Germany caves in to entertainment cartels
p2pnet news | Politics:- Entertainment cartel lobbyists can chalk up a clear victory in Germany.
They’re been collectively and singly agitating for changes to copyright laws in countries around the world and Germany’s Bundesrat, the upper house of parliament, is the latest to cave in.
It’s approved a copyright law which makes it all but illegal for individuals to make copies of films and music, even for their own use, says Variety.
“Consumer groups and the Green Party had campaigned in vain to include a ‘bagatelle exemption,’ so youngsters and other private users wouldn’t be criminalised, says the story, saying the law, slated to go into effect, goes beyond previous legislation brought in by the German government to help the entertainment industry.
“Germany’s federal justice minister Brigitte Zypris claimed that the legislative reform brought German law into line with European Union codes,” it says.
This should, of course, read, “the new German law is line with EC (Entertainment Cartel) dictates”.
Also See:
Variety – Copying of DVDs, CDs verboten, September 21, 2007
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September 21st, 2007 at 3:06 pm
Great. So how do they plan on enforcing it?
September 21st, 2007 at 5:03 pm
I don’t know German, but from now on, it should be called Germany’s Bundes Rat, right?
September 22nd, 2007 at 6:55 am
“Great. So how do they plan on enforcing it?”
Here is how, escept that it will not work.
You copy a CD and they catch you copying it (possesion is an altogether different issue, as you may have received any CD as a gift from a friend, and accepting a gift is not illegal).
By copying the CD, the worst case scenario for the record label is that you did not buy one label’s CD. The label loss is the $5.00 profit the label would have made from the sale of the unsold CD. In court the damages awarded to the label should be about $5.00, or the loss of the sale profit.
Any chance of such a case reaching a court? None, particularly if the alleged infringer-copier (if cought in the actual act of copying) offers to settle with a payment of the lost profits of about $5. If the label rejects the offer, no judge or jury should find the alleged infringer guilty, as the label did nothing to reduce their loss to zero, as they could have done by accepting the infringer-copier’s $5 offer, whatever that is in Euros.
September 22nd, 2007 at 9:02 am
“You copy a CD and they catch you copying it”
That’s still legal in germany for private non commercial use.
One important change is that it will be illegal to copy for private purposes if someone uses a so called “offensichtlich rechtswidrig hergestellte Kopiervorlage” (oviously illicit source) from which he creates the copy.
So if someone borrows an original CD from a library or a friend, he is then in posession of a legal copy and can still create a copy from it.
another change in the law is/was that it would be illegal to create such a copy even from a legally owned original, if the original has “copyprotection” which must be broken to create a copy. (read: something like your DMCA in tiny)
“If the label rejects the offer, no judge or jury should find the alleged infringer guilty, as the label did nothing to reduce their loss to zero, as they could have done by accepting the infringer-copier’s $5 offer, whatever that is in Euros.”
1) German law does not know jury trials
2) Problem with german law is difference between being criminaly guilty and civily liable for damages a label might sue you for. Germans privacy laws make it necessary for the labels to file criminal charges to be able to get names of people they like to ask for “damage payments”.
And due to the refusal to write in the law the bagatelle exemption, it is that the 14 year old schoolboy that downloaded 10 tracks from p2p (which is an oviously illicit source by the reasoning of the labels) burned an AudioCD from it to impress his new girlfriend must fear criminal prosecution just as a commercial counterfeiter that sells pirated CDs on fleemarkets must (and rightfully should!!) fear.
3) that would be about 3.56684263 Euros (according to google). I doubt their shitty “product” is worth so much!
HTH
September 22nd, 2007 at 10:38 am
F/u on above, very interesting post.
Funny how a $5 loss can be used to argue in court about biilions of dollars in losses to labels, thousands of hungry artists and thousands of jobs lost.
Funny also, I don’t recall any judge telling the labels to stop their phony economic arguments in court and to stick to the facts relevant to a $5 loss.
I for one in my peak year, I purchase one dozen CDs a year, spread probably among a dozen labels. Of no one label I have purchased more than 10 labels in over 20 years. Had I never purchase one of those CD because I only copied what I wanted, the loss to the label would have been their profits of about $50.
Yet if I only copied and was sued, the label would have claimed damages of up to $150,000 for eaco of 100 song tracks, or $15,000,000 (yes, 15 million).
Can someone explain the ridiculous manner in which copyright damages in court can change from an actual $50 in damages to up to $150,000,000?
September 22nd, 2007 at 10:39 am
its nice to see the fall into lock step
September 22nd, 2007 at 10:51 am
A question for Alter_Fritz
Since the mere possesion of a CD is not proof of copying, as the possesor could have found it, could have accepted it as a gift or could have purchased it from a real pirate without realizing the copy was a fake or some forgotten or dead person lent the records?
How will anyone prove that anyone did any actual copying?
September 22nd, 2007 at 1:03 pm
As far as i’m concerned, these aren’t laws. Laws are supposed to be designed for the masses. When the masses refuse to acknowledge and approbate a law, it ceases to be one. It’s not applicable to the general public, ergo, it’s not valid.
September 22nd, 2007 at 1:10 pm
“How will anyone prove that anyone did any actual copying?”
Interesting question. If it isn’t a real industrial produced genuine silver disk, but one of those (green) CD-R’s I guess it’s easy to tell that it is a copy and not an “original”. But note that the mere posession of a CD-R is not against the law, since it is still legal to have those. The more interesting and accurate question IMO would be how will a rightsholder prove that the copying was done by using an illicit source? If I legally rip my Madonna CD with EAC I have a legal madonna mp3. If some unknown guy does the same and posts his bitidentical file on p2p and I download it, THAT mp3 would be illegal and could bet me up to 3 years in jail IIRC. Note that IANAL, nothing I post here is legal advice!
One of the actual changes in the german copyrightlaw Beside those changes that deal with how and for what creators can get money from whom*, is for example just an amandment of a few words in §53 UrhG that deals with the “right” to create copies for private use to include the phrase about illicit sources (which would be of course mainly p2p since copyrightowners normaly don’t grant the right to distribute their stuff via that distribution channel)
* Whe have those levies on blank CDs and photocopiers and cd burners and such like canada has too. Most of the changes in the “second basked” are about those rules. (Read Soundexchange-like in german (GEMA, VG-Wort ect.)
September 22nd, 2007 at 6:29 pm
“The more interesting and accurate question IMO would be how will a rightsholder prove that the copying was done by using an illicit source?”
Assuming that German law is like in most other countries, that no one has to prove innocense and the acuser has to prove guilt, then the issue is settled as far as I see it. There iis no possible way an acuser can prove a holder of a CD did any copying unless there is a witness or an admission, even if it can be proven that the copy is illegal and was found in possesion of a person.
Then there is the issue of evidence. For the acuser to prove that the acused had an ilegal CD, the acuser label must legally gain possesion of the CD from the acused person (along with a document signed by the previous holder of the CD, the acused person) so as to use it against the acused person. And just how does a label go about legally getting an illegal copy of a CD from someone they plan to sue? There is no way anyone who has an ilegal CD will hand it to the record company.
Frankly, it looks like the Germans have another inoperable copyright law. Welcome to the world of copyright law.