the suspect is almost always released without bail (which doesn't exist)
while awaiting trial.
Bail exists under the Norwegian Criminal Code section 188
("kausjon"), but is rarely used. You do not have the right to use a get-out-of-jail-for-money card, it's up to the court.
Whether or not you are held in prison pending trial would depend on several factors, including the gravity of the accused crime. Murder suspects are more seldom released, at least during the early stages of the investigation.
Could Jon Johansen appeal this to the supreme court in the interest of
getting a principal ruling? Or althernatively, could his supporters? It
seems that getting such would be a worthwhile public service to the people
of Norway, and an important step in assuring their freedoms against
encroachment by the American media interests.
Lov om rettergangsmaten i straffesaker (Straffeprosessloven) [The Criminal
Procedure Code] section 307
provides that
Any person who has been acquitted may not appeal unless the
court has found it proved that he committed the unlawful act referred to
in the indictment.
Any person acquitted by a judgement of the Court of Appeal in a case that
is tried with a jury may not appeal unless the issue of guilt has been
decided against him.
I.e. you may not appeal because you are not happy with the reasonings of
the court, ot because you'd like to have a higher court take a look at the
case (such as to render a more authoritative ruling), as long as you were acquitted. This goes for civil
cases as well.
This case was not tried before a jury, but with a combined court of
three judges and four lay judges (in this case: two exptert lay judges and
two regular lay judges), since the maximum sentence that could applied was
less than 6 years, see the Norwegian Criminal Code section 352. The Norwegian Penal Code section 145
only provides for a maximum jail term of two years if damage is caused or
the felony took place for an ulawful gain. Otherwise the maximum prison
sentence would be six months.
One of the judges (Stavang) holds a Norwegian (research) doctorate in law,
and a minor degree in economics, and was quite interested in the antitrust
implications of the DVD region system.
In an answer to a question by Glyn Ford, Mario
Monti answered that "... the Commission has obtained significant
amounts of information relating to the establishment and ongoing operation
of the regional coding system from a broad range of film studios, DVD
equipment manufacturers, and commercial retailers. The Commission is now
completing its analysis of the file with a view to ascertaining the
system's compatibility with the Community competition rules."
See Official Journal
of the European Union C
137 E of 12 June 2003 (page
34[pdf file]).
The whole criminal procedure act is available translated into Engilsh as a large PDF
file.
The General civil penal code is also available translated into English as a PDF
file.
Or alternatively, could his supporters?
His supporters? Who are they? No, only parties to the case may appeal; you
must have "legal standing".
While Norway isn't a member of the European Union (EU), they are -- like
Switzerland -- a member of the European Economic Cooperative (EEC),
No, Switzerland is a member of EFTA, the European Free Trade Association. Switzerland is also the only member of
EFTA that is not a party to the EEA (European Economic Area), which it is
usually called, not EEC. EEC
stands for European Economic Community, which is
now EC, the European Community. (The name was altered by the Maastricht treaty establishing the European Union.)
The EFTA members which are parties to the EEA are Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein.
Sweden, Finland and Austria were previoulsy members of EFTA before joining the EU in 1995.
The Norwegian "green paper" on the implementation of the EUCD/Infosoc is available
online, as a PDF file,
but it is in Norwegian.
This is just draft-draft legislation, asking for the opinion of various affected parties (a "hearing"). The final draft has yet to been issued. Norway has not yet implemeneted the EUCD in its copyright act.
The decision-making process leading up to the passing of the directive 2001/29/EC (EUCD) can be found at PreLex.
The status of the passing of the EUCD in various nations can be tracked.
An appeal to the Supreme Court is possible on legal grounds (i.e. wrongful interpretation of the penal code) and faulty legal proceedings, however, the acquital stands unless the case is remanded and a whole new trial takes place.
Yishao Zhou, Elin Oxenhielm's adviser, has a new web page about
Elin Oxenhielm's work on the second part of Hilbert's 16th problem where he
states that In my opinion the paper is incomplete and includes serious
mistakes, which I think any educated mathematician can easily see. and that he placed too much faith in the referee system and that It is most unfortunate that the journal accepted the manuscript...
I'd be facinated to hear of any means of preventing copying that does not block non-copyright protected acts.
