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Germany Says Copying of DVDs, CDs Is Verboten
Posted by
Zonk
on Fri Sep 21, 2007 04:42 PM
from the you-own-nothing-you-hear-me dept.
from the you-own-nothing-you-hear-me dept.
Billosaur writes "In what can only be seen as the opening salvo in an attempt to control what users can do with content, the German parliament has approved a controversial copyright law which will make it illegal to make copies of CDs and DVDs, even for personal use. The Bundesrat, the upper part of the German parliament, approved the legislation over the objections of consumer protection groups. The law is set to take effect in 2008, and covers CDs, DVDs, recordings from IPTV, and TV recordings." A few folks have noted that this story is incorrect. The original link seems to be down now anyway. Sorry.
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In the words of a famous 'german'.. (Score:3, Funny)
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Better hurry then (Score:5, Funny)
what about copying comments? (Score:5, Insightful)
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http://www.theonion.com/content/node/29620 [theonion.com]
Re:what about copying comments? (Score:5, Informative)
So exactly how does one make a copy of a movie to their hard drive without circumventing De-CSS?
Seems like the DMCA to me.
Parent
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Re:what about copying comments? (Score:5, Informative)
Recordable DVDs have the area which would be used to store the CSS keys pre-burned to 000000000. This is *precisely* to keep the end user from making a bit-for-bit copy.
Furthermore, you can't make a bit-for-bit copy of even just the contents of the largest dual layer silvers. A dual layer silver can hold roughly 9GB, while a dual layer recordable maxes out at 8.5GB. It doesn't really do much to stop anyone from anything, but sometimes bit-for-bit is legal while a re-encode is not.
Laws sometimes suck.
Parent
Re:what about copying comments? (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
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Last DVD I burned or even "decrypted" was Gentoo 7.0 DVD... I even used that verboten technology "bittorent" to download it... aren't I the evil sophtwarez pirat3, eh? (For those of you not in the know, bittorent copies of Gentoo Linux are actually the only way the Gentoo foundation distributes their Linux DVDs.)
The irony is that the government clamped down on any form of usage, preservation, b
Re:what about copying comments? (Score:4, Informative)
I use opera and I did... my system administrator is very competent but unfortunately he didn't know how to disable torrent capabilities system-wide. They (some long word referring to teh-main-network-monitoring-team) caught the port being used for downloading.
Bad things happen
Late evening I was told that my activities are being monitored (and will be). I didn't dare asking for how long. I hate those Turkish people who were caught making bombs. They ruin it for everyone! People try to convince me a number of times how "foreign" is better, but to tell you the truth, I miss having cheap un-monitored broadband connection of India than clean roads, train on-time and other expensive luxuries I do not use or care.
Parent
Re:what about copying comments? (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:what about copying comments? (Score:4, Informative)
From the page:
] 17.11.3 Content provider information
] These 28 672 bytes shall be set to all (00). Under no circumstance may data
] received from the host be recorded in this field. Circumvention: Recorders and
] recording drives shall be considered as circumvention devices when these are
] produced to record, or can easily be modified to record, in any manner, a
] user-defined number in this field.
Parent
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The law does not prohibit the copying of DVDs or CDs; it disallows the circumvention of anti-copying technologies like Macrovision et al., something that has been illegal in the US for a decade.
Ah well that's good, because as stated previously it would be completely unenforceable unless they outlaw the possession of recordable media/recording devices. But, wait - It's still nearly impossible to enforce due to privacy laws (police can't just walk into a house to check if people are circumventing copy protection) and P2P sharing over the internet, which makes it very difficult to stop the distribution of circumvention software. Oh well... time for more inefficient use of tax dollars.
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>> representatives of the state do indeed walk into people's houses to check on things
>> like this.
This may have been true in the Communistic East German republic some 20 years ago, but in modern day Germany such things dont happen unless its a regular, court ordered house searching. (and such court orders do not get issued for not paying state TV fees.)
>> They told me he was looking for unlicensed TV's and did this once a year or so.
There a
Re:what about copying comments? (Score:5, Insightful)
And if someone were to hold a plastic bag over your head, it is not killing you, it disallows fresh air from reaching your lungs.
If you make all possible ways of achieving a task illegal, then it is illegal to achieve that task, no matter how you wish to play with your words.
Parent
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what about slash-pork? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's called, pushing the hot buttons. And since few RTFA or anything deeper than that. It slips by easier and easier. Kind of the slashdot version of slipping an item into a bill just before voting and hoping no one will notice. And much like that the consequences are hard to get rid of.
Parent
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Just because it's not as harsh as the US's law doesn't mean it's not too harsh.
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Paging Trent Reznor (Score:2, Funny)
Let businesses fight it out (Score:3, Interesting)
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But for a corporation? OH YES! I -REALLY- want the junior sysadmin running around with my multi-thousand dollar server software disks! YEEEEEEEEEES.
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so what exactly are you getting ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:so what exactly are you getting ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
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For that much money it better be for MY lifetime.
Oh my dear GOD! Don't say stuff like that! Do you really think the media pigopolists would have any qualms about making that part of the license terms finite as well?
*AA: "Yup, lifetime license."
You: "Great, decades of enjoyment."
*AA: "No, 2 years."
You: "But I'll live longer than that!"
*AA: "No, you won't. We'll see to that."
