by making animated ripoffs of old folk tales from many cultures that are available for free. When was the last time you saw something truly original come out of Walt Disney Studios?

Re:Fair Use is dying

[drsquare]

What on earth? A country bans an activity which is illegal practically everywhere else, and you're surprised? The only surprise is that this has taken so long.

When I saw the article summary, I knew, I just KNEW, that someone on this site would be there to try to make out that this is bad. Somehow, they'll find a way. Any single event in the world which in any way gets in the way of, or even frowns upon complete, unrestricted downloading of all material under any copyright, and someone on Slashdot will crawl out of the woodwork crying about how unfair it is. It's absolutely pathetic. You people just refuse to accept that there is such a thing as copyright law, and that no, you can't just do anything you want just because you're using a computer. For crying out loud, there are stories of people hacking into government computer systems, and Slashdotters are saying they should be rewarded for pointing out holes in the security system rather than punished.

Grow up.

1. If you're downloading it illegally, you're not a consumer. Consumers pay for things. Consumers have jobs.

2. 'Fair use' is something in U.S. copyright law, not Swedish copyright law.

3. Fair use doesn't include downloading it illegally.

Re:Fair Use is dying

[BobTheLawyer]

The money in my bank account isn't physically there - does that mean it isn't property?

What about a right to use somebody else's land? It's neither physical nor finite (I could grant the right to as many people as I like). Does that mean you don't think it's property?

No property rights are "inherent" - they are all artificial constructs. Some have been around hundreds of years, others are more recent. But the idea there's something special about intellectual property rights is hard to defend.

(By the way, copyright is not a monopoly right - you're thinking of patents, trademarks and related rights)

Re:Fair Use is dying

[Wizzmer]

"What exactly does this have to do with fair use?"

According the Swedish laws on "fair use" you have the legal right to make backup copies of your CDs/DVDs for personal use, and even give copies away to your closest friends. This is still legal under then new law. But since the new law bans the use (and construction) of software to bypass any kind of copy protection, all the record companies have to do is include the most basic copy protection on their CDs and all fair use rights goes right out the window.

Re:Fair Use is dying

[iamnotanumber6]

But every work of original expression is copyrighted unless the owner explicitly gives up those rights.

the owner can also *implicitly* give up certain rights, eg. by the act of posting on slashdot you implicitly give me permission to download your post into my hard drive cache in order to read it.

Re:Fair Use is dying

[Travelsonic]

I am going to answer each of your points drsquare in a numbered list.

A. No, I am surprised that they outlawed an activity that everybody does. Downloading copyrighted works freely is not illegal if you have permission, like with indie music, freeware software, etc. IT IS WITHOUT PERMISSION that is illegal, and the fact that the decision seemed broad is troubling to me.

You people just refuse to accept that there is such a thing as copyright law...

Generlization. NEXT!

If you're downloading it illegally, you're not a consumer. Consumers pay for things. Consumers have jobs.

Complete bullcrap to boot.

Consumers consume. They either do it legally by paying when having to, or getting it for free when not having to pay. Not all consumers pay for things, and NOT ALL (but some, maybe alot are) is illegal. And no, not all consumers have job. ANOTHER generalization.

Fair use doesn't include downloading it illegally.

I agree, but a question - what about images on websites and saving them to your computer for personal (non-distribution) use?

Re:Fair Use is dying

[Goldberg's Pants]

I love how the whiny little bitches on here who are the type who equate stealing a car with downloading a movie, (despite the many MANY flaws in their argument) always seem to fall oddly silent when a well reasoned argument like yours appears.

Nice one! I have movies on DVD that I've also downloaded, simply so I can watch them on my system that doesn't have a DVD drive. Yet by doing that, I've now broken the law.

Anyone who thinks that is any way that doing that makes me a criminal is an idiot. Or works for the MPAA. Or both.

Re:Fair Use is dying

[nebaz]

Elvis created it, he's dead (and if he wasn't already, he'd be by now from old age)

Why? He'd only be 70.

Re:Fair Use is dying

[Goldberg's Pants]

What does having a job have to do with anything? I can't work for health reasons, yet I have a good number of DVD's here.

That is the problem. The perception. Consumer. Consume. Just because some people aren't satisfying their need to consume by throwing money at a corrupt organisation, doesn't mean they're downloading illegally.

The other problem with your argument is who gets to decide what, exactly, illegal downloading is? Do you think that even if you own everything you download, that you're going to be exempt from this? You're going to be provided some magical legal shield because you genuinely own everything you download? Of course not. Of course, the percentage of folks this applies to is miniscule, but that is beside the point. As far as the law is concerned, downloading a movie or an album off the net is illegal, end of story. There is no "unless the downloader already owns it" clause.

In that regards, yes, fair use rights have died. If you don't have the means to make a backup of your DVD you paid for, and you download an AVI of it to archive, you're still considered a criminal, despite, essentially, doing exactly what you are entitled to do under the law.

You people decrying Slashdot are as guilty as the people you condemn for simply seeing this as a black and white issue, when it is unbeliveably grey.

Re:Fair Use is dying

[drsquare]

No, I am surprised that they outlawed an activity that everybody does. Downloading copyrighted works freely is not illegal if you have permission, like with indie music, freeware software, etc. IT IS WITHOUT PERMISSION that is illegal, and the fact that the decision seemed broad is troubling to me.

If you actually READ THE ARTICLE (yes I know this is Slashdot and therefore on average you're likely to be of below average intelligence), but this applies to UNAUTHORISED downloading. You can download freeware software. Most of this outrage is because slashdotters are stupid idiots who never think about anything. Also just because someone does something doesn't mean it's OK. People used to own slaves and take heroin.

I agree, but a question - what about images on websites and saving the to your computer for personal (non-distribution) use?

They weren't downloaded illegaly where they? No-one could object to that. But if you can't see the difference between that and between starting up your favourite p2p client and downloading MP3s then you're an even bigger idiot than slashdot moderators. Which is saying something because Slashdot moderators are more stupid than Linux Torvalds.

Re:Fair Use is dying

[WowTIP]

Fair use is downloading the show you already paid for.

Wonder what this law say regarding downloading material you already own?

Let's say I download some DVDs and CDs I bought but are to lazy to rip myself. Obviously no one can tell if I own the license to view/listen to the material to begin with.

Probably the law states that I can't download it anyway (license to listen/watch from media bought), if I want to use it I would have to rip it myself.

But would it be enforcable?

Re:Fair Use is dying

[vipw]

You meant to say, "He is only 70."

Re:Fair Use is dying

[Jackmn]

Did you purchase copies of those DVDs first? There is certainly nothing wrong with paying for them then downloading them so that you can view them on whatever platform you wish.

Re:Fair Use is dying

[xiando]

"RIP fair use."? You are so wrong. The BitTorrent P2P technology is very good for you and your health. It makes it possible for you to enjoy hardcoretorrents.com and other sites like it. Hard Core Torrents is extremely fair to use, just go there, get the torrent and volla! You have a not-safe-for-work video you can enjoy when you are not-at-work. Nothing is more fair than that. Nothing. Fair use is NOT DEAD and will not die because laws are passed in order to shut down criminal terrorist-founding activities. P2P and (hardcore) torrents in particular are good for you, violating copyright was not good for you even when there were not as strong laws against it as it is now.

Re:Fair Use is dying

[Pofy]

>Wonder what this law say regarding downloading
>material you already own?

It doesn't make such distinctions. What it says is that it is illegal to make copies from, for example the internet, if the "original" (the one put available on the internet) has not been put there with the concent of the copyright holder. Although I don't recall the exact wording, I would say that it would thus technically not be allowed to copy your own work if it is from a copy put on the net without your own permision. I think it is still allowed though since if you are the copyright holder, your copying would not be an infringing action anyway since you are the copyright holder. Although it seems like a possible bizare loophole.

Re:Fair Use is dying

[tricorn]

How is copyright not a monopoly right?

When I put money into the bank, I don't get the same piece of paper back when I withdraw it later. "Money" is merely an agreement we all make as to a way to set value of (ultimately) resources. Whether it is represented as printed pieces of paper, stamped pieces of metal, or stored as bits on a computer, ultimately it is an abstract representation of worth. My "money" that is in the bank is a contractual obligation between me and the bank to give me physical pieces of money or to transfer obligations with other banks when I ask them to. It isn't property, although it is an asset of mine.

Property rights are distinct from the property they are attached to. Rights to use land are just that, rights. Not property.

Re:Fair Use is dying

[Goldberg's Pants]

That's the exact point I was trying to make.

Re:Fair Use is dying

[Beetjebrak]

I can't imagine anyone with Elvis' type of diet living to make 70 years old ;-)

Re:Fair Use is dying

[Wile_E_Peyote]

According the Swedish laws on "fair use" you have the legal right to make backup copies of your CDs/DVDs for personal use, and even give copies away to your closest friends.

Ah, I am ill-informed on Swedish law. How do they define "closest" friends?

Wait...

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean I wasted my time learning Swedish?!

Re:Wait...

[andersbergh]

"svenska", not "Svenska"

Downloading in the US?

[autopr0n]

I've been under the impression that downloading something in the US is not illegal, only uploading (providing it to someone else). Lots of people seem to think otherwise, but I've never seen any spesific laws that ban this.

What's the status in the US?

Re:Downloading in the US?

[UnknowingFool]

Although copyright infringement is not theft in terms of legal definitions, it seems that people interpret illegal distribution of copyrighted works as such. Those who provide "stolen" goods are committing a crime as well as those who receive and possess "stolen" good knowing that they are stolen.

Re:Downloading in the US?

[iamnotanumber6]

in the U.S., as in virtually every other country in the world, under the copyright law, it is illegal to make a copy of something without the permission of the copyright holder, except for fair use rights etc. so this makes (unauthorized) downloading illegal.

Re:Downloading in the US?

[linguae]

Downloading copyrighted materials without the permission of the holder of the copyright is, by definition, copyright infringement, which is illegal. For example, we may download FOSS software, iTunes songs, and books that the author/publisher chose to put online, but we may not download warez software, songs from your local P2P or Bittorrent source, and bootleg Harry Potter books. However, there are so many downloaders that the RIAA and MPAA cannot catch them all, so they go after the uploaders who provide the downloaders the infringed goods in the first place.

Re:Downloading in the US?

[RealityMogul]

There's a trick in U.S. laws regarding this. If they can't get you one way, they'll get you another. So if you aren't nailed for distribution of copyrighted material, you'll get nailed for possession of stolen goods. Hell, go ahead and really piss of the DA and they'll slap a terrorist label on your forehead.

Re:Downloading in the US?

[JohnnyDanger]

in the U.S., as in virtually every other country in the world, under the copyright law, it is illegal to make a copy of something without the permission of the copyright holder, except for fair use rights etc. so this makes (unauthorized) downloading illegal.

On this point I have always been unclear. If I download something from a server, did I copy it, or did the server copy it? Who violated the copy right?

Also---now playing devil's advocate---if I can't examine a file without downloading it, how can I know whether it is copyrighted?

From this point of view, it seems like the server is the violator of the copy right, not the client. This would not be true in other forms of distribution... BitTorrent for example.

Re:Downloading in the US?

[InsaneGeek]

Actually the computer at the other end makes the copy and gives it to you, so basicaly the downloader is a holder of items they don't have a license to but the computer and hence it's owner is the actual breaker of copyright law.

The computer acts as an entity to itself that's why the government can't even ask you to run tcpdump if you've been hacked unless they get a supoena (if you did it on your own without them telling you, etc you can give them to the government and it will be admissible). I went to a SANS conference back in 2000 or 2001 that spoke directly about wiretaps and their legality.

Re:Downloading in the US?

[A beautiful mind]

It is not exactly so.

For example in Hungary, you don't have to verify the source of legality if it's not explicitly forbidden (so if you come across an mp3 file, you can download it, but for example you cannot redistribute an mp3 from a website if there is an accompanying text (copyright notice) forbidding it from reproducing which of course is uploading already).

It is mostly accepted in Europe that the legality of a download has to be verified from the upload side - the one which reproduces the copyrighted content.

Re:Downloading in the US?

[autopr0n]

Downloading copyrighted materials without the permission of the holder of the copyright is, by definition, copyright infringement, which is illegal.

By definition? Could you actualy provide the 'definition' that the courts use or are you just talking about your ass?

Re:Downloading in the US?

[rpresser]

Downloading means making a local copy of a file stored elsewhere. Making a copy of something that is copyrighted is copyright infringement.

Re:Downloading in the US?

[cpt kangarooski]

Downloading is just as illegal as uploading. The former is reproduction, under 17 USC 106(1), the latter is distribution, under 106(3).

This has been well settled in a variety of cases, such as Napster. My personal favorite, for its clarity, is Intellectual Reserve v. Utah Lighthouse Ministry. If you google a bit, you'll find plenty of cases that are on point.

