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E.U. Commission Suggests Permissive Copyright Rule 267

Posted by timothy from the no-harm-no-foul dept.
An anonymous reader submits "ITworld.com is reporting: 'The European Commission on Thursday presented a draft directive that punishes copyright infringement for commercial purposes, but leaves the home music downloader untouched, infuriating the entertainment industry.'"
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E.U. Commission Suggests Permissive Copyright Rule More

E.U. Commission Suggests Permissive Copyright Rule

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  • w00t! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Xpilot ( 117961 ) on Sunday February 02, 2003 @05:55AM (#5209320) Homepage
    Ok, let's all move to Europe :)

    • Screw that (Score:4, Funny)

      by Sanity ( 1431 ) on Sunday February 02, 2003 @07:00AM (#5209461) Homepage Journal
      As an Irish H1B Visa holder in the US, and recalling the pain an expense the INS made me endure, I can assure you that any American trying to get into the EU will be made to SUFFER - and SUFFER BAD!!! (if I have anything todo with it - which I won't).

  • Sounds good but... (Score:5, Funny)

    by vandan ( 151516 ) on Sunday February 02, 2003 @05:57AM (#5209323) Homepage
    This sounds fair but I hope the Europeans aren't harbouring any weapons, because if they are, it's only a matter of time before big business whispers in the ear of the military. Next thing you know we've got UN weapons inspectors who can't find anything but have the harshest of 'suspicions' about what the Europenans are planning to do the the God-fearing, fun-loving, democratic nation of the USA.

    Seriously, this will not sit well with American companies. It will not be allowed.

    • Re:Sounds good but... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Space cowboy ( 13680 ) on Sunday February 02, 2003 @06:23AM (#5209395) Journal
      Seriously, this will not sit well with American companies. It will not be allowed.
      Actually, if the USA take that attitude with the EU, they're likely to be sent home with a flea in their ear. The EU doesn't have much of a history of bowing to American protectionism, witness the impending steel trade-war ...

      There are more people under EU law than there are under US law, and the EU is just starting to flex its' muscles a bit more. Negotiation is the key for getting your own way, either for member states or those outside the boundaries. Trying to impose a solution (by anyone, even founder member-states) is becoming more and more difficult.

      Has anyone else noticed that plain 'ole numbers are becoming more important over time ? China and India are being cited as the future powerhouses of global commerce; the US and (to a lesser extent) the EU are outsourcing huge chunks of what would have been bread-and-butter work to external countries, etc. Maybe EU expansion isn't such a bad idea after all... Perhaps it'll be Russia next :-)

      Simon

      • I find it interesting that you refer to the EU taking a stand against American protectionism. As an example, check out French farm subsidies. Pretty interesting comparison.

        The reason that China and India are both seen as possible (well, India at least still has some major economic hurdles to overcome, China seems a sure thing) economic powerhouses is largely because of not only their huge populations--but their huge and POOR populations! Cheap wages. Cheap costs in general. That's it.

        Subsidies and wealth of the population are actually tied together too. As countries (largely) in the West have become more prosperous overall, costs of living go up, expected wages go up, costs of doing business go up. This in turn makes certain industries more expensive to operate, and in some cases uncompetitive globally. Thus the need for government subsidies.

        • Re:Sounds good but... (Score:4, Interesting)

          by Space cowboy ( 13680 ) on Sunday February 02, 2003 @07:34AM (#5209508) Journal
          I find it interesting that you refer to the EU taking a stand against American protectionism. As an example, check out French farm subsidies. Pretty interesting comparison.

          I think there's a world (no pun intended :-) of difference between an internal market and an external market. The EU is doing more or less what EU-people expect if they "protect" EU-people from external states.

          The (horrendously large) french farm subsidies are an internal matter for the EU to sort out, and mainly came from the way in which the EU was set up, with Britain excluded from the EU until "appropriate" safeguards had been made for French farmers.

          [History, as far as I recall]
          Britain had a far more efficient farming style, wanted to join the EU => France was scared, so as anEU member France lobbied for EU subsidies as a condition for UK entrance. The UK eventually agreed that there were still sufficiently large advantages to be had by membership, and reduced its' original proposed EU payments as well. Britain entered the EU, and France kept their farmers employed.
          [/History]

          The ideal would be to wean people off subsidies, but I still see the above as the EU "protecting" member states (in this case, France) from external interests (in this case, the UK) . Whether I agree with the subsidies or not isn't really relevant...

          As for poverty being the root cause of India & China's resurgence, I don't doubt it's an economic argument that's the cause of the dilemma. I was trying to point out that a practice is being established... Any innate industry feeds from its market, and if the market disappears, so does the industry...

          Simon.

        • I find it interesting that you refer to the EU taking a stand against American protectionism. As an example, check out French farm subsidies. Pretty interesting comparison

          Actually the Common Agricultural Policy("CAP" - which includes the French subsidies) is terrible and many member states are trying to get it changed. It results in farmers in certain states being paid not to grow on some of their land. The problem is that many grow crops on it any way and claim the subsidies. The French government is, or chooses to be, powerless against their farmers who are radical and will bring transport to a halt if they have a grievance. So the policy remains.

      • Negotiation is the key for getting your own way

        Obviously you've never heard of B-52 bombers then.

    • France has nukes too. (Score:4, Funny)

      by dark-nl ( 568618 ) <dark@xs4all.nl> on Sunday February 02, 2003 @07:37AM (#5209518)
      France is already pissed off at having to eat at Macdonellz and having to watch American movies. You mess with their oggs and LA gets vaporized, I tell you true.

      • Re:France has nukes too. (Score:4, Insightful)

        by arivanov ( 12034 ) on Sunday February 02, 2003 @08:30AM (#5209624) Homepage
        You are not that far off mark.

        In the past, they have done several tests of their ICBMs in the Atlantic whithout notifying neither the Americans, nor the Brits. As a result quite a few people in NORAD, RAF and the Russian missile command have quite a few grey hairs more then usual.

        Seeing a missile appear from nowhere off the Irish Coast and head across the Atlantic in the general Wahington direction is not funny. At all. Or at least neither the Russians nor the US and the UK found it funny in the past. Dunno about the French.

        • In the past, they have done several tests of their ICBMs in the Atlantic whithout notifying neither the Americans, nor the Brits

          And one of those tests gave birth to Godzilla!

          Well, at least the American Godzilla.
        • Reminds me of a lecture a former Nato general gave to our school current affairs society.

          He said that, in effect, the US had nukes pointing at the (then) Soviet Union, the British pretended to have nukes but just paid for a tiny part of the US arsenal, the Soviets had nukes and pointed them at the US and the USS Gt. Britain, and the French had nukes and couldn't decide where the **** to point them.

          In terms of big nukes, nothing much seems to have changed.

    • Don't think Europe doesn't have it's own power elite that runs the show.

      Honestly, though, it's hard over here getting support for a war in Iraq. The ignorant patriot has become sort of a humorous stereotye in other countries, but in actuality there is just no way the RIAA could force America to wage war.

      Still, you do have a good point. Analysis of the Telecommunications Act of 1997 (I believe it was 1997, but I'm not sure) is proof of the massive media conglomerates power in Congress (the Act actually helped perpetuate this).

    • It will not be allowed.

      Yeah right. This is the most sensible thing I've seen from the industry on this matter. It acknowledges the fact that you simply cannot take on the whole world when it comes to p2p. You aren't going to stop BILLIONS of people from doing something. Any attempt to is pretty much a waste of time and money, throwing good money after bad.

      Copyright law exists to prevent others from profiting from work that is not their own. The idea satisfies that perfectly without making provisions that simply cannot be kept. It's the way it should be.

      It also provides something else very useful to the consumer. Freedom. By ensuring that all p2p systems are not-for-profit, we remove these from industry control. As seen with radio, control of the distribution channels is a negative as far as the consumer is concerned. A world with community controlled software is much better than anything the industry would allow us to have.

    • A more likely scenario will be lobbiests from Boeing whispering in the ears of the USA about EU weapon's and the same lobbiest will go to the EU and whisper in the ear of the senate about what America will do to you if you do not upgrade your military.

      The result?

      100,000 nuclear warheads, 1,000 battleships, and 500,000 tanks. No war will ever take place but the CEO's of lockhead and Beoing will be laughing their way to the bank. Can you say cold war? Its funny if you read the amount of nuclear war heads each power has 10, 20, 6, 15 ,10,000-america 8,000 Soviet Union. Its mind bongling.

      Oh and only the board of directors will be European or American at all the defense companies. The whole work force will be in India for 5/hr.

  • I just gotta ask. What was wrong with the old copyright law that needs changing so bad?

    • Re:Why any law? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by amigaluvr ( 644269 ) on Sunday February 02, 2003 @06:00AM (#5209337) Journal
      It's had the microsoft "embrace and extend" applied to it.

      It's flooding across the world, the idea that copyright was once a workable solution but now is gradually being more and more perverse

      Thanks to many commercial interests, companies are applying pressure to have copyright strengthened in a radical sense

      More and more they want not only full control over who makes copies (the original idea) but how you use the copies you get. how you watch them, who you watch them with, what you do with the information on those copies

      A home user making a copy of a DVD to have it on their upstares computer as well as their DVD player in the living room is one thing, and is meaninglless in the scheme of things

      "they" however want to control you and sya you can't do 'x' or 'y'. when you want to do 'z'

      something to think about

    • Because the EU is about standardising policy (Score:5, Informative)

      by Chuck Chunder ( 21021 ) on Sunday February 02, 2003 @06:12AM (#5209370) Journal
      As the article clearly states:
      The proposed directive, meant to harmonize intellectual property right enforcement laws in the 15-nation European Union (EU)
      It's not about changing existing law per-se, it's about coming up with a consistant framework that could be applied across the EU.
    • traditionally copyright law was no different to patent law - if someone infinged on your copyrights it was up to you to sue 'em.

      IE copyright was traditionally only a part of civil laws.

      Really the addition of copyright provisions to the criminal statutes is only relatively recent (post 1970?). All that's being suggested is that copright law should teturn to its traditional status in regards to infringment by individuals for personal reasons.

      Even if this suggestion became law, record companies would still have the right to sue individual non-commercial copyright infringers in the civil courts

  • OK, that's it.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 02, 2003 @05:57AM (#5209325)
    We will stop exporting Britney Spears CDs as of now. See how ya like that!

    Oh wait...
    • Damn, you beat me to it. To expand, if I was an American music producer and was only guaranteed by law to sell one copy of any album in Europe, at which point it would be free to anyone with a computer and a cd burner, I would stop exporting music to Europe. The loss in tax revenue cd European cd sales of American music might change Euopes socialist policy in this area.

  • Civil vs Criminal laws (Score:5, Informative)

    by NigelJohnstone ( 242811 ) on Sunday February 02, 2003 @05:58AM (#5209331)
    Copyright infringement still comes under CIVIL law, the record companies can sue if they want.

    This is only about EU law, which is eventually enforced by national police forces. i.e. its criminal law.

    So all the EU are saying is that for it to be a crime under national law there has to be a commercial gain behind the copyright infringement.
    The normal copyright CIVIL laws are still there exactly as before.

    This is quite reasonable. If the guys ripping off their stuff for profit, the police can intervene, if hes making copies for his friends, they have to take him to court.

    • > This is quite reasonable.

      I cant help but agree, and its probably the first time that I can think of the European Union doing something reasonable. Since commercial copyright theft is believed to fund organized criminals who also control drugs and prostitution, then the EU has said catagroically that these people are a lot worse than those who infringe copyright at home. Hooray!

      I'd still like to see the copyright laws returned to 14 years after publication, but you cant win them all.

      • I always find that funny, Robbie wiliams who said P2P networks were great, got hammered for promoting "Drugs and Prostitution". WTF/

        Anyhow, there are four systems,
        1: The controled market (that the goverment loves)
        2: The free market (the odd job on the side etc.. not taxed)
        3: The black market (selling things that are illeagal)
        4: and fraud.

        So yeh, I like drugs... , I never quite understood pating for sex? maybe if it was a bit more kinky than your partner would do...
        Do I give a fuck about the government.... umm..... nope.
    • But, if the criminal law doesn't prosecute the non-profitable users, that means that any court case that the record company may start will be lost by them on the first day. They won't have any way of proving possesion of the data - any sort of seizure of hdds or busts will be illegal. That means they have to prove that the defender not only downloaded the mp3, but listened to them and kept them, which would be pretty much impossible.

      Now, IANAL, but I think thats how it works...

      • Re:Civil vs Criminal laws (Score:5, Insightful)

        by NigelJohnstone ( 242811 ) on Sunday February 02, 2003 @06:45AM (#5209437)
        "They won't have any way of proving possesion of the data - any sort of seizure of hdds or busts will be illegal. That means they have to prove that the defender not only downloaded the mp3, but listened to them and kept them, which would be pretty much impossible."

        I'm not sure about the latter part of your comment. (Since when has copyright infringement required proof you viewed or listened to the media?)

        Yeh, they would need evidence before they bring a civil court case, just as they need evidence now to get a court to order a search. But thats the point isn't it!
        Its stops people using laws as a way to harrass people for what could be argued to be fair-use rights.

        We had an example of harrassment-by-law recently, when the FBI raided homes of alledged 'uncapped modem' users. Sure they broke they're terms of service, but since when has the FBI enforced ISPs terms of service?
        • "They won't have any way of proving possesion of the data - any sort of seizure of hdds or busts will be illegal. That means they have to prove that the defender not only downloaded the mp3, but listened to them and kept them, which would be pretty much impossible."

          I'm not sure about the latter part of your comment. (Since when has copyright infringement required proof you viewed or listened to the media?)

          Not sure about US, but here they must make a reasonable case that you knew that you did something illegal - but if you're downloading "Britney Spears - Lucky.mp3" you probably ment to - but I think you can claim insanity for that one. There has been a few cases of this, where people have just added every *.jpg to their list. So is "LisaXXX006.jpg" you downloaded of KaZaA a 18+ pr0n star (copyright infringement), a 18+ amateur (legal) or a 5yo girl (veeeeeery illegal)? You can't know until you've looked. This also goes for things like ftp (or in the old days, BBS) upload dirs etc. But no, that won't save you if you have ten thousand of them, or if they can prove you've accessed it and seen what it was...

          Kjella
    • > Copyright infringement still comes under CIVIL law.

      Hardly - not in the UK, anyway, and not for years now.

      Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 [hmso.gov.uk]
      I don't believe we're the only country in Europe with such a law either.
      • criminal provisions doesn't mean there's no civil provisions.

        So saying 'Copyright infringement still comes under CIVIL law' doesn't mean one is denying the existence of criminal statutes too.

        Anyway it's only a EUC suggestion. There is at yet no conflict between the EUC & any British criminal statutes in regards to copyright.
    • "Copyright infringement still comes under CIVIL law, the record companies can sue if they want."

      It had been strictly civil, but the DMCA has completely changed that for digital media.

  • Is this meant to be a replacement for the EUCD or an additional law.

    It appears as though they would be mutualy exclusive, which is definetly a good thing. Any Europeans who follow these things know for sure.

    At any right sweet if it passes, but it is still only a draft and the Media Groups will be lobying hard for changes so one can only hope it remains unscathed.

  • I don't know that much about how the EU works, but IIRC it isn't exactly as directly democratic as the member nations.

    Which would mean no expensive campaigns, which would make it much more difficult to bribe.

    Personally, I doubt this law would ever pass, I'm so used to the ever-increasing authoritarianism in our government that liberalization just seems impossible to me.

  • More details about the european law on that matte (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 02, 2003 @06:11AM (#5209364)
    The FAQ proposed on the site of the European commission does provide much more information than the linked article...
    FAQ on proposed directive [eu.int]

  • Its good that someone gets it. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by sjgman9 ( 456705 ) on Sunday February 02, 2003 @06:11AM (#5209366)
    Great! The Europeans are sensible about all of this. Downloading music off of the internet is no different than recording music off of the radio and digitizing it. All music is just sound waves anyway.

    I think that anyone that resells copyrighted material deserves whatever the content mafia deems possible.

    If the content cartel would just ease up about suing all of their potential customers, they wouldnt have a problem with piracy. Each industry has its own issues to deal with.

    Software. Makes $80 billion dollars, loses $12 billion on piracy.
    Software activation and antipiracy stuff (MICROSOFT AND QUICKEN) are a hassle to customers. They have to justify their existence in the face of open sourced competition.

    Movies. Makes a couple of billion dollars (I'm guessing maybe more), loses millions to crappy divx screeners and stuff. People are buying $20 DVDs buy the handful, renting DVD's for $4, and going to movies for $7 a whole hell of a lot! I find it hard to belive their claims about piracy when they are making money hand over fist. Given to head in the sand syndrome when they didnt allow Linux Users to have a version of DVD viewing software. If a bunch of programmers can make their own OS, then decoding DVDs must be trivially easy (Especially when Xing leaves a key around in plain sight--- geniuses). Region Coding is just a sham. Stop now and youll sell more movies. Go digital in projection screens and stop whining about costs to get movies out to justify delayed releases. Global simultaneous releases will do a lot to squashing piracy. Keep those DVD prices at $20 or less.

    Music Industry. Must move away from selling CD's a lot. Must sell DRM-less digital download in the MP3, Mp4, or SHN format. Must convince stores like best buy to install kiosks that allow users to hook up iPods or Nomads to swipe credit cards and get albums for $2 (this reduces payoffs to teamsters and costs to get cds pressed and stuff), and singles for $0.10. It;d be a gold mine and I'd buy like crazy. In the meantime, stop suing your customers, stop peddling locked cds WITHOUT LABELING THEM, YOU DECEITFUL BASTARDS, and ease up on piracy. Lastly, dont pay broadcasters to play songs. Thats got you in a bigger bind than this. Oh, and get much more responsive to consumer tastes and demands. And never again sell a Britney Spears to the american public. Spears will be a porn star within 5 years, as if Christina Aguilera isnt one.

    If the music industry doesnt serve its customers, it will become irrelevant. Why do you think that your devoted mouthpiece and IT whipping bitch Hilary Rosen left your sorry excuse for an industry? You guys suck, and we are taking our money elsewhere.
    • "going to movies for $7"

      Damn, that's cheap. Where I'm from, it's $10 now (or was it $10.50?).

    • Re:Its good that someone gets it. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by anubi ( 640541 ) on Sunday February 02, 2003 @08:09AM (#5209578) Journal
      I guess someone else is getting it.. because I'm not getting any.

      They clamped down at the College on P2P. I used to bring a Zip Disk along and download a few samples using the lab's high speed access. I "met" all of my favorite artists that way. Example: I had no idea of who "Enya" was, but I got one of her songs on one of my kinda random downloads, I liked it. I found several more of hers. Liked them too. Next thing I know, when I was in any record store, I was looking for her CD's... I think I have her complete set now ( except for one compilation CD ). These were all purchased.

      Now that I have been prohibited from sampling the music, I find something odd happening. Although I still go into the record store, there is now nothing running through my head that I want to buy. I see rows upon rows of CD's, but to me they are just so much clutter - I have no idea what they are - they may as well be in another language. I just do not see a thing I'm specifically looking for

      I know what the problem is... I do not listen to the radio anymore. They would continuously play the hot list, interspersed with as much jabber as they thought I would tolerate. Problem is now its not just the "top 40" I have to choose from... its literally thousands of different titles in the store... and I don't know the slightest thing about any of the new ones.. I just remember some of the oldies from earlier years.

      Yes, the store does have listening kiosks, but each only has access to maybe 5 CD's, and I am quite uncomfortable having to stand in one spot for several minutes at a time trying to listen to them. Its not at all like queueing the disk up I made at College and having it play in the background while I do my homework, then if something strikes me while listening, reopening the jukebox window to see what it was. Most of the stuff I got at College was crap anyway, but there were a few gems in it, such as Enya and others. Well, maybe not crap - because music preferences are so unique to each individual, but definitely not mine.

      I remember when I used to get excited about Baseball games. Then they had a strike. During the strike, I found something else to do. Guess what, I haven't been back to a game since! Now, it seems I take just about as much interest in how far some baseball player hits the friggen ball as I suspect he cares how I did on my calculus exam. I find once I "get out of sync" with something, I lose interest in it.

      Yes, I guess the **AA may have won this one on me - as not only have I not downloaded for about 4 months now, nor have I had any reason to buy any recordings either.

      I am not for sure that they really wanted what they won.

      • Exactly the same for me. Radio here sucks and is not a listening option. When I had good access to random MP3s, I'd find some artist I really liked, hunt down more MP3s, then feel an amazing urge to go forth and buy the album (if only as a clean archival backup for the MP3s :) Now that my connexion sucks too much to waste on MP3s of unknown quality, I've stopped downloading. Funny thing -- I've also stopped buying music. Such a coincidence!!

        Exactly the same as happened when I was DJing ca. 1980 -- and could have taped any of the 15,000+ albums any time I cared to. But if I really liked something, I wanted my own virgin original.

        So -- the two periods in my life when I've *bought* music with some regularity are *both* contiguous with when I had easy access to *free* copies of this same music. Are you listening, RIAA??

        Just goes to show -- free samples have power like no other advertising on earth.

        • >> I wanted my own virgin original.

          The phenomenon of buying one to play, and buying another one to not ever open, vanished completely with vinyl! Nobody routinely buys two copies of a CD, one to listen to and another for the collection, anymore. This was very common before CD's... There is a world of difference between a record that has never been played, and one that has been played once. (That first play would always be recorded on 1/4" tape, in my case, and the tapes were what I actually listened to.)

      • I agree 100% even about baseball. Shame too! I really love the game just not the whiny primadonnas that play it.

        Radio can still return as strong as ever it will just take some time. I hope the same is true with baseball.

        You need something to do between football seasons!

        --Joey
    • Unfortunately drm is here to stay thanks to palladium and the mpeg 4 standard board adopting drm as well as real networks doing the same.

  • Terrorism (Score:5, Interesting)

    by JamesDotCom ( 646703 ) on Sunday February 02, 2003 @06:13AM (#5209374)
    It seems it's almost obligatory that any crime gets linked to terrorism now days

  • Finally some sense! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by RomikQ ( 575227 ) <romikq@mail.ru> on Sunday February 02, 2003 @06:18AM (#5209382) Homepage
    Whew! At least some politicians are showing intelligence.

    US always tries to do the "Good Thing" but goes all backwards about it - ie during the War On Drugs they didn't focus enough on the source of the drugs, and too much on the "end-user", during the War On Terrorism, they are overthrowing political regimes(I'm not saying they shouldn't but thats the wrong way to go about it), while they should be cutting off the money supply to terrorism that flows from America itself. Now they do do some of the right stuff too, but primarily US politians loose focus too quickly.

    Lets hope that EU will set a good example, by targeting the source of the disease instead of the symptoms.
    • War on drugs focusing on the end user?

      You've got it backwards.

      The US spent and spends too much time trying to eradicate the supplier without stopping the customer's demand. There will always be new suppliers if there is demand. Stop or decrease the demand or even make it uneconomical to supply the goods and the supplier goes away.

  • Who to Bribe (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Angram ( 517383 ) on Sunday February 02, 2003 @06:22AM (#5209389)
    In the US, the entire political system is based on money from corporations. As far as I understand, the EU isn't quite the same. Who are the companies bribing? Without money, there really is no way to 'put pressure' on anyone, so what's the tactic?

    I'm sure most of the 'pressure' is coming from US companies, which begs the question, why does the EU care at all? Profits are only then to be made on selling the CDs and hosting concerts; Is there really all that much money coming through Europe to make it a big deal? In the US, every penny an artist or company makes is eventually going back into the economy, whether through buying a mansion in the Hills, or buying off a Senator. It's not like US artists are investing millions in real estate in England, and I don't think the politicians are quite so owned.
    • by a dis-interested populous

      EU issues are rarely discussed on TV except on the minority news shows [i.e. the ones worth watching].

      The EU parliament is seen as a bit of a gravy train for those serving. You never see your MEP in the news and I bet 90% if the people in the UK have no idea who their MEP is.

      Big business is right in there, don't you worry. You'll do well to remember that the lovely people [emigroup.com] that bring us such tunes as All You Need is Love and Give Peace a Chance also help bring us such delights as the WE 177 tactical nuclear weapon [u-net.com] and millions of the worlds landmines as well as a plethora of deadly devices.

    • Your lack of insight is amazing. Did you realize, that there are european artists, too? Your US centric few is just so funny.
      • I didn't say there are only US artists. I'm not US-centric by any means. I'm not even in the US. I said that US labels were the ones pushing this.

  • This is the press release from the EU (Score:4, Informative)

    by sir_cello ( 634395 ) on Sunday February 02, 2003 @06:30AM (#5209414)

    The press release is here [eu.int] (in various languages). Don't forget to read it, and the draft directive, in detail before entering into uninformed discussion based upon a possibly incorrect third-party news article.

  • Mentioned in this article [slashdot.org].

  • a really bad idea (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Erpo ( 237853 ) on Sunday February 02, 2003 @06:47AM (#5209439)
    This law sounds like it's consumer-friendly, perhaps creating some much-needed balance, but it really isn't. In fact, it's a broad expansion of current law that's bad for everyone that uses any kind of p2p, for legitimate reasons or otherwise.

    Copyright infringement would still be a civil crime so the content industries could still go after consumers on their own, just like they can now -- the proposed legislation would change criminal law. Also (obviously) the existing law covers copyright infringement for profit as copyright infringement for profit is still copyright infringement.

    So what's the point of the new law? Read closely:

    Peer-to-peer file-sharing services that encourage copyright infringement and make money from advertising are commercial, according to the Commission. "That is illegal and should be stopped," the Commission said. Examples of file sharing services are Kazaa and Morpheus.

    Got it yet?

    What they're saying: "Criminal sanctions only apply when copyright infringement is carried out intentionally and for commercial purposes."

    What they want to dupe the public into hearing: "You can download all you want as long as no money is involved."

    What they mean: "Copyright infringement through p2p services hurts the profits of companies that make large campaign contributions. P2P companies produce highly functional p2p software which has a primary function of facilitating copyright infringement because there is a financial incentive to do so (adware/spyware). This aspect of the p2p business can be used to legitimate government attacks in order to shut down those businesses."

    What this means for you: Say goodbye to KaZaA and other useful (meaning large, meaning commercially-supported) networks.

  • It's all just a matter of time... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ites ( 600337 ) on Sunday February 02, 2003 @06:50AM (#5209444) Journal
    Before conventional notions of "selling content" go back to where they belong, namely the rubbish bin. It's always been a rotten system, paying for art, corrupting both the artist and the viewer. The best entertainment and art are communal, created for those around you and rewarded by status and reputation.
    This is the way music and entertainment (story telling?) work in villages and it's only the urban lifestyle that's made it impossible.
    It should be completely obvious that the large-scale entertainment industries are already dead, but they just don't know it. Copyright extensions... piracy laws... anti-copying technology... it's all just pissing into the river.
    One example: did anyone seriously enjoy LOTRTT as much as they enjoyed the parodies of it? You see what I mean. The day when more people get their kicks from community-created content (CCCtm) like web logs, /., chatrooms, and autoporn, than they do from commercial media, is the day that the discussion becomes moot.
    I'm speaking from experience: I used to be a street drummer, and I can say that the kick from getting fifty random people to stop from their shopping on a sunny saturday afternoon and move their booty to insanely loud drumming beats any other form of fun except possibly (possibly) sex.

  • Applicable quote (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 02, 2003 @06:56AM (#5209454)
    From another board

    "I wish I could record a day's work and then sell that recording over and over and over to anyone who needed that day's work done for them.

    Before geeks invented sound recording, musicians sang for their supper.

    Now technology has come full circle, and it's back to singing for their supper--and those pampered, bloated, overpaid Holyweird types are scared stiff they might have to work for a living!

    And why not?

    Technology has ruined the careers of other blue collar workers--now it's the turn of entertainers, who after all are nothing but another kind of blue collar worker."
    • "Now technology has come full circle, and it's back to singing for their supper--and those pampered, bloated, overpaid Holyweird types are scared stiff they might have to work for a living!"

      Because you iognorant fucktard, not every writer, artist or musician is a pampered, bloated, overpaid holyweird type. In fact, the majority of writers, artists and musicians who rely on their craft to earn a living are paid just enough to get by and then there are those who have been forced to concede their craft and find work elsewhere because people like you think the have a moral right to freely distribute intellectual property if they want.

  • P2P Terrorists? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by rworne ( 538610 ) on Sunday February 02, 2003 @06:57AM (#5209455) Homepage
    "There is also evidence that counterfeiting and piracy are becoming more and more linked to organised crime and terrorist activities because of the high profits and, so far, the relatively low risks of discovery and punishment," the Commission said in a statement.


    Yeah, I suppose buying copies of Win XP for a buck or two in SE Asia gets some money to the Triads, but how is downloading an Win XP ISO from a P2P network making Osama any money?

    I suppose when I installed Windows 2000 on two different machines caused some planes to smash into buildings.

    --
    Every time you download off a P2P network, God kills a kitten

    • Re:P2P Terrorists? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by mkro ( 644055 ) on Sunday February 02, 2003 @09:35AM (#5209740)
      Yes, this is a little off topic, but still:

      I sat browsing the Prelinger archive [archive.org] last night, and download three or four movies.

      From "The Terrible Truth" (1951) [archive.org]: "Some say the reds are promoting dope traffic in the United States to undermine national moral. They did it in China a few years back. It's certainly true that the increased use of narcotics plays right into their hands."

      Oookay... Sounded a little paranoid, but I didn't think much more about it. After all, I've heard of McCartyism, and know it was blown out of proportions. The next movie was about pornographic litterature (Yeah, yeah, I know I downloaded some of the more sensational ones, but I wanted entertainment) :

      "Perversion for Profit" (ca. 1964-1965) [archive.org]: "This moral decay weakens our resistance to the onslaught of the Communist masters of deceit."

      Uh. Two movies in a row, selected at (pretty much) random, made over 10 years apart. Both blaming communism for plotting to destroy the nation. If I've downloaded more movies from the archive, I'm sure I would have found more of the same.

      Anyway... This made me think of Michael Moore's "Bowling for Columbine" [imdb.com], and what the movie says about fear being used to make the public act in certain ways or accept whatever are presented to them. Sample quote: "The media, the corporations, the politicans, have all done such a good job of scaring the American public, it has come to the point that they don't have to give any reason at all."
      If this is how it works, can single words have the power to trigger these effects? Don't forget how hard it is to say no to a law that has "patriotic" as part of it's name (Because saying "no" would mean UNpatriotic, and you KNOW you either are with us or against us).
      If shouting "communist" at things and people you wanted to get rid of worked in the 50's and 60's, certainly linking the word "terrorist" to illegal copying should have some effect on public opinion and lawmakers.

      Seems to me like "terrorist" is the fnord [everything2.com] of our time.

  • Jesus, copyright holders call the plan 'unambitious' As if ambition is a virtue while thinking up ways to take away people's rights.

  • Completely wrong submission! (Score:5, Informative)

    by infolib ( 618234 ) on Sunday February 02, 2003 @07:29AM (#5209500)
    I have actually (Oh horror!) read the directive. [eu.int]

    The directive does not legalise filesharing, or any other activity illegal under present copyright law. It deals solely with the enforcement of copyright law. A few highlights (or should i say lowlights?):

    EU states must give anti-piracy alliances the right to apply for raids where they can seize infringing copies and related evidence. These raids can be granted without the presence or knowledge of the defendant, "in the event of an actually committed or imminent infringement"

    It also demands that you must divulge information on the recievers and suppliers of "infringing goods" if you have yourself been pointed out as "a link in the network" of infringers.

    Furthermore EU members must allow injunctions against "intermediar[ies] whose services are being used by a third party to infringe a right" (I wonder what exactly you'll have to do to prove that the resources you put the disposal of others will not be used for piracy...)

    • Re:Completely wrong submission! (Score:4, Informative)

      by dackroyd ( 468778 ) on Sunday February 02, 2003 @08:29AM (#5209620) Homepage

      It looks like the ITworld article has got two different proposals mixed up.

      The 'Directive on copyright and related rights in the Information Society' which alledgedly gives people fair-use rights, but then takes them away again by making it illegal to circumvent 'Technical Protection Measures'

      The other directive ' of the European Parliament and of the Council on measures and procedures to ensure the enforcement of intellectual property rights' is the gnarly one that gives the copyright holders lots more power in the courts.

      • It looks like the ITworld article has got two different proposals mixed up.

        But how could they? This is a freshly drafted directive, and the other one was passed two years ago. I think it's more likely that the journalist misunderstood the FAQ as to filesharing (But again, how could he?) Then he heard the steaming comments from the music industry (who are trying to push this to get even more) and the wrong neurons fired. Whatever.
        Joris Evers and ITworld karma: excellent-> neutral.
    • "EU states must give anti-piracy alliances the right to apply for raids where they can seize infringing copies and related evidence"

      You have a point.

      It contains a few nasties along with the good points, they can sieze good on a provisional order if there is a likely hood that the evidence will be destroyed, I think this should be restricted to "Criminal" acts, since it can be used to harrass:

      "Paragraph 1 of this Article provides in favour of the right holder, even before the examination
      of the merits of a case has started, for a procedure involving descriptive or physical seizure if there is a demonstrable risk that the evidence may be destroyed."

      But then again there has to be a "demonstrable risk that the evidence may be destroyed" made to a court and then to balance it, there is a requirement that the right holder lodge compensation they lose if their case turns out to be baseless:

      "Paragraph 2 lays down that physical seizure may be made subject to the lodging of a
      guarantee adequate to ensure compensation for the defendant in the event of an unjustified
      application."

      Then there is the clause I consider good, in connection with that is and isn't criminal law.

      "Provisions under criminal law
      For the purposes of this Article, an infringement is considered serious if it is committed intentionally and for commercial purposes."

      This is the big plus for me, since it stops the constant creeping of copyright into criminal law.
      So we won't face random police raids for alledged infringements. This draws a nice line between what qualifies as criminal and what is civil.

      Maybe it would be better if they spelled out that the right to seize evidence is restricted to acts that qualify as "criminal".
      Since the copyright holder might use it to "fish" and "harass" people. Same with evidence from third parties, that again should be restricted to stuff that classes as "criminal" otherwise they'll go fishing.

  • I believe that was the original intent of Copyright laws: To prevent you from making money of of work that was copyrighted. You could make a cassette tape of something off of the radio, and as long as you didn't try to sell it, you were fine. Same deal with using the VCR to tape something on TV. As long as you weren't making a profit off of your legally made copy, you were fine.

    The RIAA member labels are just pissed because music downloading just means that they're not getting their cut. They've set insanely high prices for music CDs, and don't want to drop their prices to more reasonable levels (I'd have no problem laying down $7-10 for a CD, but $15-20 is asking a bit much). With the advent of the CD-R, the creation of a CD and the cost to do so was brought home to the consumer, and they realized that they were being gouged at the register. Until they bring the price of CDs down, file sharing will flourish. If prices are brought down to reasonable levels, then consumers would most likely download only to sample music they don't own yet, and then go out and buy the reasonably priced CD.

    I know I would...

  • A little background (Score:3, Informative)

    by infolib ( 618234 ) on Sunday February 02, 2003 @08:08AM (#5209575)
    This directive ensures copyright/trademark holders a minimum toolbox of legal attacks on copyright infringers. National law is explicitly left alone in so far it is "more favourable for right holders". It is clear that the industry is lobbying to make sure that copyrights are very strictly enforceable all across the EU along the way sneaking in injunctions against services used for infringement by "third parties".

    The proposal may very well still be amended on its way through the Euro-parliament.

    The EU countries already have laws in place for punishing copyright infringement. (And the copyright laws are also harmonised by directives) What's new is that the enforcement of these laws is harmonised.

  • Realistic piracy figures? (Score:3, Informative)

    by infolib ( 618234 ) on Sunday February 02, 2003 @08:27AM (#5209616)
    From the Commission FAQ [eu.int]

    40% of software in use worldwide is believed to be pirated, and 37% in the EU (= loss of revenue of 2.9 billion euros annually).(2) [bsa.org]
    Worldwide, 36% of all music CDs and cassettes sold are pirated (total sales of pirated goods is 5 billion units).
    Can this be debunked?

    The same should be asked of the numbers on p. 10 of the directive (pdf) [eu.int]
    • More that 17 000 jobs lost due to counterfeiting and piracy
    • 38 000 french jobs lost to counterfeiting
    • 10% reduction in software piracy woud create 250 000+ EU jobs
    • VAT (sales tax) losses from music piracy is 100 million euros (EU-wide)
    • Well, it's almost certain that every copy downloaded without paying (i.e. pirated) would not translate into an actual sale if the download was prevented. A lot of "pirates" download mass quantities, regardless of what it is, just to have a large collection for its own sake -- they wouldn't be buying all the stuff they wouldn't normally listen to anyway, if they couldn't get it for free.

      Never trust music industry claims on how much money or how many jobs are "lost" because of copying. Most of the monetary losses are due to large-scale, professional pirates who actually sell bootleg copies of the music, rather than casual Internet downloaders. Nonetheless, it's not very efficient to cripple the computer industry to prevent piracy, and it's not really efficient to be having law enforcement go after casual downloaders instead of (for example) worrying about violent crime, organized crime, etc.

  • The European Commission on Thursday (Score:5, Funny)

    by Animus Howard ( 643891 ) on Sunday February 02, 2003 @09:52AM (#5209783)
    Wow, they have a commission on everything.
  • MPAA and RIAA won't be satisfied until any use that they haven't specifically licensed for is a crime that has stronger sanctions than armed robbery.

    Rob a 7-11 with a gun and get 3-5 all of it waived for 1st time offenders.

    Download a few albums and you should go to jail for 20 years and be liable for $20 million. Lets not get into DeCSS.

    Shows you where our priorities are at.
  • The BSA take a similar approach to software "piracy". I've seen one of their spokespeople on TV saying they're not interested in the home user.

    Probably because (a) there are too many of them; (b) they wouldn't have stumped up for Photoshop or Office anyway; (c) it's hard to track down where they live and collect evidence and (d) they haven't got enough money to make them worth suing.

    Therefore it's much easier to go after businesses which have bigger bank accounts, a known location and, let's face it, if they're making a living using your product they really should have paid for it, shouldn't they? Shades of grey, but the BSA probably have the balance right in this case.

    • To elaborate, BSA can afford to be magnanimous because the main revenue stream of its members comes from the business sector, hence the name. I think its fair to say that probably 90% of people who have Photoshop for their personal home use didn't pay for it. Which Adobe accepts as a loss leader for its true business, gouging corporate accounts. (Of course, the home user winds up paying for that anyway, since the business purchease gets deducted in part as a expense, and the other part is paid for through higher prices on the retail end.)

      In contrast, RIAA members see a large proportion of their sales come from home users. If they lose the home market, they are essentially out of business. At least until they start playing Nellyville on Muzak.

      Muzak -- Creating experiences with audio architecture.

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