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MP3s In Foreign Countries 192

Posted by michael from the note-heard-round-the-world dept.
KirTakat writes: "We see lots of links to information about MP3s in America (by this I mean most English speaking countries, which seems to be the major readership on Slashdot), and how they are being handled legally and the such, but how are they affecting other countries? Are they even mentioned in the news, or is the legal aspect of MP3s pretty much an American thing?" Maybe some readers can describe how the "music on the internet" debate has gone in other areas of the world.
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MP3s in Foreign Countries More

MP3s in Foreign Countries

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  • Re:MP3 in The Netherlands (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I know for a fact, that 3fm (and other radiostations in holland) use MP2+3 formats, they have servers with TB capacity...way cool!

  • -1, Off Topic (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Whaddya mean, Foreign Countries?

    I thought this was the internet. As far as a lot of readers are concerned, the US is the foreign country.

    How about this for a subject - "MP3s outside the US"?

  • RE: MP3s In Foreign Countries (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Okay, i don't want to stir up andy trouble, but to say that music piracy is only an American problem is a falicy. There are other agencies like the RIAA around the world that have the responsibility of keeping piracy in check, the only problem is that other countries have much bigger issues to deal with other than Internet piracy. For example, there is a large amount of piracy in Europe which is the responsibility of the IFPI. The biggest problem that they face is the fact that the governments of the various countries lack the ability to enforce the laws. Another major point to look at is that the American media have this habit of blowing things way out of proportion. So, saying that MP3's is only an american problem is like saying that only women in america have gender inequality... Just my 2 cents...

  • MP3s in Germany (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    MP3s in Germany are more an more becoming an issue. Since most people here still have to pay for internet access by the minute (flatrates are still around $45) it isn't much fun to download whole albums.

    The Napster case however gets quite a bit of attention, not only in the computing press but also in regular newspapers an on TV.

    The GEMA (the association that collects all the fees for copying copyrighted material) is currently trying to get the federal government to introduce a fee on all computer devices that can be used to copy things such as CD Recorders and Scanners...

  • in Thailand (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    There is no copyright law in Thailand. Huge shopping malls containing literally hundreds of shops are selling countless CD's packed with MP3's. No need to waste your bandwidth... Just go there and for $3 you get a CD packed with 12 MP3-encoded CD's. Makes the whole American debate looks like a joke... PS The same thing goes with commercial software and movies.

  • In France (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I'm an American exchange student studying in France, and there seems to be a large amount of trading. What most folks do is download songs onto their accounts (I should point out that I'm at an engineering school with a nice connection to the Net -- not necessarily common here), and then transfer them to home using Zip disks. Most folks here also have CDRs which makes distributing them to friends easy. Smacks of the USA a bit.. However, most people here don't seem to care too much about the legal aspect..

  • A lost pint (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Here's a story that may give some insight into the situation.

    I was with some buddies at a pub (a real one, not the typical souvenir decorated yuppie hovel so common in the states), and we started talking about the music they were playing. I was wondering what CD it was - sounded like a compilation - and my co-worker bet me that they were playing MP3s.

    Considering the legal ramifications of broadcasting Mp3 songs in a public place, not to mention the low likelyhood of a pub owner being net savvy enough to do something like that (this is a small town with ISPs you can count on one hand, no DSL or cable), I bet him a pint of guinness that it wasn't MP3.

    Needless to say, the bartender informed us it was and poured out that pint. They had set up some proggie with a playlist so nobody would need to bother with it much, and hooked up the PC to an amp.

    It was really a bit of a surprise for me, because Australia in general is quite behind on the net, both in terms of bandwidth and a crushing regulatory framework that ensures companies can't compete in the world market.

    So there you go, MP3s playing in pubs. Can't get any more into the public mainstream than that.

  • Digital copying of copyrighted works for personal use is forbidden, and our constitutional protection of religious freedom is limited to worshipping _God_ in any way, i.e. monotheism.
  • then this would be modded +2 Funny :)
  • In Thailand, everything is nice and open. Major web portals do feature mp3 search engines, and it is the norm. Napster hasn't caught up because the Thai character set is incompatible, you try searching Napster for, example, à àÃÔ and you get everything but that.
    Still, there is no need for napster, you can get CD's full of MP3's of different artists and genre from New Age, to Venga boyz to some good Underground for just $2.5 (and getting less and less as the currency slips away) as well as VCD/CD/MP3 players for about $50-$60. (I just got a portable one for $150!!)

    Here, the main philosophy is "sabai sabai" or, translated roughly "take it easy". Anything goes :-)
  • Amendments to the Copyright Act in Australia earlier this year specifically exempted downloadable digital media.

    As of this particular point in time, it's legal to download MP3s from the Internet. More significantly, it's also legal to share your MPs as well.

    The situation arose because the Government attached digital media copyright legislation to a bill which contained a number of unrelated provisions which the Australian Democrats, who hold the balance of power in the Senate, weren't prepared to vote for. And, rather than separate the digital media copyright legislation from the bill and send it to the Senate separately (which would have resulted in Digital Media Copyright passing and the other stuff which the Government wanted being voted down), the Government gambled that the Dems would vote for the whole package because they wouldn't want to vote against digital copyright.

    The Democrats examined the situation, and concluded that if they voted for the package, they'd end up with a whole lot of legislation they weren't prepared to support, whereas if they voted against it they'd end up with the status quo being preserved: The country has survived without digital media copyright for this long, it can survive for a few more months until the Government tries the Bill again without the bits the Dems object to.

    So, we're left with a new Copyright Act which passed last year, which carries a clause which specifically states that it's not intended to apply to digital media, because other legislation will deal with that -- But the proposed legislation has never materialized because the Democrats voted against it.

    As a result, Australia is probably one of the most MP3-friendly countries in the world at the moment. Everyone thinks it's illegal, because it probably was under the old Copyright Act, but it isn't under the new Act. Share and enjoy!

    -----

  • can you post a link?
    ___
  • is so much cheaper, AIUI, in the US that it is much more of an issue over there. IMO. And the DMCA and such general corporacrat tendencies probably make it easier for the corps to pressure universities, Napstoids, etc.
  • Not to mention Roxette, Aha, Abba, well you get the idea... I fully agree, Swedish pop sucks!
    --
  • Make that Judeo-Christio-Islamic, please.
    --
  • Here in Austria, legal regulations are quite good. You may, for example, copy a CD and give it to a friend of yours if you own the cd. You may also copy the cd if you lent it from a friend (I think you may only copy the cd from the original). The only point is that you dont distribute it (judges understand distributing as copying more than 9 times). That does also apply to software...

    You also have AKG (something like RIAA) but it seems that they are more focused on live-events than on mp3.

    The main reason, why napster is not very popular in university-network-administration is the bandwith it consumes.

    Gery
    ------------------------------

  • Actually, the situation is even worse: it is forbidden to make any digital copies. There is no such thing as a fair use clause in the Danish law.
    AFAIK, this even was valid at some stage for taping (you know, these cassette type thingies you could put into thingies that used to be called Walkman) from the radio. I'm not sure what the situation is on that now.

  • yeah and there's always the Cardigans (pop played with heavy metal sensibilities)
  • > America(by this I mean most english speaking countries...

    Since when does America mean the English-speaking world. Is it the same reasoning that induces people to refer to Bill Clinton as the President of the Free World? Or whatever the title is.

  • There have been quite a lot of mainstream articles telling what Napster is and how it works, some of them even mentioned Gnutella and Freenet.
    Legal situation?
    It's legal to download, but serving requires a permit. The legality of linking to mp3's abroad has not been solved in court, but the local RIAA, Teosto, is bullying people and ISPs to remove links.
  • I fully agree, Swedish pop sucks!

    Maybe, but some of their rock/metal crushes; Entombed, The Haunted, At the Gates and Arch Enemy r00l.

  • Carleton University in Ottawa blocks Napster and Scour. I don't think it was as much for piracy, but instead because it was taking up 80% of the university bandwidth. If they really wanted to kill piracy on campus, they'd block "Network Neighbourhood" where people regularily spend an evening watching pirated copies of entire movies.
  • I have been out of Japan for a long time, so I cannot tell how exactly it is like there. However, a friend of mine who visited the US in May had a G-Shock with MP3 player built in.

    She also said that everyone knows what MP3 is these days, and there is no trouble getting MP3 files of the most recent hits from the Internet. The said G-Shock model apparently was the most popular model at that time.
  • > Most other countries have a smaller percentage of the population owning computers. Thus it's a smaller issue. Actually, you'll find that there is a higher percentage of the population owning computers in Scandinavia than in USA. We just don't have as fast and cheap Internet access as you people.
  • > Most other countries have a smaller percentage of the population owning computers. Thus it's a smaller issue.

    Actually, you'll find that there is a higher percentage of the population owning computers in Scandinavia than in USA. We just don't have as fast and cheap Internet access as you people.

  • copyright exists to ensure musicians get paid. the other side is that
    once an artist produces something - it goes beyond them and many
    benefit.

    between consumers and producers now stands record companies - but paying
    artists is only a step on the way to gaining profit. in practice, many
    musicians (who play instruments) starve, while marketing bimbos (spice
    girls) thrive - this is wrong.

    a fundemental qualitative difference between physical and electronic
    goods is - if i have an apple and give you an apple, i no longer have an
    apple; but if i have an idea and give you an idea, we BOTH have an idea.

    therefore you cannot treat electronic things as if they were actually
    physical goods, because they aren't! still, you must compensate
    producers of the original bits - so what to do?

    MUSICIANS ASSOCIATIONS:

    - the physical distributors and merchandisers pay into the musician's pool that pays and feeds the musicians.

    - the musicians pool distributes it equitably among its active producers.

    - from the pool comes more new music. which is given away for free. unlimited digital copies for everyone, never again a dime paid for anything that's just DATA.

    - distributors get fresh music, and sell and package more STUFF.

    - distributors pay back a percentage of sales back into the pool.

    - so it comes back and feeds itelf (the most important part).

    so all software is free - you get mindshare from it. but if you make a
    physical whose value lies on the free music on it, then a percentage
    goes back. but the artist is not paid direct - it goes to the musician's
    pool, which doles out shares each month by percentage of overall
    downloads from Napster.

    http://home.earthlink.net/~johnrpenner/Articles/ Steiner-Social.html
  • Your statments are a textbook example of closed-mindedness.

    Uh. You obviously didn't get the joke. The music he listed was bad.

    I know you Giant Canadian Crack Rabbits don't have a sense of humor up there (it froze, I suppose), but at least TRY to keep up.
  • Here in Argentina everybody is trading MP3 at work, and you can buy almost anywhere CDs with all the MP3 of any given music band.
    Most rock bands from here are posting their latest jobs on their web pages.
  • You're only dealing with Napster at University. MP3s themselves are actually accepted by the recording industry here. DJs are allowed to make MP3s of the CDs they have and use the MP3s in their performances.
  • We have 150+ latest mp3 songs in each CD for sale everywhere....illegal of course.

    When I was a kid I used to droll over stories of mass piriacy like this. Then I got broadband and my dreams came true. :-P
    __

  • I've got to say that I take extreme offense from having my country (Britain) called "America" because we speak the same language. We are not like you, you are not like us, we are not the same. We don't even speak the same dialects.

    Remember that not everybody that reads /. is American!
  • Wow! Are other countries as strict as this? anyone?
  • Since version 3.70 (or so) LAME is entirely free. Besides, since about the same version LAME is BETTER than frauenhoffer and all the other encoders. Encode all you music at 128 vbs (variable bit stream), and you'll have the most perfect mp3's you can get.

    Johan V.
  • Well, going to Japan quite a lot myself, I can tell you that you can find any piece of hardware for playing MP3 you can imagine, from watches to players & recorders, Japanese or foreign models (the cheapest I'ven seen is a Taiwanese model around $80, looks ugly though ). There are also a few magazines dedicated to MP3 and more and more people seem to be aware of what MP3 is, and not only geeks!

    I have heard of pages where you can get some MP3 with your portable phone by using web-like services such as i-mode or Jphone. You can already download new music for your portable phone (multi-voice, not a buzzer!), which is now in proprietary format, but it wouldn't surprise me if phone makers made it possible to upload MP3 music as well.

  • from the end of the article you referenced: They are still unable to agree a joint policy days after Widdecombe's announcement."

    (emphasis added)

    That is HILARIOUS!

  • >>It is illegal to make digital copies og digital
    >>products, which is hard not to do
    >No, that law has been changed, you may now make a digital copy(providing youre not breaking any copyright law of course).

    No, not yet. That law won't go into effect until jan 1st 2001, sorry.

    >Press [ALT][F4] for IQ test
    Hm, funny, nothing happens... :) Damn UNIX, nothing works :)
  • I wasn't aware that the UK, Canada, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand etc were part of "America" either...
  • Maybe some readers can describe how the "music on the internet" debate has gone in other areas of the world.

    But all but one of the big five record companies is foreign. So the debate has been international since the big record companies began opposing it.
  • I believe there was a story on the Australian 60 Minutes a few weeks back on Napster, however it may have been a stright copy from the US one. Typically 'mainstream' media is against Napster and co here in Australia....

    Australia seems to follow the US fairly closely when it comes to technology issues (encryption etc). I'm not sure why (probably some treaty)

    This is the stuff I've learn all year in my Year 12 International Stuides class (Exam in 9 days). Generally, since WWII, we have been VERY nice to the USA, and followed them almost totally (Vote the same in UN, participation in Korean and Vietnam wars, let then set up bases such as Pine Gap....) up until the early 1970's, with the return of Labor to power for the first time in over 30 years, and the Nixson doctrine both pushing us up the path towards more independence. As as we stand now, we still sometimes unfortunatly look towards the USA, not because we NEED to follow them, but because "they said such-and-such is bad, so it must be." However, defence-wise, we are fairly independant (we should be able to hold back any resonable threat in our reagon as it stands), and out independance was shown in the East Timor operation of last year.

    Anyway, I'm ranting offtopic, so I'll stop now... ;)

    Oh, and Triple J is the best radio station in the country, as we all know....


  • It would be perfectly legal to make mp3s of your own CDs in the UK, provided you do not distribute them. This comes under the same exemption as making tape copies of CDs - namely transferring to a different media for time-shifted use.

    As for patents, it really depends on which software you use. The frauenhoffer (sp?) stuff is still valid in the UK, but as long as you use a mainstream licensed ripper there's no problem at all.

  • In one of the main technical universities in Italy they set up a firewall denying access to the whole napster.com domain.
    The worse aspect in this fact is that no communication was issued by the network managers or anybody else: we just found it didn't work anymore.
    I don't know what's the policy of other italian universities.
    Nice eh?!
  • I was amazed to find-out, however, that Napster is well known and used even in relatively back-water South Italy ( which might be back-water as for technology but which spends huge money on electronics consumables ). Many click-and-run computer users have downloaded a copy of Napster client. I know people which switched to flat-rate dial-up( still dialup, but you don't pay for the telephone call, just pay a fixed amount per month to the provider ), only because of Napster.

    According to the media, many artists see Napster/MP3 as only a tool for pirating their music. There are exceptions, however. In one interview, an Italian rock-star of 80s (I believe) said that the only way he found to publish his new pieces was Internet. While he is still famous, all the companies he contacted requested him to go throu all the media show ( radiso, tv's and such ) before publishing, while he just wanted to publish his music.

    Italian 'anty-piracy' regulations have just been strengthened, making them too much similar to the ones in US and in other countries ( now for instance also to publish free software CD you need a special permission from SIAE ).

  • I just spent some weeks in the Netherlands for work. Last week I heard a local(?) radio, english-speeking, saying that they tried out a couple of MP3s of a band which only publish via Internet. The public liked them, and now they are among the most requested and played.

    The DJ reported this fact as a proof that MP3s are not only evil, while talking with a local(?) rock star (which knew nothing about).

    Sorry but I can't remeber the names - for me music is just something I occasionally hear while driving.

  • Friday (Nov 3), An organisation called BREIN (acronym which translates to Protection Rights Entertainment Industry Netherlands) issued a cease-and-desist to the dutch website www.napster.nl for linking to illegal music. They have 48 hours (not including the weekend) to remove all links.

    The website's creator, Johan van Vliet, refuses to remove these links. He is referring to a recent deep-linking case in the Netherlands in which deep linking to newspaper articles was deemed legal.

    Although newspaper articles are copyrighted material, they are published on the web freely, which seems an entirely different case to me. (On a related note, Brad Templeton has a very interesting article [templetons.com] on linking rights.)

  • Well, in Europe its pretty easy. There are only two stances. First is this one of EU. Many states that are not in EU are right now in process of requesting membership in EU which means that their laws have to comply with standards and policies of EU, before they get accepted. So in these states (like Czech Republic, Hungaria and Poland in first wave and Slovakia, baltic countries, Chroatia and others in second wave) is the situation similar to this in EU.

    The other stance is the one of Rusia, Ukraine, Belorus, and other countries of Soviet Union. Most of them have none legislative or do not have institutions to enforce their laws.

  • Here in Germany you are allowed to copy music and video for personal use(from rented stuff for example), for friends or for family.

    MP3's are handled the same way, though the music industry won't ever tell you this here. They just call all copying piracy as usual.

    It is however illegal to publicaly offer and distribute them. It is not illegal to download them however. I reckon the same applies to Divx stuff, but I'm not too shure about that. If you rent a DVD, you'r ok to copy the thing, but I don't know about circumvention of copyprotection.

    Tony

  • Our copyright organization, while bearing much resemblance to the US copyright system has a few differences. Copying for backup purposes (IE: you own the original) is by and large legal. Don't quote me on that though. Copying to tape is legal (copyright fee paid with purchase of tape). The laws I saw said nothing about mp3s or CD's though.
    The real big difference is actually with broadcast rights. DJ's can license a hard drive full of mp3's for $200 (per hard drive). Yes this was on ./ at one point. This is over and above DJ license.
    On the flip side I really doubt that Canada would ever sign on to that 'universal' copyright thingy the RIAA/MPAA/USA are trying to put out. It violates several sections of our constitution...
    In the end I suspect the laws here will change in a different direction.
    But unless some way gets proven to make money from the distribution of mp3's, I don't think Canada by and large will be interested. Canada -loves- taxes.

  • In Nigeria (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    There have never been any copyright laws. The television stations broadcast pirated movies.

    So I guess the 10,000 or so people who have internet access don't have any problems with downloading or using mp3s.

    -J.
  • If you believe the Judeo-Christian creation myth (Garden of Eden, Adam & Eve, etc) then surely we are all related.

    Now I can give a copy of any CD to anyone, because we share great-to-the-nth grandparents.
  • The good thing about the ad-campaign (with lots of prime-time TV spots) against MP3 files, was that the Danish RIAA-equivalent really came out as the bad guys who were going after children. They already pulled every dirty trick in the book (paying kids to turn in other kids, scanning the newsgroups for the work MP3 and spamming anyone who mentioned it woth threats of lawsuits, suing kids who *linked* to pages where you could download MP3's, and trying to bully the ISP's to block access to MP3 files).

    The TV ads made the general public aware of what they did, and probably helped change the law so that making digital copies are now allowed in some circumstances.
  • Every album that comes out in Taiwan, Hong Kong and the PRC is available on mp3, and most music videos are available as realmedia files.

    Most interesting about the Chinas is that they use websites to distribute mp3s and don't need to rely on things like napster. Good sites are mirrored in their entirety in several places, a lot like sunsite.

    Their governments appear to leave them alone, so there is none of the direct linking and voting popup rubbish that we have here in the English speaking world.

    cdjmp3 [top169.net] is a good example of a popular mainland mp3 site with many mirrors. (GB encoded)
  • So if, for example, an EMI executive spots some "pirated" mp3's on your website, what does he do? Email Jiang Zemin and threaten him with a lawsuit?

    Really, I think you're probably ok. That's why HK mp3 (and warez and movie) sites are doing so well right now.
  • http://www.modernhumorist.com/mh/0011 /mp 3/ [modernhumorist.com]

    I have the communism one hanging over my bed :)
    --
  • I live in Reykjavik, Iceland, and it has become very popular for Icelandic musical artists to have websites that contain the most popular songs on their CD releases...this has been done by several prominent local artists such as Quarashi, Bubbi Morthens and many others. I think this is a very clever move that actually boosts local sales.

  • What? how can you possibly compete with the quality of the Spice Girls, 5ive, West Life or Steps? Admit it, when it comes to music the UK leads the world.
  • How do they know, for the sake of argument, whether you downloaded copyrighted music, as opposed to public domain music or music that has been authorized for free distribution by the copyright holder?
  • I'd be very interested to know the legal situation regarding MP3 encoders etc. in the UK (and other countries). In which countries are various patents valid?

    I'm not interested in stealing music, but I would like to encode MP3s of music I own (is that legal in the UK?) on my PC to produce a random access jukebox.

    Gerv
  • Hey now.. that's only in British Columbia. :)
  • Hah! Always read the small print.

    15 pounds gets you unlimited local calls OFFPEAK (6pm-8am, and all weekend).

    But. After 60 minutes of the call, it starts charging. (You're "free" to hang up and dial again, says the literature, but that's no good if you're in the middle of downloading Mozilla).


    --Remove SPAM from my address to mail me
  • SVM Macintosh did an article this month.

    Legal if you own the source CD and you use the MP3 in the familly circle (guess that if you can prove you are someones 42 cousin by marrage it's OK...).

    Else illegal under copyright law.
  • The interesting bit of this is that downloading music is perfectly legal, as is storing it. After all, you've already paid for making a home-copy when you bought the media. There is no such surcharge on harddrives, yet, but there wasn't on CD-Rs before, and obviously they're getting it now, so the brunt is on them to actually go after the money. (And they will)

    hosting music without paying off the record companies (which may or may not actually pay the people whose music is being distributed an approriate amount of money, or at all) is illegal, and the temporary arrangement seems to have been suspended. I use the word 'paying off' judiciously; it's obviously a bribe to get them off your back -- if you host anything other than top-40 MP3s the artists are unlikely to actually get paid for what is know in Dutch as 'author's rights' (as opposed to copyright).

    Recently VPRO radio had to pull all the Sony owned music from their programming since they store all of their programs, available for streaming, on their website (weeding out Sony songs and edit them out of the streams was just too much work).

    The other big 4 (soon to be 3) record companies are, of course, following suit.
    --

  • Well I know that Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario couldn't care less about MP3 trading, since I haven't heard a single peep in the 3 years I was there... of course, since most people are using cable modems and not the internal network (which sucks), then that might account for something...

    Also, Carleton University in Ottawa seems to have not said anything (at least publicly) for the year I've been there. *shrug* Ditto for my friend in University of Waterloo (although they cut down bandwith allowance quite a bit recently, so that may mean something).
  • > The local version of RIAA ran an and campaign
    > last year, witj slogans like: "How many lawyers > can fit it to your child's bedroom."

    They also had slogans like "It's not illegal to buy a buy a CD-R drive. It's also not illegal to buy a ski mask".

    The funny part was, though, the one time it was posted right next to an ad for the Phillips CD-copier...

    The record indutry in Denmark is quite strict. Last year, some poor 14 year-old was sued for well over $100k just for *linking* to mp3's from his web-site. I think he walked, though

    Just a couple of months ago, the dorm I live in, and a bunch of others, were "bullied" into paying a bunch of money to the industry, because somebody had gone in and taken *screenshots* of shared directories under windows. ('scuse me, 1) give me an hour and the gimp, and I'll give you a screenshot of anything, 2) If I want to have a file 3934729 bytes long called "Madonna - Music.mp3", isn't that perfectly legal).
    But we decided to settle, bacause we knew it was all too true (There were shitloads of MP3's) and there was no way in hell we could win a suit, much less pay what they asked in the first place.

    You can feel that this whole thing is a first-timer for the record industry. They're gonna experience a major change in the way they do business, and they know it.

  • In Norway it is permitted to make copies of copyrighted works for personal use (Exceptions exist for computer software and databases). Personal use means copies for yourself and/or friends and family. Practically this means you can make copies of your music and hand out to a few friends. You can _not_ put up an mp3 on an open web-server (unless you own it's contents).

    As for enfocement. TONO (our equivalent to RIAA) haven't been to active in the media (possibly because they are currently more occupied by infighting and accusations of corruption of their execs). However mp3 servers operating too openly will likely recieve a ceace and desist fairly soon.
  • buma is complaining currently about napster.nl [napster.nl] offering links to mp3s. send email to
    pieter.haringsma@buma.nl to tell him what you think.. (politely).

    //rdj
  • You must realize that most of this mind set is due to the limited worldwide knowledge of events in the American Culture. This can be attributed to a centrifical media mind set driven to "make the buck". Most public television stations (and newspapers too) rarely cover international subjects. The fact that we have to pay for programs such as CNN is only indicative of the segragative system instore in this culture.

    This trend has been transversing into the WWW medium as big advertising and marketing companies have been taking notice it. Unfortunately those ad companies mistake this medium as a national one instead of what is really is: a global communications tool.

  • There are few or no laws regarding anything that is digital. The Telecomunication act treats data networks as phone networks. Computers, internet and mp3's are NOT covered by any law. You can buy mp3 and DivX:-) cd's at the corner of the street. (and also loads of pirated software) as long as they are not music cd's which must have some glowing sticker - no problemo with the police :)

    The MS-BSA guys are going only after big companies and the cover strictly MS products.

    Ph33r the 34573rN 3ur0p3 w4r3z d00d2 !!! :)

    --
  • Been on slashdot before.

    Swedish Court Clears Teen for Linking to MP3s [slashdot.org]

    Swedish Supreme Court MP3 Ruling [slashdot.org]


  • 1) Most other countries have a smaller percentage of the population owning computers. Thus it's a smaller issue.

    2) Most other countries don't seem to have flat rate plans for internet access as is common (even expected) in the US. Furthermore, local calls in the US are free (modulo your monthly bill). Downloading MP3s is thus more expensive, and hence less commonplace (and less of an issue).

    3) Piracy is more commonplace in many other countries, since the US economy is comparatively
    strong. Thus it's less of an issue.
    --
    Chris Long, Departments of Mathematics & Statistics, Rutgers University
  • Well, I'm in Australia, and I've only heard about MP3s/napster once or twice in the mainstream media, and then only on the ABCs alternative youth network triple j [abc.net.au]. (btw, they stream real audio, so have a listen, normally pretty good IMHO) They mainly talked about the "shutdown" of napster when all that stuff was happening with the courts over there in the US a couple months ago. I haven't heard anything about Australia and our goverment/record industrys stand on the matter.

    I really think they are waiting to see what happens to the RIAA before making noise. Australia seems to follow the US fairly closely when it comes to technology issues (encryption etc). I'm not sure why (probably some treaty), and I can tell you I get *very* frustrated that we aren't more proactive in these things.

    Better stop before I start ranting :)

  • I just got sent this in my daily mail from APC. Straight cut and paste job here. Thought that you might be interested in it.

    btw, good luck on the exam!

    BMG Australia puts music on Web
    Fresh from its deal with Napster, record company BMG has agreed to offer 14 "promotional" songs from Australian artists for free download over the Internet. The songs, which can only be played for 30 days after downloading, include tracks by John Farnham, Bachelor Girl and You Am I. The music will be available in Windows Media Format, which encodes music files to prevent illegal copying and restrict where and when the songs can be played.

    Sorry /. is mangling my links, you'll have to copy/paste
    http://newswire.com.au/apcweb/news.nsf/HTML/AllHea dlines/5EA78E5D1B822E94CA2569900004B48B

  • If you have ever listened to RRR in Melbourne or FBI in Sydeny (when it's on) you would see JJJ is nothing special, it just doesn't suck as much as the commercial stations.

    Can you post a frequency for these two stations? I live in sydney and would love to here FBI (I'm guessing that they don't have full licences?)

    I'm not saying it shouldn't exist just that it's no where near the nirvana or radio that a lot of people to think it is :-)

    I can see your point, but they do a lot of counrty broadcasting which is great for people in remote areas (and why they get my loyalty (and I hate commercial advertising)). Before I moved to sydney I lived in a couple different country towns, and all you get is AM talkback, AM "great hits from the '60s '70 and '80s" and ABC clasical. If I was lucky, I could get triple j, and then none of the dials on my radios would move :)

  • mp3's are alive and well in South Africa
    As for the issues, yes, they exist, radio stations have mentioned them, they've been on TV, people who have access to the net download them.
    We have extensive piracy over here, but from a population point of view, it's no biggy when compared to say, eastern european / asian countries.
    Put it this way, no one is getting arrested for storing or making mp3 files available - I've found tons of them on some of main ISP's ftp servers !
    I think we've got a little more to worry about than that - education for one !
    There's an estimated 2.5 million web users in the Whole of Africa - that's a tiny figure
    I'd say South Africa probably has about 1.5 million of those users, yet our population is around 45 million, IOW, less than 3% of our population is aware/has access to the internet, so mp3 files are hardly an issue over here !
  • First off I'll correct the type, it's Kosheen, and is Decoder & Substance's vocal side project, you can find their releases on the Moksha label if I'm not mistaken. A full album is either already out now or due out soon, I forget exactly, but I've seen mp3's of it floating around already. Secondly, 100 to 1 the word promo is involved. Promo CD. Promo vinyl. Test press vinyl. DJ got friendly and lent a dubplate they ripped to mp3. It could be an mp3 from say.. sour (an mp3 ripping group specializing in drum'n'bass) I suppose, but I'm just saying it's far more likely that it's the radio station getting a promo to build up more hype for the track (that thing really did blow up). Happens all the time. It's sort of sad to say this, but all too often tracks blow up and get real popular WAAAAAY before they are available due to the dubplate way of life. Like.. Konflict - Messiah. Or... anything from the Cybotron 2000 album. Just my 2 cents.
  • On the other hand, we're paying a CD-R tax to give to Canadian recording artists.