One thing that often trips people up is that they fail to look at the relevant definitions. For example, it's illegal to make a copy of a work. A copy is defined in the law (17 USC 101) as being a material object. Thus a mere computer file isn't a copy -- but the RAM, or hard drive, etc. it's stored on is.

Note that intent is not relevant, as the Intellectual Reserve case discusses. Civil liability for copyright infringement is strict liability. Mental state may affect the amount of damages, but even the most well-intentioned person who infringes can't escape if sued.

As for responsibility, the NAFED case gets into this a bit. Basically, the party that caused the reproduction to occur is liable. In most downloading situations, that's the downloader, as files didn't just magically appear on his machine. He caused it to happen, even if other people's equipment was involved in the process. Perhaps if your computer had been taken over by malware you wouldn't be liable, but this is an unlikely scenario.

And incidentally, copyright infringement is not actionable under stolen property laws. There's been a Supreme Court case to that effect.

Re:Downloading in the US?

[mark-t]

The argument to this being, however, that under the Copyright act, copying for personal and private use is exempt from infringement.

So if one is downloading strictly for personal use, then one isn't really copying without permission.

I'm not saying that's how things should be, mind you.

Re:Downloading in the US?

[mark-t]

This is false.

You can make a copy of something that is copyrighted without infringing as long as the purposes that the copy is put to fall under either fair use or personal/private use. These exemptions are explicitly listed in the Copyright Act.

The real problem is that people are taking copies that they were afforded in good faith under these exemptions and then putting them to a use which exceeds the boundaries afforded by those exemptions (distribution, for example, negates any notion of personal/private use).

Re:Downloading in the US?

[angle_slam]

The argument to this being, however, that under the Copyright act, copying for personal and private use is exempt from infringement.

Post the section of the copyright code that says this is so. (And don't go to Fair Use. Fair Use may allow you to make a backup of stuff you bought. But I doubt Fair Use enables you to download a torrent of Batman Begins.)

Re:Downloading in the US?

[iamnotanumber6]

For example in Hungary, you don't have to verify the source of legality if it's not explicitly forbidden (so if you come across an mp3 file, you can download it, but for example you cannot redistribute an mp3 from a website if there is an accompanying text (copyright notice) forbidding it from reproducing which of course is uploading already).

hungary is now a signatory to the berne copyright convention. that means that any work is automatically copyrighted at its creation. a copyright notice is not required. therefore, if you do not have the permission of the copyright holder, you cannot download or copy a file, even if there is no copyright notice forbidding it.

what is difficult sometimes is to determine whether you have permission or not, since permission can be "implicit". if a copyright holder - say a musician or record company - puts mp3s on their website without a password, it's reasonable to assume that they have given permission for you to copy them. also, it's not reasonable to expect every person to have to verify the legality of every single file on a website before downloading it. that should be, as you say, the responsibility of the server owner. if you "accidentally" download unauthorized material this way, you will not be held accountable, because you do not have "mens rea" - a knowledge of your wrongdoing. however, this does not give you the right to keep the file, the copyright holder can legally compel you to destroy your copy if they find out you have it.

but if you come across mp3s on a file sharing network like kazaa, it would not be reasonable to assume that the copyright holders have given permission for them to be there. everyone knows they have not. therefore if you download unauthorized files from p2p networks, you are fully guilty of copyright infringement.

that is, unless your country has specific exceptions for personal copying of music - some countries do, the U.S. does not, i don't know about hungary - where you pay a royalty fee on blank media. but this does not extend to movies, software, or anything else.

Re:Downloading in the US?

[iamnotanumber6]

the thread is "downloading in the U.S."

mark-t is in canada, where under the canadian copyright act, copying music (and only music) for private use is not a copyright infringement.

this is not true in the U.S.

Re:Downloading in the US?

[iamnotanumber6]

Although copyright infringement is not theft in terms of legal definitions, it seems that people interpret illegal distribution of copyrighted works as such. Those who provide "stolen" goods are committing a crime as well as those who receive and possess "stolen" good knowing that they are stolen.

that doesn't make any sense. well at least you are right that it is not theft (which is a crime, punishable by jail) in terms of legal definition. and by that definition, copyright infringement is is not a crime either (unless it's done for profit). personal trading of copyrighted files may be illegal, but it is not theft, not stealing, not a crime, and is not punishable by jail.

put it this way - is someone who jaywalks committing a crime like theft or assault? let's keep some perspective.

Re:Downloading in the US?

[iamnotanumber6]

This is false.

You can make a copy of something that is copyrighted without infringing as long as the purposes that the copy is put to fall under either fair use

correct so far... (assuming you understand what fair use is)

or personal/private use. These exemptions are explicitly listed in the Copyright Act.

dude you really need to get this stuff straight if you're going to keep posting about it here!

there is one exemption, in canada, for downloading music, and only music, for private use.

there is no other exemption for downloading anything for private use, and in the U.S. (which this thread is about) there is no exemption at all for downloading anything at all because it's for private use, without permisssion of the copyright holder.

Re:Downloading in the US?

[Sancho]

Well he /was/ talking about how people might interpret it.

Based solely on copyright rather than physical property laws, I've heard that making the copy is the offense. Owning a copy is not. The question becomes, "Who made the copy? The person who put it up for download, or the person who downloaded it?" I think you could make the argument that both people copied it, if only due to a very strict interpretation of "copy" coupled with the fundamental basics of how computers work. In fact, multiple copies are being made, however only one is actually being distributed.

Say I get a CD. I copy the CD to my computer (copy #1, though probably covered under Fair Use). I move that copy to my shared folder and wait. Random person on the Internet comes along, sees what I have to offer, and requests it. My computer reads the copy from the disk and puts it in memory (copy #2), then copies the file from memory to the network cable (copy #3). Servers all along the Internet copy the file as it traverses through routers and switches, but we'll ignore those. Finally it gets to the downloader's wire. He reads the song from the wire, where it is copied into memory (copy #4), then from memory, it is copied to his hard drive (copy #5). Finally, he listens to the song.

Of course, it's probably unreasonable to consider copies 2-4 when dealing with infringement. The generalized model of networks and computers would effectively show that I copied the file to the network and someone else copied it from the network to their computer. Regardless, it seems reasonable to suggest that both people made a copy.

That's not really my particular belief, however. I think that the person who sets the file up for download should be the infringer due to the photocopier analogy. Effectively, the file hoster is sitting at a copy machine, and every time someone requests a copy, he presses the button and hands them the slip of paper. Of course, a similar analogy could be that he leaves the paper in the machine and lets others come along, press the button, and retrieve the copy. In either case, only one copy was made and only one person would be at fault.

The key, though, is in the fact that non-profit copyright infringement is not, in the US, a criminal crime, but a civil one. As such, all that matters is who the copyright owner decides to prosecute and whether the court believes them over the alleged infringer. It would seem that if they decided to sue both the downloader and the uploader, that the second person they sued could have a slight advantage if the first lawsuit was found in favor of the copyright holder, since it should be easy to use the photocopier analogy to sway a jury.

Re:Downloading in the US?

[mark-t]

I agree with you. The exemption permitting copying for certain personal purposes should not be stretched so far as to apply to material that you didn't actually legally possess in the first place.

I'm just saying that's the argument that they use, not that it should actually hold any merit.

Re:Downloading in the US?

[tricorn]

Regardless of whether you or the uploading site "made the copy", it is probably still illegal for you to play (or otherwise view) the file. Copyright law allows you to make transient copies that are necessary for accessing the content, BUT that only applies to "authorized copies" of the work. Since, regardless of who violated copyright, it is NOT an authorized copy, that provision doesn't apply.

Re:Downloading in the US?

[mark-t]

From bill C-60

(2.1) It is an infringement of copyright in a work, a performer's performance or a sound recording for a person knowingly to do any of the following acts with respect to a reproduction of the work, performance or sound recording that the person knows or ought to know was made as a copy for private use under subsection 80(1):

Note that this applies to _ALL_ copyrighted works, not just musical works. If Section 80 of C-42 did not also apply to other copyrighted forms, in spite of its precise wording which only seems to refer to copyrighted musical works, this amendment would create an unacceptable ambiguity in the Copyright act.

I have no idea why the phrasing of section 80 itself was not modified with these changes.

Re:Downloading in the US?

[rpresser]

You are correct as far as fair use, which is definitely laid out explicitly in the Copyright Act. I apologize for the error.

However, I was unable to find any explicit mention of personal/private use. The closest I could find was "private research", which I believe is distinct from private use.

Re:Downloading in the US?

[iamnotanumber6]

(2.1) It is an infringement of copyright in a work, a performer's performance or a sound recording for a person knowingly to do any of the following acts with respect to a reproduction of the work, performance or sound recording that the person knows or ought to know was made as a copy for private use under subsection 80(1):

first, why are you quoting a canadian copyright bill in a discussion about what is the law in the U.S.?

second, even if we were discussing what is the law in canada, c-60 isn't the law in canada either, it's a proposed law that hasn't been passed.

Note that this applies to _ALL_ copyrighted works, not just musical works. If Section 80 of C-42 did not also apply to other copyrighted forms, in spite of its precise wording which only seems to refer to copyrighted musical works, this amendment would create an unacceptable ambiguity in the Copyright act.

oh good lord, use your BRAIN man!

what do you think is more likely:

1. the canadian government is going to declare that downloading pirated software, movies, and books is legal as long as it's for personal use, but they're still only going to collect royalties on blank audio media.

OR

2. the phrase "work, performer's performance, or sound recording" in the ammendment refers to the definition within the section that it ammends, i.e.:

(a) a musical work embodied in a sound recording,
(b) a performer's performance of a musical work embodied in a sound recording, or
(c) a sound recording in which a musical work, or a performer's performance of a musical work, is embodied

???

Can we have a more misleading title?

[ShatteredDream]

It's a ban on downloading unauthorized copyright materials. Based on the title, you'd think that in some late night drinking spree, the Swedish legislators just said "if it has (C) anywhere near it, ban it." If the title were true, it'd really suck because then Swedes wouldn't be able to even look at any webpage because the Berne Convention (I assume y'all are a signatory nation) gives every work a copyright even if it's not officially registered.

Re:Can we have a more misleading title?

[Arimus]

To be fair to the submitted the title is actually pretty much word for word the one used by the BBC news website... "LATEST: Sweden fights rampant piracy by outlawing the downloading of copyrighted material."

Re:Can we have a more misleading title?

[A beautiful mind]

It's a ban on downloading unauthorized copyright materials.

If you really want to be picky you'd say: It's a ban on unauthorized downloading of copyrighted materials.

Re:Can we have a more misleading title?

[JLF65]

It's to teach you a lesson for beating our soccer teams (football to you folk). ;)

Re:Can we have a more misleading title?

[tepples]

It's a ban on unauthorized downloading of copyrighted materials.

Some dialects do use "copyright" as an adjective to mean "copyrighted", just as "patent medicine" refers to a medication that is or was subject to a patent in its country of origin.

Banned download of copyrighted material?

[Rakshasa Taisab]

Strange, how will they surf the net then? Does it mean the swedes are forced to use public domain only websites?

Re:Banned download of copyrighted material?

[Rakshasa Taisab]

I only read the summary, and the modder probably knew that. But it was the summary i was poking at.

Re:Banned download of copyrighted material?

[An Onerous Coward]

I think that it's just an ill-conceived summary. But just to be on the safe side, we should switch off their backbone to ensure compliance.

Re:Banned download of copyrighted material?

[Tim Browse]

So that's what happened to Pakistan!

Excellent! No more Linux kernels for Sweden!

[Anonymous Coward]

ATTENTION: People of Sweden.

You may no longer download the Linux kernel. As you will note in all the file headers, it is Copyright (C) Linus Torvalds and many others.

As you have a blanket prohibition on downloading "copyrighted" material (and not just "copyrighted material which does not permit you to download it or make it available for downloading"), you may not download the Linux kernel.

Re:Excellent! No more Linux kernels for Sweden!

[rackhamh]

ATTENTION: Anonymous Coward.

You may no longer post on Slashdot. As you will note in TFA, it is a law that applies only to music, games and videos.

As we have a blanket opposition to posting "unfounded" material (and not just "founded material which does derive from a downloading of the available article"), you may not post on Slashdot again.

Re:Excellent! No more Linux kernels for Sweden!

[ferat]

So they can't download tuxracer then?

Re:Excellent! No more Linux kernels for Sweden!

[rackhamh]

Of course not -- that would be cheating the developers of tuxracer of valuable revenues!

Re:Excellent! No more Linux kernels for Sweden!

[espressojim]

Oh good. Since I wanted to download microsoft office (not a game, music, or video) it's still legal!

