Slashdot Mirror
Swiss DMCA Quietly Adopted
roady writes "We have seen a lot of talk over the years about the Canadian DMCA. But few know about the Swiss version recently adopted by law makers ... not even the Swiss people.
The government and media have been very quiet, probably to avoid a referendum. Indeed, Switzerland is a direct democracy and if 50,000 citizens sign a referendum, the whole country will have a chance to vote against the new copyright law. In this version of the DMCA, sharing a file on P2P networks will land you one year in jail, even though the law mandates a levy on blank media. The history of the law is available online."
I've never understood the rationale for this if copy will be illegal. Shouldnt the penalty for copying be paid by those caught breaking the law? I am curious as to a valid reason for paying more for all media, including the majority of which will not be used to break copyright law.
How hard it is to strike down the law? If 50,000 citizens some petition or what not, would it be possible to hold a referendum?
from a country that even put holes in the cheese?
quote:
Switzerland is a direct democracy and if 50,000 citizens sign a referendum, the whole country will have a chance to vote
how can america get one of these?
They are the beneficiaries of this new law. That has been the problem with the copyright laws from the beginning, those who form the public opinion (Not just news agencies, but media in general) are in mostly FOR these laws.
Take Futurama, it shows a future that is truly nasty where nobody has any morals whatsoever. What is the ONE thing they all seemed to get worked up about, the one time the show tried to send a morale message? The evils of napster and how the geeks enslaved those poor stars.
Expecting the media to report on this kinda stuff is like expecting a news story on "newsreaders make way to much money new study shows. Could be replaced by trained chimp".
What next, expect politicians to rant about their own pay increases?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
As almost the entire ministerial contigent from India goes to Switzerland, France and generally all places Europe to "Study" the laws and processes established there(preferably Summer Junkets and such), I know what to expect here when they eventually come round to it. :))
Though people are doing good work here, trying to get those bums an inkling of the issues involved is like banging against a wall (in fact all the more better for it at least for 5 years or so
But this is very very ominous and does not bode well for rest of the countries. Seems all are falling like nine pins to draconian measures.
What the hell is sleath? Is that supposed to be "stealth"?
Maybe that's how they spell "you're screwed" in Switzerland.
Strange that both Canada and the Swiss governments have put in DMCAs as we here in america are increasingly calling for it to be repealed. Really is there any reason for this "law"? Or is this just another "WE MUST ACT" legislation that was misunderstood by the governments and poorly written? I hope that their Pirate Party over there will start rallying for a referendum to get that taken out.
Also does this affect (/directly attack) The Pirate Bay?
Procrastinating life a way at a rapid rate of speed.
I know some people who live there and I have been there several times myself, and one thing you can be certain of is that the Swiss government does everything it can to screw people. And if it weren't for the tourists whose money they need, they would close their borders completely.
It is on my list of nations where I never want to live (right below the US if you're interested).
they are not that bad really...
if these kind of things go into action we'll have geek prisons. Where you'd have no contact with outside world, and you have to play games, and dnd whole day....it'd be like in your room...only your mom wouldn't nag on you all the time to go out and play in the sun.
I am tempted to say 'sign me up'....
what they want, does not equal what is good for them.
Switzerland != Sweden. TPB is in Sweden not Switzerland. So it doesn't affect them at all. But on a related note does the Swiss have a party similar to the Pirate Party?
Procrastinating life a way at a rapid rate of speed.
you are lucky enough to be able to veto any insane laws passed by your parliament. get organised and do it.
I'm not a citizen of the U.S. so I'm not sure, but I think that was one of the reasons you guys (and gals) collectively retain/fight to retain the right to bear arms, that you can effect a change of government or its policies.
Obviously I'd have to suggest that you first petition your senators and representatives (using letters, email or money; whichever you think best)but, ultimately, and this seems true of Britain too, it seems that the Government stopped listening quite some time ago.
Now, if only I had the cojones to stage a revolution...
So will the shit hit the fan now? Maybe someone will read this on slashdot or on TFA and start a referendum.
Thank you lawmakers all over the world for criminalizing the young. I'm sure they will feel really bad about breaking other laws as well
I wonder why the OP wishes to conflate the ideas of media levy and whether or not it is legal to share.
AFAIK (and IANAL), the new Swiss law also stipulates that there is no crime in downloading or possessing copyright material.
The levy on blank media applies to those who would download and store media, who are not committing any crime in doing so.
there is a Piratenpartei in Germany, but not (yet?) in Switzerland. Piratenpartei.ch is taken, though. Hm, i could ask the domain-holder... :P
The law still allows copies for private use and even allows breaking DRM/copy protection if the intended use is legal.
The only problem is that under the new law nobody is allowed to distribute the tools for breaking the DRM/copy protection.
They're not bad indeed. From what I know they're nicer than anywhere else in the surrounding countries, but keep in mind that like in the rest of Europe, they're getting badly overcrowded - packing up to six inmates in cells originally designed for one. The authorities have plans to build new prisons.
