Norway Liberal Party Wants Legal File Sharing

dot-magnon writes "The Liberal Party of Norway (Venstre) passed a unanimous resolution that advocates legal file sharing. The party wants to legalise sharing of any copyrighted material for non-commercial use. It also proposes a ban on DRM technology, free sampling of other artists' material, and shortening the life span of copyright. The Liberal Party is the first Norwegian political party, and the first European mainstream political party, to advocate file sharing. The Liberal Party's youth wing proposed the resolution."

Comments

What?

[gravesb]

The political process working for the people?

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that:
1. Music isn't the only thing that can be copyrighted. Movies can't exactly be performed live and neither can software.
2. Since the invention of the printing press there has been technology for nearly unlimited copying save for a small cost for the actual copy. The xerox allowed for private individuals to make copies. Copyrights exist exactly for this reason, saying technology makes it pointless means you don't know the first thing about them.

Re:What?

[CRCulver]

Movies can't exactly be performed live and neither can software.

Movies will still survive through private patronage or government subsidies. A number of important films that are acclaimed as triumphs of cinema were not expected to generate any profit, but the auteur was able to secure funding by people who appreciated his vision. And as for software, the point of the OP remains. People might not necessarily be paid for the duplication of software, but they may nonetheless be paid for its creation. Look at Google sponsoring Free Software projects.

Re:What?

[Khaed]

So how exactly is an author supposed to get paid for writing a book? In the case of books, the only performance is the initial writing.

There's already not much money in writing, unless you're named King or your initials are JKR.

It takes a long time to write, for example, a good fantasy or sci-fi novel. Yet they could be reproduced costless digitally.

Books are generally written by a single person, so it would take a very long time to write a book and work full time (which can be seen in the cases of authors who have to do that), which reduces the number of books a person can write in a lifetime.

How about, and this is really revolutionary, if you want to enjoy someone's work, you kick some money their way so they can continue to produce the things you enjoy?

Basically, you just don't want to pay for stuff because it can be copied cheaply/freely.

Re:What?

[pv2b]

Except that:
1. Music isn't the only thing that can be copyrighted. Movies can't exactly be performed live and neither can software.
2. Since the invention of the printing press there has been technology for nearly unlimited copying save for a small cost for the actual copy. The xerox allowed for private individuals to make copies. Copyrights exist exactly for this reason, saying technology makes it pointless means you don't know the first thing about them.

There's a big difference between the printing press, the xerox machine, and file sharing.

The printing press meant that organisations could suddenly print large numbers of copies of a single work. Production of copies wasn't the largest cost any more, it was the actual production of the content. Rightly, copyright was instated to prevent other bookprinters from profiteering off somebodyelses work. To this day, the Pirate Party does not condone or support copyright infringement for commercial gain.

The Xerox machine was a revolution in copying technology, but was very limited in its scope. It took considerable work to copy books with a xerox machine. It's self-regulating in that way. There wasn't really any pressure to update copyright laws because the societal impacts of the Xerox machine weren't nearly significant enough.

With file sharing and the Internet, suddenly anybody can make infinite copies at neglible cost of any information that can be stored digitally.

This is a *good thing*, and is a fact of life -- and the status quo can't be maintained through outdated legislation.

You make good points that making money off movies might be hard in the future, but the fact is that the big bucks in movies comes from movie theater tickets. The DVD sales are just extra cream on top, and those crappy cams and telecines you see on file sharing networks are definitely no substitute for the real thing.

Sure, DVD sales may diminish, but that's always been extra cream on top -- not the main bottom line.

Either way, if you start trying to charge for something that's more convenient than file sharing, they will come. It worked for All Of MP3 (shady non-compensation of artists aside), and it would work for the movie industry too. I for one would rather pay a few dollars to watch a movie in DVD-quality using streaming downloading (entirely possible with technology today) than having to wait a few hours to get it off bittorrent. Instead, the content industry has made their own "legitimate download" services more cumbersome than the illegal alternative, and it'll be their undoing.

Re:What?

[emilv]

A big part of the Swedish movie industry is funded by the government.

Re:What?