The strength of said forces

[Iriel]

The forces that are fighting to keep this illegal behaviour are incredibly stron

I feel sorry for the new Swedish anti-piracy director if those forces ever becomes strong

No more Abba

[AtariAmarok]

That does it, this really sucks. I was just about to get my copy of "Fernando" too.

Re:No more Abba

[wootest]

Yes, because boycotting a Swedish band that hasn't been around for over 20 years is going to solve a misguided law.

Re:No more Abba

[hjo3]

You must be an absolute pleasure at parties.

Re:No more Abba

[wootest]

Yeah, logic kind of does that.

Re:No more Abba

[unitron]

" Yes, because boycotting a Swedish band that hasn't been around for over 20 years is going to solve a misguided law."

How do you know he wasn't referring to the Matt Munro version?

(it's a long story)

what are we policing these days?

[Anonymous Coward]

i hope that osama guy starts using BitTorrent soon so we can actually catch his @ss and put him down...

Really? A ban on downloading copyrighted material?

[dtfinch]

Isn't everything copyrighted? And what if they payed the copyright owner for license to it?

Takes two+ to tango

[ScentCone]

Yarrr, maties... now when one of us walks the plank, the whole crew goes to Davy Jones' locker. Yarrrr.

Or, however that would go in Swedish.

Re:Takes two+ to tango

[AtariAmarok]

"Yarrr, maties... now when one of us walks the plank, the whole crew goes to Davy Jones' locker. Yarrrr. Or, however that would go in Swedish.

According to the Swedish Chef filter,, this becomes:

"Yerrr, meteees. Um gesh dee bork, bork!.. noo vhee oone-a ooff us velks zee plunk, zee vhule-a croo gues tu Defy Junes' lucker. Hurty flurty schnipp schnipp! Yerrrr. Hurty flurty schnipp schnipp!"

Re:Takes two+ to tango

[Yaotzin]

And in real Swedish, it becomes: "Yarrr, kamrater. Nu när en av oss går på plankan, hela besättningen går till Davy Jones skåp. Yarrrr."

Re:Takes two+ to tango

[Yaotzin]

Correction: "Yarrr, kamrater. Nu när en av oss går på plankan, går hela besättningen till Davy Jones skåp. Yarrrr."

Maties may be translated into "sjömän"

Re:Takes two+ to tango

[ScentCone]

Yarrr, kamrater. Nu när en av oss går på plankan, går hela besättningen till Davy Jones skåp. Yarrrr."

Well, cool! As a product of suburban America, but built largely of Scandiavian DNA, I'm grateful for a culture injection.

Re:Takes two+ to tango

[TheoMurpse]

Or, however that would go in Swedish.

Bork Bork oon chikin vogsky vogsky gobble gobblee gobblee torkee bork bork börk

Alas...

[Limecron]

ThePirateBay.org, we hardly knew ye.

Re:Alas...

[badxmaru]

last I checked,
Pirate Bay was just a host for trackers
no actual content.
I doubt they're affected by this.

That's ok.

[Sheetrock]

As we've heard all along, the law can never catch up with technology. Which is why I feel safe in predicting that the next tracker site in development will actually be hosted on the Moon.

Re:That's ok.

[rayde]

extraplanetary hosting... now that's a good idea. it's still gonna be a while before anyone can realistically claim any jurisdiction there. someone should launch a few solar powered servers into orbit... better than Sealand!

Re:That's ok.

[forkazoo]

More likely some place like Nauru, or Sealand.

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ nr.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nauru

Given that shady banking has recently gone away, and the phosphate mines are depleted, Nauru needs some new income, and I think "being in the middle of nowhere" is their only resource. Given that, semi-shady web hosting would be right up their alley if they can get any cheap bandwidth. How much bandwitdh does thepiratebay.org use?

Re:That's ok.

[LurkerXXX]

Nah, they will be war tracker sites. People launching tracking sites on laptops in their cars outside wireless hotspots. Passing off info to the next tracking sites as they come online.

Re:That's ok.

[whiteranger99x]

Maybe the first torrent they can host there is Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon album ;)

Re:No downloading of copyrighted materials...

[lordsilence]

The law speciefies that the copyright holder must give the permission. Thus reading newspapers is entirely legal since we've got a "responsible publisher" of the newspaper. However, downloading the newspapers unpublished newsarticles is not. It's a method to protect their copyright.

So much for viewing Sweden as progressive

[plover]

And I thought the Scandinavian countries were much more sensible than this. Don't mean to be a troll but your country has always been viewed as more "liberal" than most. This doesn't improve your image.

Of course, here I sit in the U.S. of RIAA. "Pot, kettle."

Re:So much for viewing Sweden as progressive

[Kojiro Ganryu Sasaki]

We are sensible up here. However, this is all thanks to the EU.

Re:So much for viewing Sweden as progressive

[dago]

Nope, if you read the actual directive, it let a lot of freedom to the member state toward fair use related exceptions

Re:So much for viewing Sweden as progressive

[Jugalator]

Yes, this is proof that this is a universal plan, not only working in the US...

1. Get a lot of funding from various rich organizations, for example from movie sales.
2. Decide for a suitably restrictive law to help these organizations, according to their theories.
3. Start intense lobbying process.
4. ???
5. Profit! (at least they think so)

Re:So much for viewing Sweden as progressive

[Luuvitonen]

From TFA:Prior to the law coming into force, Sweden was the only European nation that let people download copyrighted material for personal use.

In Finland it is still legal to copy/download copyrighted material for personal use.

I believe we live in Europe but it's not the only time we have been confused with Soviet Russia.

So, how does this affect The Pirate Bay?

[ravenspear]

Will they be forced to shut down as a result?

Re:So, how does this affect The Pirate Bay?

[jzono1]

Nope, they aren't doing anything illegal, as they only "tell" people who got the illegal stuff, so they will continue

Re:So, how does this affect The Pirate Bay?

[Anonymous Coward]

They aren't hosting any copyrighted content on TPB. Its only an indexing site/tracker. Swedish officials recognize this, so I don't think any action will be taken against them.

Re:So, how does this affect The Pirate Bay?

[slavemowgli]

Considering that they only distribute torrents, I doubt it - they don't themselves offer any copyrighted material, after all.

Of course, one may well argue that what they're doing is still illegal (although I have no idea whether it really is under Swedish law or not), but if it is, then it probably was before this law came into effect, too, considering that uploading copyrighted material seems to always have been illegal.

Re:So, how does this affect The Pirate Bay?

[Nichotin]

We had a similar law in Norway, that would permit you to link to warez as long as you were not hosting it yourself. The problem is, the guy running napster.no (which linked to full music downloads), got convicted. That court ruling effectively made linking to warez illegal, although the law still is the same. That might happen in Sweden as well, but until that, The Pirate Bay is safe.

All the Swedish you'll ever need

[2names]

Bork! Bork! Bork!

Re:All the Swedish you'll ever need

[TheoMurpse]

I think that an old school DOS program called the Encheferizer used to Encheferize "sex" to "bork bork bork", so I can assure you that is something no /.er ever has to learn.

It was either "bork bork bork" or "bouncy bouncy bouncy"...

This Is A Fun Law...

[__aaclcg7560]

So if you co-worker took a screenshot of a Macintosh desktop, download it on your Windows computer as a wallpaper and hide the icons, you can call the cops on them? Cool!

Re:This Is A Fun Law...

[__aaclcg7560]

if (userid == Anonymous Coward)
user = twit;

In Sweeden...

[dj245]

A cøpyright nøtice ønce bit my sister...

Re:In Sweeden...

[Kojiro Ganryu Sasaki]

We dön't have thöse ø's in Sweden. Thöse are danish :P

Re:In Sweeden...

[slavemowgli]

Not just Danish - the letter Ø also appears in Norwegian and Faroese.

Re:In Sweeden...

[ConceptJunkie]

Is that some kind of proposition? I'm flattered but I don't swing that way.

Re:In Sweeden...

[Hanji]

Mind you, cøpyright nøtice bites can be pretty nasty..

Re:In Sweeden...

[Flambergius]

Heh, he (the GP) used word the homo is context with the word Sweden, so naturally I thougth he was Finnish, but turns out he's from Philly. Go figure.

Re:In Sweeden...

[CaptainZapp]

Now stöp insülting us germän späkers, you insensitive clöd!

Re:In Sweeden...

[CaptainZapp]

Yes, but...

That was Swiss German.

Re:In Sweeden...

[Mind Socket]

Danish? Looks more like a doughnut.

Uh oh...

[Transcendent]

...this webpage is copyrighted, and I downloaded it into my browsers cache... am I a criminal now?

Swedes can't visit Slashdot now

[GPS Pilot]

At the bottom of every Slashdot page, it says "© 1997-2005 OSTG."

Re:Swedes can't visit Slashdot now

[Jugalator]

The topic is brain dead.

The law just disallow unauthorized downloading of copyrighted material.

What about ISPs?

[DamienMcKenna]

What about the ISPs that provide all those alt.warez newsgroups, will they be held accountable?

Re:Really? A ban on downloading copyrighted materi

[rackhamh]

If you'd read the first sentence of TFA, you would know that "Sweden has outlawed the downloading of copyrighted [b]movies, games and music[/b] in an attempt to curb rampant piracy."

So the law doesn't apply to "everything", and it's not a huge stretch of common sense to assume that this applies specifically to non-licensed downloads of movies, games, and music.

Duh.

Re:So, Sweden finally made it illegal...

[Peaker]

Oh we are so witty today, aren't we?

Every step towards enforcing copyright is a step back. People should be able to create derivative works and advance the state of the art, rather than re-reaching the state of the art in every work, because it is copyrighted for unlimited times. Copyright yields not only lack of freedom, but also inherent inefficiency.

Why?

[tkrotchko]

Before we go to such extreme measures, don't you think we should have a national debate on the right balance between citizens and copyright holders?

It looks to me that we're developing a hodge-podge of copyright/patent laws that has no policy thought and is simply a collection of knee-jerk reactions to what's news this week.

Re:Why?

[SirChive]

They are the laws that the corporate sponsors of our legislators demand.

Our "Representatives" pass the laws that generate the cash to get them re-elected. It's sort of a warped survival mechanism.

Re:Why?

[learn fast]

It looks to me that we're developing a hodge-podge of copyright/patent laws that has no policy thought and is simply a collection of knee-jerk reactions to what's news this week.

You must be new here. Let me be the first to say: Welcome to America!

You can learn more about America here.

Re:Really? A ban on downloading copyrighted materi

[rackhamh]

Oops. Please pretend that those were < and >. Thanks.

Re:So, Sweden finally made it illegal...

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck you.

Re:Really? A ban on downloading copyrighted materi

[NotFamous]

Isn't everything copyrighted?

Copyright Holder: YWHW
Year: 0

Fortuantely, duplication rights have been granted...

Laws are created for those with the most money.

[Anonymous Coward]

Gun companies: not liable for guns killing people.
P2P companies: liable for people downloading stuff.

Car companies: only get sued when they kill the rich people who bought the product.. ie. Firestone and the Flipping Ford SUV's.

Summary: Judges are bought.

Can't surf the web then.

[mnovotny]

Anything you then visit on the web automatically get downloaded in cache. Most websites have a copyright on them or they say they have one. So can they or can't they surf the web in Sweden with this new law??

Re:So, Sweden finally made it illegal...

[vonFinkelstien]

What is worse is the added tax on MP3 players, PVRs, DVD-burners, etc.

A Yank in Sweden

Media levy and now this?

[mehtajr]

The bill also raised the tax per blank 700 MB CD-R to 24 cents a disc (I assume in Euros, not USD). I thought the idea of these taxes was to pay the *AAs for piracy?

Re:Media levy and now this?

[hurfy]

hehe, now i have a picture of a guy selling BLANK bootleg CDs from the trunk of his car stuck in my head :)

gee, thanks a lot.

Re:Media levy and now this?

[TERdON]

No, it's not to cover piracy at all. It's to cover private copying under the equivalent to the american fair use clause. However, it still is bad - they more or less outlawed private copying anyway, in that they outlawed breaking DRM (Digital (Rights)/Restrictions Management aka copy-protection) for making a copy, and also making spreading information about it illegal (I'm not quite sure how they get that to work without violating free speech rights). Basically, they lowered the possibilities to make a lawful copy considerably, and still the levy is raised, and also applied to new medias like general purpose CDR and DVDR, and to MP3 players etc. Earlier it was only applied to audio and videotapes, and special audio CDs.

ThePirateBay.org still legal

[MarkByers]

The Pirate Bay do not host any copyrighted material so this law does not affect them in any way at all. But I'm sure the relevant authorities will try to do something to make it illegal... once they read the relevant Swedish laws, and manage to understand why this site is legal in Sweden.

Probably not that soon then.

Re:ThePirateBay.org still legal

[mpontes]

So this means The Pirate Bay will get a new load of legal threats but they will still be able to make fun of people? Awesome! While I never used The Pirate Bay for torrents, I love checking the legal threats there. That kind of childish humor cracks me up.