What is going to be needed is much more than geek prisons. If governments keep finding new, twisted ways to put people in jail, there is a foreseeable need for prisons dedicated to those incarcerated for treading on corporate interest. Now if they'd keep corporate crooks who ruin companies for their own benefits in there along with the system's victims, THIS would become interesting.
By the way, what do you think happens in Switzerland whenever somebody high-placed does anything extremely wrong - violating the separation between executive and judicial powers or making a government-funded company crash so that taxpayer money has to be used to save it?
Answer: nothing. Trials are made but nobody gets condemned, merely slapped on the wrist. One such example is the Swissair bankruptcy affair. Some of its perpetrators actually got away with a ~400k$ compensatory payment for the trouble.
Switzerland is ruled by an oligarchy of bankers, investors and upper management members from the country's major corporations. Interestingly, the swiss people can force them into things they don't want through the referendum/initiative system, but they keep pulling the strings and steer what the people thinks and wills, so they're never really taking many risks.
Overall, it isn't too different from any true democracy out there, except that when the people gets really worked up, things get done its way faster than before the next elections. If anything, we're just 1. one hell of a lot slower to take decisions 2. desperately trying to hide the shit that's happening in our country in the naïve belief we're a "special case" (Sonderfall, in german) compared to the rest of the world.
The truth is that behind the mask of orderliness and cleanliness, we do have problems. Four cultures coexist in this country and the reason that they still do is partly because they do not understand each other. Poverty has been revealed to be fairly widespread in a state where nobody talks about it (or one's income/fortune in general). Violence is flaring up in a similar way it does in the rest of Europe, proving once more this place is part of it. Cartels artificially raise prices for most goods and services (except consumer electronics for example, go figure) by 20-30% compared to the neighboring countries. Men in their twenties kill people and themselves with the weapons the Swiss Army gives them, trains them to use and makes them keep at home - we're talking about SIG-550 assault rifles here, and the number of people killed by military weapons is estimated at 300 per year. In a 7.5-million-people country.
In the end, it's a place like the rest of the world, only desperately trying to stay nicer and cleaner. Oh, it's comfortable and very nice indeed, but it's far from being devoid of problems. The hardest thing to stand is how everybody in here tries to justify his own acts by pretending it's for the common good, but it's probably just the same elsewhere.
Here http://www.nzz.ch/nachrichten/schweiz/aktuell/urheberrecht_fuer_das_internetzeitalter_1.561418.html It is reported that that one can still download music as long as it is for personal use. Can someone show me where it is said there is jail for P2P downloads? I am reading the text of the law and am not seeing it. What is illegal is for me to bypass the region coding that I have on half my DVD's so that I can watch them on my computer.
quis custodiet ipsos custodes
The article by boing-boing is 100% inaccurate. Ok, make that 90%, there as been a revision of the copyright law in Switzerland. But beyond this basic fact, the situation is very different. The new copyright law is, compared to the US and the EU, very liberal. Not liberal enough for my taste, but way more so than others. For example, downloading files for personal use is explicitly allowed. It is explicitly allowed to break copy protection technology, as long as you use the file for legal purposes (private copy, education etc). Admitted, the law has its share of absurdities -- downloading is permitted, uploading is prohibited -- but still, it's so liberal, that the "International Intellectual Property Alliance" put Switzerland on its watchlist for it. Also, there has been real public debate about it, with resistance from political parties on the left, as well as free software groups, ngos, and even artists. The fact that the discussion did not take place in English but in German, French and Italian does not mean that it did not take place at all.
isnt rapidshare.com/de based in switzerland?
and if so they are soo screwed as everyone knows 99.9% of files they host are illegal
I'm in the US and would consider Switzerland the top of my list of where to move to if I had to. Decent political system and involved electorate, low crime, full self defense and gun ownership as an integral part of the culture (national and personal), good economic freedom, solid middle class, non interventionist, etc, plus it's pretty, a very nice nation. Next up I guess Norway. (note: just what I have read about those places)
[I realize this is totally off-topic to the actual articl, but maybe not so much to this thread of posts.]
In all seriousness, what would it take to create a _third_ party in the US, if one wanted to run for office but did wanted to be associated with neither Democrats nor Republicans? Would that even be possible under US law? (Or why not?)
I mean, aside from the considerable cash required for any political campaign (under any system, in any country); assume one has enough cash to burn.
"Good news, everyone!"
Thank you for your comprehensive and accurate summary of the situation in Switzerland. As mentioned by fest321 the article on Boing-Boing is nonsense.
A democracy is 2 wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner. In the *theoretical* US constitutional republic, 99% of the population cannot take rights away from a single person.
How does "levy on blank media" work, anyway? Proportionally divided up by number and/or total dollar value of albums sold, per company or person who sells them?
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
I'm living in Switzerland and I can assure you that the Swiss public isn't likely to forget about the existence of these tools.
