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Finland Adopts New Copyright Legislation
Anonymous Coward writes "Finland has adopted European Union Copyright Directive with new changes to its national legislation, giving Finland one of the most record label friendly pieces of legislation in Europe. The article has a good summary of the new law's changes to the old, rather flexible legislation."
It seems the entire world is now a plutocracy, with all nations' laws up for the highest bidder.
Are there any legitimate governments (not owned by the MNCs) left at all?
It seems Finland is as bad or worse than my own (US) government. Very sad.
despite the public critique even in mainstream media, the parties currently in coalition government decided to approve the legislation
Is it just me or is the tendency of so-called "democratic" governments to make laws that seem to please big companies and p-off just about everybody else seem very "undemocratic"? I wonder if people are forgetting it's their rights they ought to be defending, not defending big companies against citizens wanting to exercise their right to make a copy of a CD or DVD they bought for private use for instance...
I wonder if they were thinking of online forums and such. Unless they want to buy a piece of the Great Firewall of China, thats a worthless piece of legislation. Even if they did find a way to block forums based in other countries, how will they control IRC/IM?
This is ridiculous, politicians need to quit palying with the pretty colored fire.
Actually smoking pot, I believe, is still illegal in Finland. Nonetheless your point is well taken. With actions and speech being illegal as long as it is related to music is not music to any ear.
More like you can't trust the EU.
The EU was sold to us as an economic union. Then we were told we needed a constitution. That the EU would guard our basic rights.
Well, thanks a lot you bastards. Thanks a lot for the corruption and injustice you've brought with you. Seems like old Finnish legislation was doing a better job until your directives forced it to change. I weep for the future.
The EU as an economic powerhouse could be a great thing. The EU as a source of bad legislation is a recipe for disaster.
My Sig: SEGV
Why would it make you, as an American (or so you claim), glad that the freedom of the citizens of another nation have been eroded? A true American, one who actually believes in the ideals of freedom and liberty expressed by the Founding Fathers, would be horrified and disgusted by this development.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
Letting a government pass a law that encompasses a certain ability to do something on the basis that they've argued they won't use it is quite worrying.
There must be more to this.
now the users will have to purchase any music specifically for that player, even if they already have it on CD
It's easier selling the same thing over and over than it is constantly having to find new stuff to sell.
various human rights accords?
Not that I agree with Finland's action, what human rights could you use as an argument to being able to bypass DRM's? Doesn't this just come back to if you don't like it don't buy it? When I think Human Right's I think of "The United Nations Agreements on Human Rights". When you have conventions like protection against torture, whining about DRM's just seems so (for lack of a better word) petty.
500 dollar reward for tip(s) leading to the arrest of the person(s) who stole my sig.
the law is there to punish people after they do it, not to stop them. so who needs controls for that? just punish whoever you feel like, whenever you feel like! just like speeding laws... the chinese way however is very different. they want to control the information coming into the country because the information itself is dangerous to them.
"This actually makes me glad to be an american... for the first time in a while..."
Do you remember where all this neo-copyright bullshit started? Do you remember what corporations lobbied the EU to pass this legislation?
My Sig: SEGV
I wouldn't say that we have particularly bad free speech issues here in England - I'm not aware of any laws that prevent me from saying things here in the UK that you couldn't where you are (US?). What we do have is very little protection against unreasonable policing. Basically I can say what I like without too much fear, but if I start doing things that fall under some very vague criteria and make the cops suspicious they can stop me, search me, search my house, hold me for 14 days without charge under terror laws, shoot me in the head a few times and then try to cover it up and obstruct the investigation...
Note that I do not intend this as an insult to the many police officers that do their job well. What worries me is that there is so little protection against those who don't.
