Danish DRM Breaker Turns Himself In To Test Backup Law 466
coaxial writes "In Denmark, it's legal to make copies of commercial videos for backup or other private purposes. It's also illegal to break the DRM that restricts copying of DVDs. Deciding to find out which law mattered, Henrik Anderson reported himself for 100 violations of the DRM-breaking law (he ripped his DVD collection to his computer) and demanded that the Danish anti-piracy Antipiratgruppen do something about it. They promised him a response, then didn't respond. So now he's reporting himself to the police. He wants a trial, so that the legality of the DRM-breaking law can be tested in court."
this is brave (Score:5, Insightful)
This is really brave. Not just rant about how stupid a law is, or how unenforceable, and then just break it. But break it, deliberately turn yourself in, and show how stupid/unenforceable the law is.
From an egoistic short-term perspective this is probably seen as just stupid, but this is the way to actually enact some changes.
Bravo!
Kudos (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:First (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm very glad civil-rights leaders in the 60's weren't so cowardly.
Re:law vs. law (Score:3, Insightful)
If we lived in a true democracy (for the people), DRM would never exist
Re:this is brave (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd wager my left toe that absolutely nothing comes of it. The police aren't going to want to deal with it, and media companies and their government whores don't want that kind of a test case.
Re:law vs. law (Score:5, Insightful)
If we lived in a true democracy (for the people), DRM would never exist
If you lived in a true democracy you would get the laws that people voted for - this may or may not include DRM
To quote Men In Black
A person is smart, but people are stupid
Re:Kudos (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Won't Loving Work. (Score:4, Insightful)
Except he's in Denmark. I can't comment specifically but many European nations have sliding scale fines.
Re:law vs. law (Score:4, Insightful)
DRM solely exists to provide corporations more control over the products they sell. It in no way is beneficial to the average user.
So therefore the average users, or the people who provide the majority of votes, would never vote for DRM.
Re:Kudos (Score:2, Insightful)
To paraphrase: (Score:1, Insightful)
Peasant: Well I didn't vote for it
RIAA: you don't VOTE for DRM!
Peasant: Well how did we get DRM then?
Re:Kudos (Score:3, Insightful)
I bet he's not afraid to tear labels off things.
Ever read one? Ever read WHO is forbidden from delabeling it?
Know why those labels are there in the first place? That's right. Because some consumer somewhere probably sued the company because he didn't know mattresses were heavy or that you shouldn't eat your keyboard or something stupid like that... :)
Re:this is brave (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:First (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't know what the repercussions are in Denmark but here in the US when you see FBI warnings before a movie stating you'll be fined $150,000 and 10 years in a PMITA prison... I'd rather just keep my mouth shut and let someone who actually got caught challenge the system.
That quote is from the +5 informative post in the Kudos comment thread. A lot has changed since the 60's. Federal Minimum sentences, outrages fines, etc. Also if your skin color gives you away you really can't keep your head down so you had to fight for your rights. This is something that anyone can avoid; boycott or follow their rules. As noted in the comments from the torrent freak website: the probable outcome (if this goes to trial) is that the law will be changed to not allow personal backup copies; not that the circumvention will be removed.
So was the troll cause I was going for my first, first post ever on any forum, or because you disagree that its best to avoid law enforcement unless you can help it?
Re:Won't Loving Work. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:law vs. law (Score:3, Insightful)
If you lived in a true democracy you would get the laws that people voted for - this may or may not include DRM
That's actually a pretty important point. In a system where you can get laws passed based on the majority's will a society tends to develop some terrible foibles. Take California for example. Here in California, we have a proposition system in our state government. Anyone can write a proposition (item to be voted on to become law) and then get that proposition, no matter how biased, stupid, or retarded onto a ballot via petition. With enough activism and bullshitting, therefore, we could literally have a person write a law outlawing use of dihydrogen monoxide in every household, spread some FUD and shout louder than any sane person out there, raise a very passionate but misinformed movement, and get that law on the ballot. Then, if the majority of voters that turn out vote for the proposition, that proposition becomes law. This is one of the closest systems to direct democracy that I have ever seen in government. It has its consequences.
For instance, our population continues to vote for convenience projects funded by the government. We want a high speed train? Turn it into a proposition. God forbid we let a private company develop one. Nope, let's have our state government build it with our tax dollars. We need more revenue? Well we don't want to raise taxes so let's just let our congress figure that one out. This trend happens continuously and, after a few decades of retarded laws and projects, our budget is such a mess that even an educated (maybe) and bloated congress cannot figure out how the hell to solve it.
Another example? Sure. There is a large portion (though not a majority) of folk in California that think gays should have the right to marry. Thus, over the past few years, these groups have written a number of propositions trying to legalize it. They have come in strangely worded forms that helped to confuse the issue in the minds of most voters. They have been, repetitively, met by an equally passionate, and, in my opinion, bigoted, movement that votes down said propositions. Never mind silly things like civil rights, equality, respect for other folks. Never mind studies done to show that gay families can and do function just as well as hetero families and so on. None of those details have stopped a very vocal group of people from implementing a systematic discrimination into our very state laws.
That is the consequence of true democracy. The mob rules. If the mob is stupid, stupidity rules. If this mob is full of asshattery, asshattery rules. If the mob is kind and just and intelligent, compassion, justice, and intelligence rules.
