That's bad enough. In fact, that may be exactly what they are after. Don't believe they rely entirely on their hacker espionage squad. Those guy do only the first step. The hackers break into "unclassified" networks and get "unclassified" information like names, ranks, Who is responsible for what, meeting minutes, Powerpoint calendars, flight schedules, etc. This kind of information is exactly what the "real", meaning real-life spies need to work effectively.
They probably have one of the best espionage networks in the world. Don't believe they just try to pull a Wargames hack and give up as soon as they only find "unclassified" information.
Being a German, I am actually surprised to see this. My law lecturer used to complain that over 20000 complaints were filed last year at our local court.
The complaints never even get as far as to a single court hearing anyway. The mafiaa used to do this for reasons I commented on on another article:
Yah, that's the first thing I noticed. Typical summary, Slashdot style.
Here in Germany it doesn't really matter anyway. The IFPI guys just file a complaint and let the authorities get name and address of the file sharer from the ISP. Because of the way legal proceeding is done here they can then always request insight into the case's files, get the information that way and follow up with the civil action.
The criminal charges will be dropped most of the time but all the IFPI wants is your name to sue you for $$$.
You can't sign away Urheberrecht, which simply states that you are the original creator of a piece of art. Kinda makes sense to me.
They could sign over the copy/distribution/whatsorever rights with no problem. But still GW can't say that they created this movie. Which they haven't. That's all there is to it.
Actually large parts of Eastern Germany already have fiber optics that where rolled out in the 90ies. On the other hand, whole towns there don't have broadband access for that reason because so far the telcos only offer DSL.
So part of the infrastructure and market demand is already there.
Also, to all the libertarian voices: the German state actually holds the majority in Deutsche Telekom's stocks, so in the end they can tell them to do whatever they want anyway.
I see you get the problem here. In this case, there is no formal definition of advertising. I remember a few years back, a video gaming magazine ("gamstar") decided to not publish a review of some FPS because they feared an attorney on a save-the-world trip would have all copies seized should the game be banned (which was about to happen that month).
The sad thing is, they said they would have given the game the worst rating and advise against buying it. Still it could have been interpreted as advertising.
As for a video game store, I guess they would have to install a separate area which you would only be allowed to enter if over 18. They could advertise all they want in there. Oh, yes, it's only forbidden to advertise to minors, I should mention.
For the sake of completeness, 3 levels of "rating" in Germany are of interest here:
- Completely banned: Applies only to content that endangers constitution and state (only Manhunt, Wolfenstein 3D and Mortal Combat are banned - don't ask my why). Possession is legal as far as I know, distribution of any form illegal.
They just happen to have the luxury to work on a playground that actually makes profit.
My team is overloaded with SOX stuff, all of which has insane deadlines forced on us by law. And we need meeting after meeting to make IT and Finance speak the same language. Not everyone can enjoy 3 year beta phases.
I couldn'd stand Pluto anyway. He was kind of an embarrassment. What would visitors of our solar system think if the first planet they see is this sucker?
I find Uranus and Neptun make a far better choice for our border planets! They are some impressive, cool planets. Talking about making a first impression.
This is not entirely true. You can in fact borrow a CD from a library, make a copy from it, return the CD, and continue making further copies from your copy and even give them to friends and family.
They in turn can again make copies of the copies you gave them, give them to their friends and so on...
If you don't happen to have a CD burner, you can even go to a friend of yours and ask them to burn the CD you borrowed. Since you can share it with friends, they of course can again keep a copy for themself and share it again with friends and family.
This is all perfectly legal as stated in article 53 UrhG (German copyright law).
It is not legal to distribute the media or to give copies to strangers (or to sell them, of course). General concensus is that up to 7 copies for friends and family does not qualify as distributing, but that is not written down in law and a judge might decide otherwise.
I don't get this either. I talked to an attorney about this once, and he told me that they usually take everything that looks even remotely like a computer.
The only explanation I have is that the police didn't get a search warrant for the whole house/flat. After all, private domicile is protected by German constitution, so a judge might only issue a search warrant for, say, the workroom and the living room. The police could than see the guy watching DVDs in the bedroom and would have no right at all to even take a step into it. They would have to get another search warrant for the whole flat.
That's why German police always introduce themselve with "May we come in?":-)
As I said, that is not clear. If a judge finds CSS to be an effective copy protection, then it would be indeed illegal to distribute tools supporting this circumvention. It would even be a criminal offense (up to 1 year in prison).