    Now, that REALLY frosts my ass. Sure, 95% of my CD-Rs are for pirating music ... but not ONE SINGLE SONG EVER has been by a Canadian recording artist signed to a label, who are the only people getting any.
  • The BBC has a network of around 30-40 local radio stations, serving different areas of England (Scotland, Wales and N. Ireland have a different setup).

    These stations are mainly spoken word or specialist music, but they do play music. They appear to have some form of MP3 system, as they are able to play songs by request if they are in their on-line library of around 1000 tracks. I may be able to visit the studio in the future to see how this works in practice.

    This being the BBC, everything is 100% legal. The BBC have always adapted to new technology. They used to store their old vinyl collection on DAT, and broadcast a lot of their in-house recordings from MD (as opposed to proper tape a few years ago.).

  • There is a Russian band called "Neschastniy Sluchai" which is really kewl. They got a website, and you can listen/download all their songs for all the alboms in .ra or .mp3 formats. Quality is good as well.

    As you can see, some people don't rely that much on the laws, but give you the choice. If I were still living in Russia I would go and buy their alboms, not burn them.

    This practice is not uncommon, many famous Russian bands have mp3s available for downloads on their website. There is a great deal of piracy in Russia, if you go and try to buy an albom, there is a 50% chance that that albom is not original. So I guess they just think that giving people the mp3s would not hurt more.


  • Over here it's not particularly a worry, ofcourse, the association of record companies is slightly pissed as you'll understand, but media attention is limited to a couple of small comments on page 30+ of papers once every couple of weeks.

    The internet as a whole isn't subject to much scrutiny in Holland actually, Holland as most people will know is a very liberal country, and unless you do something absolutely disgusting noone really minds.

    I firmly believe that the internet should stay uncensored, the reason the internet has gotten this big and thios popular is because you can access ANY piece of information you want, without having to ask anyone or having to do a lot of work to get it.

    Censorship in general keeps people stupid, the more you limit the informationflow and manipulate it, the more you go towards creating unthinking zombies who live, eat, sleep and breathe with the ideas that the ruling bodies want them to have.

  • In the UK there are essentially two bodies who goven music licencing. They are the MCPS [mcps.co.uk] and the PRS [prs.co.uk]. They will both charge UK music users if they publish audio on the web that requires a licence (for eg, music not owned by the publisher although there are other exceptions) however the PRS state on their website that software such as Napster is not to blame because they are not the content providers. [prs.co.uk].

    Where there is broadband available in the UK the amount of mp3 swapping between individuals can be very high. Take the University that I attend as an example. On the residential network (the network running around student halls of residence) the number of people sharing mp3's via Microsoft Networking is very high indeed and that doesn't take into account those people who set up their own FTP servers and alike. Software like Napster and websites that publish links to mp3 files just make it easier for people to share and download music whether it has been authorised by the copyright holder or not. If these services did not exist then the semi-underground movement of sharing mp3's (or bootleg tapes, or CD's, or any other form of music carrying media) would continue.

    Another good website which deals with copyright issues within the UK is run by the Copyright Licensing Agency [cla.co.uk]. Although it is a bit backward with regards to specific information on digital and Internet copyright issues it does give the raw facts.

    --Dan.
  • >I can't say the response in Canada to MP3s has been too much different in nature than the US, although it's probably less heavy-handed.

    In much the same way that our response to Marijauna and other mild narcotics has been much less heavy-handed than our good neighbours to the south, eh?

    (For those not schooled in Canadian politics, there is about a 50/50 chance that Marijauna will be legalized in Canada within the next federal term, which becomes significantly greater for the one thereafter. It is already to the point where somebody can be stopped by a cop with 30g of the stuff, and get off with a warning, provided it isn't divided into portions.)
  • The situation in Russia is very different. Artists get most of the money from tours and concerts, because it is difficult to collect royalties from CD distribution. For them, distributing stuff online only increases their popularity and, as a result, concert audience. Also, there is a significant number of well-known groups, who are not signed and distribute their music using services from distribution companies, not giving up copyrights. They usually don't object to their music put online.
  • I'd echo those comments for Australia. It's a bit annoying when some case in the US affects what you can do here...sort of ironic that a medium supposed to cross borders and remove international boundaries has had the opposite effect in this case(or at least the potential to). Then again, if those servers were in Aus and the parent company was here..... our artists are busy fighting 'grey import' laws for cd's so I'm sure they'd have some say. The biggest problem we'd face down here is whatever Murdoch and Packer's opinion on the subject was would form itself into a federal law to protect their interests..the price you pay for idiotic media ownership laws that let rich media barons run the place.

  • Re:FairTunes (Score:3)

    by kmcardle ( 24757 ) <ksmcardle@gmail. c o m> on Tuesday November 07, 2000 @04:15AM (#643736)
    I can't say the response in Canada to MP3s has been too much different in nature than the US, although it's probably less heavy-handed.
    Isn't it like a law or something that one out of every four songs traded on Napster in Canada has to be by a Canadian artist?

  • In Brazil... (Score:3)

    by Brazilian Geek ( 25299 ) on Tuesday November 07, 2000 @12:55AM (#643737) Journal
    .. any kind of copying of copyright material is illegal. You may buy a CD but under no circumstances may you copy it. This is for any kind of copying, not just digital copies.

    As the law stands nobody gives a sh*t, we rip CDs for all we got and participate actively in the former Napster, as a test I had only one MP3 in my Napster a few months back, a rare track from a famous brazilian artist - in 2 days I had more than 50 downloads (tracked and identified, of course) to, at least, 40 brazilians.

    Oh, there's an HP commercial that airs with some girl walking in New York listening to some music then burning a CD with the tunes - I bet most of you have seen it. Well, at the end of the commercial, in TINY letters is written something like "it's illegal to copy"... Well, I guess that kinda kills the whole campaign - "Look but don't touch"...

    Some artists allow their music to be played on half-assed internet "radio stations" using, exclusively, WMA and/or RA for streaming.
    ---

    --
    All browsers' default homepage should read: Don't Panic...

  • FairTunes (Score:3)

    by tbo ( 35008 ) on Monday November 06, 2000 @11:26PM (#643738) Journal
    Check out FairTunes [fairtunes.com] for an example of how some Canadians are rewarding artists without stifling the free music scene.

    I can't say the response in Canada to MP3s has been too much different in nature than the US, although it's probably less heavy-handed.

    At the University of British Columbia [www.ubc.ca] (yes, that's in Canada, in Vancouver), Napster is officially persona non grata, but it's not actually blocked, and they don't seem to care unless you're pigging bandwidth. The University of Victoria [www.uvic.ca] has been less lenient, and has forced some students to uninstall Napster while campus security watched, with the threat of suspension if caught using Napster again. I'm not too sure about other universities in Canada, but I suspect they're somewhere between UBC and UVic.

    Remember, Canada doesn't have the DMCA, or UCITA, and the MPAA and RIAA aren't based here. That's got to count for something, too :-)

  • Re:MP3 in The Netherlands (Score:3)

    by thimo ( 36102 ) on Tuesday November 07, 2000 @01:18AM (#643739) Homepage
    AFAIK all the records you hear on 3FM are being played/started from the computer and are probably in MP3 format. They must have a huge collection of MP3's over there.

    A little while back there was a hit by Kosheem (Hide you) which was played a lot on 3FM, but which you couldn't buy anywhere. The station obviously got it from Napster and advertised it a lot.

    3FM has been the #1 popradiostation in the Netherlands for years, non-commercial, sponsored by the government.

    Thimo
    --

  • In the UK (Score:3)

    by pstorry ( 47673 ) on Monday November 06, 2000 @11:14PM (#643740) Homepage
    We get the same concerns as you seem to have in the US.

    We also had coverage of Napster, but the coverage was very low-key. There's been lots of "debate" in the computing press, but less in the mass media - this is probably because we don't have the cheap access that the US seems to have.

    Without wishing to whinge, when you're paying per minute for your connection to your ISP, downloading entire albums does not become a hobby. ;-)

    When we start getting better penetration in the broadband market, we'll start seeing all the articles you've had being recycled into our mass media. But until then, I don't expect it'll fuss us much.

  • Re:moot question. (Score:3)

    by guran ( 98325 ) on Tuesday November 07, 2000 @01:48AM (#643741)
    I'm ashamed to reveal that most of the shit is actually swedish.
    Check out producer/songwriter etc for Britney, N'Sync, Backstreet boys, Celine Dion, etc.
    Max Martin and Cheirion studios all over the place.

    Yes the country that brought you ABBA and Roxette is now haunting you with worse music than ever.

  • Re:In Belgium... (Score:3)

    by Dingy! ( 125946 ) on Tuesday November 07, 2000 @12:17AM (#643742)
    It is done the other way around.
    Marcel Heymans [mailto] (Director of the IFPI Belgium) goes online on Napster and tries to find music of Belgian artists. If he can download such music from your computer (and thus you are offering music to the community) then you get a warning.....and you go into his favorites ;p.
    Next weeks he tries again and if he finds your computer offering again, you lose your account!
    And yes, he likes it even more when it's a student. An example [ifpi.org]
    It's that simple.

  • In Belgium... (Score:3)

    by Halo1 ( 136547 ) on Monday November 06, 2000 @11:44PM (#643743)
    ... the local variant of the RIAA has been actively monitoring which people from Belgium download songs via Napster and sending letters to their ISP's to shut down their internet access... And ISP's do comply (most of the time the firt time you get a warning, the second time you loose your access).

    --

  • South Africa (Score:3)

    by beerygaz ( 222194 ) on Tuesday November 07, 2000 @12:20AM (#643744)
    Napster has had some coverage in the technical press over here, but nothing mainstream. With bandwidth so low over here (dial-up and a bit of ISDN) and call charges so high it's not made much of an impact. Like most countries, it's legal to make MP3's for your own use from music you own. We don't have much in the way of pirated music (online or offline) and with one of the highest violent crime rates in the world, MP3 pirates are not on the "10 most wanted" list.

  • Malaysia // Thailand (Score:3)

    by DiviN ( 246231 ) on Tuesday November 07, 2000 @12:44AM (#643745) Homepage
    Firstly a correction: THERE *ARE* copyright laws in Thailand - it's just that they are not much enforced and for open pirates it's easy to pay off cops, buy courts, etc. when Thai authorities are busy bettering their image and raid the public areas where priated material is sold openly.
    The cops usually bring the press along, make three token arrests and that's that. Apart from that, all shops suddenly close down shortly before the cops arrive.

    Malaysia is slightly more civilized. While you can still find everything pretty much out in the open [music, movies, software] the government is doing slightly more to fix it's image. But then, one has to consider that most of those Thai pirated CDs are made in Malaysia in the first place. It is a bit tougher to enforce the laws here [although they try harder than the Thais], because Malaysia also produces about 60% of all legal CDs sold world-wide.

    As to MP3, Napster, etc. The Malaysian press openly condemns the use of pirated material, but tongue in cheek, publishes all relevant links to sources of such bad bad sites in the same article.

    On the higher level of understanding, copyright is well and truely not part of the mass psyche here. People happily sacrifice quality in return for cheaper prices [and it is a turn-on to watch a blockbuster movie on VCD a week before the official release in the U.S.].

    As to software piracy, if it wasn't for that, the Internet would have not spread that fast and would still be very much a western thing.

    Consider this, a good PC is available for about $1,500 while a decent PC clone with not too many gadgets costs from about $500 in Malaysia.