[Khaed]

Movies will still survive through private patronage or government subsidies

Please God, no. The last thing I want is for the government to be paying for movies to get made. There are a lot of movies made that absolutely fucking suck and I don't want tax dollars going towards subsidizing that. Or music, or books. I don't like it when the government bails out farmers or airlines, either.

If the government pays for movies to get made, not only are you paying for the movies you like, but you're paying for every movie that you think stinks. The idea of the next Gigli coming out of taxes is horrid. and I've seen the way governments run things, if the government made movies, most of them would be Gigli quality with a Waterworld budget.

Re:What?

[pv2b]

Then can you explain why companies holding intellectual property try to prevent its theft? They pay money to create something that can easily be copied, why should they not have exclusive rights on its distribution?

If you actually go back and examine the logic of that statement it borders on the absurd.

Are you seriously suggesting that if a company has a poor business model it's anybodies fault but their own?

The companies holding intellectual property do just that, *hold* it. They're not on anybodys side but their own, in fact, I could argue that they're damaging to society.

I see no reason to continue to support this "industry" based on reinforced outdated legislation. Do you really it's a good idea for a single company to have rights of redistribution to something that's so trivial to redistribute, that millions of people around the world are doing it without even batting an eyelid?

We don't need the companies help to redistribute things any more. If they don't like it, they're welcome to take their profits, close up shop, and pull out. Culture will find its way without them, even better than before they arrived.

Re:What?

[CRCulver]

Guess what, most European countries already have had governments subsidizing films for decades and decades, and the result has hardly been Gigli meets Waterworld. Try to remember that your country isn't the only one on Earth and that there are places out there where things are different.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

"As Pirates (I am a member of the Swedish Pirate Party) we believe there is no inherent right in getting paid for copies. We do however believe in a right to charge for performing a work."

Yeah, and as a guy who actually PRODUCES digital work, may I point out that I don't believe that YOU, sir, have an inherent right to take my work, which takes me a huge amount of time to create, redistribute it, and not pay me for work that I created. (And here's a thought, dumbshit: how the fuck do I "perform" my 3D computer graphics work live? How does a programmer "perform" writing an application in front of you? Guess once the original "performance," i.e., the act of creation, is finished, you think it's fair game to simply copy it as many times as you want and redistribute it?)

"If artists who are out to make money stop producing due to copyright reform -- good riddance. There'll still be plenty of music and culture left, just as there has always been."

Spoken like someone who either a.) doesn't produce anything of any redeeming artistic value, or b.) deems their actual artistic output to be worthless. In the latter case, if you feel so poorly about the quality of your own work, not only would I probably not buy it, I probably wouldn't even bother with it if it were free.

"To take one example, in the Music Industry, even the big labels don't see recorded music as a product any more -- but rather as advertising for other events and products."

Irrelevant, and a bullshit rationalization.

"The fact is that technology for unlimited copying is here -- and the laws preventing private exploitation of this technology are outdated and counterproductive. With new technologies, people and products are made redundant. This happens all the time -- today nobody sees the sharp decline in sales and production of horse-whips after the widespread adoption of the automobile as a bad thing for example."

I love how these Eurotrash kids who probably want the Almighty Socialist State to provide them with Cradle-to-Grave Everything would undoubtedly get pissed off as hell if some group of people actually took THEIR benefits, without contributing anything to the commonweal. Hey Mr. Pirate -- whatever happened to the amazing socialist concept of people actually being PAID for their LABOR? Or are you actually advocating "heartless capitalism," where the fruit of someone's labor is simply taken from them, and they're "exploited?" Help us out here, dude. Or is it okay to rip off working artists if "the masses" are doing it?

I'm tired of morons rationalizing stealing. Artists work to create this stuff, and it's not fucking FREE, just because you can copy it perfectly and redistribute it to your slacker, living-on-the-dole buddies without getting caught.

And yeah, I know I'm gonna get modded as a troll or flamebait (assuming that the mods actually let my message through at all) but Jesus Christ, this Swedish Pirate guy is a tool.

Re:What?

