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."
Won't Loving Work. (Score:3, Interesting)
He's just going to be slapped with an unreasonable fine he can't pay and then he will have to file for bankruptcy or some such thing. Courts are fine with giving out unreasonable fines because "hey, at least it's not jail time." However, fines can make it impossible for you to pay your bills, even if you are allowed to pay them off over a period of time.
Re:this is brave (Score:5, Interesting)
Is selective enforcement of a law an effective defense against that law's application against an individual, in Denmark?
Re:this is brave (Score:2, Interesting)
Taking this sort of totally off-topic thats one argument I'd love to use in the USA against speeding tickets. If you are on a freeway in Virginia then the cops won't pull you over unless you are doing more than about 15 mph over the limit (ie 80 in a 65 zone) , but they ticket you for the speed above the posted limit. I'd love to argue that the effective speed limit is at the point where they consider it worthwhile to come after you and not the posted limit. Thus you should be ticketed for the speed above the effective limit.
However I am too chicken to put this to a test :D
Re:law vs. law (Score:1, Interesting)
Except for all of those people who have invested in said publicly-traded corporations . . .
Re:Kudos (Score:5, Interesting)
What's sad is how that act can terrify others around you. I carried out the similar but actually real behaviour of cutting the stupid labels attached to the leads of some new keyboards at a place I worked - I refuse to believe that any of us need to be instructed by it to read the three paragraphs of safety information on the bottom of the keyboard. One of my staff was horrified and thought that it might be breaking the rules.
I tell you this: A society that is afraid to cut labels off keyboards is fucked. Oh, and good luck to the Danish guy. I bet he's not afraid to tear labels off things.
Re:this is brave (Score:3, Interesting)
That Dude is My Hero! (Score:5, Interesting)
He's not a whining sniveling cowardly hypocrite like the Pirate Bay defendants.
This guy's putting it on the line. Does he have a defense fund that can be contributed to?
This is not brave (Score:2, Interesting)
Selective enforcement of laws is allowed in Denmark :
For criminal law - no (like everywhere else, including the US)
For civil law (which is what this falls under) - yes (again, like everywhere else, including the US)
The general principle is that everyone is equal before the government. But ONLY before the government. Not before someone else (you're perfectly free to have you roof done only by someone with black hair, just to name something stupid), nor before companies.
An example : a company demands payment from half it's customers, say it's christmas and everyone below 16 does not get billed (just making up some excuse). One of the customers forced to pay (16 years and 2 days old, say) cannot complain because someone else didn't have to pay. That is "selective enforcement" and is perfectly A-okay, just about everywhere in the world.
A counterexample is that the government cannot choose not to pursue a murderer. It IS a (theoretical) defence for a murderer to claim the government let another murderer go free. This usually gets applied to parking fines or speeding tickets. If you can prove the police let someone else go, you don't have to pay the fine.
The police only intervenes in matters of criminal law. And before you ask, you can get arrested "for not paying a bill", yes. But not because not paying a bill itself lands you in jail, this is civil law and cannot result in incarceration. Ignoring a court's order to pay a bill IS criminal law (it's a felony I believe).
So this guy is basically an attention-grabber who's knows he'll go free, due a basic property of our law system every first-year law student learns. The police won't do anything because that's not their job. Their job is criminal law.
Re:this is brave (Score:3, Interesting)
Don't forget that traffic isn't a steady state situation, it's a dynamic one.
My uncle got pulled over for being 10mph over the limit when he thought he was going the correct speed. The cop didn't ticket him, but pointed out that his obviously new tires weren't the same diameter as the factory ones. Then told him to get his odometer recalibrated for the new tires. Seems your speedometer and odometer are directly linked to the number of rotations of tires of a specific diameter, change that and they read the wrong values. That's just one example where violations occur because of stuff you don't know about. It happens to cops too.
Of course, cops have another reason to not bother with tiny infractions. It wastes too much of their time in court arguing with joe blow that 4mph over the limit is still a violation. Even cops don't like standing in court all day dealing with stupid s###.
Re:this is brave (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:This is not brave (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:this is brave (Score:4, Interesting)
You didn't know that? That's why cops don't usually pull you over if you're less than 10 mph under the speed limit. That's within the margin of error of a potentially wrong tire size and errors with the speed gun.
