Re: [OT] The record industry, RIAA and US law
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Johannes Wiedersich wrote:
> Joe Hart wrote:
> [snip]
>
>> I say Germany is less free than The Netherlands. I can do things like
>> post on the internet how one can download libdvdcss2 so they can play
>> CDs. If I lived in Germany I would be breaking the law by doing that,
>> because in Germany that is considered assisting people in breaking the
>> law, and that is against the law.
>
> Well, I'm not sure about that. The law is really not very close to
> praxis. Implementation of a copy protection scheme obliges the holder of
> the copyright to
> - clearly label the stuff that it is encrypted.
> - to provide the means for legal owners of that material to use them.
>
> I have never seen a DVD that follows these requirements, therefore IMHO
> none of these constitutes a proper encryption according to the German
> law, ie. you would not be 'breaking' a valid encryption.
>
> According to the law (ý95a-d UrhG), advertisement for *sale* of such
> programs is illegal. As long as you don't advertise for commercial
> versions of libdvdcss2, you don't break that law.
>
> You are helping people to take their legal rights, because without
> libdvdcss2 they have no means of persuing their right to watch videos (I
> assume they just want to watch a legal DVD).
>
> Just as I understand it reading the text of the law and what I find on
> the internet about it.
Very interesting. I think the law is similar here. Although there are
organizations like the RIAA here that are trying very hard to change the
laws so that we would not own the things we buy. The whole idea that
someone telling me what I can and cannot do on or with my computer (when
other computers are not effected) strikes me as foul.
Joe
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