What about Macrovision? I've heard of some people having problems viewing with projectors and some other equipment, but other than that, I don't see how it does anything about preventing you from doing something that is not protected by copyright.
The copyright directive does not harmonize the basics of copyright. I cannot find anything like that there. There is no need for harmonizng this,all member countries of the EU are parties to the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works. The personal (as opposed to public) use of a copyright protected work is something that falls outside of what I would call "copyright basics".
The directive therefore does not say anything about copyright basics and therefore cannot be read as banning acts falling outside the scope of copyright.
The European Council's Common
Position on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related
rights in the information society states that
43. In its amendment 47, the
European
Parliament [page 171] had suggested that it be stipulated in Article 5(4)
(current Article 5(5)) that the legal protection of technological measures
prevailed over the exceptions listed in Article 5. The Commission had
addressed this issue under Article 6(3) of its amended proposal, providing
that only technological measures preventing or inhibiting the infringement of
copyright were protected under Article 6. This meant that technological
measures designed to prevent or inhibit acts allowed by law (e.g. by virtue of
an exception) were not protectable under Article 6. In other words, under the
Commissions amended proposal, the exceptions provided for in Article 5
prevailed over the legal protection of technological measures provided for in
Article 6.
The Council has taken a different approach, which it considers strikes a reasonable balance
between the interests of rightholders and those of beneficiaries of exceptions. It has adopted in
Article 6(3) first sentence of its Common Position a definition of the protectable technological
measures which is broader than the one provided for in the Commissions amended proposal
or the one set out in Parliaments amendment 54. The terms... designed to prevent or restrict
acts, in respect of works or other subject matter, which are not authorised by the rightholder
of any copyright... in the Councils definition make it clear that Article 6(1) protects against
circumvention of all technological measures designed to prevent or restrict acts not authorised
by the rightholder, regardless of whether the person performing the circumvention is a
beneficiary of one of the exceptions provided for in Article 5.
Note the reference in the last paragraph. It is to article 5.
art 5 numbers 1 and 2 deal with exceptions from article 2. Article 2 deals
with the "Reproduction right". This is a part of the "copyright basics".
art 5 number 3 deals with art 2 and 3. Article 3 is the "Right of
communication to the PUBLIC of works and right of making available to the
PUBLIC other subject-matter".
I cannot find anything in the directive dealing with a purely private use falling outside the scope of copyright.
For the process behind the passing of the directive, see PreLex
You've come the conclusion that it is a crime to observe, study or test the functioning (aka reverse engineering) of something which is not related to copyright? I don't know of a single jurisdiction where, say, fast forwarding a film in your home is related to copyright.
296ZB only relates to "circumvention of effective technological measures". For a technological measure to fall within the scopy of 296ZB it must "protect a copyright work" (section 296ZF (1)), for it to be "protection" it must protect "acts that are not authorised by the copyright owner of that work and are restricted by copyright" (section 296ZF (3) (a)). Viewing a film in your home is not restricted by copyright.
For what it's worth the Norwegian (and I believe Danish) Government view is that if one code protects a non-copyright protected act (region codes, fast forwarding etc) also protects a copyright protected act (e.g. copying) one may remove the code to disable the region code but not to copy. The view is TOUGH LUCK if you try to make life too burdensome for the average consumer when he tries to view a film and the manufacturer uses the same code to protect more than one thing.
(Note: I don't know (how or) whether DVD region codes, access control and copy protection are implemented by the same device.)
Norway is not a member of the EU, but is a part of the EEA (European Economic Area) and must therefore also implement the copyright directive.
The publisher can make it impossible to fast forward without circumventing to do it. 296ZA makes circumventing a crime and 296ZB makes it a crime to give someone the information they need to circumvent. My other post covers a bit more about this.
Have you read the whole law?
296ZF Interpretation of sections 296ZA to 296ZE
(1) In sections 296ZA to 296ZE, "technological measures" are any technology, device or component which is designed, in the normal course of its operation, to protect a copyright work other than a computer program.
(2) Such measures are "effective" if the use of the work is controlled by the copyright owner through -
(a) an access control or protection process such as encryption, scrambling or other transformation of the work, or
(b) a copy control mechanism,
which achieves the intended protection.
