Music downloads OK in Switzerland
p2pnet news view | Politics:- Switzerland is now among the countries to confirm it recognizes and acknowledges fair use principles for downloading.
But it’s NOT acceptable to bypass DRM (Digital Restrictions Management) consumer controls.
“With a few minor changes” the upper chamber of the Swiss Parliament passed new federal legislation dealing with copyright and related intellectual property rights which the lower chamber had already approved, says Heise Online, going on:
One of the most important points of the new act is that downloads of works of art from the Internet for personal use remain legal without restriction. At the same time the law upholds the legal principle whereby technical means such as access and copy-protection measures must not be circumvented.
But under the new legislation, “copies and hence downloads derived from ‘copies/originals to which access has been made available illegally’ will be prohibited.
Or as Heise sums it up, “opportunities to copy files from file-sharing networks for personal use will be restricted.”
(Thanks, Howard)
Also See:
Heise Online – Music downloads for personal use remain legal in Switzerland, September 24, 2007
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October 2nd, 2007 at 4:33 pm
hmmm. I dont understand the whole DRM thing. Why not just record the DRM-Encoded track with Audacity/another recording program, and then save it as an MP3? its not that hard… Whatever.
October 3rd, 2007 at 3:11 am
Considering that`most CD`s are DRM free, you can basically download anything for free and TV shows / Films on TV are also DRM free, it will be hard to determine if the end product has had the DRM removed, so download, download, download. Stupid move by the music industry, especially in a country where most people have very big broadband internet connection. I only have 3500(Kbit/s) , most have 5000 – 10000 (Kbit/s)
October 3rd, 2007 at 10:23 am
I think the above article isn’t 100% accurate. The last part:
But under the new legislation, “copies and hence downloads derived from ‘copies/originals to which access has been made available illegally’ will be prohibited.
Or as Heise sums it up, “opportunities to copy files from file-sharing networks for personal use will be restricted.”
which is from the cited Heise Online article discusses the situation in Germany, not Switzerland. If I understood everything right it is indeed perfectly legal to circumvent DRM protection in Switzerland if it is for private use only.
April 7th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
How could it be determined if DRM was removed? Plenty of DRM-free music to download, anyway!