Re:Download it as something else

[GISGEOLOGYGEEK]

CRIMINAL INTENT.

why don't many slashdotter's understand that concept?

Re:Sweden Just Banned FOSS Software

[Anonymous Coward]

As far as the GPL goes you needn't worry. The terms of the GPL are a copyright license, provided you follow the terms of the license you are doing nothing wrong.

No More Legal Threat Amusement?

[Joel Rowbottom]

Does this mean that there'll be no more legal threat amusement from Sweden?

My life is no longer complete. Bah.

Re:No More Legal Threat Amusement?

[Rickler]

/me moves web server to asia

Re:The Pirate Bay

[Soporific]

They don't host content so I think they are going to be operating as usual. I don't think this is the railgun to the head like you are thinking.

~S

Re:This is absurd

[EEBaum]

Au contraire! Even if it is just you strumming your guitar, you have the copyright to it just by creating it. Poor wording on Sweden's and/or the article writer's and/or the translator's part. Stuff from iTunes is copyrighted as well... by buying the track you have permission to use it but it's still copyrighted.

Downloaders != pirates

[njchick]

I'm disappointed that BBC calls downloaders pirates. The term "pirate" when applied to copyright infringement first appeared to denote publishers who didn't pay the authors. They were likened to high sea pirates because they intercepted some of the money that the author could have received, like pirates who intercept goods in transit. Those who bought books from "pirates" were not called "pirates". To continue this analogy, only uploaders but not downloaders could be called "pirates" because it's they who competes with the original publisher. Of course, it would still be an overkill to liken an occasional file sharer to a publisher who did business on someone else's work.

Re:Downloaders != pirates

[jizmonkey]

I'm disappointed that BBC calls downloaders pirates. The term "pirate" when applied to copyright infringement first appeared to denote publishers who didn't pay the authors.

More to the point, using the word "piracy" is empty rhetoric that has no place in reputable newsreporting. The last time I checked the U.S. Code, "piracy" is a crime punishable by death (for air piracy; sea piracy is punishable by life imprisonment).

Why don't we just call file sharers "child rapists" with some equally strained analogy?

(The term "piracy" is used in some patent court decisions, true, but that's hardly an excuse.)

Re:Downloaders != pirates

[Wile_E_Peyote]

The term "pirate" when applied to copyright infringement first appeared to denote publishers who didn't pay the authors. They were likened to high sea pirates because they intercepted some of the money that the author could have received, like pirates who intercept goods in transit

Source?

This speech seems to use the term pirate to describe people infringing on copyrights.

Can't we get past the semantics? I recal in my early days of computer usage (mid 80's) people who copied software illegally (I was among them) relished being called pirates. The local pirate BBS made many references to pirates and the guy who ran the place went by the alias Redbeard the Pirate...

One of the biggest bittorrent sites out there is called Pirate Bay...

You can see why people become confused...

Re:Downloaders != pirates

[EvilStein]

"Why don't we just call file sharers "child rapists" with some equally strained analogy?"

God, don't encourage them. The media is already frothing at the mouth for a new catch-phrase..

Re:Downloaders != pirates

[Nugget]

The mid '80s is downright modern. Use of the word "piracy" in reference to copyright infringement dates back to at least 1771 according to the Oxford English Dictionary. People have been calling copyright infringement "piracy" for longer than the United States has been a country.

Splitting hairs with the dictionary might make the original poster feel better, but it isn't going to sway anyone to his point of view. In the end, that sort of linguistic misdirection just makes a person appear disconnected from reality, harming their argument.

Re:Downloaders != pirates

[Yaotzin]

I can see the headlines: "New law prevents child rapists from downloading copyrighted material"

Re:Downloaders != pirates

[hacksoncode]

I'm not that surprised that a British newspaper would use a term in a way that is consistent with a meaning shown in the Oxford English Dictionary.

Re:Downloaders != pirates

[njchick]

"Splitting hair", if done persistently, could be actually useful to correct the language used by BBC and other media. That, in turn, could change perception of those unwashed masses who being scared by the media tales about "hackers" and "pirates" lurking on the "information superhighway". Maybe some congressmen/MPs will get a few more questions about their role in passing DMCA and similar obnoxious laws.

Re:Downloaders != pirates

[sparkie]

So, if I download a copyrighted game I don't have permission to download whilst flying on a brand spanking new airplane with one of those new fangled internet connections in flight. I can be put to death?

Re:Downloaders != pirates

[Nugget]

Wait a minute -- what needs correcting? Media using the word "piracy" to refer to copyright infringment are not incorrect, they're not misusing the word, and they don't need correction. It's a well-accepted, widely-understood, and perfectly valid use of the word. Pretending otherwise does not help your cause.

Moreover, I think you're doing yourself a disservice in trying to convince yourself and others that dictionary handwringing is the core reason why most people consider piracy to be dishonest. It's not. People in general consider piracy to be dishonest because, well, because it is. Granted, on the scale of dishonesty it obviously ranks pretty low for many people, but I think you're being myopic to assert that people would be accepting of piracy if it weren't for the language used to describe it. That's absurd.

The perception that people hold towards piracy is spot-on. It isn't acceptable behavior. It is something that a person should avoid or at least feel a little bit guilty about. Most people understand this quite well on some level or another, and to try to blame a word for that rational viewpoint is ridiculous.

Re:Downloaders != pirates

[njchick]

Wait a minute -- what needs correcting?

Using the word "piracy" for downloading or acquiring copyrighted material, as opposed to copying it.

As for the rest of your comment, you are making wrong assumptions about my position. Unfortunately, it happens on Slashdot all the times.

Re:Downloaders != pirates

[Sentry21]

The last time I checked the U.S. Code, "piracy" is a crime punishable by death (for air piracy; sea piracy is punishable by life imprisonment).

Wait... air piracy? Wow... Seriously, who is that badass? I wonder if I could join their crew... If it's anything like the air piracy I'm used to, that would be a killer lifestyle!

Re:Downloaders != pirates

[Mattintosh]

No, you have your enemies confused with those who could be turned to serve your purposes.

Call the *AA's "child rapists" for what they've done to some less-than-18-year-old file sharers. Then unleash the media on this wonderful new catchphrase. Media attention works both ways, and not every media outlet is in bed with the music and movie industries. Yet. Move quickly and the mouth froth may belong to the good guys.

Re:Downloaders != pirates

[TheoMurpse]

Even better idea: why don't we just start referring to the shills in Washington who really work for the money as "child rapists". I'm going to start doing that on my blog from now on!

Re:Downloaders != pirates

[Tim C]

Copyright infringement has been commonly known as "piracy" for pretty much as long as there have been copyright laws.

No, it's not the correct legal term, but does it really matter?

RE: higher fines?

[King_TJ]

I absolutely diagree with you on this!

As a general rule, the idea of charging people fines is a terrible way to punish the breaking of minor laws. I can't really speak for other nations, but in the U.S. - I see fines being levied as tax collection tools more than for any real interest in stopping the crimes they claim to help stop.

Where I live, you can almost tell how small a municipality is by how often you see the police sitting in one of the same sneaky places, spending most of the day looking for speeders. Larger municipalities with a bigger tax base don't *need* to pressure their police to hand out so many traffic tickets. They typically have more important things to do with their time.

The typical fine only punishes the poor. If you make enough money, paying a fine because you parked your car in a much more convenient place that happened to be a "no parking" zone is probably no big deal. Send off the money order and you're done. Might have been well worth the price of the ticket, really.

Nonetheless, making fines so high that even the rich get "punished" just makes it *impossible* for the poor to pay them - and that makes no sense either.

Crimes of "convenience" such as littering are going to happen whether the fine is $25 or $25,000. As another poster said, it's all about the would-be litterer's confidence level in not getting caught. In the case of littering, it only takes a split second to throw something out a car window - and especially at night, people probably won't ever see that you did it.

What would be better, IMHO, is in lieu of fines, order these people to perform community service. Make them pick up litter for a couple weekends. (Right now, we've got all these "adopt a highway" programs with volunteers - but seems unnecessary if you could make the people doing the littering do the cleanup instead.)

Au Contraire

[tiltowait]

From NY Times:

DOWNLOADING music from the Internet is not illegal. Plenty of music available online is not just free but also easily available, legal and -- most important -- worth hearing.

That fact may come as a surprise after highly publicized lawsuits by the Recording Industry Association of America, representing major labels, against fans using peer-to-peer programs like Grokster and EDonkey to collect music on the Web. But the fine print of those lawsuits makes clear that fans are being sued not for downloading but for unauthorized distribution: leaving music in a shared folder for other peer-to-peer users to take. As copyright holders, the labels have the exclusive legal right to distribute the music recorded for them, even if technology now makes that right nearly impossible to enforce.

So, for all practical purposes, downloading is okay. Also the "fair use etc." you shrug off is exactly why it is legal, or at least could be argued to be so.

We use words like "Fair Use," "Right of First Sale," and "Freedom of Information." We use these words as a backbone of a life spent defending something, you use them as a punchline.

Re:Au Contraire

[iamnotanumber6]

i'm sorry, but you are completely wrong.

the NY Times article you quote is about free content online, where musicians like Bob Dylan have given explicit permission for people to download certain specific songs for free.

just because the lawsuits so far have generally been against uploaders rather than downloaders, doesn't mean it's legal. it's expensive to hire lawyers and mount a lawsuit, and so they go after the ones who are most blatantly infringing copyrights.

the U.S. "fair use" absolutely does not make downloading legal. fair use gives you the freedom to use *excerpts* of works for the purpose of commentary or criticism, or in certain educational situations. it allows you to record a public broadcast for the purpose of watching it later (time-shifting). it does not allow you to make copies of your friends' CDs. it definitely does *not* give you the freedom for unauthorized downloading of complete songs, movies, or software for your personal use.

for all practical purposes, downloading, like jaywalking, is okay because you probably won't be prosecuted. but it is still illegal in the U.S.

as far as your "life spent defending something" - maybe you would like to educate yourself a little more about what the situation actually is, and put some pressure on your elected representatives to enact more reasonable laws, such as those in canada and france, where the freedom to download music for personal use is protected by law.

Which EU Directives?

[ThufirHawat]

Usual Beeb drivel.
There are no EU Directives on this matter, fellow slashdotters, no matter what the Beeb says.
Just the usual anti-EU propaganda, I am afraid...
After the very sad Kelly story they have become a sort of government propaganda office, like Fox News in the US...

Re:Which EU Directives?

[el_nino]

May I direct you to Directive 2001/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 May 2001 on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society?

Although Sweden could have retained the previous exemptions for copying for private use under article 5 of the directive, thus we have only our own national politicians to blame for this change.

Re:Which EU Directives?

[Tony Hoyle]

That doesn't make sense.

How can they be Anti EU and also a government propaganda office?

The government are EU president at the moment, and definately aren't anti it..

Oh, and there are EU directives on copyright. This has been widely publicised in many places.

Copyright......

[phantomfive]

So does that mean you can't even view webpages? News sites always copyright their images, does that mean in Sweden it is you can only download the html text of those sites? The article isn't very clear, I hope for the sake of Swedes everywhere that the law is more clear.....

It seems there is a form of the BSA over there really pushing the law, but here is what the law enforcement has to say about it:
the nation's Justice Minister said that chasing pirates would only be a priority for the police if files were being downloaded in massive quantities.
This will strike fear into the heart of every obsessive-compulsive downloader, but who else downloads enough to show up on a police radar?

Re:The Pirate Bay

[stinerman]

I just checked ... their last legal threat was a pdf file, so they sent back this, only as an uncompressed bitmap. The threat details that they have a copyrighted work, which as usual, they don't. They only have a torrent file.

I think they'll be just fine.

The law is toothless

[Anonymous Coward]

Since the IP-number of a persons computer is considered private information and breaking the law can't render a jail sentence, it is illegal for the ISPs to hand out information about who a IP belongs to. This law will change nothing.

Re:The law is toothless

[GutBomb]

This law will change nothing

Sure it will. It changes the RIAA (and other like organizations) opinions regarding a certain country. If a country is seen as a haven for pirates RIAA-like organizations can pressure them to make laws forbidding piracy. When they do, they are satisfied that at least something is done. While, you're right this will not get rid of the downloading, it will give *AA much more leverage.

Um.

[autopr0n]

I'm wondering about the actual laws here, not metaphores.

Copyrights, eh?

[SaidinUnleashed]

Windows Update is (C) 1996-2005 Microsoft corporation.

No Windows Update for you!

Linux is (C) Linus Torvalds (don't remember the year), so no Linux for Sweeden either!

Begone fool Sweden! Back to the Dark Ages with you!

Re:So, Sweden finally made it illegal...

[InsaneGeek]

Would you also apply that to GPL'd software? In that Microsoft should be able to create derivative works and ignore the copyright restrictions placed on it?

