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.'"

Comments

well, if that's what you do to gum thieves

[yagu]

From the Fine Article:

GERMANS risk two years in prison if they illegally download films and music for private use under a new law agreed yesterday.

Also from the Fine Article:

Günther Krings, the Christian Democrat legal affairs spokesman, said: There should be no legal distinction between stealing chewing gum from a shop and performing an illegal download

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):

The German music industry also claims to be suffering from piracy. The recording industry suffered a fall in turnover in 2005 for the seventh year in a row to 1.7 billion (1.2 billion). Sales have fallen almost 45 per cent since 1998. The German branch of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry estimates that the equivalent of 439 million music CDs were copied illegally in Germany last year.

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.

Re:well, if that's what you do to gum thieves

[fermion]

One can take this another way. The damage caused by music piracy is about equal to the value of petty theft in a grocery store.

In the US, quick google lookup shows the average supermarket loses around 2.5% of retail sales to shrinkage. However, only half of that is due to external forces. So, if we use the german analogy, perhaps the true loss to the industry is a little more than 1%. A percentage loss is, of course, better than unit sales as the percentage allows us to judge the impact.

What is interesting, according to various articles, is that Germany has about 82 million people, but only 127 million CD sales, a nearly 50% drop over 7 years. So each german is buying 1 maybe 2 cds a year. And you are trying to tell me that a country that is so uninterested in music is going to download the equivelent of 5 CDs a year. I mean at the height of the sales they were only buying 3 or 4 CDs a year. I guess copying music over the internet is so much easier than just copying an album from a friend that it encourages the people to steal that extra CD that they did not even want in the first place.

I guess not that Germany is a completely a western country, they must learn that the best way to grow a bussiness is to supply products the people want. And, of course, if artificial barriers are erected to try to force consumers to buy stuff they don't want, then those consumers will just find another way to get they stuff they do.

Re:well, if that's what you do to gum thieves

[MooUK]

I did a small-scale study of my own recently. The results aren't hugely reliable with the study I did - amongst other things it was pure convenience sapmpling - but I did try to ensure there were a range of backgrounds. The study was focused on students at my uni.

I found that that around 60% of my respondents felt sharing music should not be illegal, and a similar number felt a lot of people actually ended up buying MORE music after finding new bands or artists by downloading their music.

If you want something more reliable and reputable, the Canadian equivalent of the RIAA released a study very quietly recently that more-or-less says the opposite of everything the industry groups have been saying. It was mentioned on here a week or two ago. Here's a link to the slashdot article: http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/03/18/04 21250

Same as stealing chewing gum?

[corngrower]

... 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.'"

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.

Mission Impossible

[Toby The Economist]

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.