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Swiss Government: Downloading Movies and Music Will Stay Legal

389 points by Uncle_Sam 15y ago

Archio 15y ago
What is it about European countries that make them so reasonable and open to progress? This is great news, because for once there's actually a law on pirating that's based on research, unlike US laws centered around "job creators" losing money.
- larrik 15y ago
  Because in Europe you have lots of very different countries that your mind cherry-picks the best parts out of when you hear these stories. Actually living in Europe requires that you pick one country, and involves compromising on something. (Germany doesn't really have freedom of speech. UK has big brother issues and crazy libel laws. France hates the internet. Sweden wants everyone to think they hate men. Etc.) Of course, I don't hear a lot of negatives about Switzerland. Except from the IRS, of course :)
  - VMG 15y ago
    And let's not forget the economy..
  - adimitrov 15y ago
    > Of course, I don't hear a lot of negatives about Switzerland. Except from the IRS, of course :) That's your opinion because you're not an "Ausländer" (foreigner) living in Switzerland. See: * http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/politics/Council_of_Europe_attacks_racism_in_Switzerland.html?cid=9576 http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/politics/Council_of_Europe_attac... * http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/Specials/Parliamentary_elections_2007/News/Peoples_Party_accused_of_racist_campaign.html?cid=245112 http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/Specials/Parliamentary_elections... * http://www.humanrights.ch/en/Switzerland/Human-Rights-in-Internal-Affairs/Racism/Studies/idart_4552-content.html http://www.humanrights.ch/en/Switzerland/Human-Rights-in-Int... I was thinking of moving to Switzerland, but in the end I had the feeling that there's a significant portion of the population who would like to keep it "Swiss." Also, immigration laws are rather harsh.
    - algorias 15y ago
      >there's a significant portion of the population who would like to keep it "Swiss." s/significant/vocal and you're closer to the mark. The right wing party here routinely attempts to shift blame of every conceivable problem to the fact that there are lots of foreigners living here. It's not that there aren't real issues (e.g. abuse of asylum rights), but they tend to be blown vastly out of proportion.
  - o1iver 15y ago
    Germany doesn't really have freedom of speech What do you mean? (I am German)
    - mhd 15y ago
      The whole "Volksverhetzung" thingamajig, i.e. you're not allowed to deny the Holocaust, display swastikas etc. The US has its hate crime laws, but these usually don't restrict free speech in the same way. A few European countries share these specific restrictions by the way (or at least some of them). Including Switzerland.
      - waqf 15y ago
        And in the U.S. you aren't allowed to advocate the violent overthrow of the government, to shout fire in a crowded theater, to distribute child porn or to conspire to blow up airliners. The only difference is that U.S. culture teaches you to believe that those exceptions "aren't covered by free speech", i.e. they don't count because we said so ... just as o1iver thinks about Holocaust-denying.
        tedunangst 15y ago
        Except your examples aren't really even examples of speech, free or otherwise. Walking around with a swastika on your arm is quite different than actively holocausting people.
        waqf 15y ago
        For convenience of argument I will retract the child porn example, but "conspiring", "shouting" and "advocating" are much closer to a common-sense understanding of the word "speech" than is "walking around with [any particular symbol] on your arm". Unless you totally missed the words "conspire" and "advocate" in my post, I'm not at all sure what you're trying to say.
        tedunangst 15y ago
  - mhd 15y ago
    Lately Switzerland seems to have a small right-wing problem, first banning the construction of minarets and then voting to deport criminal foreigners. A few of my Swiss friends found this quite embarrassing and attributed it to the vagaries of direct democratic processes and voter turnout. But as you say, each place has its crazy idiosyncrasies, and in the grand total, Switzerland scores pretty highly in the list of countries to live in. Unless you hate mountains and/or chocolate, of course. (Or they won't let you in, which might be an issue)
    - CaptainZapp 15y ago
      That's the price you pay for direct democracy. Sometimes really, really bad laws get accepted by the population in a referendum. Actually the Swiss Popular Party (SVP, the right wing party) didn't do too well in the most recent elections. While they hoped to achieve > 30% of the popular vote, they're hovering around ~26%. A lot of their candidates for the smaller house of parliament (Ständerat, would be the Senate in the US) got actually hammered. So from a perspective of reason things actually seem to be looking brighter.
    - danssig 15y ago
      Why would it be a problem to deport criminal foreigners? And if you think Switzerland is hard to get into, try to get into Denmark.