The GPL only has any teeth in it, that unless you follow the license, you aren't allowed to use copies of it under copyright law. Remove enforcement of copyright and you remove any need of the GPL.

Re:Really? A ban on downloading copyrighted materi

[Jugalator]

It's OK if they have permission from the copyright owner.
It's about unauthorized downloading of copyrighted material. :-p

Misleading ./ summary/headline

[Big_Al_B]

So does that mean you can't even view webpages?

According to TFA lead paragraph, it's specific to movies, software, and music downloads.

BTW, even the text content on news sites (and most other sites) is copyrighted.

Re:Misleading ./ summary/headline

[phantomfive]

BTW, even the text content on news sites (and most other sites) is copyrighted.
True, if you write it, you own it. Doodles on a page are copyrighted. Thank goodness for fair use and libraries.......

Re:Misleading ./ summary/headline

[Fredrik Roos]

According to TFA lead paragraph, it's specific to movies, software, and music downloads.


TFA is wrong then, it is not specific to any media type. The law does not ban downloading of copyrighted material. This is still legal and has to be since almost everything is copyrighted.

The only thing that changes is that both the reciever and the sender becomes liable in a copyright infringement, where earlier only the sender was (except for software, where downloading has always been illegal).

This does not change much, since everyone was uploading anyway. It's kind of the idea with p2p.

Re:Download it as something else

[donutz]

What if you downloaded it as a 700mb file where every bit was one off from the movie.

In many (most?) nations, creation/distribution of derivative works is prohibited by copyright law. Your bit-shifted download would probably count as such.

This is true, but...

[Jugalator]

"The forces that are fighting to keep this illegal behaviour are incredibly strong."
-- Henrik Ponten, Swedish anti-piracy agency

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4642373.stm

hmmmmm

[Hoohoodilly]

The article isn't too clear on what is deemed copyrighted material. Is it just movies, music, software, etc.? Were I living in Sweden and I viewed slashdot.org, could I have broken the law? Slashdot.org has copyrighted material (OSTG) as indicated at the bottom of every page. By viewing it, the copyrighted material is downloaded to my machine in the form of cached pages.

Re:So, Sweden finally made it illegal...

[GutBomb]

i am a yank that formerly lived in sweden, hope to go back someday. where are you living? I was in the Trosa area (45 min south of stockholm on the coast) Yes i am aware that Trosa is the singular form of the swedish word for panties (trosor)

Re: higher fines?

[cheesybagel]

IIRC in Sweden, for example, traffic fines are proportional to your income.

Want to see something Really Scary?

[Nom du Keyboard]

This is Really Scary that a government -- any government -- can move this fast. Our best protection against any overbearing government is the slow pace that any change normally takes. Sweden is now on my Scary list.

Re:Want to see something Really Scary?

[GutBomb]

if you think this law was passed in 1 day you're insane. this law is unrelated to the big busts yesterday. this has been in the cards for quite a while. It was just a coincidence that it was finally approved the day after a major bust. Sweden's not a scary and oppressive environment. it's one of the freeer places i have ever lived and hope to live there again when I retire.

Re:Want to see something Really Scary?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, this law was planned over two years ago, but the real passing has been delayed several times. We've known about the new July 1 2005 date since beginning of this year, actually.

Re:So, Sweden finally made it illegal...

[Peaker]

Without copyright, the GPL loses it power.
But without copyright, the GPL does not need power.

Microsoft will lose its incentive to create a closed variant of a GPL'd program because it would not be proprietary and they could not gain much from it.

Hooray!

[airship]

Finally, a reason for AMERICAN citizens to bash ANOTHER COUNTRY for corrupt, draconian liberty-bashing moves against its own citizens in favor of the antiquated business models of the motion picture and recording industries!
THANK YOU, SWEDEN for making me feel slightly less embarrassed about being an American, if just for a little while.

What?

[autopr0n]

Copyright infringement is not legaly the same thing as theft, you could never prosecute someone for theft if they download something because legaly they have not commited it. Again, I'm talking about the actual law not stuff people just make up.

especially when the analogy is bad.

[AtariAmarok]

"I would hardly equate pirating the latest music movie or game with stealing bread to sustain your life."

Especially when this analogy is bad. In "Les Miz" terms, what we have here is the relentless cop going after the guy for baking a loaf that copied someone else's load, and then eating this new loaf he baked.

Re:especially when the analogy is bad.

[Wile_E_Peyote]

Especially when this analogy is bad. In "Les Miz" terms, what we have here is the relentless cop going after the guy for baking a loaf that copied someone else's load, and then eating this new loaf he baked.

Wasn't my analogy...

In fact it was my questioning of a previous faulty analogy...

I don't think you can make an anology drawing together "Les Miserables" and software piracy. Software pirates are not fulfilling a need in their law-breaking...

Re:especially when the analogy is bad.

[MushMouth]

Actually, you are taking something of value. The exclusive right to distribute the work.

Re:especially when the analogy is bad.

[Mozk]

It's bullshit when companies say they lost revenue or whatever. They still make like $40 million per movie. They should stop hiring actors for millions of dollars. Acting is not worth millions.

Re:especially when the analogy is bad.

[Physics Dude]

No... they still retain the exclusive RIGHT to discribute the work. The infringer is doing so without any right.

Re:especially when the analogy is bad.

[cpt kangarooski]

I dare you to make less sense.

In the copyright field, exclusive rights means the right to exclude others. So you're saying that a person who infringes on a copyright becomes the copyright holder, and can prevent other people from doing things.

That's crazy moon talk.

When you infringe, it is similar to if you trespass. You don't acquire rights, you've merely infringed on someone else's right to keep you out. It's not taking anything.

Re:especially when the analogy is bad.

[neil.pearce]

Take means to get into ones possesion.

Take means to remove an item from one position to another.
He took home the book from the library (the library is now deprived of a book)
She takes a poster from the pile (the pile of posters is now smaller)

Copy means to duplicate something
He copied the pages of interest from the library book (the library book remains unaltered)
She photographed the poster on the wall (the poster still remains on the wall)

(Excuse my druken grammar)

Re:especially when the analogy is bad.

[magefile]

Very few actors earn 6 figures. And those that do, well, their appearance in the movie will draw more of an audience, thus boosting revenue. So, in a way, their time is worth money.

Now, an argument could certainly be made that our society is too celebrity-oriented, but that's a different argument than the one you're making.

Re:especially when the analogy is bad.

[Wile_E_Peyote]

Take means to remove an item from one position to another. He took home the book from the library (the library is now deprived of a book) She takes a poster from the pile (the pile of posters is now smaller)

Take does not mean to remove an item from one position to another. If it meant that, you wouldn't be able to take a picture, take a look or take a break . You also wouldn't be able to take a breath as that would keep someone else from taking a breath.

Considering there are 33 definitions on dictionary.com, take is a flexible word...

The first definition:
To get into one's possession by force, skill, or artifice

So if we go by that it doesn't have anything to do with removal, only with aquisition.

Re:especially when the analogy is bad.

[Wile_E_Peyote]

Please go reference a legal dictionary. Steal is to deprive someone of their property.

Okay, the legal definition of theft is right here (couldn't find steal).

The generic term for all crimes in which a person intentionally and fraudulently takes personal property of another without permission or consent.

Hmmmm, once again nothing about depriving someone of property only about aquisition...

Re:especially when the analogy is bad.

[ConceptJunkie]

Data is not personal property... it's intellectual property. That's a much different thing.

But if you're going to be pedantic about it, then, yes, downloading is stealing.

Re:especially when the analogy is bad.

[shmlco]

It's not taking anything.

I completely disagree. You've aquired the VALUE of said work without fair or due compensation.

Re:especially when the analogy is bad.

[cpt kangarooski]

No, at most it's the value of a copy or some use with the work. Not the overall value of the work, which could be extraordinarily great.

And it's still not a taking, since that would mean that the copyright holder had that value beforehand.

Re:especially when the analogy is bad.

[shmlco]

... that the copyright holder had that value beforehand.

The author of that work CREATED that value beforehand. And spent time, effort, resources, and dollars doing so.

From my perspective as an author, artist, and developer, if you copy my work you are stealing the results of my labors, and benefiting unjustly from the value I created.

It's a bit amazing how your perspective changes when it's YOUR work being stolen. And how it differs from those who can't create anything at all...

Re:especially when the analogy is bad.

[cpt kangarooski]

The author of that work CREATED that value beforehand.

Not especially. Marketing is what creates most value. You think that your typical musician, for example, would hit it big without the shameless promotion efforts of the label? That it's all in the music? Please.

At any rate, you're still confusing the value of the work (which is tremendous and long-lasting) with the value of any specific copy or use of the work, which is far, far less. For example, if I write a novel which is of timeless quality, it probably has a huge value. Not only will people buy the novel for centuries to come (long after the copyright expires), but it will inspire other works, and so forth. Someone making one copy illegally doesn't deprive me of the value of the work as a whole. Instead we're dealing with whatever value there might have been wrapped up with the copy, which is probably just a few bucks, tops.

What the author created beforehand was the work. What he spent money and such on was the work. Not the illegally-made copies.

You could say that the author is deprived of the value of a copy when someone pirates one, but again, this would require the author to have already had that value, and to have been deprived of it. This isn't necessarily or even often so. What the author really has is a potential value.

For him to be deprived of it due to piracy is not remarkably different in the end than for him to be deprived of it because someone bought a different book, instead of the author's book. The end result is the same.

There is a good reason to have copyright, but it really has little if anything to do with notions of ownership or authorial entitlement.

From my perspective as an author, artist, and developer, if you copy my work you are stealing the results of my labors, and benefiting unjustly from the value I created.

From my perspective as an author, artist, and copyright lawyer, there is no 'stealing the results of your labors,' and in fact the idea is nonsense. Again, a work is not the same thing as a copy. There is a better argument as to unjust enrichment, but that doesn't go hand in hand with deprivation on your part. It is entirely possible for someone to be unjustly enriched but for you to be just as well off as you would've been otherwise.

It's a bit amazing how your perspective changes when it's YOUR work being stolen. And how it differs from those who can't create anything at all...

Which shows us how foolish it is to let our reason be clouded by emotion and attachment, when discussing copyright, which is a cool, utilitarian affair.

At any rate, I doubt I'd be bothered much. I'm working on a public domain book at the moment. And I place a far greater value on the opinions of the public generally (who are more creative than you give them credit for) than of authors, who are not all that important with regards to copyright.

Re:especially when the analogy is bad.

[Wolfkin]

From my perspective as an author, artist, and developer, if you copy my work you are stealing the results of my labors, and benefiting unjustly from the value I created.

Someone copying your work is creating new value, and in the process breaking your State-backed monopoly

It's a bit amazing how your perspective changes when it's YOUR work being stolen.

I, too, am a developer. Since I'm for sharing, and against upholding monopolies on a market by force, your implied argument that anyone who creates value will agree with you falls on its face. The fact that your "perspective" changed, as you say, just reveals something about the weakness of your belief in your principles. I have more respect for those who actually believe in monopoly rights on markets, and don't simply go along with any set of principles that is more convenient for them at the moment.

Re:especially when the analogy is bad.

[shmlco]

If you believe in sharing your work, and wish, say, to publish something under the GPL, then that is your choice, and I will respect your wishes in that regard.

If, on the other hand, I want (in order to do something selfish like feed my family) to attempt sell my work, then that is MY choice.

Your options are to respect my wishes and pay my price, find an alternative, or do without. If enough people choose not to pay, I will try something else.

You, however, are not entitled to the results of my endeavors, simply because you want them.

Re:especially when the analogy is bad.

[penix1]

"From my perspective as an author, artist, and copyright lawyer"..

Heh...LOL

You got him there Blinky...

B.

Re:especially when the analogy is bad.

[swv3752]

No.

If I copy your work, I am trespassing on your rights. Even "stealing" cable is a more correct turn of phrase because the cable company loses a small amount of signal so it costs them money. My copy does not deprive of you anything tangible. Sure I might be benefitting from your work, but you can't prove that I would have ever bought your work in the first place. So you are no worse off if copy or don't. Though if I make a copy, I might end up advetising for you wich is likely worth more than my one copy is worth. Food for thought.

Re:especially when the analogy is bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

Then I feel sad for you, your sales are not going to be what they could be.

You see it is a truism in ALL publishing industries that free copies = PROFIT! (and yes, it actually is presented that way).

How do music companies get people to buy CDs? They play tracks FREE on radio stations and music TV.

How do new TV shows get viewers (and therefore advertising dollars)? They play FREE CLIPS as commercials.

How do book authors get publicity for their book? They give FREE COPIES to reviewers and libraries.

How do video game producers get people to buy the game? They show FREE SCREEN SHOTS on TV and give FREE COPIES to gamer magazines/sites.