Because of this uncertainty many linux distributions do not include libdvdcss in Germany. But it is still possible and legal to install it right after installation using an online update site. Novell etc just don't want to get their linux packages seized in stores one day.
That was actually the case for many years in Germany. Using Napster was never illegal, since the general consensus was that you could not know that a file you downloaded does not originate from a legal source.
However, since 2003 (or maybe even before that, I am not sure about this), German copyright law states that sharing copyrighted material ist only legal among family and close friends. Thus, a source that is distributed to anonymous internet users doesn't qualify as a legal source anymore. At least that is how I understand the current situation.
In the case of a DVD things are even more complicated. As I mentioned in an earlier post, in 2003 it became illegal to copy (effectively) copy-protected material. Although there is no clarifying judgment on this yet, a judge might think that CSS is an effective copy-protection and and almost every DVD would therefor not be a legal source. This is the most stupid part of German copyright law and for 3 years now nobody can really decidedly say what an "effective copy protection" is.
Germany's copyright laws aren't that strict actually. It is still perfectly legal to copy a CD or MP3s from your neighbor or even a DVD you rented for private use. And you can make copys of these copys and share them with your family and friends and it's still legal.
Of course the industry is constantly trying to change that. They managed to get an insanly stupid copyright act introduced, which makes it illegal to circumvent "effective technical copyright restriction". To this day, their is no clarifying judgment on what the heck is an effective restriction and what is not. After all, you could argue that as soon as the restriction is cracked, is isn't effective anymore.
Slashdot Mirror
So it will be released after Duke Nukem Forever?
ICQ is still very popular in some parts of the world. Here in Germany I really don't know ANYONE who uses AIM, MSN or Yahoo. Everyone is on ICQ.
How much is that in Libraries of Congress?
That spells bad new for the community and the Council of Elders. I wonder what K'Breel has to say about it.
At least his geekness is undisputed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5gKKhb5m80
"only" unclassified information?
That's bad enough. In fact, that may be exactly what they are after. Don't believe they rely entirely on their hacker espionage squad. Those guy do only the first step. The hackers break into "unclassified" networks and get "unclassified" information like names, ranks, Who is responsible for what, meeting minutes, Powerpoint calendars, flight schedules, etc. This kind of information is exactly what the "real", meaning real-life spies need to work effectively.
They probably have one of the best espionage networks in the world. Don't believe they just try to pull a Wargames hack and give up as soon as they only find "unclassified" information.
Actually, you need a license for certain kind of knives that kill people. Don't ask me what kind of, probably switchblades or something.
Actually, you can't
Being a German, I am actually surprised to see this. My law lecturer used to complain that over 20000 complaints were filed last year at our local court.
d =19947567
The complaints never even get as far as to a single court hearing anyway. The mafiaa used to do this for reasons I commented on on another article:
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=253607&ci
Yah, that's the first thing I noticed. Typical summary, Slashdot style.
Here in Germany it doesn't really matter anyway. The IFPI guys just file a complaint and let the authorities get name and address of the file sharer from the ISP. Because of the way legal proceeding is done here they can then always request insight into the case's files, get the information that way and follow up with the civil action.
The criminal charges will be dropped most of the time but all the IFPI wants is your name to sue you for $$$.
You can't sign away Urheberrecht, which simply states that you are the original creator of a piece of art. Kinda makes sense to me.
They could sign over the copy/distribution/whatsorever rights with no problem. But still GW can't say that they created this movie. Which they haven't. That's all there is to it.
Actually large parts of Eastern Germany already have fiber optics that where rolled out in the 90ies. On the other hand, whole towns there don't have broadband access for that reason because so far the telcos only offer DSL.
So part of the infrastructure and market demand is already there.
Also, to all the libertarian voices: the German state actually holds the majority in Deutsche Telekom's stocks, so in the end they can tell them to do whatever they want anyway.
I see you get the problem here. In this case, there is no formal definition of advertising. I remember a few years back, a video gaming magazine ("gamstar") decided to not publish a review of some FPS because they feared an attorney on a save-the-world trip would have all copies seized should the game be banned (which was about to happen that month).
i erte_Medien#In_der_Bundesrepublik_Deutschland_indi zierte_Spiele
The sad thing is, they said they would have given the game the worst rating and advise against buying it. Still it could have been interpreted as advertising.
