Switzerland Remains 'Extremely Attractive' For Pirate Sites, MPAA Says (torrentfreak.com)

While the European Union has worked hard to strengthen its copyright laws in recent years, one country in the heart of the continent chooses its own path. Switzerland is not part of the EU, which means that its policies deviate quite a bit from its neighbors. According to Hollywood, that's not helping creators. From a report: Responding to recent submission to the United States Trade Representative (USTR), the MPAA has identified several foreign "trade barriers" around the world. In Hollywood's case, many of these are related to piracy. One of the countries that's highlighted, in rather harsh terms, is Switzerland. According to the MPAA, the country's copyright law is "wholly inadequate" which, among other things, makes it "extremely attractive" to host illegal sites. "Switzerland's copyright law is wholly inadequate, lacking crucial mechanisms needed for enforcement in the digital era," MPAA writes. [...] The European country has plans to update its laws, but the proposed changes are not significant improvements, Hollywood's trade group notes.

Comments

Re:one good thing from trump

[dryeo]

Unluckily he just put the copyright shit in NAFTA2, and he is planning lots more of the same as he isolates countries and pushes new trade deals.

Re:Good job... Real democracy

[Fallen Kell]

Switzerland seems to be one of those rare oddball countries where the government actually works for the benefit of its citizens. Not the benefit of some other countries' citizens, or for the benefit of whoever gave out the most bribes to the politicians.

Utterly shocking if you're from place with a corrupt government like the United States or the EU.

That is because Switzerland is a "direct democracy". You see, the people actually vote on things. All it takes is 50,000 citizens (or 8 of the elected politicians) to call for any recently enacted or changed laws to require a direct vote by the citizens (a simple majority yes/no vote). It makes it kind of hard for special interest groups with big pockets to get to all but 50,000 people in the country to prevent a direct vote.

Re:Good job... Real democracy

[AmiMoJo]

On the other hand in 2009 they voted to include alternative medicine (i.e. pseudo-scientific snake oil) in the constitution. Maybe someone from Switzerland can say how much effect it has had; AIUI it was effectively nullified by the fact that politicians didn't change the rules on funding treatments to remove the "proven effective" requirement.

Direct democracy can be great, but can also result in nonsense, so it's important to have strong checks and balances. Problem is that people get very upset if they vote for something a a check or balance frustrates it, e.g. Brexit.