The simple fact of hostory from ALL publishing fields is that word-of-mouth sales, especially if you produce GOOD product. Hell, I personally own SEVEN copies of "Necroscope" by Brian Lumley...a book I original read FOR FREE at the public library!

And here I am speaking from personal experience in more than one way. I write books for a living, you see. A while back I decided to perform an experiment, and uploaded one of my older titles to the internet via BitTorrent. I did so after sales had slumped to (essentially) nonexistent.

Guess what happened? Yep, that's right. Sales went up for the next three months.

To the highest they had EVER been.

I even got several e-mails from folks stating that they had downloaded my book illegally, and liked it so much that they decided to buy it and tell their friends about it.

So by your logic (the "logic" of the **AA control-freaks), I should sue these people for thousands of dollars...for giving me money and advertising I would not otherwise have.

Re:especially when the analogy is bad.

[Pofy]

So? That is not illegal in itself to do. For example, a friend of mine just came over and borrowed a book to read. According to you, he aquired "value" without any compensation to the copyright holder. Still, he did nothing ilegal (nor did anyone else).

Re:especially when the analogy is bad.

[ultranova]

Your options are to respect my wishes and pay my price, find an alternative, or do without. If enough people choose not to pay, I will try something else.

You forgot the fourth option: I can ignore your wishes and get a copy without paying you.

You, however, are not entitled to the results of my endeavors, simply because you want them.

The question is, are you entitled to have your wishes concerning the actions of third parties (that I don't copy your work from or to my friend without paying you) enforced by law ?

Re:especially when the analogy is bad.

[ultranova]

Well, lending books isn't illegal yet.

Re:especially when the analogy is bad.

[shmlco]

And all those examples demonstrate is the means by which those publishers chose (important word) to market their products.

With the expectation that by doing so they'd increase future sales.

And you chose to give away a copy of an older book to increase sales.

I notice you didn't give ALL of them away. Or allow all of them to be downloaded "illegally".

Odd the measure of "control" you wanted to maintain...

Re:especially when the analogy is bad.

[shmlco]

Sure I might be benefitting from your work...

So why is it that you are somehow entitled to benefit from my work, and I am not?

And it's not like it's something you had to have, like food or water, and it's not like there are no alternatives available.

Fundamentally, you have a choice, and if you copy and benefit from my work you've made the choice to steal the results of my efforts. Something for nothing.

And forgive me, but if you steal my work I can only assume that the "advertising" you might give to your friends would be to do the same.

Re:especially when the analogy is bad.

[shmlco]

BTW, while I applaud Baen for their free books, I will remind you that the authors listed therein chose to release those (older) titles in that fashion, and that they did so in anticipation of future sales.

Again, their decision, and one that should be respected.

Re:especially when the analogy is bad.

[shmlco]

I'll take your at your word that you're a lawyer. (Your tone is certainly supercilious enough.)

And you're correct where you say, "Someone making one copy illegally..." will not make a major diference in returned value.

But where your argument falls down counsellor, is that not just ONE person is making a copy. The effect of each person, acting immorally and alone, builds until there is a major and dramatic impact on those returns.

And depending upon the level of investment involved in the creation of the work, even a small impact can make the difference between a successful project that's in the black, and one in the red.

While it may be true that no one truly knows the extent of the damage caused by those acting against the law and the wishes of the authors/creators/musicians/etc., it's equally true that they're making the choice to ignore those wishes and to enjoy the benefits of said works without fair and due compensation.

To put it bluntly, from a moral, ethical, and legal standpoint, they're parasitic assholes...

Re:especially when the analogy is bad.

[AtariAmarok]

"Software pirates are not fulfilling a need in their law-breaking..."

Maybe they are, maybe they are not (regardless of whether or not the actions to fulfill the need are legal or not). Whether something is a need or not depends on the individual involved.

Re:especially when the analogy is bad.

[Wile_E_Peyote]

Maybe they are, maybe they are not (regardless of whether or not the actions to fulfill the need are legal or not). Whether something is a need or not depends on the individual involved.

What need exactly is being fulfilled by someone downloading the latest FPS? I think the problem is that people have forgotten the difference between needs and desires.

As far as defining needs, I think is is perfectly logical to say that people don't need the latest PC games/software.

Re:This is absurd

[GutBomb]

the law is clearly against pirating. when people download music they know if they are pirating it or downloading it from a legitimate source. or are you claiming you can't tell the difference between pirating or legitimate downloading?

Just Plain Silly

[tfcdesign]

Apparently these folks are unaware that everytime you download a webpage and its graphics you are using copyrighted material.

Thats the big hole in all this piracy house of mirrors. Songs and movies are not the only copyrighted material "downloaded" on the internet.

I wonder if this makes my web browser cache illegal?

Re:Just Plain Silly

[GutBomb]

people just seem to ignore the fact that the law simply applies to UNAUTHORIZED downloading of copyrighted material.

Don't play dumb and pretend that you don;t know the difference.

Re:Just Plain Silly

[tfcdesign]

"Unauthorized" is ambiguous. 99% of sites do identify what is authorized. Nor where Betamax laws come. And here's another complex situation: Am I stealing a downloaded movie when it I have a Netflix account and it is available for rent? Technically I have paid for the use of that film.

Re:Just Plain Silly

[GutBomb]

this is what i meant by "don't play dumb"

you know if you are authorized or not before you download. and if you don't you belong in a hospital.

people aren't stupid. EVERY SINGLE PERSON that downloaded any movie on the net knew that while it was not expressely illegal in their country that what they were doing was UNAUTHORIZED. every single one of them. find me one person that didn't and i will show you either an extremely mentally challenged person or a liar.

Re:Just Plain Silly

[Travelsonic]

And here's another complex situation: Am I stealing a downloaded movie when it I have a Netflix account and it is available for rent? Technically I have paid for the use of that film.

Nope, possibly copyright infringement, but never theft.

Technically I have paid for the use of that film.

Correct me if I'm wrong, and I might be, but is that a detrimental factor in what constitutes theft in the argument you present?

So if I put (C) Gabor Nagy on my website...

[gabor_nagy]

will it be illegal to read it in Sweeden?

Re:So if I put (C) Gabor Nagy on my website...

[Big_Al_B]

Only if that's a term of your (c)

What About Legal Downloads?

[themesb]

Interestingly, the article made no distinction between legal and illegal downloads of copywritten material. Is this just poor journalism, or has Sweden actually outlawed sites like the Swedish iTunes Music Store that allow users to legally download music? It would be interesting to see how such sales are doing in a country with such rampant piracy.

Vague==Unenforceable, move along

[Killer Instinct]

From TFA: But the nation's Justice Minister said that chasing pirates would only be a priority for the police if files were being downloaded in massive quantities.

So its the police chasing pirates, and only for massive quantities...most things are automatically excluded I would think. And it seems like a law which makes the police officer the "judge". He/She has to decide what is "massive" so on those grounds alone, any case can be beat..Now had the law stated, d/l'ing 24 meg of copyright music data in 1 year..we may have a problem.

Re:Download it as something else

[stuuf]

If you're comparing stuff at the level of bits, then a divx stream has NO similarity to the DVD it was transcoded from, but no one disagrees that it's the same work. If your argument worked, then publishers would have no reason to pay royalties to authors since a manuscript isn't the same as a bound printed book.

Important re Swedish download law

[tryfan]

There is an additional point everyone should be aware of, since it concerns not only Swedish citizens, but most Europeans (more or less the same rules will be law in all EU countries during the coming years):

What really happens under the new law is actually hanging upon two earlier cases; one regarding UPloading (filesharing of one Swedish movie) and one case regarding Swedish law on databases containing personal data.

* The first case (a guy who is charged with uploading a movie) will decide the graveness of the crime. It's not yet decided by court whether he will be fined, or whether he will end up in jail.
If he gets the maximum jail sentence of two years (which he may well get, since it will be suspended anyway), the Swedish police authorities will have the right to search the premises of everyone that's suspected of a similar crime.
The results of such a search (the content of hard disks, CD's and so on) can be used for further charges against other persons.

* The second case is the charge (from several thousand people) against the Swedish "Anti-Piracy Bureau" (an organisation of large copyright holders, record companies and so on) that their continuing datamining - automatic searching for up- and downloaders - is against Swedish law.
The regulatory body, "Datainspektionen", has already decided that this activity is against the law, but of course this decision has been appealed.

In the worst case scenario, filesharing of un-authorized material (and we're not necessarily talking syndicated crime here, but basically the average user!) will be considered a rather grave felony.
In the best case scenario (of course, this depends on whether you're a regular user or a record company), filesharing will be considered a misdemeanor, more or less like speeding. Not allowed, but nothing that will destroy your life.

The basic problem - Angloamerican "copyright" vs. Swedish "upphovsrätt" is to complicated to even think about this late at night. This will prove to be a real hornet's nest...

Re:Download it as something else

[donutz]

hmmm...what if you try to understand the laws before you cook up any more illegal ideas ;)

Letting a person watch your TV is A-OK in most nations. Rebroadcasting the TV shows, to people you don't know...not so legal.

hah

[Smobien]

I wonder if Pirate Bay gives a fuck...

I sure don't.

Re:hah

[Yaotzin]

Neither do they.

Re:The Pirate Bay - this is what they say

[Anonymous Coward]

Quick and dirty translation of a forum post linked from their main page:

In the first of July, copyright law will be changed. The nature of the change is that downloading copyrighted material without permission will become illegal. Previously only uploading was illegal. Because file sharing is about exchange in both directions, especially if you use newer networks like Bittorrent, you can't talk about any large masses suddenly turning criminal. In practice they already were, because they have been offering uploads. The rules that are going into effect now have been applied to games and programs for years now without stopping illegal copying.

File sharing networks will also not become illegal. One should also remember that a large part of the material which is being exchanged isn't anything that copyright holders will be chasing down anyone for.

Even if you download the latest movie or game, the law in question will not make any difference for you in practice. According to police they lack the resources to track down swedish pirates. As long as small scale piracy not even in theory can result in jail time, these cases are not even possible to investigate in practice because it is illegal to try to find out the holder of a certain IP-number. Still today noone knows what kind of evidence would hold in court against a file sharer .

According to a poll by the company Mediavision from last winter there are about 750,000 swedish pirates. Therein lies our strength!

So swim in peace and download phatly. To worry and to spread anxiety is to be an errand boy of the anti-pirates. Instead go out and buy a couple of new hard drives, and teach the noble art of piracy to everyone you know, favour the creators that release stuff freely and let us laugh at all the fear-mongering.

Is this page copyrighted?

[bb5ch39t]

What is meant by "download"? If it is transferring from one computer to another, what about things like proxy caches? Or Internet Explorer's cache on your local machine? I guess Sweden just went off the net.

Pirate Bay

[furrywithwings]

A more important question. What happens to pirate bay? I'm going to miss their wonderful letters to all those software companies who insisted that Sweden had a DMCA like law.

Re:Pirate Bay

[wootest]

The Pirate Bay will continue.

Here's what the Pirate Bay - and any other BitTorrent tracker - does: they facilitate hosting of torrents, which include hashes and metadata about some specific files. They don't include the files themselves and as such can't be charged with either downloading nor uploading of the material in question. This is something that a great deal of lawyers have trouble grasping too, by the way.

Imagine a road network, and trucks, and goods. Goods are data, trucks are either of web sites, peer to peer networks, whatever, and roads are traffic between computers. You can't shut down trucks because they can carry crack or heroine. You can block roads and look through every truck for illegal goods if you wanted to, but trucks can't be deemed illegal by themselves.

Re:Pirate Bay

[furrywithwings]

I was hoping for a hilariously funny letter from anakata on the site, my hopes have been dashed. I love reading the legal threats (and their replies), they are a source of endless amusement.

How do I know...

[haeger]

...if something is copyright protected or not?

Let's say I connect to some torrent site and start to download something, say "Lord of the rings", how do I know that this is copyright protected until I see it? How do I know that this "Lord of the rings" isn't someones wedding video?

This law is as stupid as the law that was proposed recently, a law would make it illegal to LOOK at child porn. Now how would I know what a picture is without looking at it? All feelings about child pornographers aside.

I think our government has been replaced with a bunch of headless chickens...

.haeger

Re:How do I know...

[slavemowgli]

Disclaimer: IANAL. I only learned about this in school, and that's been a couple of years; what's more, I'm not from Sweden/the USA/..., so things may be different for you. Finally, I'm not a native English speaker, either, so I'm just trying to translate these concepts - in reality, there's probably other terms that'd be used in English.

Anyhow...

In legal theory, there's two distinct things when it comes to evaluating whether a certain offense was committed or not, namely the subjective and the objective offense.

The objective offense is essentially what's written into the law - for example, that copying movies without permission from the copyright holder is illegal.

