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Swiss DMCA Quietly Adopted

Posted by Zonk on from the nothing-like-sleath-governing dept.

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."

14 of 137 comments (clear)

  1. Levy on Media? by keirre23hu · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Levy on Media? by Slashidiot · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Yes, it is certainly hard to understand. In Spain we have a levy on media (which can be bypassed by buying from an international store online), but it is LEGAL to download copyrighted music, if it's not used for profit, only for private use. So, I can download every movie and every song on the internet, and I'm rightfully allowed to do it. To compensate, I have to pay a levy on media. Worth it, in my opinion, as this levy only affects CDs and DVDs for the moment, and not HDDs.

      This treats all spanish people as pirates, but says pirates are OK.

      --
      Tis women makes us love, Tis Love that makes us sad, Tis sadness makes us drink, And drinking makes us mad.
  2. Can some Swiss citizens enlighten us by llirik · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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?

    1. Re:Can some Swiss citizens enlighten us by aliquis · · Score: 3, Interesting

      If nothing else what happen if 10% of the people send in proof about their p2p activities? Will they jail them all for a year? ;D

    2. Re:Can some Swiss citizens enlighten us by llirik · · Score: 5, Informative
      Well, answering my own question. Wikipedia says

      By calling a federal referendum a group of citizens may challenge a law that has been passed by Parliament, if they can gather 50,000 signatures against the law within 100 days. If so, a national vote is scheduled where voters decide by a simple majority whether to accept or reject the law. Eight cantons together can also call a referendum on a federal law.
    3. Re:Can some Swiss citizens enlighten us by darthflo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I totally disagree with more or less everything you said:

      1: "Suisse". If you're talking English, you meant "Swiss".

      2: CHF Gold backing: It's true the Swiss franc lost some of it's gold backing in 2000, but (other than, for example, the US Dollar) it's value seems solid as a rock in a moving sea of global currencies. An inflation of some 1% (according to your(?) governmental factbook) supports this as well as Yahoo! data on exchange rates.
      About that bank panics idea of yours: Remember the all-american Subprime Mortgage Crisis? Some swiss banks lost a few billion on it, some lower management positions will need to be restaffed, high management seems largely unchanged, the general public wasn't concerned at all. How well did british and american banks cope with it?

      3: Disarmament: As opposed to some nation in the far west, a majority of Swiss people seems to be slowly realizing the idiocy of maintaining an overproportional army while surrounded by allied and politically stable countries. With a very recent incident of an army recruit shooting some girl he didn't even know out of the blue, abolishing the forced armament seems nearer than ever. There's no debate about prohibiting guns completely, merely talks about safely storing army equipment outside of individuals' homes. By the way: just a few months ago, in what probably is a first step in the disarmament, soldiers are no longer equipped with any ammo to take home with 'em.
      I realize that such events need to be put into perspective (during the writing of this post more people died of hunger than were killed by Swiss army weapons in the last decades), but if an action (forced armament) does not cause any good and very few deaths, it's still a stupid thing to do.

    4. Re:Can some Swiss citizens enlighten us by theolein · · Score: 3, Funny

      It's Swiss, in English, Suisse (the country) and Suisses (the people) in French, Schweiz (for the country) and Schweizer (for the people) in German, Svizzera (country) and Svizzeri (the people) in Italian and Svizra (country) and Svizers(people) in Rumantsch, you damn Amerikaner ;-)

  3. wth.... by Kwirl · · Score: 5, Funny

    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?

    1. Re:wth.... by east+coast · · Score: 4, Insightful

      how can america get one of these?

      Stop supporting the same old bullshit by not voting democrat or republican? That's my guess.

      --
      Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
    2. Re:wth.... by peragrin · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Direct Democracies tend to fall apart with large numbers of people. Switzerland has ~8 million people. New York city alone has 8 million people.

      The problem becomes numbers of people that need to be involved.

      though America's democracy is in need of overhaul. eliminating the electoral college is a start. term limits would be a solid second. Politicains shouldn't be a life time job, but a temp job, maybe a decade or so of service.

      --
      i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
    3. Re:wth.... by darthflo · · Score: 4, Informative

      So, be careful what you wish for.
      You probably have gotten the idea wrong, a petition, referendum or popular initiative don't cause any change on their own. Let me explain:

      A petition is the weakest of the three possibilities. Anyone (minors, companies, you name it) can start one and gather however many signatures he/she/it deems necessary for any purpose whatsoever (e.g. changing "Stockwell" to "Doris" in Mr. Day's name). The government only needs to acknowledge the existence of such a petition, period. There's no need to discuss it, comment on it or do anything at all about it apart from acknowledging it.

      A referendum (signed by 50'000 out of some 7.4 million in the course of 100 days) forces a national vote on a recently-instated new law. Still, more than 50% of all voters participating in that vote will need to "nay" it in order for it not to be instated.

      A public initiative (signed by 100k in 180 days) triggers a national vote about any issue at hand. If i can get 100k people to agree that all cars need to be yellow, the government is obligated to include this question in the next round of public voting. To date, some fifteen out of some 150 initiatives have been accepted in such a vote, chances are slim.

      Of course, all details mentioned herein refer to the Swiss system (and IANTooFamiliarWithAllThis, so I may be wrong in some, many or all points), which I find to be rather nice (especially when compared to some other ones).
    4. Re:wth.... by swillden · · Score: 3, Interesting

      though America's democracy is in need of overhaul. eliminating the electoral college is a start.

      The electoral college is irrelevant. The number of cases in which it changes anything is small, and many people agree with the reasoning behind it anyway.

      What would really improve America's democracy is to make it smaller. That is, to shift whatever power the federal government doesn't absolutely need (per its constitutional duties and powers) to the states, and to encourage the states to shift as much power as makes sense to municipalities, where direct democracy works well. The first thing we should do is repeal the 16th and 17th amendments. Go back to requiring the federal government to get its funding from the states, and make the senate beholden to the state legislatures whose responsibility it is to raise the funds, and power will quickly shift back where it belongs.

      Instead, we should amend the constitution to apportion the expenses of the federal government to the states proportionally to state GDP (rather than proportionally to population to avoid overburdening poor states), and requiring the states to pay the bill, regardless of the effect on their own budgets. That will shift the deficit spending to the state level and avoid disturbing the funding of current federal programs, unless and until the programs are changed, eliminated or moved through legislative action.

      Of course, none of it will ever happen, but elimination of the electoral college won't either, and my suggestion would actually accomplish something.

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
  4. I've seen some swiss prisons by Martian_Kyo · · Score: 4, Funny

    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'....

  5. Boing-Boing gets it all wrong! by fest321 · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.