Slashdot Mirror
Germany Accepts Strict Piracy Law
A beautiful mind writes "The TimesOnline is reporting that Germany has accepted a new piracy law, currently the toughest in Europe, which comes into effect on January 1, 2007. From the article: 'Germans risk two years in prison if they illegally download films and music for private use under a new law agreed yesterday. Anybody who downloads films for commercial use could be jailed for up to five years.' Many politicians defended the new law, amongst them Günther Krings, the Christian Democrat legal affairs spokesman, who claimed: 'There should be no legal distinction between stealing chewing gum from a shop and performing an illegal download.'"
Except for the reality of the situation that one is theft and one isnt..
Must be nice to have enough power to go buy your own laws when you feel like it.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
This is not a law yet - it's a proposal that the cabinet agreed on. It will only become law if it finds a majority in parliament, which may or may not happen, but it hasn't been voted on yet and Germany is still enough of a democracy to wait for that to happen ;)
Actually, theft can get you up to five years. But yes, anyone who steals some chewing gum (a regular amount, that is - not an entire truckload) won't get a prison sentence, much less one of two years (and if you did, you could fight the verdict as being not appropriate for the offense). In fact, I'm pretty sure you wouldn't even get a trial - it's just not worth it.
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
They have strict privacy laws. As strict as it gets. Possibly one of the strictest in the world. Last time I looked you cannot even get a phone bill for a company phone without it being anonymised. Last numbers used to be deliberately scrambled so that the employer can see what is the call pricing category but without being able to see who has been called. So on so fourth.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
The article is factually wrong. "The TimesOnline is reporting that Germany has accepted a new piracy law, currently the toughest in Europe, which comes into effect on January 1, 2007." This is not true. Neither has Germany "accepted" such a law, nor is it true that it will come into effect on the date mentioned. On Wednesday, the ruling coalition of Social Democrats and Christian Democrats presented their draft of a proposed law containing many of the things mentioned in the article. This law will be discussed in both chambers of the parliament within the next 6 months. Individual politicians of both ruling parties, as well as many from the opposition have already called for changes to that draft. At this point, one can only speculate how the result will look like and when it will be passed.