The subjective offense is what you think you're doing when you do it - so if you, for example, download a movie because you think/expect it to be "Lord of the rings", you'd be guilty, basically, but when you think it really is footage from someone's wedding, you wouldn't. The name of the torrent etc. would probably be used as evidence for determining what's the case - if the torrent really was labelled "Fred's Wedding (1996).torrent", then you'd have a much better chance of arguing that you really thought it was a wedding video than if it was labelled "lord_of_the_rings_2003.torrent".

IIRC, it's typically necessary that both kinds of offense are present in order to have a case. Without a subjective offense, you could be sued for doing something when you had no intention to do so and in fact didn't even know you were doing it; without an objective offense, you aren't actually *doing* anything that's wrong, so if you'd be successfully sued nonetheless, that'd border on creating thought crimes.

Again, take all this with a grain of salt, but I think that's more or less what things are like.

Re:How do I know...

[CaptainZapp]

I'm equally not a lawyer, but at least regarding the US you are unfortunately wrong.

In the US copyright is a so called strict liability law. This means that despite your intent to infringe on somebodies copyrights you get punished if you get sued; ignorant or not.

Intent may (or should) impact the severity of the punishment, but it's punishable nevertheless.

Other countries, as you state correctly, may differ.

Re:How do I know...

[slavemowgli]

So I could be sued (successfully) for copyright infringement even though I do not know that I am committing copyright infringement, *cannot* know that I am, and in fact do not have intentions to do so, either? Scary.

Re:How do I know...

[CaptainZapp]

So I could be sued (successfully) for copyright infringement even though I do not know that I am committing copyright infringement, *cannot* know that I am, and in fact do not have intentions to do so, either? Scary.

Yes this is correct and it is scary.

What's even more scary is the direction in which copyright laws are transforming. Kenneth Lay, ex-Enron CEO, will in all likeliness not spend one day in jail (yes: that's wild ass speculation on my side), while 12 year old teenies are supposed to be fined $150'000 per movie downloaded .

Something is severly, badly screwed with the direction copyright laws are taking, worldwide.

I do not condone wide spread, systematic coyright enfringement. I'd even wager that the Supreme Courts Grokster decision is sound. But that doesn't mean that the direction of copyright laws has even a resemblence of balance or reason.

Honeypot

[Inari]

• Compose a page discussing Sweden sad state of affairs on this issue.
  
• Copyright it.
  
• Specify, on the page, that the fair use of this copyrighted material does not include reading it if you are of Swedish nationality.
  
• Seed google with it.
  

Re:Really? A ban on downloading copyrighted materi

[dtfinch]

That's more like it. I've just been getting pissed off at people equating piracy to downloading copyrighted material.

Mark Cuban's $5/month point

[floatt]

Hard to enforce a $10,000 penalty when you can listen to all the music you want for $5/month from Yahoo! or for a bit more from Rhapsody.

Re:Mark Cuban's $5/month point

[drsquare]

If it's that cheap why bother with piracy and risk a $10,000 fine?

WTF

[EvilStein]

Which one of you IDIOTS modded this "Informative" ???

"Gun companies: not liable for guns killing people.
P2P companies: liable for people downloading stuff."

No, they're liable if they're screaming "HEY! Buy our software and you can download all the copyrighted material for FREE!" - *that* is what the decision was. Gun manufacturers aren't saying "Buy a Ruger .22 so you can kill your neighbors" in any way, shape, or form. To compare the two like that is just inflammatory and stupid.

"Car companies: only get sued when they kill the rich people who bought the product.. ie. Firestone and the Flipping Ford SUV's."

You forgot to mention that reports of known failures were being covered up. The Firestone tires weren't just on SUVs either.

People sue whoever has the deepest pockets and whoever their bottom feeding lawyers will tell them to sue. Example: Plane crashes. Who gets sued? The airline, Boeing, and Pratt & Whitney(who manufactured the engines) - there are plenty of slimy lawyers. Check out this one with the nice domain name. Ugh.

Summary: Our legal system sucks ass.

Re:WTF

[NickFortune]

Gun manufacturers aren't saying "Buy a Ruger .22 so you can kill your neighbors" in any way, shape, or form. To compare the two like that is just inflammatory and stupid.

So you're not suggesting then that firearms have a substantial non-infringing use, and that the gun manufacturers should be granted some sort of safe harbour?

It certainly sounds like there might be some basis for comparison there.

Re:WTF

[EvilStein]

The two are completely unrelated. Nobody dies from copyright infringement, for one thing.

Comparing firearms to *software piracy* is really stretching things. A lot. Gun manufacturers aren't granted a safe harbour at all.

If you make "Warez-X" and advertise it as a way to freely obtain music and all it does is search Gnutella for *copyrighted material* then yes, that's now something that you *can* be held liable for.

I get really sick of the stupid Slashdot anti-gun attitude.

Re:WTF

[NickFortune]

The two are completely unrelated. Nobody dies from copyright infringement, for one thing.

That'd be the obvious difference. What are the others?

The fact that you can identify one obvious difference doesn't mean that there are no similarities.

Gun manufacturers aren't granted a safe harbour at all.

That's just plain wrong. The safe harbour term comes from the Sony Betamax case where it was ruled that Sony could not be held liable for copyright infringement resulting from use of Sony's VCRs because there were substantial non-infringin uses for the device.

In other words, because there were legit uses for the product, sony wasn't considered culpable when someone taped a TV show.

Now if the firearm manufacturers did not enjoy a similar immunity, then ever time someone was murdered using a handgun, the manufacturers would find themselves in the dock alongside the murderer.

Since this does not happen, we can conclude that firearms manufactures do indeed enjoy safe harbour provisions under law, QED.

And from that we conclude that there is at least one similarity under law between firearms and p2p software.

I get really sick of the stupid Slashdot anti-gun attitude.

You don't think you might be projecting slightly?

I have no axe to grind pro or anti gun control. And while I wonder if you could make the same statement regarding P2P technology, my only argument with you is that your reasoning is faulty.

Re:WTF

[NickFortune]

I strongly suggest reading the Grokster case before any further postings on your part.

Before any further postings on whose part?

My main point was that safe harbour did apply to gun makers, and nowhere did I suggest that Betamax had been overturned.

Did you perhaps reply to the wrong message?

Re:WTF

[EvilStein]

"I have no axe to grind pro or anti gun control. And while I wonder if you could make the same statement regarding P2P technology, my only argument with you is that your reasoning is faulty."

It's not faulty at all. Comparing the two is a time honored tradition among the Slashdot crowd, and also an arguement that cannot be won by either side.
I recognize that there are many legitimate uses for p2p software, but the fact remains that to publically advertise an illegal use of a piece of software is something that the software manufacturers can now be held liable for.

End of story.

Re:WTF

[NickFortune]

Comparing the two is a time honored tradition among the Slashdot crowd, and also an arguement that cannot be won by either side.

But the basis of comparison does exist. You may be right about the futility of the debate - it's not an aspect in which I'm interested - but to say that there are no similarities at all is unsupportable.

but the fact remains that to publically advertise an illegal use of a piece of software is something that the software manufacturers can now be held liable for.

Not under dispute, at least not by me.

Good thing Copyleft downloading still legal

[WillAffleckUW]

so all the music and software under copyleft is still good.

Chicken or the egg.

[tfcdesign]

The point is that, if they havent already, these laws are going to venture into fair use arena. Of course piracy is wrong, but just because the RIAA or MPAA dont like something, doesnt mean it hurts their business, nor that it is illegal. Is everything authorized until unathorized, or unathorized until authorized?

The Pirate Bay...

[Yaotzin]

...lives on.

Re:So, Sweden finally made it illegal...

[InsaneGeek]

You are forgetting that Microsoft has *actually* used non-proprietary BSD code in the past. So yes they have in the past and most likely would in the future, why would you think otherwise?

Now whether or not microsoft would actually continue to produce a product if it was legal for anybody to copy and use is another topic.

Here's what to really worry about.

[wootest]

Removing of, making products to facilitate removing of, or selling products that facilitate removing of DRM are all illegal actions.

The people who write these sorts of laws are morons. Don't write off Sweden as a bunch of asses just because we get these kinds of laws - that'd be like the rest of the world deriding the US as a load of RIAA-sympathizing dimbulbs.

Re:Really? A ban on downloading copyrighted materi

[mark-t]

Of course any sane person will realize that is the _intent_.

But it's interesting that the actual article doesn't mention that point.

No Copyrighted Material At All, Eh?

[John Hasler]

> Swedish lawmakers have made downloading of
> copyrighted material illegal...

So that leaves Project Gutenberg and what else?

RMS said it right

[little1973]

From Reevaluating Copyright: The Public Must Prevail:

The copyright system developed along with the printing press. In the age of the printing press, it was unfeasible for an ordinary reader to copy a book. Copying a book required a printing press, and ordinary readers did not have one. What's more, copying in this way was absurdly expensive unless many copies were made--which means, in effect, that only a publisher could copy a book economically.

So when the public traded to publishers the freedom to copy books, they were selling something which they *could not use*. Trading something you cannot use for something useful and helpful is always good deal. Therefore, copyright was uncontroversial in the age of the printing press, precisely because it did not restrict anything the reading public might commonly do.

But the age of the printing press is gradually ending. The xerox machine and the audio and video tape began the change; digital information technology brings it to fruition. These advances make it possible for ordinary people, not just publishers with specialized equipment, to copy. And they do!

What RMS implies, and I wholly agree with it, is that if copying had been easy at the beginning then there wouldn't been copyright laws at all. In this sense copyright laws are completely artificial. These laws try to simulate real property laws in a world where there is no real property.

Here's an example how absurd copyright laws are. Suppose I go to a concert and listen to the songs. Suppose I have good memory and I can write down the songs using a pen and a paper after the concert at home.

The pen and the paper is mine. I used my mind to write down the songs. How is it the songs are not mine?

Mozart exactly did this. If Mozart did this now he would be in jail.

Re: higher fines?

[magefile]

Community service has the same problem - the rich can afford to take some time off from work, or pay for child care, etc., while the poor may not be able to.

No more Web

[blang]

Any web site you go to will have images.

These images will have copyrights. In order to be sure that you are not downloading copyrighted images, you would need to disable automatic image download as well.

Even the web pages themselves are copyrighted
(although they usually have the date wrong Acme Inc (c) 2003).

In order for a user to surf withuout breaking swedish law every 20 seconds, he wopuld have to maintain a list of URL's that are known not to contain any copyrighted material, because the act of pointing the browser to them to see if a page as a (c) at the bottom requires the page to be downloaded.

In order for Swedish ISP's to avoid dbecoming accessories to breaking of Swedish law, they would need to monitor all pages for (c) notice.

Not only that, the lack of (c) notice does not guarantee that a page is free and unencumbered form copyrights. The Berne Convention which Sweden, US and most other countries have signed on to, regarding intelectual property grants the creator of an intellectual work ownership and control over said works, wheterh they are affixed with a copyright notice or not.

So, this means Swedish ISP from nmow on will be forced to filter all content, and only let theough content that explicitly is identified as public domain, or under a license that explicitly grants the page to be downloaded.

This law is very strange.
If you went to a book store, and bought a conterfeited book, should it be your responsibility to contact the publisher to confirm that you bought a rolalty-paid copy?
Or if you visit your library, should it be your duty to ensure that the books you borrow werew purchased thruogh th eproper channels?

This law, while it might appear to the lawmakers to address a loophole, and chart out a grey area of the law, instead has taken freedom away from the citizens, plus added more grey areas to the law.

Here you go.

[Tink2000]

"Napster users infringe at least two of the copyright holders' exclusive rights: the rights of reproduction, 106(1); and distribution, 106(3). Napster users who upload file names to the search index for others to copy violate plaintiffs' distribution rights. Napster users who download files containing copyrighted music violate plaintiffs' reproduction rights." See A&M RECORDS, Inc. v. NAPSTER, INC., 239 F.3d 1004 (9th Cir. 2001) (emphasis added)."

There you go.
PS: Bring back autopr0n!!!

Re:Really? A ban on downloading copyrighted materi

[unitron]

" Oops. Please pretend that those were < and >. Thanks."

You still would have needed to use an uppercase B. It's a Slashdot thing.

Not pirates, vikings!!!

[iamnot]

Looks like Sweden is ready to go along with the world to a viking past! Old viking-era laws on stealing and murder were quite different - if you were caught stealing three times, then it was the end for you, and not valhalla! However, if you killed someone, you merely had to produce enough silver equal to their rank and you were homefree. Yet the vikings had no problem going around raiding and pillaging (and trading, if that gave them a better deal!)

Prove Intent

[nurb432]

How can you *prove* that you *intended* to download a copyrighted file?

Files are often faked, and mis-labeled. Who is to prove i was KNEW i was downloading a full copyrighted movie and not a trailer, or a demo copy of an application...

Or that my wireless wasnt hacked.. or pc..

