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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.'"
From the Fine Article:
Also from the Fine Article:
So, you can get two years in prison in Germany for stealing chewing gum from a shop? Cool.
This is all rehashing rehashes, but it bears repetition lest we find ourselves slowly and finally boiled in this slowly heating water. It's more heavy-handed power and money grabbing by those who have the money and power (entertainment droids and politicians). I only hope one of the first "caught" with their hands in the downloading cookiejar is some son or daughter of one of the anointed government members. Also from the article (emphasis mine):
First of all, what supports their estimates? Secondly, I've still yet to see causal studies whereby there are directly related losses because of illegal downloads. I have seen some convincing studies showing strong correlation between downloading and sales.
This is undoubtedly a sad day for justice and liberty in Germany. It's the kind of abuse we generally get when one group of thieves becomes the sole provider of necessary goods and services to the people.
I'm sorry, but I just don't think they're quite the same. An illegal download doesn't prevent the 'owner' from benefiting from the origninal. Whereas when you steal a physical object, it does. If I steal a loaf of bread from you, you no longer have that loaf of bread to eat. If I copy the recipie for making that bread without your permission, it does you no harm (unless, possibly, you're the proprieter of a bakery.) I'm not claiming that illegal downloads are morally ok, just that its not quite the same thing as stealing a physical object.
Facts;
1. It's incredibly easy to copy digital media.
2. It's done privately.
3. It harms no one directly and immediately.
No law in the world will stop this people downloading digital media, unless the power of the police is extended to the point that the download behaviour of every individual is monitored.
Unfortunately and utterly unbeliveably and to my utter, inexpressible disgust and revulsion, the law has in fact taken that step, with the new European Data Retention Act.
Welcome to the Police State.
It IS socially acceptable. But when you have the recording industry lobbying the politicians for laws like this what is and isn't socially acceptable no longer matters.
Bungo!
If it was 'socially acceptable', a wide majority of the ELECTED government in Germany would not have supported it.
Non-sequitur. Yes the government is elected by the people, but that doesn't mean that every decision they make is a direct representation of the social/ethical norms of the people. Far from it. The purpose of a democratically-elected representative is to balance the desires of the people with reasonable pragmatic requirements of economics, international treaties, etc. Then, of course, there are also instances where the actions of democratically-elected representatives are very obviously against the (average) will of the people, but serve some special-interest group or lobby (such decisions can be 'good', e.g. protection for minorities, or 'bad', e.g. laws that benefit companies to the detriment of the people).
I think it is actually quite obvious that the average person considers illegal copyright violations to be a very minor offense as comapred to outright theft of physical property. I would go so far as to say that, yes, copyright violation is fully "socially accepted." That it is a governmentally-decreed crime in no way proves that the people are morally against the activity.
Besides, 'socially acceptable' is coward language to try and demure the difference between right/progress and wrong/destructiveness.
No, it is a statement of fact. I personally would love to see a balanced independant study that determines how people feel about copyright-violation in all its forms. I strongly suspect that it would find that the overwhelming majority of the population consider it to be a minor offense, and a minor problem. In fact, I believe the percent of people strongly opposed to copyright is actually greater than the percent of people that strongly support it (with the majority of the popullation falling in between, with little opinion either way, but certainly not demonizing copyright violators).
That copyright is the "right" path and filesharers are the "bad guys" is precisely what is being debated, whereas you take it as an axiom.
Get a job, hippie.
Thanks for taking the debate up a notch.
Doesn't Germany have a grand coalition right now, though, which controls some 75% or so of the seats in parliament? *If* this is indeed pushed to parliament, I'm not sure I see how it'd fail - even with all the opposition parties voting against it, and even with a couple of defectors, there'd still be a rather large majority.
Or am I missing something?
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
This isn't about protecting society. It's about protecting powerful business interests.
It just shows how ineffective and out of context the lobbied laws are.
For whom? This is going to create great investment opportunities for some. None of these people care whether it's effective or not. This is about cash flow.
What?
This brings up an interesting thought. On Star Trek, they have that Replicator thing. If Captain Picard wants a steak, he asks for a steak and it seemingly materializes out of thin air. If he wants a million steaks and that replicator thing can create them all, efforlessly, exact duplicatible copies ... is he _stealing_ those steaks? Where did they come from? Did he kill a million cows? (Or more accurately, did 1 cow divided by steaks multiplied by a million get killed? Were they real or virtual cows?)
So now Mr Picard can duplicate a million sticks of gum and steal them all... _then_ it's just like stealing a million sticks of gum from a shop... right? Well at least it's more like performing an illegal download.
The materialized steak was someone's idea of a steak... at the very least you may be stealing the idea, not the steak itself.
FLR
did you notice how the first half talks about movies and the fear of piracy,
but the second half only mentions the music industry not making as much money
as they used to?
well, the german movie industry has their own association with a web site at
http://www.bvv-medien.de/, and despide a very, very aggressive anti-consumer
anti piracy campain, they still more than doubled their revenue in the last
five years: 860 mio euro in 1999 vs. 1747 mio in 2004.
I guess noone of the german movie industry will read this, but: if I'm in cinema
and about some movie, and you want to show some ad to me, it should start with the
word "Danke" (thanks). After all I already paid for the movie ticket. Instead they
show some anti piracy ad with people send into jail and about to be raped or similar
stuff.
If it was 'socially acceptable', a wide majority of the ELECTED government in Germany would not have supported it.
I seriously doubt that any party in the German government even mentioned copyright law when they were getting elected. If it's anything like in Britain they would probably be trying to sell their policies for taxes, public services, employment etc.
"Welcome to our world. We are the wasted youth. And we are the future too." Yes, I know these are stupid lyrics.
It's worse to copy mission impossible 3 than to beat your wife, mug someone, or steal a car.
Ya, that makes sense.
"The crows seemed to be calling his name, thought Caw."
Ahem. All good bands (i.e. Green Day and, uh...uh...uh) ARE taking a year off. There are almost no good bands. There _are_ some wealthy bands with geriatic performers, yes, but music has become like Disney movies -- locked in "vaults" and copyrighted for the next 5,000 years. First thing we do, we shoot all the copyrighters.
I come here for the love