That's what happens when people read the document you try to use to refute their point.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Corporations = Money = Ads = Getting (re)elected
See, the logical answer to your question is: but don't we vote? And if all the money in the world didn't change our minds, wouldn't the money then be worthless? The only problem is that no one is going to vote on DRM alone. Unfortunately, the issues are what the media says they are. The media is swayed by that money, and also by the fact that they sort of naturally line right up with the MPAA and RIAA, just by nature of their industry. So, the real problem is that we can't get heard, and we can't get people to make this THE issue in their minds. No politician is going to win on something like this, because it is dwarfed by abortion, and healthcare and prayer in schools and so forth. It may be more important, but people don't realize it. More than the anti-DRM fight belongs in the courtrooms, it belongs in the court of Public Opinion.
Expect the "we won't persue copying" claims, in practice, to mean that people will continue pirating, everyone will continue pirating, but only those who politically are the enemies of the record labels will be singled out for it. Want to download the entire Led Zeppelin song catalog, in clear and obvious violation of law? No one will stop you. Want to create an innovative new software program which could change the way music is distributed, but which incidentally could maybe be used to pirate music? Prepare to have the copyright directive, and tens of thousands of dollars in legal bills, come down on your head.
Ayn Rand's said exactly one lucid thing in her entire disastrous body of work, and it was this:
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Are you nuts? Just look across the pond at the USA for an example of a large country that turned into an economic powerhouse. Europe has been hampered for decades by having too many different currencies, tariffs, customs checks at every border, etc. In the US, we don't have any of that crap. I don't have to deal with customs to sell my products made in California to someone in New York, but someone in Paris selling to someone in Rome had to before the EU. This has a huge stifling effect on the economy.
After the EU formed and converted to the Euro, look how well that new currency has prospered; it's now stronger than the Dollar. Trade barriers always hurt economies; the only reason to have them is to protect your national self-interests (like keeping foreign companies from dumping and putting your domestic companies out of business, keeping stuff produced with ultra-cheap or slave labor from putting your domestic industries out of business, etc.). They make sense when there's a large disparity between trading partners because the more powerful partner wants to keep control of that, but in the case of Europe where most of the member were more or less on the same footing (labor rates, etc.), it didn't help them at all.
The problem the EU has is certainly not economic, because they're doing better and better there for the moment. Their problem is with the EU government screwing with individual countries' rights and freedoms. Just like we have different states in the USA with different laws (gambling and prostitution are legal in Nevada, but illegal most other places for instance) because the people in those regions like it that way, Europe needs to make sure their different member countries can run themselves the way they like, so the Dutch can keep their marijuana and prostitution, the Germans can keep their Autobahn with no speed limits, and the Swedes can keep www.piratesbay.com.
Not so very long ago, in many countries, you had to be a land owner in order to vote. Times may have changed, but government power hasn't. Today, governments aren't run by the people, but by the large multinational corporations. Either way, the vast majority of people wind up with no say in how things are run. Even if they vote (which is rare enough), they have a choice between corporate candidate #1 or corporate candidate #2, with the occasional choice of extremist candidate #3, just to give the media something to panic about during the 6 o'clock news.
Orwell was right, gang. The government is not under our control, we are under its. Our every step, and every breath, is monitored from birth thru death by our corporate overlords thru credit cards, phone bills, Tivos, and spyware. Free speech is censored by Google, Yahoo, and others. The openness of the Internet is a lie spread by ISP's who advertise huge bandwidths but close down anyone who actually tries to use it. 1984 was filled with dim-witted, ham-fisted amateurs, compared to the real world.
"My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right." --Senator Carl Schurz (1872)
Denmark adopted the EUCD as one of the first countries and we're still allowed to break copyright protection if needed. Don't blame the EU for this one, Finland made this mess themselfs.
Yes, the EU often make mistakes, but this is not their fault. That being said, the EUCD is still a dumb idea and completly useless.
The U.S. is a third world country in the making. They have already killed the unions, people live on borrowed means, etc. Yes, once upon a time we were great - then the "lootocracy" moved in.
i ndex.html?section=cnn_topstories
Funny how rather than plan to avoid the next flu pandemic, Bush seems to want to focus on how to control people with the military in opposition to standing law on using the military on U.S. soil: http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/10/05/bush.reax/
Why would he want that? Are the puppetmasters gearing up for the betterment of the world's economic outlook by simply killing the unemployed - or as Dickens called them "the surplus population"?