      - tedunangst 15y ago
        Because what usually happens (or what makes people angry anyway) is that someone who's been living in the country for ten years gets deported because of a shoplifting offense also committed ten years ago. Violates the principle of no ex post facto laws.
        danssig 15y ago
        Any citations on that? I've heard people claim that but in actual practice I believe it's only used against career criminals. The issue I've heard complained about is that if there is a career criminal dad, he can cause the whole family to end up getting deported (though I'm not sure that one is true either).
  - arethuza 15y ago
    "UK has big brother issues and crazy libel laws" Nitpick: England has crazy libel laws.
  - rmc 15y ago
    I don't hear a lot of negatives about Switzerland It's probably one of the most expensive countries in the world to visit. They probably hide a lot of the money of corrupt governments and world leaders. Also this might be good or bad, but it's all very neat and tidy. All the roads in rural areas are all very good and all the grass is clipped. Makes the place feel totally tamed. (Though good roads is a plus, just makes for some not-as-interesting motorbike touring)
    - getsat 15y ago
      > It's probably one of the most expensive countries This is said by everyone about every country ever. Is this fact, or does my previous sentence cover it?
  - roel_v 15y ago
    "Of course, I don't hear a lot of negatives about Switzerland." Apart from being a country that gets much of its wealth from hiding the blood money of dictators and criminals? Right.
  - kzrdude 15y ago
    "Sweden wants everyone to think they hate men." What does this mean?
  - JoshTriplett 15y ago
    > Of course, I don't hear a lot of negatives about Switzerland. Take a look at the tax rates.
- rickmb 15y ago
  As far as copyright is concerned, it has nothing to do with "reasonable and open to progress". The main differences are: * The powerful copyright-industry mostly resides in the US. European countries that have somewhat of a copyright industry of their own (France, UK) are considerable less "reasonable". * Success in European elections is way less dependent on corporate financing. Lobbying is way less effective if the politicians you target don't need your money. It's not less corrupt, but more about influence and favors, and the US copyright lobby has relatively little to offer in that respect. In other words: the copyright mafia has less politicians in their pockets, and therefor less influence on public policy.
- Tycho 15y ago
  Because they import most of their entertainment form America, maybe?
Kesty 15y ago
It's worth mentioning that in Switzerland only downloading copyrighted material for personal use is Legal, not uploading. So P2P and file sharing is still illegal since you are uploading while downloading.
- icebraining 15y ago
  Some people have actually turned leeching to a whole new level by creating torrent clients which only download. As long as you're not using private trackers with ratio limits, you're able to download all you want without ever committing copyright infringement, at least in countries where downloading isn't illegal.
  - Kesty 15y ago
    I think that will defeat the purpose of file sharing. The fact is that Switzerland is treating piracy like drugs. It's not that bad if you use them, it's definitely bad if you are selling them.
CaptainZapp 15y ago
Well, yes. It always was. Using services like allofmp3.com in Switzerland was and is perfectly legal (if you can find a way to pay for it). There's a reason for that: Swiss legislators believe that it can not be up to the user of a download site to judge if this site is legit and is licensed to sell downloads to Swiss customers. This doesn't mean that uploading is allowed. As soon you upload files or even fragments of files you crossed the line into illegality. The whole "It is very terribly illegal what you're doing here, downloader!" hokum was basically pushed by IFPI and the content industry. It's a lie (at least in Switzerland).
- rickmb 15y ago
  Same in the Netherlands, although currently the government is trying to push through legislation that will change all that. However, the majority of parliament is still against. Hopefully the minority government will think better of forcing the issue.
- huhtenberg 15y ago
  > This doesn't mean that uploading is allowed. Wouldn't this effectively make swarm/torrent downloading illegal?
  - simonair 15y ago
    Of course; any kind of peer-to-peer service that actually uploads data you don't have a license to distribute is illegal. But fear not --- the Swiss have a solution for that, too: http://bitthief.ethz.ch/ http://bitthief.ethz.ch/ "BitThief is a free riding BitTorrent client, that is, it downloads from BitTorrent swarms without contributing any resources itself."
- rplnt 15y ago
  Slovakia and Czech Republic too. It's not illegal to download copyrighted content, only sharing is. So using rapidshare and all that is perfectly fine. However, torrents and other kinds of p2p (or even hosting ftp) is not.
- seanalltogether 15y ago
fla 15y ago
It's also worth mentioning that entertainment is quiet expensive in Switzerland. For example watching a 3d movie at the local theater will cost you around 21CHF (~17€ or ~$23). Wich is really expensive IMO.
- lowglow 15y ago
  I think it's about the same in San Francisco if you're watching a 3D Imax flick. I'd love to move to switzerland, but I've heard it is difficult to get a visa.