As for a video game store, I guess they would have to install a separate area which you would only be allowed to enter if over 18. They could advertise all they want in there. Oh, yes, it's only forbidden to advertise to minors, I should mention.
For the sake of completeness, 3 levels of "rating" in Germany are of interest here:
- Completely banned: Applies only to content that endangers constitution and state (only Manhunt, Wolfenstein 3D and Mortal Combat are banned - don't ask my why). Possession is legal as far as I know, distribution of any form illegal.
- "Indexed": Here's a list:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verbotene_oder_indiz
Advertising and sale to minors illegal
- USK 18: Sale to minors illegal
Try my userscript: http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/7114
Makes Amazon useable again.
They should not outlaw fps games.
They should ban going postal directly.
It's so simple.
some terrorist plot to blow up 10 airplanes mid-atlantic using consumer electronic devices is busted last-minute.
Then flying will again suck even more.
pr0n instead of Monster, Inc.
100% ack.
They just happen to have the luxury to work on a playground that actually makes profit.
My team is overloaded with SOX stuff, all of which has insane deadlines forced on us by law. And we need meeting after meeting to make IT and Finance speak the same language. Not everyone can enjoy 3 year beta phases.
And after all: size does matter!
I couldn'd stand Pluto anyway. He was kind of an embarrassment. What would visitors of our solar system think if the first planet they see is this sucker? I find Uranus and Neptun make a far better choice for our border planets! They are some impressive, cool planets. Talking about making a first impression.
This is not entirely true. You can in fact borrow a CD from a library, make a copy from it, return the CD, and continue making further copies from your copy and even give them to friends and family.
They in turn can again make copies of the copies you gave them, give them to their friends and so on...
If you don't happen to have a CD burner, you can even go to a friend of yours and ask them to burn the CD you borrowed. Since you can share it with friends, they of course can again keep a copy for themself and share it again with friends and family.
This is all perfectly legal as stated in article 53 UrhG (German copyright law).
It is not legal to distribute the media or to give copies to strangers (or to sell them, of course). General concensus is that up to 7 copies for friends and family does not qualify as distributing, but that is not written down in law and a judge might decide otherwise.
I don't get this either. I talked to an attorney about this once, and he told me that they usually take everything that looks even remotely like a computer.
The only explanation I have is that the police didn't get a search warrant for the whole house/flat. After all, private domicile is protected by German constitution, so a judge might only issue a search warrant for, say, the workroom and the living room. The police could than see the guy watching DVDs in the bedroom and would have no right at all to even take a step into it. They would have to get another search warrant for the whole flat.
That's why German police always introduce themselve with "May we come in?" :-)
As I said, that is not clear. If a judge finds CSS to be an effective copy protection, then it would be indeed illegal to distribute tools supporting this circumvention. It would even be a criminal offense (up to 1 year in prison).
Because of this uncertainty many linux distributions do not include libdvdcss in Germany. But it is still possible and legal to install it right after installation using an online update site. Novell etc just don't want to get their linux packages seized in stores one day.
That was actually the case for many years in Germany. Using Napster was never illegal, since the general consensus was that you could not know that a file you downloaded does not originate from a legal source.
However, since 2003 (or maybe even before that, I am not sure about this), German copyright law states that sharing copyrighted material ist only legal among family and close friends. Thus, a source that is distributed to anonymous internet users doesn't qualify as a legal source anymore. At least that is how I understand the current situation.
In the case of a DVD things are even more complicated. As I mentioned in an earlier post, in 2003 it became illegal to copy (effectively) copy-protected material. Although there is no clarifying judgment on this yet, a judge might think that CSS is an effective copy-protection and and almost every DVD would therefor not be a legal source. This is the most stupid part of German copyright law and for 3 years now nobody can really decidedly say what an "effective copy protection" is.
Germany's copyright laws aren't that strict actually. It is still perfectly legal to copy a CD or MP3s from your neighbor or even a DVD you rented for private use. And you can make copys of these copys and share them with your family and friends and it's still legal. Of course the industry is constantly trying to change that. They managed to get an insanly stupid copyright act introduced, which makes it illegal to circumvent "effective technical copyright restriction". To this day, their is no clarifying judgment on what the heck is an effective restriction and what is not. After all, you could argue that as soon as the restriction is cracked, is isn't effective anymore.