(3) In this section, the reference to -
(a) protection of a work is to the prevention or restriction of acts that are not authorised by the copyright owner of that work AND ARE
RESTRICTED BY COPYRIGHT; and
(b) use of a work DOES NOT EXTEND TO any use of the work that is OUTSIDE THE SCOPE OF THE ACTS RESTRICTED BY COPYRIGHT.
(...)
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 section
16:
16.(1) The owner of the copyright in a work has, in accordance with the
following provisions of this Chapter, the exclusive right to do the
following acts in the United Kingdom
(a) to copy the work (see section 17);
(b) to issue copies of the work to the public (see section 18);
(c) to perform, show or play the work in public (see section 19);
(d) to broadcast the work or include it in a cable programme service (see
section 20);
(e) to make an adaptation of the work or do any of the above in relation to
an adaptation (see section 21); and those acts are referred to in this
Part as the "acts restricted by the copyright".
(2) Copyright in a work is infringed by a person who without the licence of
the copyright owner does, or authorises another to do, any of the acts
restricted by the copyright.
(...)
I fail to see how viewing a film in your own home is an act inside the scope of copyright (compare section 19).
FYI, here in Denmark the interpretation of the EUCD has made DVD reselling illegal! That is all DVDs other than region 2.
I would believe you are misundertstanding Danish law (ophavsretsloven section 19). Probably what you are referring to is the fact that the copyright directive (EUCD)
has a provision on the exhaustion of copyrights (article 4) which states that unless you have the copyright holder's permission, you cannot distribute materials protected by copyright put onto the market outside of Europe (EU). (Which could also get you in trouble should you try to sell DVDs bought in the US to someone who is not your acquaintance.)
The directive does not do away with "first sale".
You may still sell your books and CDs, and you may still import books, CDs, DVDs etc all by yourself. I've seen stores based in the EU complain that they no longer can import a DVD from the US and sell it in for example Denmark. Supposedly this will result in higher prices than ever here in Europe since parallell imports from countries outside of the EU are banned.
But. Hello?! These are the MOST EXPENSIVE stores there are. It is MUCH CHEAPER to import yourself. And it is VERY EASY in these web days. Those are just crocodile tears you are seeing.
This however, dos not have anything to with whether the DVD is region 2 or not. South Africa and the Middle East are both in region 2. So is Japan.
When the Supreme Court denies a petition for cert, that does not mean that the lower court was right.
Yes, and how the heck does this get a score of 1, while the parent gets 5 and "informative"?!
To quote from William H. Rehnquist: The Supreme Court. How It Was, How It
Is (1987) -- this is a book by the then and now US Supreme Court Chief
Justice.
In chapter 11, "Certioaris: Picking the Cases to Be Decided", he writes on
page 269:
There are thousands of state-court judges in this country at the present
time, and hundreds of federal judges. Each of these has sworn to uphold
the Constitution and laws of the United States, and the overwhelming
majority of these judges are capable of applying settled law to the
facts of the cases before them, and eager to do so. Occaisonally, these
trial judges make mistakes, but the federal courts of appeal sit to
correct these mistakes within the federal system, and state appellate
courts sit to do the same in every state system. It would be a useless
duplication of these functions if the Supreme Court of the United States
were to serve simply as an even higher court for the correction of
errors in cases involving no generally important principle of law. The
Supreme Court, quite correctly in my opinion, instead seeks to pick,
from the several thousand cased it is annually asked to review, those
cases involving unsettled questions of federal constitutional or
statutory law of general interest.
... Each year we find more than enough cases to meet the demanding standards for Supreme Court review, and must turn down many that several of the justices, although not a sufficient number to grant certioari, think do meet the standard for review.
We are streched thin to do what we ought to do--in the words of Chief
Justice Taft, pronouncing "the last word on every important issue under
the Constitution and the statues of the United States"--without trying
to reach out and correct errors in cases where the lower courts have
reached an incorrect result, but where the result is not apt to have any
influence beyond its effect on the parties to the case.
Wasn't this explained just recently during the Jesus naughty comic books thread?
Slashdot Mirror
Bail exists under the Norwegian Criminal Code section 188 ("kausjon"), but is rarely used. You do not have the right to use a get-out-of-jail-for-money card, it's up to the court.
Whether or not you are held in prison pending trial would depend on several factors, including the gravity of the accused crime. Murder suspects are more seldom released, at least during the early stages of the investigation.