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LICENSE MY ASS. SHOW ME THE CONTRACT.
So sad. (Score:5, Funny)
I guess I was wrong! (Score:2)
That's REALLY impressive! (Score:5, Funny)
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Cheers,
Murphy
Good job (Score:2)
Surprise! I support this law (Score:3, Funny)
It is my belief that the best way to get rid of government is to let it collapse on itself. We need more taxes, more laws, more regulations and more actions to be considered crimes -- at all levels of government. Not only would all this new legislation and income create a more massive bureaucracy that will just stifle its ability to do anything right, but it will help open the eyes of every being in seeing what a waste government is.
I love adding new non-violent action laws to the books: all it does is make the black market that much more fruitful for those willing to take the risk. Why just stop at copying the CD and DVD to another CD or DVD? Let's make it illegal to copy ANY information off of a CD or DVD into any other form, including RAM, so that just playing it is wrong.
"Did you see that new movie? It's gorgeous, bright and shiny, and the case is really nice!"
"What's the plot?"
"I don't know, I didn't want to risk playing it. But the DVD is nice!!!"
Another completely misleading article (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.goethe.de/wis/buv/thm/urh/en2550214.htm [goethe.de]
Very quick summary: Yes, you can make copies of your CDs for private use. There are things that you are not allowed to copy, but they are not CDs.
Obviously it is now up to consumers not to buy music in a format that doesn't allow copying.
Re:Another completely misleading article (Score:4, Informative)
To be sure, copying for private use is still permitted - which is, after all, the reason for the flat-rate levy payable on certain devices. However, if special anti-copying technology has been employed to protect the medium, e.g. a music CD, such protection may not be circumvented by any means. The Ministry of Justice has given clear expression to this prohibition: "There is no 'right of private copying' at the expense of rights holders". This also means that consumers who download a file from the Internet must first check whether the offer is legal. How users are supposed to do so remains unclear, says the National Federation of Consumer Organisations.
Parent
Re:Another completely misleading article (Score:4, Informative)
Comparing this to the Dutch (from the Netherlands, a small country that borders Germany in the west) equivalent of copyright law, I get the following.
1. Copying for personal use is permitted by basic copyright law, which, in the Netherlands, has been in place for a pretty long time. I imagine the same to be true in Germany.
2. Not allowing the circumvention of "technical measures" is from the EUCD, the EU equivalent of the DMCA. Both Germany and the Netherlands have this.
3. In the Netherlands at least, downloading a file from the Internet constitutes making a copy for personal use, which is expressly permitted as per 1. (That is, for anything that is on media, except software. Books don't apply as thy aren't on media, music does, and software doesn't, because it is explicitly mentioned as an exception.)
I would be mildly surprised if 3 were different in Germany, i.e. you were not allowed to download music files under all circumstances. What is illegal, in the Netherlands, is circumventing the DRM. Anything that involves that (making a copy of th contents of the DVD, playing the DVD) therefore cannot be done legally. Downloading a file from the Internet does not involve curcimventing DRM, so isn't made ilelgal by tha.t
Parent
Democracy (Score:3, Interesting)
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Surely private enterprise can invent chip implants that scramble experience if you don't have the keys. The same sort of noise-cancellation currently used for headphones, why not tie it directly into the nerves from the ears, or the optics? There's something quite wonderful about the notion of being surrounded by an invisible reality only those with the special keys can see. That's the premise of just about every religion and m
What does it mean to "own" media? (Score:5, Interesting)
Do we own the physical CD/DVD, but not what's on it?
If we own the right to use the media for personal use, then we should get additional copies of the physical media at no (or very little) charge if it becomes damaged.
But if we own that CD/DVD, then we should be able to make our own backups, at the least.
The content producers want it both ways. They say that we don't really "own" the content, just the right to access it, but what if you can't access that content? For example, no more working record players or tape decks in the world. Then we should get the updated version for free right? If we bought the right to access that content. If not, then they should just fuck off and let us acquire or reacquire content we already paid for.
Turn it around! (Score:3, Interesting)
Say something like, for example, that this will enable paedophiles to hide their files. Independent groups won't be able to verify their contents and police will need court orders (or whatever kind of official permission there is there to enable police to conduct searches) and that it will radically slow down any important investigations...
I don't know how, but I feel it's time to use their own manipulative weapons against them. Remember, it doesn't have to be logical or completely sane, just "emotional" enough to convince the impulsive masses.
Would something like this be possible?
The real reason behind this law (Score:3, Insightful)
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Oh well.
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No, but it does have a LOT to do with telling you what you can and can't do in the privacy of your own home.
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What? History kinda disagrees with you. Please point out the historical example of non authoritarian fascism.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatism [wikipedia.org]
Historically, corporatism or corporativism (Italian: corporativismo) refers to a political or economic system in which power is given to civic assemblies that represent economic, industrial, agrarian, social, cultural, and professional groups.
Italian fascist corporativism
In Italian Fascism, this non-elected form of state "officializing" of every interest into the state was professed to better circumvent
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By that metric the US would be very permissive given the constitution. You can't just look at the letter of the law, at the end of the day the courts will have to interpret it, so it is really a matter of how things actually work out in practice. In principle US citizens have more legally recognised rights than we have in Sweden, in practice you have to consider how auth