I am not saying that one system is better than another, but I would caution anyone to be careful about wishing for true democracy. It can be a terribly ugly overlord.
Re:this is brave (Score:4, Insightful)
Consider, what if the only way to make a copy of a DVD was to shoot someone. The right to not be prosecuted for copyright violation doesn't mean you're not going to get prosecuted for assault, manslaughter, what have you.
The law in question protecting creation of copies is almost certainly a simple exemption in copyright law. Unless someone can show me the law says something along the lines of 'you cannot be prosecuted for any action taken in the course of making a duplicate for personal purposes' then the laws are not in conflict no matter how much you would like them to be.
Re:this is brave (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:law vs. law (Score:3, Insightful)
Corporations don't exist in a vacuum, they are owned and run by people. People who vote and contribute to political campaigns. Neither of those things would change in a pure democracy.
Re:this is brave (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:this is brave (Score:3, Insightful)
If they caught you doing 66, you might argue successfully that their speed measuring device wasn't that accurate and you might actually be doing 64 mph. Also, it doesn't make for good press. At 80+ mph, you can't really argue.
In Britain, the threshold is 10% + 2 mph above the limit for those reasons.
Medical but not food as a basic right is amusing (Score:3, Insightful)
"if you need a hospital or support for some physical limitation, you won't have to pay through your nose to get it, as this is seen as a basic human right"
Medical but not food as a basic right is amusing; same goes for breathing, water, sex, sleep, homeostasis, and excretion.
Only after you take care of these physiological needs do you get to the next tier of Maslow's hierarchy of needs:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs [wikipedia.org]
where "health" is located... and that's considered a safety issue, after security of: body, employment, resources, morality, and the family, only just edging out security of property.
-- Terry
Re:this is brave (Score:3, Insightful)
because if you're within (margin of error of the speed gun) then they'll leave you alone because you may in fact not be over the limit.
If you are over that then you are *definitely* speeding.
Just because they don't pull you over when they can't be certain you're over the limit does not make the limit higher.
Keep in mind that the radar guns could be off in the other direction as well, measuring you as being slower than you really were, they're only right on average.
So if the margin of error is 10 mph and they clock you doing 75 in a 60 zone then you could potentially have really been doing anywhere between 66 and 84 so they ticket you for your most likely speed- what the gun said your speed was, 75.
now radar gun tolerances are different from above but I wanted to make a point.
Re:this is brave (Score:2, Insightful)
I remember when I was younger, my mom was given a ticket in Arizona for going 56 in a 55, which seemed ridiculous, but maybe Arizona is one of those states without the officer's discretion.
An officer can always use his discretion. I suspect that in this case the ticketing officer either had a quota that he needed to meet or was being an a$$^$#@.
I suspect that in this case she was actually going faster than 56mph but the officer was being a tiny bit lenient and letting her pay the lowest possible fine.
Re:this is brave (Score:1, Insightful)
Danish law is not a common law system. It is much more closely related to the French-style civil law system.
Re:this is brave (Score:3, Insightful)
We're talking about the USA here in this subthread, not some civilized country with sensible laws. Germany also has a "loser pays" system for civil law IIRC.
Re:this is brave (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's what we know:
We quite understand that the legal system has not crashed as a result of this, and we understand that certain parties would like to be pricks and debate about whether there is even a conflict.
Which is the point of this whole article: No one is. The Slashdot article is entitled "Danish DRM Breaker Turns Himself In To Test Backup Law." He himself knows what he did is illegal and turned himself in to the authorities. This is also known as civil disobedience and its purpose is to test laws that are unjust or unclear.
Assuming this makes it to trial, the judge will give a ruling in which he will either uphold the laws as-is (providing clarity as in, "yes, the intention of law 2 was to covertly remove the right guaranteed by law 1") or will make an exception to allow the free exercise of the right provided for in law 1, removing the injustice.
Re:this is brave (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Won't Loving Work. (Score:5, Insightful)
So where is the incentive to earn?
Your incentive to earn (which I'm sure is alive and well) doesn't trump the intended incentive to keep you from breaking laws.
Re:this is brave (Score:5, Insightful)
Great, even better. It's not a complex, unintended interaction between two disparate laws with different intentions, it's just a poorly written law that (apparently) contradicts itself.
Yes, the EU Copyright Directive says basically the same thing as the Danish implementation with regards to personal copies:
The EU is not the same as the US Federal government. No, a single Danish judge is not going to repeal an EU directive, but a ruling could shed light on a troubling issue possibly eventually leading to a change in the wording.
Interestingly, however, the EU Copyright Directive states this in the preamble (my emphasis added):
Since the rightsholders have never shown any intention of voluntarily doing anything, the judge could in fact do something about it: provide a recourse via exemption to Danish citizens. More likely though, I suppose, is that the judge would give the rightsholders the opportunity to "voluntarily" provide enabling measures for the beneficiaries. Sounds like a win-win to me, if I'm being objective (I actually think DRM is one of the most obscene abuses of law I've seen in my--admittedly short--adult life).
Yes, I believe that's exactly what I said.
Re:How does that work? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:this is brave (Score:3, Insightful)
And you're what's wrong with the roads..
It's not your role to dictate others' speed, just as it's not theirs to dictate yours. Be courteous and move over, and the world will be a better place for everyone.