Danish DRM Breaker Turns Himself In To Test Backup Law

coaxial writes "In Denmark, it's legal to make copies of commercial videos for backup or other private purposes. It's also illegal to break the DRM that restricts copying of DVDs. Deciding to find out which law mattered, Henrik Anderson reported himself for 100 violations of the DRM-breaking law (he ripped his DVD collection to his computer) and demanded that the Danish anti-piracy Antipiratgruppen do something about it. They promised him a response, then didn't respond. So now he's reporting himself to the police. He wants a trial, so that the legality of the DRM-breaking law can be tested in court."

Comments

this is brave

[mrvan]

This is really brave. Not just rant about how stupid a law is, or how unenforceable, and then just break it. But break it, deliberately turn yourself in, and show how stupid/unenforceable the law is.

From an egoistic short-term perspective this is probably seen as just stupid, but this is the way to actually enact some changes.

Bravo!

Re:this is brave

[MightyMartian]

I'd wager my left toe that absolutely nothing comes of it. The police aren't going to want to deal with it, and media companies and their government whores don't want that kind of a test case.

Re:this is brave

[Taevin]

Do you actually have a point to make or are you just going to sit around repeating what we already know as if it added some value to the conversation?

Here's what we know:

1. Law 1 states that you can make a copy of a DVD.
   • The only way to do so is to decrypt the content
2. Law 2 states that you cannot decrypt the content of the DVD.
3. Since it is illegal to decrypt the contents of the DVD and that is the only way to make a copy, it is therefore impossible to legally create a copy of the DVD.

We quite understand that the legal system has not crashed as a result of this, and we understand that certain parties would like to be pricks and debate about whether there is even a conflict.

don't kid yourself that what this guy did wasn't illegal.

Which is the point of this whole article: No one is. The Slashdot article is entitled "Danish DRM Breaker Turns Himself In To Test Backup Law." He himself knows what he did is illegal and turned himself in to the authorities. This is also known as civil disobedience and its purpose is to test laws that are unjust or unclear.

Assuming this makes it to trial, the judge will give a ruling in which he will either uphold the laws as-is (providing clarity as in, "yes, the intention of law 2 was to covertly remove the right guaranteed by law 1") or will make an exception to allow the free exercise of the right provided for in law 1, removing the injustice.

Re:this is brave

[Taevin]

First off, there is no law 1 and law 2. Its two sections of the same law [www.kum.dk].

Great, even better. It's not a complex, unintended interaction between two disparate laws with different intentions, it's just a poorly written law that (apparently) contradicts itself.

Second, the law is the Danish implementation of the EU Copyright Directive [wikipedia.org] which mandates that subscriber countries implement it exactly as its been implemented, i.e. circumvention is illegal EVEN THOUGH it makes some other rights unexercisable.

Yes, the EU Copyright Directive says basically the same thing as the Danish implementation with regards to personal copies:

Article 5
(2) Member States may provide for exceptions or limitations to the reproduction right provided for in Article 2 in the following cases:
(b) in respect of reproductions on any medium made by a natural person for private use and for ends that are neither directly nor indirectly commercial, on condition that the rightholders receive fair compensation which takes account of the application or non-application of technological measures referred to in Article 6 to the work or subject-matter concerned;

No Danish judge is going to repeal that.

The EU is not the same as the US Federal government. No, a single Danish judge is not going to repeal an EU directive, but a ruling could shed light on a troubling issue possibly eventually leading to a change in the wording.

Interestingly, however, the EU Copyright Directive states this in the preamble (my emphasis added):

Whereas:
(52) When implementing an exception or limitation for private copying in accordance with Article 5(2)(b), Member States should likewise promote the use of voluntary measures to accommodate achieving the objectives of such exception or limitation. If, within a reasonable period of time, no such voluntary measures to make reproduction for private use possible have been taken, Member States may take measures to enable beneficiaries of the exception or limitation concerned to benefit from it. Voluntary measures taken by rightholders, including agreements between rightholders and other parties concerned, as well as measures taken by Member States, do not prevent rightholders from using technological measures which are consistent with the exceptions or limitations on private copying in national law in accordance with Article 5(2)(b), taking account of the condition of fair compensation under that provision and the possible differentiation between various conditions of use in accordance with Article 5(5), such as controlling the number of reproductions. In order to prevent abuse of such measures, any technological measures applied in their implementation should enjoy legal protection.

Since the rightsholders have never shown any intention of voluntarily doing anything, the judge could in fact do something about it: provide a recourse via exemption to Danish citizens. More likely though, I suppose, is that the judge would give the rightsholders the opportunity to "voluntarily" provide enabling measures for the beneficiaries. Sounds like a win-win to me, if I'm being objective (I actually think DRM is one of the most obscene abuses of law I've seen in my--admittedly short--adult life).

Civil disobedience can be used to force a test of a law, or to call attention to an unjust law.

Yes, I believe that's exactly what I said.

The latter is what is happening here, but there are any number of asshats here on Slashdot that seem to be implying that because the laws seem to conflict, one of them is going to get struck down. I'm just saying thats not the case. The only thing this guy is doing is making

Kudos

[overshoot]

Civil disobedience done right. The world would be a better place if more of us (and I'm specifically pointing to empty-nest geezers like that one in the mirror) had the cojones to do similarly rather than constantly bitching.

Re:First

[Jaysyn]

I'm very glad civil-rights leaders in the 60's weren't so cowardly.

Re:law vs. law

[OzPeter]

If we lived in a true democracy (for the people), DRM would never exist

If you lived in a true democracy you would get the laws that people voted for - this may or may not include DRM

To quote Men In Black

A person is smart, but people are stupid

Re:law vs. law

[runyonave]

DRM solely exists to provide corporations more control over the products they sell. It in no way is beneficial to the average user.

So therefore the average users, or the people who provide the majority of votes, would never vote for DRM.

Re:Won't Loving Work.

[thisnamestoolong]

We need that in America. It is completely absurd that if Bill Gates and I committed the same criminal offense, we would incur the same fine. Bill would pull the money out of his wallet in much the same manner that I buy a pack of gum and go about his day, whereas I would be financially devastated. In this case, while the actual dollar amount of the fines were equal, the punishment absolutely was not. The fine should be adjusted so that the punishment is equal in both cases -- it is completely absurd that this is not the case already.

Re:Won't Loving Work.

[loshwomp]

So where is the incentive to earn?

Your incentive to earn (which I'm sure is alive and well) doesn't trump the intended incentive to keep you from breaking laws.