  - JSGraef 15y ago
    Getting a visa in Switzerland is extremely difficult (for non-EU nationals). The employer needs to first prove that they cannot find an adequate candidate in Switzerland, then they must prove that no adequate candidate can be found in EU countries. Once that's proven, they're free to choose from the "rest of the world". That's step one. Then there are (naturally) plenty of other factors that go into the acceptance process, but those are generally easy.
    - guard-of-terra 15y ago
      I've heard that Swiss Google takes people in without much problems. Obviously they've figured it out.
      - waqf 15y ago
        I just assumed that Swiss Google primarily recruited EEA citizens. Do you know otherwise?
        guard-of-terra 15y ago
        I know about (not personally) a couple of Russian who are currently employed there.
VonLipwig 15y ago
Wait.. what is this? A Government talking sense! Wow! Most of my friends 'acquire' digital content. All spend money on cinema, entertainment events, video games and legit DVD's and box sets of things they really like. In all cases the decision to go pirate is convenience + cost. A DVD at £14 is seen as too expensive. Similarly 79p for a single audio track file which you only need to play on your iPod seems a little pricy. Since Spotify came about everyone I know has cut back on music downloaded. Apart from iPod tracks there is no reason to get the actual file. If pirated content disappeared overnight I personally would mostly live without. If I did buy a DVD for a silly price, that would mean I wouldn't be visiting the cinema that week. I think the majority of my friends would do the same. The trouble with law makers is the influence the music and film industry have on them. The facts are there to be seen. Someone who goes out of their way to get a pirate copy of something will typically spend more on entertainment than those who don't. The music industry likes to believe that every track downloaded is 79p they could have had. That isn't the case at all. If you took away all pirated material you would restrict discovery of new entertainment. Film / Music people may get slightly more money from certain people but the majority of this money would come at the expensive of other things. I am not saying piracy is good but it certainly isn't the devil which many law and policy makers make out it is and its nice to see this acknowledged by an EU state.
- tripa 15y ago
  Switzerland is not an EU state.
  - iwwr 15y ago
    No, but you could rent a VPN connection located there and permanently avoid EU harassment.
    - dasil003 15y ago
      Suddenly the Swiss position seems quite enterprising.
      - 15y ago
killnine 15y ago
Wait... what is this? A Government doing research? Weighing solutions? We should all print this article and mail it to our government
tomlin 15y ago
> ...the Swiss government has been conducting a study into the impact downloading has on society, and this week their findings were presented. This is where I stopped and took a moment. The government did research. Proactively. For the good of its people. To the Swiss government, the people of the country (or, the impact to the people of the country) are/is considered before an external interest. That isn't to say the external interest isn't important, just not as important as the people. That's the difference. In North America, we concern ourselves with jobs so much that it actually makes them go away. If you sympathize with the industry, the industry takes advantage and cements itself to a position of necessity. Artists will continue making movies and music because that's what artists do – with or without the entertainment industry. The entertainment industry needs us, we don't need them.
- rasur 15y ago
  Switzerland has Direct Democracy.. with the result that - as far as I can see as an expat now living in CH - the government seems to respect the peoples wishes. Yes, it's quite odd, but very good!
- eli 15y ago
  The United States government routinely does research. Some of it is actually quite good. See for example http://fpc.state.gov/c18185.htm http://fpc.state.gov/c18185.htm Of course that doesn't mean they always listen to the results.
- jordan0day 15y ago
  "To the Swiss government, the people of the country (or, the impact to the people of the country) are/is considered before an external interest." How would you consider the American music industry an "external interest" in the USA? While the RIAA and the labels aren't citizens, they're generally comprised of citizens. That is, when a music label gets special treatment, that means those citizens who work for that label get special treatment. I'm not advocating the craziness that is current copyright law in the USA by any means, and while the above statement might sound like justification for all the evil the RIAA and the like have done over the years, the issue is hardly black-and-white. "Artists will continue making movies and music because that's what artists do – with or without the entertainment industry." I think this is a very broad, gross generalization. Sure, musically-inclined folks will probably still continue to play instruments or write songs as a hobby, even if there weren't a financial incentive -- but I hardly think the thousands (hundreds of thousands? millions?) of people currently involved in the entertainment industry would all be starving artists/producers/technicians/special effects artists/movie theater operators/etc. purely out of some all-overriding drive to create/produce/engineer/operate. Let's say we flipped the law and made it illegal to sell music & movies. On the plus side, we'd probably have relatively little low-quality "pop" music & remakes of remakes in the theaters. On the negatives, we'd almost certainly never have, say, the Beatles White album, 2001: A Space Odyssey, WALL-E, etc.. It's not because without a financial incentive the Beatles wouldn't have made music, they just wouldn't have been able to devote the time and resources that they did. Kubrick might have still made a film like 2001, but how possible is it he would have been able to make it of the same quality? Again, I'm not saying I agree with our current system of basically entertainment industry-by-fiat, but it's not nearly as simple as "we'll always have art regardless of if there's an industry to support it!"