[sortius_nod]

Indeed, even here in Australia our government funds a lot of movies. There's a whole government agency Film Finance Australia . You'll find that a lot of our biggest & best movies come from funding provided by FFA. Maybe if US citizens realised that the world is a bigger place than the huge hunk of junk that the USA is then we wouldn't have huge messes like RIAA, MPAA, Iraq, Afghanistan, the list goes on.

Re:What?

[Reality Master 101]

The political process working for the people?

Which people? The people who create things or the people who just consume things?

I realize that the consumers vastly outnumber the creative people, but that doesn't mean that it's a big win for society to write something into law that allows unlimited taking. It's also called "The Tyranny of the Majority."

Personally, I believe in freedom. People ought to be able to sell their wares in any way they want. If you don't like how they're offering it, don't buy it. If you don't like the license, don't buy it. If you don't like DRM, don't buy it. If you want the right to redistribute it any way you wish, only buy products with those rights.

The creator of something ought to be able to set the terms of his creation.

Re:What?

[pv2b]

Now try to tell a writer how they're going to get paid, when it will be perfectly legal to scan and post a book after sale number one. Once more, for the learning disabled; Copyright is not about money at all, it is about the author getting to decide how to distribute their work, not a bunch of I want it free'ers.

Please tell a writer how they're going to get paid, when there's no guarantee that the manuscript he sends out to a bunch of publishers will be accepted or not.

Not tell him what a great chance he could have of making *some* money by putting his book out on Internet, and selling hardcopies to interested parties.

This business model works. I have bought several books (technical books, but the idea should extend to fiction too) using this exact method.

Sure, you can't get paid for every single person who reads your book. Just like the way you can't get paid by every single person who listens to your music as they walk past you on the street. The Internet has made everybody a street performer, whether they like it or not. The only way to stop that from happening is not to perform.

Re:What?

[246o1]

"Personally, I believe in freedom. People ought to be able to sell their wares in any way they want. If you don't like how they're offering it, don't buy it. If you don't like the license, don't buy it. If you don't like DRM, don't buy it. If you want the right to redistribute it any way you wish, only buy products with those rights."

Personally, I believe in freedom. People ought to be able to use their wares in any way they want. If you don't like how they're using it, don't sell it. If you don't like the law, ignore it. If you don't like your fans, don't try to sell them things. If you want the right to prevent redistribution of something, only sell it to people you know and trust.

Your definition of freedom doesn't match mine, I think. And while I respect the rights of people who create things, it doesn't mean that fair use shouldn't be expanded or that letting copyrights expire a little faster wouldn't be best for society.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

You might be surprised how much of that 'American Media' you are touting is being created by other countries. the Matrix movies you mentioned? Shot in Australia. Titanic was shot in Mexico. A large number of the TV shows and movies you watch are made in Canada, Australia and New Zealand taking advantage of the government sponsored industries and workers there. They money might be American, but the product is not.

American producers, American writers, (mostly) American actors, American directors. It's sold from America, and the proceeds go to the American economy. Since you clearly haven't noticed, not all of the best scenery in the world geographically exists in America. The American film crew paid the foreign country in order to use their location for the benefit of the film, not the other way around.

Re:What?

[joto]

Sure, I'm all in favour of having a system whereby people who create stuff, gets paid. However, the current copyright system is not sustainable by any means. Digital technology has changed the landscape, and there's nothing we can do about it, no matter how good the arguments in favour of intellectual property rights are.

We have always shared intellectual property:

• If you heard a joke, you have probably told someone else. Telling jokes you didn't make up yourself is not, and have never been illegal. What if you could send someone a whole book as easily? Or an entire library? With digital technology we can!
• If someone taught you a tune to play on a musical instrument, you would probably teach it to someone else. Doing that is not, and has never been illegal. What if you could send someone a complete musical recording as easily? Or all the musical recordings made in Spain between 1920 and 1935? With digital technology we can!
• If someone taught you a cool mathematical technique, you would probably tell it to someone else. Doing that is not, and has never been illegal. What if you could send someone a whole computer program as easily? Or all the computer programs ever written that will work on a certain brand of computer? With digital technology we can!