Proving downloading is too 'iffy'.

Re:Prove Intent

[Sigma 7]

How can you *prove* that you *intended* to download a copyrighted file?

Files are often faked, and mis-labeled. Who is to prove i was KNEW i was downloading a full copyrighted movie and not a trailer, or a demo copy of an application...

Or that my wireless wasnt hacked.. or pc..

Proving downloading is too 'iffy'.

They can prove it easily. When they connect to a P2P network, they see the same meta-information that you do - if they can tell that the file is most likely a violation, it's easy to claim that a "reasonable person" would be able to tell as well.

If you "accidently" downloaded a full product, keep the torrent in a special archive called "mislabeled". Also, be sure to report the torrent as pirated.

IANAL, but due diligance will save you a lot (except in some very rare situations.)

Re:Im Norwegian ;) are you?

[salle_from_sweden]

Civilian lawsuits in Sweden is a funny thing, even if you go and win one you still have to pay for half the court-costs. So... no you won't see much of civilan lawsuits in Sweden any time soon. We are not like the US of A.

will Fredrik care?

[v1]

Just musing, will http://thepiratebay.org/ even care about this? They tend to take a pleasantly flippant attitude toward things like this...

Re: higher fines?

[Mr2001]

If you make enough money, paying a fine because you parked your car in a much more convenient place that happened to be a "no parking" zone is probably no big deal. Send off the money order and you're done. Might have been well worth the price of the ticket, really.

Indeed. There are some places here in town where employees will park illegally and just pay the fine every day they work, because it's cheaper than parking in a garage all day.

So what?

[DimGeo]

And in Comm... I mean Democratic Bulgaria unorthorised copying of copyrighted matherial is dubbed "organised crime" (at least the police unit fighting that is the same one that busts drug dealers and whatnot - people have actually had their homes raided and their computers seized by mafia-fighters). The term "intellectual property" actually exists in the letter of Bulgarian law. The funny thing - our politicians are clueless as to what those things mean, and there are NO Bulgarian companies of any significance that would profit from such laws. Big Brother, rise!

Oh *NOW* I can have fun....

[01000011011101000111]

Thanks for reminding me of how copyright works... I have now a cunning plan! I will post a load of mp3's with suggestive titles (e.g. britney-spears-latest-album.mp3) to my homepage (all legit, o.c.), complete with a nice html page, all formatted preddy, with a note at the bottom witholding the right to copy to all agents, representatives, friends and family of record agencies and their unions... Then, one "anonymous tip" to the BMI later (uk based here, substitue APB for Sweden, RIAA for the states), sit back and a) watch the server logs carefully, and b) wait for the cease and desist letter... Then, when I have evidence that they've looked at it (Server logs + letter) that they've viewed the page... I'll sue them for copyright infringement (bc their local machine will almost certainly have cached the page)... Then slander/liabel (can never rember which one is which), and *THEN* extortion, and invasion of privacy (how are they gonna find my address from my web site w/o snooping on me? It's not in the whois...) Joy!

Re:The Pirate Bay - this is what they say

[Travelsonic]

The nature of the change is that downloading copyrighted material without permission will become illegal.

Thank goodness it is only without permission beingoutlawed, and not downloading copyrighted works alltogether like I though at first... oops, mistake in another post I made today.... mybad...

"copyrighted material"

[theefer]

As you will note in TFA, it is a law that applies only to music, games and videos.

No.

I can put a video on my homepage and you can download it legally from Sweden if I allow you to, even though I hold the copyright for it. When you create an item with artistic or creative value, you hold the copyright for it by default (at least in most countries). So all this fuss about downloading "copyrighted material" is bullshit; "everything" with artistic/creative value is protected by copyright. Even a game under the GPL is copyrighted, it doesn't mean it is illegal to download it.

It is illegal to download material protected by copyright whose holder doesn't grant you the right to copy/share it.

Re:"copyrighted material"

[rackhamh]

No.

Well, that is what it says in TFA. Or are you denying that?

That it applies specifically to copyrighted material where the copyright holder has not granted download privileges is a no-brainer and I'm surprised that anybody would actually assume the Swedish government hadn't included that in the law.

Let the US bashing begin

[The Woodworker]

Every day I read comments on how the US sucks. Seems the leaders of Europe and the EU sellouts, same as leaders in the US. Who would have thunk it? Greed being universal and all.

Re:More idiotic /. opinion--read inside

[Goldberg's Pants]

I'm a writer. I've been plagiarised. No, this isn't hypothetical. This happened to me just recently. An article of mine was taken and reprinted, verbatim, with my credit removed.

I contacted the individual and they were very agreeable and corrected the problem. We came to a compromise. I allowed him to use part of what I wrote, so long as he provided a link to the full piece.

So I granted him fair use. Everyone came out happy.

Had he not agreed, what would I have done? Nothing. I've already been paid for the article in question. I own the copyright of the article in question. I enforced my copyright in a fair and civil manner. Had that not worked, so be it.

Do I agree with copyright protection? To a point. I was upset I had been plagiarised, but it didn't adversely hurt me, so to be honest, it was more a moral than a financial thing. I quite honestly don't mind if someone copies everything I write. My main issue with the article that was copied was that my name was removed from the piece. Had the person left my credit intact, I would probably have not even contacted them. So long as my name is intact, and the person copying the work isn't profiting from it, I have no problem.

That is what irks me with the current spate of legislation. I'm willing to bet 99% of those who download movies, music etc... Do it for themselves. Not to profit from anothers work. THAT is what copyright protections should enforce. They should punish those seeking to profit from anothers work.

They should not be used to criminalise the simple act of downloading.

Does no one else see the BIG problem here?

[pla]

As of the copyright act of 1976(?), at least in the US, EVERYTHING you create automatically has a copyright on it, asigned to you (unless you have some agreement in place granting that copyright to someone else). And, considering the Berne treaty as spreading such draconian law to basically the entire world, I presume a similar default state exists almost everywhere.

So, by banning the download of "copyrighted" material, this law would prevet the Swedish from downloading anything at all. Except perhaps from Vanuatu...

Even GPL'd software has a "copyright" on it... In fact, the terms of the GPL itself give us the "right" to "copy" it in the first place!



I never really thought about this particular angle before, but perhaps someone more legally inclined than myself could elaborate on this? It seems to me that, considering the above, you cannot avoid downloading copyrighted material. Under that condition, therefore, how can one attribute blame to the recipient? It only makes sense to consider the act of distribution an offense.

Re:Really? A ban on downloading copyrighted materi

[St. Arbirix]

So I guess that means the Swedish can no longer use mp3.com, ifilm.com, and a whole slew of video game sites. If movie trailers are movies then the Swedish can't watch them anymore either.

Oops.

Swedes, Please do read or...

[donnz]

...download the text of this comment to your browsers. Thanks ever so much.

© 2005 Donnz

We are bitches

[isecore]

As someone who actually lives in Sweden I've gotta say it's scary how the country is the record-industry/movie-industrys complete bitch.

There's no other word for it. APB (the corporations anti-piracy organisation) is bending (or outright breaking) all the laws in order to enforce their "rights" and all the government is doing is bending over and taking it up the poop-chute. The swedish lawsystem just isn't up to snuff to be able to enforce laws when you've got a lot of corporate power/greed to fuel slick lawyers.

It's silly when a corporate organisation manages to get the police to prioritize copyright infringement higher than, say murders or rape. The most outrageous thing is that APB is really putting out the attitude that "piracy" is a worse crime than the abovementioned ones.

Just speaking my mind. Now go ahead and mod me as troll or flamebait.

Re: higher fines?

[penix1]

Ah.....But eventually your city will get the bright idea to pass that ordinance that allows them to ticket you every hour on the hour. With every ticket increasing in price. That shit will end very fast...

I know, it happened here in my city...

B.

I smell a countersuit...

[Mattintosh]

If the DA "slaps a terrorist label on my forehead" for anything that isn't actually terrorism, he'll be facing a libel and/or slander suit. At least the DA personally, if not the whole DA's office. This shit has to stop.

And before you trot out the argument that you can't sue him for that, you'd be dead wrong. If there's suspicion that I'm distributing copyrighted goods, then fine. Let them investigate. If there's suspicion that I'm in posession of stolen goods, again, let them investigate. But when they lose both of those trails and decide to label me a terrorist without sufficient cause, that's slander.

And I'll take their backers (read: *AA) to task for it too. Libel and/or slander (depending on whether it made it into print or not) is enough to cost the *AA's a lot, especially if it becomes known that you can do it. They expect people to just roll over and take it. It's like the mob. When you fight back, they're suprised. That's your cue to obliterate them. Sue for ownership if you can get it.

Legal definitions

[nrlightfoot]

You have to use legal definitions when defining crimes. Dictionary.com would get thrown out of court. If you look up theft in a legal dictionary you find that it is taking someone else's personal property without consent and with intention to convert it to the taker's use (i.e. if you took something on accident it wouldn't be theft). Personal property is movable assets (things, including animals) which are not real property, money or investments. So, theft can only be the taking of actual property, not the copying of copyrighted works.

Re:Legal definitions

[Wile_E_Peyote]

You have to use legal definitions when defining crimes. Dictionary.com would get thrown out of court. If you look up theft in a legal dictionary you find that it is taking someone else's personal property without consent and with intention to convert it to the taker's use (i.e. if you took something on accident it wouldn't be theft)

Actually we are having a philisophical discussion. If this were a discussion of legality, I would just say it is illegal and that would be that.

When two human beings (i.e. non-lawyers) talk to eachother, they don't talk in legal definitions.

BTW, sorry for the slam on lawyers. I know there are a few who aren't evil...

No Web Browsing?

[Goo.cc]

""Swedish lawmakers have made downloading of copyrighted material illegal"

So you can't browse the web then, since everything you view on a web brower is technically downloaded?

boooo

[tetrahedrassface]

In a world of major corporations, and their inherent ownership of you via the things you buy.....

The true owners of the copyright, have the right to give their material away..

Its not the content they are afraid of losing. Its the premium they charge.

Hopefully a lot of people will copyright their onstuff and then give it away.

What better way to say fuck you? (Mod down.. way down.. its the truth)

Bad Swedes! No iTunes music store for you...

[crovira]

The problems are many but all seem to hinge on the gact that transmission of information is desirable, profitable and, under this set of rules, illegal.

Legare, the root of the term legal actually means 'to choose'. Make a choice. The Swedes did and its has stranded them in the past.

Question from way in the back--"Point Pleasant"

[SteelWheel]

Does this mean that I'm not going to be able to get the last three episodes of "Point Pleasant"? For some reason, some Swedish TV network has been the only one to get the rights to broadcast the series in its entirety, and (naturally) the eps have been popping up in all the usual places on the net. I believe there are only two or three episodes to go until the end of the series. I'd hate for this situation to interfere with that. It was a good show, and like "Firefly", it went before its time....

Finland

[CaptainZapp]

The typical fine only punishes the poor. If you make enough money, paying a fine because you parked your car in a much more convenient place that happened to be a "no parking" zone is probably no big deal.

Thatswhy some countries, most notably Finland sets the amount of a fine relative to the earning power of the (er! for lack of a better word) criminal.

Here's a link providing examples. I quote:

At 46 miles an hour, he didn't set any land speed records. But Nokia executive Anssa Vanjoki could set the record for the costliest ever speeding ticket--a $103 000 fine. He was fined for speeding on a motorcycle in a 31 mph zone on an island near Helsinki last October, chief police inspector Olli Yliskoski said.

100 points to TERdON

[CaptainZapp]

You got that exactly right and it pisses me off to now end.

You can either have a tax on blank media for when ol' CaptainZapp transfers his or his friends CDs to more portable MP3 CDs or you can have copy protection on your media. But you can't have it both ways you fucking hypocrites!

Here we go with the Brits

[ThufirHawat]

May I remind you that BBC shortwave programming began as BBC Empire Service on December 19, 1932, when the UK still had an empire (source: Wikipedia)?
As to whether you can chair something and yet be against it, remember that Mrs Thatcher also chaired the EU...
Now, as to the EU directives on copyright, I wrote:
"there are no directives on this matter".
I did not write: "there are no directives on copyright"...
This is not a moot point, in that the EU Directives on copyright DO NOT imply that downloading is a crime, only that protection must be afforded to rightful copyright owners. Whether by an ISP shooting illegal bytes passing by or stickers on computer or whatever.
The government of the UK may be indeed EU chair at present, but that hardly implies that it wants to develop it or protect it (quite the contrary, see my web site).

It's a product of two factors

[MrBoombasticfantasti]

There are two factors to consider:

1) Chance of getting caught

2) Punishment when caught

If at least one of these is high enough, most people will think twice about committing a crime.

Re:Sweden Just Banned FOSS Software

[Nimrangul]

Wait a second, who the fuck moderated this a Troll?