The reason why we got a relatively liberal version of the anti-circumvention law is that the politicians were afraid that otherwise there'd be a successful referendum.
As long as we don't do something stupid like e.g. joining the EU the fundamental situation that Swiss citizens have real voting power isn't going to change.
As I understand, a concept which underlies socialistic attitudes can be expressed thus: those who receive benefits from the existence of a community (or institution) have some responsibility to support it.
Music (and any form of digital entertainment) enriches one's life. Living in a community of people who benefit from such a cultural tradition also enriches one's life. So, the presence of music (or what have you) is of benefit to the entire community. Therefore, the community as a whole has some degree of obligation to support those who produce it.
In a black-and-white world of rigid absolutes, such attitudes are not well-received, and don't work well. People with socialist mindsets tend to find 80% solutions quite acceptable. Sure, some people benefit more than others, and some people wind up paying a little more for services they use a little less. So, the system isn't perfect. But the system IS good, and in the minds of those who happily participate, it is good enough.
While it is true that some people buy blank media and do not use it to duplicate works of art, it is also true that most people do. Further, it is true that when works of art are duplicated, they are often done so on such media. So taxing the media seems like a better way to zero in on the recipients of the benefit (and to somewhat scale up to their likely level of reception) than to just put a blanket tax on everyone. Again, it is not a perfect solution, but it is a good 80% solution, so they go with it.
The money generated alone isn't sufficient for the members of the digital entertainment institution to support themselves. They still have to draw a profit from what they produce. But they can live on less of a profit because of this tax, which helps to offset the money they aren't making due to duplication. Not a perfect solution, but good enough to keep the ball rolling.
So, the citizens largely get what they want, they largely pay what they can afford, and they don't all get criminalized.
Personally, I don't fileshare. I am a coward and afraid of the consequences. Since I don't support the tactics of the RIAA, I don't buy their crap either. I have been living off Emusic, magnatune, and the occasional used CD for several years now. However, if P2P filesharing was to be made legal across the board, and in return I had to pay a tax on all blank media that I bought, I would be all for it. It would be FAR superior to the mess we have now with every citizen violating copyright on a regular basis, being liable for hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines for it, and the industry powers blanketing the country with lawsuits.
It is, in my opinion, a very good 80% solution.
SUISA (similar to RIAA?) gets all the money and forwards it to the artist according to their revenues from concerts, sold songs/LPs, etc.
-->
SR 231.1
Art. 49 Verteilung des Verwertungserlöses
1 Die Verwertungsgesellschaften müssen den Verwertungserlös nach Massgabe des Ertrags der einzelnen Werke und Darbietungen verteilen. Sie haben zur Feststellung der Berechtigten alle ihnen zumutbaren Anstrengungen zu unternehmen.
2 Ist diese Verteilung mit einem unzumutbaren Aufwand verbunden, so dürfen die Verwertungsgesellschaften das Ausmass des Ertrags schätzen; die Schätzungen müssen auf überprüfbaren und sachgerechten Gesichtspunkten beruhen.
3 Der Erlös soll zwischen den ursprünglichen Rechtsinhabern und -inhaberinnen und andern Berechtigten so aufgeteilt werden, dass den Urhebern und Urheberinnen und den ausübenden Künstlern und Künstlerinnen in der Regel ein angemessener Anteil verbleibt. Eine andere Verteilung ist zulässig, wenn der Aufwand unzumutbar wäre.
4 Das Verteilungsreglement hebt vertragliche Abmachungen der ursprünglichen Rechtsinhaber und -inhaberinnen mit Dritten nicht auf.
Source:
German
French
Italian
no English version available. sorry.
I would call this a victory, considering that all of the DMCA-like provisions that had been proposed have been stripped out in the end.
Here's the originally proposed diff, in French and German, against the existing Swiss Copyright Law of 1992. Some of the notable changes would have been:
Compare that with the enacted diff, in French and German. None of the provisions above remains. Some of the notable features of the new law are:
From my cursory reading of the law, I would say that it's all upside and no downside for content consumers.
In 2005 in Britain, Labour won 356 seats and the Conservatives 198. The Liberal democrats, a "3rd" party, won 62. Nine other parties won seats.[2]
While first past the post is indeed a horrible system, the problem in the USA is more that the psychotic voters keep voting for the the Republicans and Democrats.
Seriously, if you feel so inclined, take this advice. I can't argue with your all seeing wisdom. I'm done arguing, to each his own (her own?) and good luck to you. With such wisdom guiding you, I can rest assured that you will be FAR more wealthy than any individual that actually looked at the big picture. Thanks for proving my point to me. Who needs physical goods when you've got paper assets. I'm ashamed of my lack of grand insight as you possess.
To see your wisdom in action, I believe you may wish to should head to Zimbabwe, and live as a native, I hear they're doing REALLY WELL with that whole stable paper currency. It's doing marvels for that country.
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler