New Finland copyright rules
p2p news special / p2pnet:- The Finnish Parliament approved today a controversial new copyright legislation, based on European Union’s Copyright Directive (EUCD). The legislation sparked enormous opposition from worried citizens, but despite the public critique even in mainstream media, the parties currently in coalition government decided to approve the legislation without further modifications.
Legislation has several confusing details and extremely badly worded chapters, making it one of the most draconian versions of EUCD in Europe. Once Finland’s president (who has right to veto the law, but the right is used extremely rarely) approves the legislation, it will come into effect, typically within few months.
As Finland has traditionally enjoyed quite relaxed copyright legislation, the change is dramatic. Previously, copying for own personal use (whether you owned the CD/DVD/book/whatever) was perfectly legal and the authors were compensated by blank media levy. Now, the blank media levy will remain in place, but at least the following things will change:
* Circumventing copy protections, even for personal use, will be illegal. (it states so in the law, even tho the government tried to argue that the right wont be pursued by government, but nothing stops record labels, movie studios, etc to do so)
* Distributing (even for free) tools (whether physical devices or software) that allow circumventing copy protection mechanisms will be illegal. (this includes DVD rippers, tools that allow copying copy-protected CDs, etc)
* Advertising tools that allow circumventing copy protection mechanisms will be illegal. (and the law doesn’t state how advertising is determined. So, basically simply linking to a page that has DVD ripper downloads from your own site can be considered "advertising")
* Possession of tools that allow circumventing copy protection mechanisms will be illegal. Even for personal use.
* Guides on how to circumvent copy protection mechanisms can be considered as "tools" and thus are also illegal.
* Worryingly, even "organized discussion" on how to circumvent copy protection mechanisms, will be illegal. (and no, Finland doesn’t have similar to American Supreme Court that determines whether laws are against constitution, but when laws are approved, they by default are in harmony with constitution and can’t be later overturned on basis that they are un-constitutional)
Ironically, Finnish education minister, Ms. Tanja Karpela, argued that "only 1 percent of current music CDs include copy protection mechanisms", thus making the legislation invisible to users. However, she forgot to mention that virtually 100 percent of DVDs do have copy protection and therefor the former right to backup and copy DVDs will disappear. Also, by using at least some level of logic, one can assume that once breaking copy-protection mechanisms will be illegal, most new CDs will feature such mechanism.
So, basically — buy a portable MP3 player and a copy-protected CD. And you can’t copy the music from the CD to your MP3 player legally any more, as you’d break law if you circumvent the copy protection mechanism found on CD.
And the whole legislation is quite close to us — AfterDawn.com is a Finnish company. So, compare the legislation and what you can find from our site and you probably see certain problem there.
dRD – AfterDawn
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October 5th, 2005 at 8:40 pm
* Possession of tools that allow circumventing copy protection mechanisms will be illegal. Even for personal use.
Computers, tape recorders, DVD recorders are all banned in Finland?
* Worryingly, even “organized discussion” on how to circumvent copy protection mechanisms, will be illegal. (and no, Finland doesn’t have similar to American Supreme Court that determines whether laws are against constitution, but when laws are approved, they by default are in harmony with constitution and can’t be later overturned on basis that they are un-constitutional)
* Guides on how to circumvent copy protection mechanisms can be considered as “tools” and thus are also illegal.
Another slap in the face for free speech.
October 6th, 2005 at 1:34 pm
As a citizen of the unites states i am not surprised in the dramatic turn of events concerning the copyright law in the country of finland.
I suppose afterdawn.com was warned for years that eventually distributing dvd decyrpter DVD Shrink and other dvd circumvention tools in finland will eventually be ILLEGAL.
I find afterdawn’s situation to be really funny and amusing But distributing decss utilities have been illegal in the united states since 1998 under the DMCA.
The average citizen in this country has put up with this crap for years and i just can’t fathom why people in finland should be any different.
I have in the past have put posts on afterdawn.com for years and they always had this crazy idea that the dmca was only good for us citizens and not finland.
Their arrogance was beyond belief.
I Think any kind of dvd anti copying circumvention methods is bullshit but finland is catching up with the rest of the civilized world when it comes to issues like these.
When this is all over with you people can accuse people in the finnish legislature to be a bunch anti consumer back stabbers that shamelessly take kickbacks and bribes from the MPAA and RIAA much like congress people in the united states.
The united states congress is a whorehouse for the corporate and industrial cartels.
LET NOBODY SAY THAT ANYBODY DID’NT TELL YOU SO………..
October 7th, 2005 at 1:23 pm
It is indeed an extremely depressing day to be a Finn. I would have thought that in a country with the levels of education and technical sophistication of Finland, something like this would have been shot down after so many voices was raised against it.
It is a dark day indeed when such blatantly anti-consumer and anti-citizen laws are allowed to be passed. Aren’t the politicians supposed to primarily govern for the benefit of the people – not the benefit of the large media production companies?
Depressing.
/cr0ft