German court supports DRM
p2p news / p2pnet:- The Federal Constitutional Court of Germany (the Bundesverfassungsgericht) has rejected a complaint by a consumer about copy protection measures on CDs and DVDs.
The interesting thing about the rejection is that the Court added considerations about the private copying "right": it doubted that the constitution provides such a right.
The consumer had complained about provision 95a in the German Copyright Law that allows rights holders to use copy protection measures and prohibits their circumvention. While there aren’t any criminal sanctions (jail sentence / fines) for the circumvention for merely private use, consumers are not often able to make such a circumvention and thus a private copy in the first place.
Although the Court’s consideration is vague, it’s an indicator of what’s often been said: there’s little indication that there’s something like a private copying right, or that it’ll be granted against copy protection measures.
Interestingly, a French court took a different stand last April: reversing an earlier decison, which denied that private copying was a right, it prohibited the use of copy protection measures on DVDs, since they were considered to be incompatible with private use. For the proponents of private use as an enforceable right the French decision offered some hope, but now it looks even more like courts (and governments) will probably not move to the "private copying is a right"-mantra in the future.
Rik Lambers – CoCo
[Lambers is a former researcher at the Institute for Information Law, Amsterdam, who's now in transition to a new full time job in the field of IP/Internet law. He's also an associate member of the European INDICARE project, which researches consumer issues related to DRM.]
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September 12th, 2005 at 5:32 pm
Does this ruling come as a surprize to ANYONE? Courts and lawmakers around the world have made it abundantly clear that they are in place to represent the interests of the rich. Sure, you can find a few rulings here and there that may actually be favorable to the average joe instead of big biz, but you don’t have to be a genius to figure out which way the prevailing winds are blowing…
September 12th, 2005 at 10:06 pm
I agree. But main reason for this is simply lack of understanding in the subject matter.
95% of courts and judges know absolutley nothing about modern technologies. The are usually old men/women, who neither understand or want to understand new technology. If they did, they would have a more sympathetic approach im certain. I know this is prosumptious of me, but the fact is most(not all) older people have little interest in the internet/new technologies etc.
And im not even talking about very old people. I’m talking about people 40+. And quite a large chunk of the female population(im not being sexist, but we all know males have a greater affinity towards technologies).
September 13th, 2005 at 5:30 pm
If this is the case in germany you can’t make a movie for personal use if it involves copy protection circumvention like in the united states as interpreted by the dmca then why are people so retarded that they would knowingly buy copy protected cds and dvds ?
People in the entertainment business considers the buying public to be stupid dumb and retarded and see a sucker coming a mile away.
Like w.c. fields used to say ” there is a sucker born every minute. ”
They refer to the buying public as consumers not customers.
The average consumer is ignorant about tech issues and does not know he is getting ripped off blind.
I won’t even mention apathy from the general public.
In the united states the us copyright office is just as incompentantly run as the fema office after the hurricane in new orleans.
People in the united states congress shamelessly take kickbacks and bribes like cheap whores from their pimp masters the entertainment cartels.