Lov om rettergangsmaten i straffesaker (Straffeprosessloven) [The Criminal Procedure Code] section 307 provides that
Any person who has been acquitted may not appeal unless the court has found it proved that he committed the unlawful act referred to in the indictment.
Any person acquitted by a judgement of the Court of Appeal in a case that is tried with a jury may not appeal unless the issue of guilt has been decided against him.
I.e. you may not appeal because you are not happy with the reasonings of the court, ot because you'd like to have a higher court take a look at the case (such as to render a more authoritative ruling), as long as you were acquitted. This goes for civil cases as well.
This case was not tried before a jury, but with a combined court of three judges and four lay judges (in this case: two exptert lay judges and two regular lay judges), since the maximum sentence that could applied was less than 6 years, see the Norwegian Criminal Code section 352. The Norwegian Penal Code section 145 only provides for a maximum jail term of two years if damage is caused or the felony took place for an ulawful gain. Otherwise the maximum prison sentence would be six months.
One of the judges (Stavang) holds a Norwegian (research) doctorate in law, and a minor degree in economics, and was quite interested in the antitrust implications of the DVD region system. In an answer to a question by Glyn Ford, Mario Monti answered that "... the Commission has obtained significant amounts of information relating to the establishment and ongoing operation of the regional coding system from a broad range of film studios, DVD equipment manufacturers, and commercial retailers. The Commission is now completing its analysis of the file with a view to ascertaining the system's compatibility with the Community competition rules." See Official Journal of the European Union C 137 E of 12 June 2003 (page 34[pdf file]).
The whole criminal procedure act is available translated into Engilsh as a large PDF file. The General civil penal code is also available translated into English as a PDF file.
Or alternatively, could his supporters?
His supporters? Who are they? No, only parties to the case may appeal; you must have "legal standing".
No, Switzerland is a member of EFTA, the European Free Trade Association. Switzerland is also the only member of EFTA that is not a party to the EEA (European Economic Area), which it is usually called, not EEC. EEC stands for European Economic Community, which is now EC, the European Community. (The name was altered by the Maastricht treaty establishing the European Union.)
The EFTA members which are parties to the EEA are Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein. Sweden, Finland and Austria were previoulsy members of EFTA before joining the EU in 1995.
The Norwegian "green paper" on the implementation of the EUCD/Infosoc is available online, as a PDF file, but it is in Norwegian. This is just draft-draft legislation, asking for the opinion of various affected parties (a "hearing"). The final draft has yet to been issued. Norway has not yet implemeneted the EUCD in its copyright act.
The decision-making process leading up to the passing of the directive 2001/29/EC (EUCD) can be found at PreLex.
The status of the passing of the EUCD in various nations can be tracked.
An appeal to the Supreme Court is possible on legal grounds (i.e. wrongful interpretation of the penal code) and faulty legal proceedings, however, the acquital stands unless the case is remanded and a whole new trial takes place.
The Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten has a story called Landmark 'proof' under heavy fire.
The copyright directive does not harmonize the basics of copyright. I cannot find anything like that there. There is no need for harmonizng this,all member countries of the EU are parties to the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works. The personal (as opposed to public) use of a copyright protected work is something that falls outside of what I would call "copyright basics".
The directive therefore does not say anything about copyright basics and therefore cannot be read as banning acts falling outside the scope of copyright.
The European Council's Common Position on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society states that
Note the reference in the last paragraph. It is to article 5.
art 5 numbers 1 and 2 deal with exceptions from article 2. Article 2 deals with the "Reproduction right". This is a part of the "copyright basics".
art 5 number 3 deals with art 2 and 3. Article 3 is the "Right of communication to the PUBLIC of works and right of making available to the PUBLIC other subject-matter".
I cannot find anything in the directive dealing with a purely private use falling outside the scope of copyright.
For the process behind the passing of the directive, see PreLex
296ZB only relates to "circumvention of effective technological measures". For a technological measure to fall within the scopy of 296ZB it must "protect a copyright work" (section 296ZF (1)), for it to be "protection" it must protect "acts that are not authorised by the copyright owner of that work and are restricted by copyright" (section 296ZF (3) (a)). Viewing a film in your home is not restricted by copyright.