    With an original M$ WIN O/S the box would cost around $800.00. Add office and you look at $1,400.00

    Yes original software is dearer here than in the U.S.

    [It is not an issue here to discuss that they don't have to use M$ and stuff; we are looking at the broad masses that have no idea - just like you didn't when you were born].

    So, at an average monthly wage of about $300 for a factory worker and $500 for middle admin, most people could never afford to really buy their kids computers - if it wasn't for software piracy.

    Governments know that, but can't really admit it openly...

    And as they don't enforce software, they can't really enforce movies and music either - they are all pirated in the same factories after all.

  • mp3s in Switzerland (Score:3)

    by thisisnotanick ( 252371 ) on Tuesday November 07, 2000 @04:12AM (#643746)
    IANAL, but I think the legal situation doesn't differ much from other western European countries. It's no problem to make mp3s of your own CDs (or friend's), neither downloading. Serving is illegal, but AFAIK there haven't been any lawsuits yet. The sites just get kicked by the ISPs. In real life MP3s are not a very hot topic, probably due to limited bandwidth for most users, but this is going to change. People heard of Napster, but usual Mr. Swiss does not exactly know, what it means. Mass media and government care more for other unwelcome stuff like racist or pornographic content. There are attempts for filter software or sueing ISPs (just loud thinking, not much happening yet), but this might as well have an influence on mp3s, warez; and politics as well. This is an International problem, in the name of copyright and other blah blah freedom of speech is cut down in little slices, so no one will notice its disappearance until it's too late.

  • Re:MP3 in The Netherlands (Score:4)

    by DanThe1Man ( 46872 ) on Monday November 06, 2000 @11:40PM (#643747)
    There has also been a campaign (i.e. posters, commercials)against illegal copying of music.

    Posters? You mean ones like this? [zdnet.com]
    __

  • Re:Well, they think US laws apply here...(NL) (Score:4)

    by radja ( 58949 ) on Tuesday November 07, 2000 @12:01AM (#643748) Homepage
    VPRO not only took all sony stuff offline, they took it off the air, and do not play ANY sony music anymore. They want to put their radio-programmes online in its entirety, not with parts cut out.

    //rdj

  • Well, they think US laws apply here...(NL) (Score:4)

    by drnomad ( 99183 ) on Monday November 06, 2000 @11:50PM (#643749)
    There is this site called www.Napster.nl [napster.nl] which is much like Scour. Now an organization called BUMA is trying to forbid deep-links, a phenomina which has been to court for newspapers. The newspapers lost and deep-linking seems to be legal, Napster.nl will hopefully win the case conform the previous case.

    Napster says that they have all right to deep link to MP3, BUMA says that there is enough international jurisprudence to get the site shut.

    A national dutch Media (not commercial) union called VPRO put their radio shows onto the internet after broadcast. Sony got a bit pissed and said that music fans should not be able to hear their favourite music for free, they should sit next to the radio and wait patiently until their favourite song would be played. The VPRO took all Sony content offline. Nowadays other record companies are getting pissed as well, we still don't know what the VPRO is going to do.

    A little offtopic (not mp3) but interesting: The union of consumers, biggest organization for protecting consumers rights, published an article this month on the quality of DVD players. They also wrote about the region code. According to the article, it is not illegal to modify the player into a region free player, they even published adresses and prices for player modification.

    I just love this counry (Holland).

  • MP3 In Denmark (Score:4)

    by Jayman2 ( 150729 ) on Tuesday November 07, 2000 @01:59AM (#643750) Homepage Journal
    Although Denmark is a member of the EU, Danish music industry took initiative to hit hard on illegal mp3 downloading and CD copying about one and a half year ago.
    This lead to a couple of cases in which residents at Danish university dorms were brought to court and charged ridiculus high sums of money for allowing public access to mp3's on the university's networks.
    Shortly after that followed a couple of cases against private collections of mp3's and again the sums sued for by the music industry was incredibly high for Danish standards. Normally in a lawsuit no one gets compensated over $100,000 but in the cases the demand was closer to $200,000. The cases were rejected by court, and the music industry's crusade against illegal copying fizzled. A lot of money was spent on advertising the campaign but not a lot came out of it. About a year or two ago, some danish musicians started making some of their tracks available of th web, thus forcing the industry to relate to the new media. However, there are (to the best of my knowledge) no commercial mp3-sites in Denmark today.
  • In the Netherlands, I dont think there has been much discussion yet although its clear that the industry and the BUMA/STEMRA organisation (who get money from airplay, cd sales and blank tapes/CD-R sales) are watching the developments closely. The BUMA/STEMRA organisation (http://www.buma.nl click on the UK flag for English) have made a temporary arrangement where webmasters can pay a sum of money to legally put online some music. There has also been a campaign (i.e. posters, commercials)against illegal copying of music.
    Some time ago the Napster case was on national news and especially the djs of the Dutch public pop/rock radio station 3FM (http://www.3fm.nl) formed opionions. Some djs are clearly supporting mp3s.

  • MP3 in Sweden (Score:5)

    by haeger ( 85819 ) on Monday November 06, 2000 @11:23PM (#643752)
    There has been quite a lot of talking about mp3 here. The napster-trial is on the news and most record-companies here are screaming bloody murder about the net-distribution of music.

    The most interesting point as I see it was a Recordlabel CEO that pointed out that what the recording industry was most afraid of was what he called "The lost generation" meaning that there is quite a large group of young kids who think that music is free. Us older geezers are used to paying for our music and use mp3 mostly for screening what we like and whats worth buying. The young don't have this behaviour and that could become a great problem for the industry.

    So a lot of programs on radio and TV discuss this topic and so far noone has a solution.

    /OSH

    Swedish government has finally figured out that the "opt-out" scheme for spam is worthless. It's better than never I suppose.

  • moot question. (Score:5)

    by g_mcbay ( 201099 ) on Monday November 06, 2000 @11:28PM (#643753)
    Doesn't matter what all the foreign countries think about Napster, because all the good music comes out of the USA.

    Britney Spears, N' Sync, Vanilla Ice.. All the greats are from America.

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