The creator of something ought to be able to set the terms of his creation.

Sure, (s)he can either keep it a secret, or (s)he can show it to others. Artificially restricting the terms under which it is copied is something that is an interesting idea, and might have worked in the past, but unfortunately, it no longer works. You can't keep teenagers from having sex either. Perfect digital copies is a revolution in how we communicate ideas. And even though intellectual property rights was a good idea before digital technology existed, doesn't mean it will continue to be so forever. Intellectual property rights will end some time in this century.

Re:What?

[servognome]

Not tell him what a great chance he could have of making *some* money by putting his book out on Internet, and selling hardcopies to interested parties.

Who is to say the money from hardcopies will go to him? The business model works because only those he assigns rights to are allowed to make hard copies of his book. Now if you totally remove copyright, anybody can make hardcopies of his book.

Re:What?

[servognome]

The Swedish Pirate Party, which I am a member of, advocates a reduction in the term of copyright to somewhere betweeh 5 or 20 years after the work has been produced, as well as a reduction in scope of copyright only to cover commercial copying.

I agree that copyrights should be reduced - do a survey, find out that 95% of all revenue occurs in the first X years and set it to that.
My concern is when you start giving a pass to certain interests (eg non-commercial) you start opening up loopholes in the system and there will be ways commercial interests will try to exploit the legislation. The big corps may be hurt, but they'll always find a way to exploit talent/customers to turn a dime; it's the individual creator that will end up the most hurt.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

That depends on whether you use Fahrenheit or Celsius

Re:What?

[Fred Ferrigno]

Dividing commercial and non-commercial copying is a tricky issue, though, and I'm sure people will find a way to take advantage of it.

Imagine an internet radio station that transmits a playlist instructing clients to automatically download the next song over legal P2P. Or companies that sell access to private trackers, even though users are still technically downloading from each other. Or a company that sells a cheap TiVo knockoff with Step 1 in the instruction manual: "Download TiVo Software".

The one thing I will grant you is the radical reduction of the lifetime of copyright. A lot of us wouldn't particularly mind being left out of the loop when it comes to modern music.

Re:What?

[PMBjornerud]

That explains why the Swedish movie industry, instead of the evil capitalist studio system in Hollywood, USA, dominates the global market for movies. Acutally, I think they dominate due to the enormous demand for swedish-speaking movies.

Re:What?

[Corwn of Amber]

Have you all lost your minds?

See the revenue for the first weekend a movie shows, it's pretty much always above the total cost of production.

That is a fact.

Therefore, the people who funded the production of movies have no absolute moral right to monopolize the distribution of the works to their profit for the next 70 years after the death of the author or the first publication date.

That is my opinion.

tyranny of the majority

[Anonymous Coward]

A similar argument should be made that IP rights to pharmeceuticals should be overturned, so that any company should be allowed to produce knock offs of drugs.

That would certainly bring down prices for consumers quite a bit... for existing drugs. However, it would disincent pharmeceutical companies to make the mammouth R&D investments needed to discover new ones.

Re:tyranny of the majority

[KonoWatakushi]

A similar argument should be made that IP rights to pharmeceuticals should be overturned, so that any company should be allowed to produce knock offs of drugs. Agreed.

That would certainly bring down prices for consumers quite a bit... for existing drugs. However, it would disincent pharmeceutical companies to make the mammouth R&D investments needed to discover new ones. What mammoth R&D investments? At best, this would would kill the mammoth advertising expenditures, which arguably should not exist in the first place. Most of the (minimal) investment is in researching replacements for existing high-margin drugs, which are dissimilar enough to avoid patents but functionally identical.

In any case, these companies most certainly don't have our health or best interests in mind. Investment in medicine should be driven by need rather than profit, and the existing system is clearly a massive failure.

Re:tyranny of the majority

[Ajehals]

See, I don't get this argument. Ignoring any principals and/or pro-anti patentability stances, are you suggesting that if the pharmaceutical companies didn't get the huge amount of protection they get the would simply close up shop? they would go from making less money, to making *no money*?. As I understand it pharmaceutical companies benefit from all sorts of things they don't pay for, from R&D at universities, through to government subsidies. They make a huge amount of money, making less, or having to collaborate wouldn't be a bad thing for the users of their products. And anyway, what use is a treatment for a disease you have if you cant afford it?