Re:Won't Loving Work. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:law vs. law (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, it would be more like the stories popping up about Wikipedia. Whoever has the most time, the most patience, knows the rules best, plays best with the system will win. Expect flash mobs, filibusters, wholly uninformed voting based on loose rumors because no one has time to read it all. Plus you really get mob rule, like Switzerland just outlawing minarets which is quite clearly aimed at restricting one minority's exercise of their religion. And finally, the people do not vote in the best interest of the people. Each person tends to vote what's best for themselves, which is a different thing entirely.
Let me take an example from Norway:
3.5 million eligible voters
2.6 million in workforce
2.5 million working
1.8 million working in private sector
Right now, the private workers are in a small majority among the total voters. Very soon the number of senior citizens will skyrocket and they will lose that majority. Everyone votes for their benefits and public sector people vote for their own salaries, who do they think will pay? It's two wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner...
Re:this is brave (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:this is brave (Score:3, Interesting)
But the thing is, that he *can* surely copy the disc without breaking the DRM?
Heh, you can't even watch a DVD without breaking the DRM.
Is "breaking DRM" the new term for using the key taped to the very lock you are trying to unlock?
That is all he or anyone ripping DVDs is really doing.
Re:this is brave (Score:1, Interesting)
Actually .. There is a small little code called "The uniform code of traffic control devices" that states in order for a speed limit sign to be LEGAL. It must show a limit of not less that 85% of the avg speed travelled by all cars on that road as measured in the same or significantly similar section. The 85% number is determined by a speed survey performed within the previous 5 years.
http://mutcd.fhwa.dot.gov/pdfs/2003r1r2/pdf_index.htm
Section 2B.13 Speed Limit Sign (R2-1)
Standard:
After an engineering study has been made in accordance with established traffic engineering practices,
the Speed Limit (R2-1) sign (see Figure 2B-1) shall display the limit established by law, ordinance,
regulation, or as adopted by the authorized agency. The speed limits shown shall be in multiples of 10
km/h or 5 mph.
Guidance:
At least once every 5 years, States and local agencies should reevaluate non-statutory speed limits on
segments of their roadways that have undergone a significant change in roadway characteristics or surrounding
land use since the last review.
No more than three speed limits should be displayed on any one Speed Limit sign or assembly.
When a speed limit is to be posted, it should be within 10 km/h or 5 mph of the 85th-percentile speed of
free-flowing traffic.
Re:Won't Loving Work. (Score:3, Interesting)
The side effect of this is that there is a *very* profitable business here (in the U.S.) for lawyers to try and squeeze every last penny of a lawsuit even beyond what would be reasonable, with a large drain for the person pursuing the case, and a large potential for abuse all along the line.
In any case, I think people are free-er in Europe exactly because things do not turn around money as a requirement for survival. At least I felt a lot safer to protest about the causes I believe in while I lived in London (before coming to the US) than I do here.
Re:this is brave (Score:0, Interesting)
My wife often gets on my case for driving in the left hand lane, while going above the speed limit, but not fast enough for the jerk behind me. She always gives me anecdotes re: people pulled over for "impeding traffic" for this kind of behavior... It drives me crazy.
Let's break this down:
1.) Right lane is for slow traffic, ergo left lane is for fast traffic
2.) speed limit is x, ergo fast traffic should be going x speed
3.) x+y speed (my too slow speed) is somehow "impeding traffic" (or something like that)
4.) i am ticketable for not giving room for x+yy speeders???
Re:this is brave (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:How does that work? (Score:5, Interesting)
There is no civil case here as there has been no copyright infringement. Rather in Denmark it is illegal to break DRM. He broke DRM and thus broke the law. The issue is that in Denmark there is the legal right to make copies, and in order to do that you must break the DRM.
Re:Won't Loving Work. (Score:3, Interesting)
I was trying to pass the car on the horizon! (Score:2, Interesting)
I wasn't speeding, I am allowed to speed to pass somebody and that somebody was on the horizon. How can I pass them if I don't drive faster than they do officer? ;-)
Reminds me of the Scopes Trial (Score:1, Interesting)
The Scopes trial started pretty much this way too
Re:Lightweight! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:This is not brave (Score:3, Interesting)
In the U.S. you don't have to go that far. Estoppel will do fine. If you knowingly permit an activity long enough you can lose your right to put a stop to it later. I have no idea how that works in Danish law.