This shit in Finland is the same old story: one neck being fitted for one collar and one leash. You can extrapolate that out to the EU, if it pleases you to do so. Obviously Finland and the EU have some of the best politicians money can buy - just like in the U.S.! Same old, same old...
What you want is small, mobile, agile.
I am looking forward to the future, when only the nation state of Northern California will matter to me. We have the water. We have the brains. We can overrule the central California nitwits from (recent immigrants from Dumbfuckistan) by simply voting our progressive politics into action over their objections.
Gays will get married and no one will give a shit because there is obviously ten thousand things more important than how people fuck in their own bedrooms.
Then why is the US so successful? I agree that bigger governments often (always?) make a mess of things, but the reason the EU will help growth is that it will open internal borders and standardize business practices/logistics across the union. If it works out...
Whether or not the U.S. is "so successful" depends on how you look at it. As a U.S. citizen, I'm starting to wonder how long it will be before things break down if they keep heading in their current direction. For the past century the federal government has been gaining more and more power over the states, wasting more and more resources due to the inherent inefficiencies of governing at that level, and favoring the interests of whoever has the most money to spend on lobbying - with citizens steadily becoming more disillusioned and hopeless all the while as a result.
Another problem with it is that, as humans, we always seem to standardize on whatever most people are already doing. If 5 people herding reindeer in Lapland have the best accounting methods, then the whole union should switch, not force them to change, damnit.
Yes, it's called "democracy", and like all other forms of government invented so far it has its drawbacks. Really, though, I think that governments go wrong more often as a result of trying to govern too many people and not from the system they follow (with a few exceptions like small countries that are seized by corrupt dictators).
I think Europe had a good thing going with small countries (on the same order of size as U.S. states) with governments that strike varying balances between democracy and socialism. Trying to unite them under one governing body (especially an economic one!) is just going to introduce the same problems that the U.S. is experiencing (ignoring the people's interests in favor of the interests of whoever has the most money, bureaucratic waste, gradual leeching of power away from individual countries to a self-serving centralized government, etc.)
In closing, I should mention that I'm a computer programmer and not a political activist. I'm also American so I'm probably largely ignorant about the EU situation.
Arguing about vi versus Emacs is like arguing whether it's better to make fire by rubbing sticks or banging rocks.
I wouldn't know for sure, but it sounds like the Nationalist party voted against it for all the wrong reasons (such as it being a directive originating outside of the country).
While I agree with many of your points, it's worth noting that the international criminal court was intended for INTERNATIONAL court cases, ie. ones for which there just is no applicable national laws (or conflicting ones; or involving countries that do not recognized applicability etc). It's not meant for overriding national laws involving only national issues. That is, things like war crimes, crimes against humanity. I mean, lots of things dictators do may actually be legal according to laws of countries they lead: not unsurprising when most laws have been (re)written by the tyrants in place. I don't think that applying national laws of the most powerful nations outside their borders (like what USA is doing, and many other bigger nations would love to, too) is much better than trying to come up with an international court that is focused on specific area where there is a vacuum.
That doesn't make it right, of course, but it does make it something to not bother worrying about
Actually, it makes it wrong in a fundamental way. You can check all the Ayn Rand quotes elsewhere in this discussion about one problem with it.
I guess I am different to you. I object strongly to things that are fundamentally wrong as a matter of principle. Not enforcing old laws that have been rendered irrelevant by the passage of time is one thing. But instituting new laws that they claim will not be enforced is an entirely different matter. What fundamentally is the point then? There is no good that can come of that and many bad things.
