Germany Says Nein To Private Copying
from the who-would-want-to-do-that? dept
A bunch of folks have submitted the news that Germany's upper house of parliament has approved a new copyright law that forbids any kind of private copying of music or movies. There aren't many details in the Variety article about why such a strict law would get approval, though it does note that the politicians ignored widespread criticism against the law. Obviously, this is the type of law that some large entertainment companies would push for, though if it really does become the law, they'll find that it harms them a lot more than it helps them. That's because forbidding private copying will make music, movies and TV shows a lot less valuable to purchasers. If you can't rip a CD to mp3 format to place on your iPod, that CD is suddenly a lot less valuable. It's amazing that such a law would pass, but the end result is going to be criminalizing a large segment of the population while making entertainment products a lot less valuable. It's hard to see how that's beneficial to anyone. Update: In the comments there's a good clarification, that suggests the Variety report isn't entirely accurate (or at least leaves out some of the details). This may just forbid circumvention of copy-protected material -- and then forbid any additional copies of content that was originally copy protected. Thus, it might not forbid copying a CD or DVD that has no copy protection. Still, given how many people still make private copies of copy-protected music in order to listen to it on a different device for convenience, this would still criminalize a lot of activities -- though, perhaps not as many as the original report suggested.
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Filed Under: copyright, germany, private copying
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buy ANOTHER sets in digital format?
what's the logic in buying same thing twice if the technology makes it absolutely unnecessary?
i wouldn't be surprised if none of those politicians don't make next election and be riots in the street...
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Passing laws?
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It's the future
We are currently in the "golden age" of media, artists are earning hundreds of times more than ever, while free file sharing and digital music stores co-exist. The equilibrium cannot exist forever, and since "free" cannot be the outcome of this struggle, full content control is the only eventual option.
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But considering the today's awkward pace of technological development, I don't think that mature,secure, standard forms of per-media DRM will widely availble in the next five years.
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By your logic, we should never use Unix for anything but calculators, because it was completely insecure in the past, so it must be in the future.
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What is next ?
Forbid Record button... hmmm, ban VHS and similar media recorders.
Even dictophone appears in grey area of legality as well as proxy server or cache.
Should MS Windows still be legal in germany if it allows Copy/Paste ?
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Maybe this needs more clarity?
However, making a copy of an obviously illegal piece of content will become illegal; apparently everything you download from p2p-networks would fall into this category unless the copyright holder has stated otherwise.
Source: http://www.hardwarejournal.de/tip-urheberrecht-gesetz-zweiter-korb.htm
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What scares me is this
This may just forbid circumvention of copy-protected material -- and then forbid any additional copies of content that was originally copy protected.
Doesn't this mean that companies can put just any copyright protection on music/movies and if it is circumvented (no matter how easy it was to circumvent) then the circumventor can be charged?
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Re: What scares me is this
http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/?p=1007
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Re:
I just dont understand what the difference is between being offered content for free on the radio versus having to buy it in a store? Wasn't Payola all about getting the content out there to the masses? I also dont believe that any DRM will ever be free...in fact since the invention of digital cameras, recording programs, and hard drives it just gets harder to contain.
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The key message by Variety.com is wrong
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audio cd files are "cda" format when i want to put them on my ipod i just re-encode them to "mp3" format so think im still safe from that law
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I guess - if you want to make music, you have to go through a big media company.... or else!
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germany loves stupid laws
and for those of you that think reliable DRM is inevitable note that it is based on "securing" media by encrypting it, and then giving "authorized" users the keys to decrypt it by embedding them in the player/software. in other words, as long as you need to give others the keys, that system will be compromised by obtaining copies of the keys.
you can read more about that here:
http://craphound.com/msftdrm.txt
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People can grow their own vegetables. So they don't need to pay big corporate interests for vegetables.
But they do... why?
Because it's easier and more cost effective to buy them.
If music was easier to get from legit sources, people would do it. It's also more cost effective to get good quality music and not have to sift through tons of garbage to find it.
Of course, if Potatoes were 18.99 a pound, I doubt nearly as many people would buy them.
Perhaps - the industry needs to make it easy and cost effective to buy music. Considering now, they could put songs on a network server at 25 cents a pop and make a killing, it amazes me they still try to ride on the old business model like a dead horse.
Even if Potatoes were 18.99 a pound in Germany and it was against the law to grow them yourself, I suspect - well, many people still would.
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Great news from Germany
Bye,
Oliver
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