michaelfeathers 15y ago
The MPAA and RIAA could declare war on Switzerland, but there are all of those mountains.
mattee 15y ago
Easy for them to say. But are they also ok with people creating counterfeit Swiss watches?
- cbs 15y ago
  That is a very different aspect of intellectual property. While related in the broad scope, as far as the constraints of this report and the subject of downloading copy-written materiel go it is irrelevant.
  - mattee 15y ago
    I don't think you understood my point. If Switzerland's economy financed movies and depended on the revenue from those movies to employ people, their government would have a different view of people downloading free movies and music. It is a different aspect of intellectual property rights, but the argument is the same in both cases.
    - wccrawford 15y ago
      It's still illegal to upload. In other words, it's not illegal to buy a counterfeit watch, but it's illegal to make one. (Yes, the analogy still doesn't hold well.)
      - tonfa 15y ago
        Mattee is still right that part of the decision from the Swiss gov comes from the fact that file sharing does not hurt the Swiss local economy (they explicitly say it). I don't think there's anything wrong with it, they exploit their status of being a small country. The Swiss have always been ignoring other countries problems and only do what benefits them most (hence the fiscal situation and the protection of the bank industry). If you can afford doing it, why not do it?
      - enjoy-your-stay 15y ago
        Funnily enough, if I understand it correctly, it is illegal to import counterfeited goods into Switzerland and border guards will sometimes check your purchases when returning from holiday to make sure you haven't any in your luggage.
hammock 15y ago
"I buy the music of bands I really like. I buy their albums as a conscious choice to support them." This argument is made a lot, but it's weird. Music isn't CHARITY! It's a manufactured good. I don't give KitchenAid $150 for a stand mixer to "support them and the great things they create." I do it to buy their stand mixer. Just to be clear, I'm not a copyright advocate. Just think it's a twisted frame of mind to think about music as above.
- AndrewDucker 15y ago
  Well, if you're not a copyright advocate then you pretty much believe that the cost of music ought to be the marginal cost of duplicating it (i.e. as close to zero as makes no difference). If you think it should be higher then you _do_ support the right of the owners of the music to forbid others from copying it (i.e. copyright).
- burgerbrain 15y ago
  Actually, this attitude is the traditional one, and your's is the more radical. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patronage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patronage
- cbs 15y ago
  Just think it's a twisted frame of mind to think about music as above. Most people who are serious about music buy merch at shows for the explicit purpose of supporting the artist. It is a pure form of voting with your wallet, "I want you to exist, sell me unrelated goods I have no need for". I gave MC Lars $X for two t-shrits, not because I wanted T-shirts but because I wanted to support him and the great things that he creates. Hell, I even bought a floppy disk full of animiated .gifs from Math The Band. I don't even have a floppy drive, I just had a good time at their show. It's a manufactured good A good that, unlike a mixer, has no utility and the only reason for purchase is that you like it.
  - billybob 15y ago
    If people really only want to support musicians, it would make more sense to just hand them a nice note with some cash and walk away. I mean, isn't it weird that they want to make music, and you want to hear music, but it doesn't pay unless they make and you buy a t-shirt that you don't want? It's like, you make software that I want, but I won't buy software. I require you to make and sell me a lawn ornament, which I will throw away.
rglover 15y ago
I can't help but think of this scene from Cool Runnings after reading this article: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVrcnyn5ZZ4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVrcnyn5ZZ4
tux1968 15y ago
Time to get a Swiss proxy account. ;o)
edanm 15y ago
"The other side of piracy, based on the Dutch study, is that downloaders are reported to be more frequent visitors to concerts, and game downloaders actually bought more games than those who didn’t. And in the music industry, lesser-know bands profit most from the sampling effect of file-sharing." Hate to burst the bubble, but this is a pretty stupid conclusion if you're trying to advocate for piracy. People who download more tend to buy more. Why is this surprising? Obviously, the people who download more are the same people who care more about entertainment, so of course these are also the people who'll pay more. That is absolutely irrelevant to the discussion of whether piracy is a net benefit. It's mixing up causation with correlation. Download more pirate content is not causing people to go to more concerts - the people who would "naturally" go to more concerts are the same people who would "naturally" buy more music, but are now simply downloading more music. Note: Or at least, that's another theory, which is also the correct one in my opinion. My point is that this fact doesn't prove in any way that piracy is good.
