Germany Says Copying of DVDs, CDs Is Verboten

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.

Re:what about copying comments?

[ackthpt]

The author does not report the facts. 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. The law specifically allows users to make backups of DVD and CD movies, software and music and other digital content for their own archives and to use/play on alternate devices (i.e., ripping movies to your hard drive to watch on a DVR or other device, ripping music to play on an ipod or other device, etc.). These specifically-named consumer rights are actually broader than those granted by law to American consumers. I am not sure what the author relied upon for his translation of the law, but I can assure you that it does nothing like what he suggests.

Different countries, different customs. The British Constitution allowes Parliament (not the funk group) to change laws as it sees fit. Not so rigid as the U.S. Constitution.

But by your subject I thought this post was going to be about "Copying Comments", which, oh hold on, someone at the door...

[NO CARRIER]

Re:what about copying comments?

[LWATCDR]

"The law does not prohibit the copying of DVDs or CDs; it disallows the circumvention of anti-copying technologies like Macrovision et al.,"
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.

Re:Not news.

[Dunbal]

Fascism has nothing to do with an attempt to crack down on copyright violators.

      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.

Another completely misleading article

[gnasher719]

For some more serious information check out this article:

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:what about copying comments?

[whoever57]

Why not just copy the DVD bit-for-bit? That would not circumvent DeCSS and still in any player. You do not need to de-scramble to copy.

DVD burners cannot presently copy the keys that are required for the players to decrypt the data. The keys are on a different part of the disk. I seem to recall a story about changes to the DVD licenses that would allow burners to be sold that are capable of copying the keys.

Re:Another completely misleading article

[wol]

Critical bit from that article:

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.

Re:what about copying comments?

[ceroklis]

This is wrong. What you describe is true for Blu -Ray and HD-DVD, not for DVD which could always be copied bit for bit (as long as you had a dual-layer burner if necessary).

Re:what about copying comments?

[RMingin]

Unfortunately for your grand plan, reality conflicts.

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.

Re:Another completely misleading article

[RAMMS+EIN]

``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.''

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

Re:Unlicensed TV's?

[muuh-gnu]

Yep, absolutely crazy and.... completely made up.

>> 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 actually are people looking for unlicenced TVs, but those are employees of a company collecting the fees for the state funded TV. They are neither functionarys, nor wearing uniforms nor are they representatives of the state. They are private individuals just collecting the fees, and, although at times a bit pushy (mercyless euphemism) if you have a TV but are not paying the fees, they neither can enter your apartment if you dont let them in valuntarily, nor do you even have to talk to them if you dont want. The GP if full of BS.

Re:what about copying comments?

[whoever57]

not for DVD which could always be copied bit for bit (as long as you had a dual-layer burner if necessary).

Not according to this Google Answers page and several other pages that I found on the web. [google.com]

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.

Re:what about copying comments?

[name*censored*]

That's both crappy and stupid of them to do. Generally, most "pirates" are just people who are willing to cross into the legally grey zone of copying vs re-encoding if "no harm" was done (what's the harm in copying a dvd in one way which does work, if it's legal to do it another way which doesn't but which has the same end result?)

This also means that when people DO shrink the file, it is that much easier if they want to share the video over the internet/"schoolyard trading". It doesn't necessarily result in a loss of quality (MPEG2 is not exactly the most compressible codec compared to DivX/Xvid/other commonly playable files), so quality degradation is a non-issue.

In fact, the only thing "lost" is the menu (which is often not lost depending on encoding method, and if it is it can be easily appended to the new file, assuming that it was worth keeping - it rarely is). This is a good trade for more videos on the one disc imho. It also means that the annoying trailers can be removed (fortunately, they're stored in a separate PGC); all bad things for dvd producers.

I'd be willing to bet that the dvd shrinking process would be less developed/prevalent/user-friendly if they allowed bit-for-bit copying of the DVDs (which would benefit the dvd manufacturers, since people would buy more discs); all because people reason that it's OK to do something which is "the same" as something legal, and demand/supply took over.

Re:what about copying comments?

[MSZ]

Such equipment has been available for years. You probably didn't hear about it, because it costs on the order od 100x the price of regular burner and is not offered in the regular places. It's called DVD-Authoring recorder - the ones you buy for $29.95 at Walmart are DVD-General. Example: Pioneer DVR-S201 [dvdlibrary.co.uk].
DVD-A gear can prepare masters for pressing, including full 9GB capacity and CSS key block. If you use common DVD-G, it won't be able to do so - but of course it can prepare masters less than 8.5GB and CSS-less.

Re:what about copying comments?

[junglee_iitk]

Heh... I am in Stuttgart (Deutschland!) and yesterday my computer was confiscated because I downloaded OpenOffice 2.3 using BitTorrent.

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 :) I had around 6-7 GB of sceintific work but my machine is right now "frozen" and my professor cannot use it for the conference in Paris this monday. I had to hear "scheiße" uncountable times before he left my room in hurry.

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.

Re:what about copying comments?

[Anonymous Coward]

In Germany, representatives of the state do indeed walk into people's houses to check on things like this. I have seen this with my own eyes; I was at home with some friends in Germany when a functionary in uniform knocked on the door, and proceeded to start poking around the house. They told me he was looking for unlicensed TV's and did this once a year or so.

This definitely is wrong.

In Germany, you indeed have to pay a fee for owning a TV or radio (which pays the public TV and radio stations). And there is an organisation called GEZ which is in the busines of bothering people who claim that they don't have a TV (and thus pay no fee). Apparently this includes the possibility that one day someone from GEZ stands in front of your door and says he wants to check whether your really have no TV.

But:
a) they are no "state representatives" (they are not working for a state organisation)
b) they have no uniform
c) they have no authority to enter your apartment without your consent (and although some of them appear to be lying bastards that claim they could get the police to grand them access to the appartment, they also have no legal basis to do that).