Norway is a member of the EEA, so if you didn't allow your music to be sold in Norway you couldn't sell it in any other EEA state either (Iceland, Liechtenstein, and the entire EU).
"Mainstream" in politics is usually not defined as "the guys who get the most votes", but rather "the guys with the least extreme views". In Scandinavian countries, almost all the parliamentary parties are considered "mainstream" (there are hundreds, or thousands, of parties outside the parliament), and Venstre most definitely - compare to Fremskrittspartiet (brownshirts) or Sosialistisk Venstreparti (socialists).
"And maybe this means a lot of artists and musicians will be out of work, and that's sad, but if they can't convince their audiences that they deserve to be supported for their talent, then they're not very good and deserve to die off."
im glad this didnt happen beore shakespeare, otherwise we would indeed be very sad. It sounds like you dont want the best writers and the best movie directros of software engineers to carry on doing their work, you just want the ones who are best at promoting their work in lieu of actual sales?
You are aware of the fact that copyright law did not exist in Shakespeare's lifetime, right?
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.
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.
In Europe the word liberal roughly translates to capitalist.
It does not. Liberal means liberal. If you insist on placing political parties on a dumb left-right scale, it is probably true that Norwegian Venstre would end up quite a bit to the right of the labour and socialist parties in terms of wealth distribution (but also quite a bit to the left of the conservatives). Also, the name "Venstre", which does mean "Left", has nothing to do with socialism - it goes back to the time after the French revolution, when the French parliament was divided into the "left" - basically liberals who wanted more individual freedom and equality - and the "right" - the conservatives who wanted to preserve the old social structures. Socialism wasn't even invented yet. Denmark also has liberal parties using similar names ("Venstre" and "Radikale Venstre"), but in most other countries "left" now is politically equivalent to communism, socialism, or the labour movement.
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.
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.
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How do you "bittorrent" a live theater performance?
Norway is a member of the EEA, so if you didn't allow your music to be sold in Norway you couldn't sell it in any other EEA state either (Iceland, Liechtenstein, and the entire EU).
"Mainstream" in politics is usually not defined as "the guys who get the most votes", but rather "the guys with the least extreme views". In Scandinavian countries, almost all the parliamentary parties are considered "mainstream" (there are hundreds, or thousands, of parties outside the parliament), and Venstre most definitely - compare to Fremskrittspartiet (brownshirts) or Sosialistisk Venstreparti (socialists).
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.
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.
What on earth makes you think that Venstre are socialists?
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.