Oh, and what about the fact that some drug companies research and development aims are geared toward high value markets (dieting and beauty for example, which can be addressed through other means) rather than areas that would help large sections of the population with actual illness (where a drug may be the only option)? The market forces involved force company's to do what is best for their bottom lines, most of the time, Not what is best for society as a whole. With a shift of our IP related legislation, maybe that would change.

Re:tyranny of the majority

[ZombieRoboNinja]

Hey, great idea! Let's put the politicians in charge of ALL medical research! I'm sure the Bush administration would do a swell job allocating money to promising areas like stem cell research, birth control methods, the morning after pill (that they improperly kept the FDA from approving for over-the-counter), etc.

Re:tyranny of the majority

[Anonymous Coward]

Developing a brand new drug is incredibly expensive, involving many rounds of clinical trials and government reviews. The fact that drug companies spend a lot on advertising has nothing to do with their huge fixed investment required to research and test the drug and getting it approved for production. Maybe some of the R&D can be outsourced to places like India and China, and I'm sure some of it has, but in the end you need substantial numbers of incredibly bright scientists with advanced degrees willing to work for many years on what is essentially a gamble, something that may turn out to be almost a complete waste of time. And you need to conduct many rounds of those expensive trials (and sometimes you still end up with a disaster like Vioxx).

And no, financially it's not an easy business to run either.

Re:tyranny of the majority

[ResidntGeek]

Oh, but their research methods *do* work. I know it's fun to bash pharmaceutical companies, but the fact remains that if you get infected with MRSA, you'll be damned glad all those lab mice died to bring you vancomycin and linezolid, won't you?

Re:tyranny of the majority

[pv2b]

The laws of supply and demand still apply without patents.

In case of a shortage, unless there is some kind of mechanism (like a patent) limiting production capacity, production capacity will increase, and more players will enter the market, lured in by the higher prices.

I never said the price of production should be subsidised. There's a difference between subsidising research and production. The current system is actually a kind of production-based subsidy, come to think of it. :-)

(By the way. I vaguely remember somebody accusing me of being a communist in another thread. Still think that applies?)

Re:tyranny of the majority

[Oligonicella]

Of course you have a choice. You can wander into our national forests and gather the herbs you think will help. You can pray for devine intervention. But you're right, to use the drugs developed by a company, you pretty much have to buy from the company.

Re:tyranny of the majority

[the_womble]

You could hardly pick a worse example. Patents are an inefficient way of funding pharma R & D and give companies the wrong incentives - and they require extensive government subsidies on top of it.

P.S. Links are to my blog. I do know the subject - if you want my background go to the about page on the site in my sig.

Re:tyranny of the majority

[cliffski]

a friend of wine works for a large company researching cancer drugs. The reason they spend a lot of money (and trust me, they do) researching this, is that they know that patent law / trademarks etc will mean that if the drugs work, they will get their investment bank, and the banks that lend them the money (and the shareholders) are working with the same idea in mind.
That company would close its doors right this second if they had no way to protect the fruits of their research. Why would a shareholder invest in them anymore when they could invest in the indian company sat on its hands waiting to copy their work?

Teenagers vote for party which promises free stuff. wow, I'm so impressed. When the teenagers grow up and get jobs and realise the way the world works, and that people who make digitally encoded goods also need to eat, they will realise how naieve they were when they suggested this stupidity. If you let motorists vote on wheteher we should abolish parking fines and speed limits, they would vote for that too, but it doesn't mean that society would be better off without those laws.
Why not just go the whole hog and stand on a platform of zero taxes and free beer for all?

Re:tyranny of the majority

[N3wsByt3]

"The question of whether $1000 in my pocket is worth some African boy's life is ultimately a decision to be made by me, not by almighty Government."

Only if you live completely isolated from society, which no human does.

