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.

what about copying comments?

[stoolpigeon]

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.

so what exactly are you getting ...

[vlad_petric]

with a CD/DVD purchase? It seems to me - a license to play the content, privately, for the lifetime of the physical medium.

Re:so what exactly are you getting ...

[Clay Pigeon -TPF-VS-]

For that much money it better be for MY lifetime.

Re:what about copying comments?

[Anonymous Coward]

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

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.

what about slash-pork?

[Anonymous Coward]

"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."

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.

Re:what about copying comments?

[Hatta]

These specifically-named consumer rights are actually broader than those granted by law to American consumers.

Just because it's not as harsh as the US's law doesn't mean it's not too harsh.

Re:so what exactly are you getting ...

[rastoboy29]

Seems to me, a physical recording.  That's it.

LICENSE MY ASS.  SHOW ME THE CONTRACT.

Re:Let businesses fight it out

[raddan]

No one is going to bother corporate IT people. They're not even on the RIAA/MPAA's radar, because they're copying software. And they're usually copying software that they explicitly have a license to copy for the entire organization, e.g., Windows. This is aimed directly at music and movie copying.

Re:what about copying comments?

[DaedalusHKX]

I actually lost any desire to waste time on pirating or even really purchasing that much "dvd content" years back.

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, backup or , so I went and bought the books instead, and stopped wasting time with their movies. (I'm in the USA... I think we're ahead on "clampdown", Germany and the UK are only now catching up with the USA in draconian software / copyright law.) All that posturing your parliaments and that European Union did, was only intended to make Americans look worse, but "ya'll" caught up real quick, eh?

Re:Democracy

[wytcld]

shouldn't we, the people, be deciding if we are allowed to copy anything we want?

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 mystic cult. Now the wonders of technology can make this real for us, soon.

The current rights industry is focused all on the wrong place. It's not about the copies; it's about the original experiences. Let them copy anything they've the keys to experience, nothing more and nothing less. That they have to pay something for the original, well, nobody lives for free. That they can't share freely with their friends, well, that's what subjective experience has always been all about. That makes us special, individuals.

Re:what about copying comments?

[kavau]

I don't think the poster was condoning the law. And yes, it does suck... but it's also important to put it in perspective. It's no worse (but also not much better) than the USA's DMCA.

The real reason behind this law

[cpghost]

Do you really think this silly law is about DRM? IP rights? Copyright infrigement? C'mon! Just like the anti p2p legislation, it will be ignored by nearly everyone, and the government won't even try to enforce it on normal citizens. The real reason for such widely disobeyed laws is for the government to have a tool they can smash on the heads of people they don't like and against whom they have no other legal recourse. An example? Merkel doesn't like, say, Germans converting to Islam. Now imagine some government employee at work: "Oh, it's not illegal to convert? Damn those constitutional rights! How can I brown-nose our Angie? I need that promotion pronto! Oh, yeah, let's check out his private CDs / DVDs collection: there WILL be something illegal there to haul him into jail! Hmm.... What would I do with the pay rise?" Too narrow? Not so many "Konvertiten"? No problem! What about those pesky attac dissenters? Consumer rights groups? People protesting against taxes? Peace activists?... All of them will have compromitting CDs/DVDs somewhere, so government can selectively apply its silly anti-circumvention law to silence them too. Normal population has nothing to fear at all from this: it's a purely political law, that will be used for political purpuses only (plus a few token normal cases, so nobody gets all too suspicious).