For what it's worth the Norwegian (and I believe Danish) Government view is that if one code protects a non-copyright protected act (region codes, fast forwarding etc) also protects a copyright protected act (e.g. copying) one may remove the code to disable the region code but not to copy. The view is TOUGH LUCK if you try to make life too burdensome for the average consumer when he tries to view a film and the manufacturer uses the same code to protect more than one thing.
(Note: I don't know (how or) whether DVD region codes, access control and copy protection are implemented by the same device.)
Norway is not a member of the EU, but is a part of the EEA (European Economic Area) and must therefore also implement the copyright directive.
Have you read the whole law?
296ZF Interpretation of sections 296ZA to 296ZE
(1) In sections 296ZA to 296ZE, "technological measures" are any technology, device or component which is designed, in the normal course of its operation, to protect a copyright work other than a computer program.
(2) Such measures are "effective" if the use of the work is controlled by the copyright owner through -
(a) an access control or protection process such as encryption, scrambling or other transformation of the work, or
(b) a copy control mechanism,
which achieves the intended protection.
(3) In this section, the reference to -
(a) protection of a work is to the prevention or restriction of acts that are not authorised by the copyright owner of that work AND ARE RESTRICTED BY COPYRIGHT; and
(b) use of a work DOES NOT EXTEND TO any use of the work that is OUTSIDE THE SCOPE OF THE ACTS RESTRICTED BY COPYRIGHT.
(...)
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 section 16:
16.(1) The owner of the copyright in a work has, in accordance with the following provisions of this Chapter, the exclusive right to do the following acts in the United Kingdom
(a) to copy the work (see section 17);
(b) to issue copies of the work to the public (see section 18);
(c) to perform, show or play the work in public (see section 19);
(d) to broadcast the work or include it in a cable programme service (see section 20);
(e) to make an adaptation of the work or do any of the above in relation to an adaptation (see section 21); and those acts are referred to in this Part as the "acts restricted by the copyright".
(2) Copyright in a work is infringed by a person who without the licence of the copyright owner does, or authorises another to do, any of the acts restricted by the copyright.
(...)
I fail to see how viewing a film in your own home is an act inside the scope of copyright (compare section 19).
Disclaimer: IANAUKL
I would believe you are misundertstanding Danish law (ophavsretsloven section 19). Probably what you are referring to is the fact that the copyright directive (EUCD) has a provision on the exhaustion of copyrights (article 4) which states that unless you have the copyright holder's permission, you cannot distribute materials protected by copyright put onto the market outside of Europe (EU). (Which could also get you in trouble should you try to sell DVDs bought in the US to someone who is not your acquaintance.)
The directive does not do away with "first sale".
You may still sell your books and CDs, and you may still import books, CDs, DVDs etc all by yourself. I've seen stores based in the EU complain that they no longer can import a DVD from the US and sell it in for example Denmark. Supposedly this will result in higher prices than ever here in Europe since parallell imports from countries outside of the EU are banned.
But. Hello?! These are the MOST EXPENSIVE stores there are. It is MUCH CHEAPER to import yourself. And it is VERY EASY in these web days. Those are just crocodile tears you are seeing.
This however, dos not have anything to with whether the DVD is region 2 or not. South Africa and the Middle East are both in region 2. So is Japan.
Disclaimer: IANADanishL
Yes, and how the heck does this get a score of 1, while the parent gets 5 and "informative"?!
To quote from William H. Rehnquist: The Supreme Court. How It Was, How It Is (1987) -- this is a book by the then and now US Supreme Court Chief Justice.
In chapter 11, "Certioaris: Picking the Cases to Be Decided", he writes on page 269:
There are thousands of state-court judges in this country at the present time, and hundreds of federal judges. Each of these has sworn to uphold the Constitution and laws of the United States, and the overwhelming majority of these judges are capable of applying settled law to the facts of the cases before them, and eager to do so. Occaisonally, these trial judges make mistakes, but the federal courts of appeal sit to correct these mistakes within the federal system, and state appellate courts sit to do the same in every state system. It would be a useless duplication of these functions if the Supreme Court of the United States were to serve simply as an even higher court for the correction of errors in cases involving no generally important principle of law. The Supreme Court, quite correctly in my opinion, instead seeks to pick, from the several thousand cased it is annually asked to review, those cases involving unsettled questions of federal constitutional or statutory law of general interest.
Wasn't this explained just recently during the Jesus naughty comic books thread?