All societies inherently have laws that govern the conduct of its populace. Claiming something else is nonsensical or wishful thinking; I could say "The question whether I want to save someone I see is in trouble, is ultimately a decision to be made by me". Just as yours, this seems rational, if your premise is, that you're the measurement of everything (e.g. an egocentric premise).

Alas, in practise, I will be dragged before the court by the state if I refused to aid someone in trouble when I could.

Now, why is that? Simply, because the premise you start with is not generally accepted. The reason it's not generally accepted is because such a self-centered premise would mean there is no way to maintain that society. (It's impossible for a society to keep existing if each individual is of the opinion that he holds all rights.) Now, you could dispute which rights and which not, but that's ultimately arbitrary, and depends on the willingness of the state, it's government, and in a democracy, the majority of its people. It's not, however, something you're inherently entitled too, as you seem to imply.

How dare those communists...

[heretic108]

...refuse to close the barn door, and make those fraudulent claims that the horse has already bolted!

Anyone in their right mind can see the horse clearly inside its stall within the barn, lazily chomping out of its nose-bag. If you can't see it, your vision must be impaired - get to your nearest RIAA office and book in for the next available seminar.

I'm sure there must have been a lot of ferry operators put out when the Channel Tunnel opened up to connect road traffic between the UK and France. But in that case, the ferry operators didn't have any significant pull with government, so the tunnel went ahead.

To borrow Russel Crowe's line from Master and Commander, we have to choose the 'lesser of two weevils':

1. Widspread infringement of intellectual property
2. Increasing concentration of intellectual property amongst an elite oligopoly which is working to mutate the intellectual property regulations into a force which increasingly represses expression, invention and communication and squashes competition

Re:Get ready

[mmcuh]

WTO complaint? About a program of a political party in a member state? That hasn't been implemented in any way? From a party in opposition? Not to say that the lobbyists and noise-makers will not lobby and make noise to make sure that no other mainstream parties follow Venstre, but I doubt the WTO will have anything to say about it any time soon.

Re:Policy Implications

[mmcuh]

This basically leaves the Liberal Party in the position of advocating for the abolishment of content creation as a method of business, since the only way one can make money off of content creation is by restricting access to that content. Live performances, bieng the exception, this would be impossible in a world where legal file sharing would essentially give content a supply of infinity (and thus creating a demand price of zero).

No one is efficiently restricting access to "content" today - everything that is released on digital media (and some analog) that is a tiny bit interesting to people in general is available on the filesharing networks within days. And yet the music and movie industries are still making money by the barrels.

Re:Technological neutrality

[cpt kangarooski]

Well, I think there's a big and clear difference between writing software for a platform generally as opposed to adding DRM which not only isn't needed to make the software function, but which in fact deliberately impairs functionality.

Re:Way to break the GPL (Unintended consequences)

[cpt kangarooski]

If that would be the worst thing to happen from abolishing copyright law, then I'd say that we'd be pretty lucky. After all, preserving the GPL is not more important than dealing with the massive problems surrounding everything else.

That being said, I don't think that abolishing copyright is the best thing to do, but I do think that serious reform is needed.

Re:That's it, I'm in favor of DRM now

[pv2b]

Norsk Venstre isn't socialist. Don't confuse socialism with social liberalism. :-)

If anything, by US terms, they're closer to Libertarians than anything.

Whether that makes you for or against DRM is up to you. But holding opinions depending on who happens to share those opinions is counterproductive.

By the way, I hear enjoys breathing air. Maybe you should consider that next time you take a breath? :-)

That doesn't mean it's a good idea.

[Kadin2048]

No, nobody bothers to do it now, because as a society we spend an awful lot of resources enforcing a framework of laws which allow them to produce art on speculation and then sell it like aspirin tablets, over and over, and prohibit people from making further copies of something they've already purchased. With a framework like that in place, there's no reason to try and build an audience and sell serials. You'd be a fool to, particularly if you're a publisher (where starving writers will send you manuscripts for free on the sheer hope that you'll decide to read a page while blowing your nose or wiping up a coffee spill with it and maybe give them a contract).

But that doesn't mean it's a good system, or that on the whole -- when you include the costs of the current system, generally taken for granted -- that an alternative system that was more directly market-driven wouldn't be preferable.