By way of counterpoint to Finland, we have similar copyright laws in Australia to those in the UK. There is practically no legal use for an iPod in Australia because there is no allowance for format-shifting, no allowance for fair use, and the record companies have blocked the launch of iTunes because they want more money. But, guess what, the government is actually conducting a review to see whether the laws should be updated to reflect the times by instituting a fair use provision. I'm not holding my breath, but at least this is moving in the right direction. The Finnish approach seems to be fundamentally flawed at the start - deliberately implementing a law that is not meant to be enforced. That's very troubling.
Define successful. I'm not sure if you've noticed, but it would take over $140,000 from each and every US citizen to pay off the debt and liabilities the US government has dug itself into, and US citizens are no better -- the official savings ratio for US citizens officially reached 0% a couple months ago.
If I wanted to, I could look like I was doing well too, if I took out all the money anyone would hand to me. Eventually though, you've got to pay the piper.
It's been a long time.
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
Yeah, its pretty normal for power to become centralised over time within a nation. It has happened so many times before throughout history.
This happened in Ancient China, in the Roman Empire (The Roman Republic turned into the Roman Empire with an all-powerful Emperor (President)), in the British Empire (The Parliamentary (Republican-like) system was largely to the wayside of the Queen (Emperor), and now in the US of A, the Federal Republic power is being centralise on the President (Emperor).
More and more laws are made until there is very little flexibility (the term 'freedom' changes meaning), change and innovation, and 'stability' is
Often at a moment in history laws seem obvious, such as, the first born son must follow the father's profession (Of course this is obvious - Technique and expertise would be lost otherwise woudln't it!). But of course, we know a different system today with greater flexibility and competition and innovation.
But again 'obvious' patent laws are being created. It is 'obvious' that patents protect people's ideas. But then this also reduces competition and the ultimate rate of innovation.
Power is naturally centralised for 'stability' reasons and 'obvious' laws tightened.
But this over a long period of time ultimately leads to the nation's downfall or dramatic change.
I've noticed a distressing trend to dismiss the abuse of power with the phrase "that's democracy". It's almost as if we have come to think of injustice and corruption of as an itegral part of the holy democratic process, and therefore immune from any criticism.
:) We've all got a few of those.
I guess I was referring to the simplistic "majority rule" definition of democracy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy
I invoke it with a cynical connotation because we Americans tend to uphold it as some sort of ideal - with the US government as a prime example of how wonderful it can be - so that we feel better when we meddle in the business of other countries "for their own good".
Of course, the US is a democratic republic (adjective noun!) which means that we only get to elect which corrupt politician the corporations will pay off for the next few years. To make things worse, politicians have unionized into two parties, ensuring that only rarely will someone be elected who actually cares about anything other than lining his/her own pockets or making a name for him/herself. At this point, I suspect that the voting thing is just a way to keep us from revolting; obviously I'm not the only one who thinks so, given the low percentage of Americans who bother to vote these days (incidentally, to those who would say that "every vote counts": I would like to refer you back to the corrupt two-party system under which we suffer, which ensures that nobody who cares about the people will be in politics for long).
In this case, there's nothing inherently democratic about making the same set of rules apply to everyone everywhere, or in inflicting the populace with the stupidest or least fair solution to any given problem. The simple fact that the EU legislators are appointed by people who are appointed by people who I may have at some point have been involved in an election somewhere, this does not excuse the corruption, greed and injustice that runs rampant though the system.
Indeed, nothing ever excuses such behavior. The problem is that when given power, humans will by nature use it to their own selfish ends. Throughout recorded history, humanity has struggled against itself to evolve a system of government which cannot be corrupted by the selfishness of men; we still haven't found one that works for a large enough number of people. I don't know if such a system exists, but it seems we're destined to keep trying until we either find out or destroy ourselves utterly. Fun stuff.
Also, in a pure democracy the majority vote of the populace decides what solutions are best. Even this system is flawed because the majority of people can be stupid and/or misled sometimes.
I should also say, that isn't aimed at you, HunterZ, personally. In general I agree with your points above. You just touched on a sore point.
No worries
Arguing about vi versus Emacs is like arguing whether it's better to make fire by rubbing sticks or banging rocks.