And it's not as though direct-patronage systems don't work, they've obviously worked fairly well in the past; it's also well understood that subscription services work very well in many media, where you pay less for any individual unit of information than to a continuous stream of information -- the value of such services would likewise be unaffected.

Re:Slightly Exaggerated

[GrievousMistake]

Still, it is good to see a "real" party speaking out on copyright.
When I first saw the article, I thought it was just another irrelevant statement from Unge Venstre, but it seems it really is the main party's opinion.
I find it especially important that they speak out against the ridiculous length of copyright we have today, the creators lifetime + 70 years. It would never stand up in good debate.
I'm not sure how strongly they are planning to push this agenda, and it could easily turn out to be just a weak attempt at vote grabbing by pandering to the youth, but I actually think this could net them votes like mine if they followed up on it with hard plans.

Ban on DRM is a terrible idea

[Spy Hunter]

I can't believe that people are seriously considering a ban on DRM. I suppose I should have realized that it's natural to try to fix a problem by making a new law, but when the problem *is* the law, you should fix it by repealing the problematic law, not making more.

There is absolutely zero need to ban DRM, for one simple reason: DRM doesn't work, has never worked, can't ever work. All DRM schemes are fundamentally flawed, at a deep technological level. The only course of action necessary is to remove all laws protecting DRM, thus making it completely legal to make, distribute, even sell software and/or hardware for the explicit purpose of breaking DRM. Completely legal copies of DeCSS, FairUse4WM, QTFairUse, BackupHDDVD, etc would be available everywhere. Entire companies could be founded to muster the resources to perform sophisticated attacks on DRM hardware and software (perhaps even a brute force cryptological attack would be feasible in some cases with enough resources). Modchips, firmware hacks, replacement toner cartridges with DRM lockout chips, etc would all be readily available.

In such an environment, all DRM would be futile. After a few more thwarted schemes, even the most stubborn holdouts in the RI/MPAA would have to see the light. DRM would go away of its own accord, and it would all be the result of *repealed* laws instead of new ones. Fewer laws on the books is a good thing.

Re:Ban on DRM is a terrible idea

[fastest fascist]

Correct. Banning DRM would result in banning commercial DVDs from Norway. Anyway, the very reason we have laws banning circumvention of DRM is that the technology doesn't work. A law banning circumvention of DRM is in effect the same as a law banning copying of works labeled with a "do not copy" sticker.

Re:Ban on DRM is a terrible idea

[Anonymous Coward]

There is absolutely zero need to ban DRM, for one simple reason: DRM doesn't work, has never worked, can't ever work. .. until you wake up and find your CPU encased in epoxy, trusted platform chip grafted to it with all sorts of tamper resistance built in.

Re:Ban on DRM is a terrible idea

[pv2b]

Norway isn't a member of the European Union.

Re:Ban on DRM is a terrible idea

[mmcuh]

No, but it's a member of the EEA (the European Economic Area) and thus must implement the EUCD anyway. Unless they claim that the EUCD is incompatible with the European Convention of Human Rights (which it very well may be) or other treaties, and take it to the European Court.

Re:Software?

[mqduck]

Sorry for being off topic and stating the obvious, but HOW is running a copy of OS X you bought on non-Apple hardware stealing?

Re:Their move Evolved than us

[mmcuh]

Progressive thinking indeed. One of the largest parties in Norway, Fremskrittspartiet, who got 22% at the last parliamentary election in 2005 and had the largest support of all parties last year (35%), wants to ban Islam in Norway and stop refugee immigration. The government in Denmark cooperates with Dansk Folkeparti (13% of the votes 2005), who opposes a "multiethnic Danish society" and opposes the separation of the state and the christian church. They have produced this nice pamphlet http://www.danskfolkeparti.dk/cgi-files/mdmgfx/var e1-big-141-1-25862.jpg ("Denmark's future - your country, your choice").

Norsk Venstre may seem like reasonable people, but they are in the minority. Norway and Denmark, just like the rest of the world, have a huge surplus of idiots.