dbrannan 15y ago
Here is my experience: • I took my family to see the Incredibles - cost $7.50 x $5.00 = $37.50 • I like it so much we purchased the DVD - cost $19.50 • Somehow the DVD broke, so in a fit I purchased it through iTunes - $14.95 • Lost that hard drive and had no back up - torrents save the day. My philosophy is pixar has already made their mint on me. This one movie cost my family $71.95, and I'm not about to pay for it again.
jgeralnik 15y ago
I would argue that what copyrights should do is give rights holders the exclusive right to make a profit off of them - other people should not be able to simply steal your ideas and sell them. That said, copyright does not mean that you must be paid for your work. If you can offer a service that people want to pay for, by all means go ahead. If people are not willing to pay for your work, find another job. Back when distribution cost money, it was a reasonable service that was provided. Specifically, rights holders allow corporations to use and distribute their intellectual property and then people would pay for the service of distribution. With distribution free in today's world, there is no longer profit to be made by controlling distribution. However, those corporations want to create artificial scarcity so that they can continue to use their old business model. We do not have any responsibility to sustain obsolete business models. With no money to be made in simple distribution, content creators must focus on different services if they wish to make a profit. There are many different ways to do this. One option is to reform digital distribution - make it more convenient to purchase than it is to pirate (Netflix, Spotify). Another option presented earlier in this thread is live performances, but obviously that does not work in every industry. Yet another option presented is to monetize creation - appeal directly to fans, run kickstarter campaigns, etc. Find people willing to pay money for you to create more content. Because at the end of the day, people focusing on the old model of distribution are offering me a service I don't need. I can obtain information for free - the costs of digital distribution are zero. Profits must be found elsewhere. The exclusive right to make a profit should continue to belong to the content creator, so you still cannot sell copies. However, since distribution is free, I see no problem with giving away copies.
MichaelGagnon 15y ago
New business idea: Setup proxies in Switzerland. Customers pay a subscription to download pirated content from their Swiss account. From there, you can transfer the customer's data to their home account in the US (or wherever). Seem perfectly legal to me. For extra value added you can do AV and other quality control to make help customers find and safely download pirated content. I wonder if Switzerland foresaw such businesses...

389 points by Uncle_Sam 15y ago

What is it about European countries that make them so reasonable and open to progress? This is great news, because for once there's actually a law on pirating that's based on research, unlike US laws centered around "job creators" losing money.

larrik 15y ago
Because in Europe you have lots of very different countries that your mind cherry-picks the best parts out of when you hear these stories. Actually living in Europe requires that you pick one country, and involves compromising on something. (Germany doesn't really have freedom of speech. UK has big brother issues and crazy libel laws. France hates the internet. Sweden wants everyone to think they hate men. Etc.) Of course, I don't hear a lot of negatives about Switzerland. Except from the IRS, of course :)
- VMG 15y ago
  And let's not forget the economy..
- adimitrov 15y ago
  > Of course, I don't hear a lot of negatives about Switzerland. Except from the IRS, of course :) That's your opinion because you're not an "Ausländer" (foreigner) living in Switzerland. See: * http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/politics/Council_of_Europe_attacks_racism_in_Switzerland.html?cid=9576 http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/politics/Council_of_Europe_attac... * http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/Specials/Parliamentary_elections_2007/News/Peoples_Party_accused_of_racist_campaign.html?cid=245112 http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/Specials/Parliamentary_elections... * http://www.humanrights.ch/en/Switzerland/Human-Rights-in-Internal-Affairs/Racism/Studies/idart_4552-content.html http://www.humanrights.ch/en/Switzerland/Human-Rights-in-Int... I was thinking of moving to Switzerland, but in the end I had the feeling that there's a significant portion of the population who would like to keep it "Swiss." Also, immigration laws are rather harsh.
  - algorias 15y ago
    >there's a significant portion of the population who would like to keep it "Swiss." s/significant/vocal and you're closer to the mark. The right wing party here routinely attempts to shift blame of every conceivable problem to the fact that there are lots of foreigners living here. It's not that there aren't real issues (e.g. abuse of asylum rights), but they tend to be blown vastly out of proportion.
- o1iver 15y ago
  Germany doesn't really have freedom of speech What do you mean? (I am German)
  - mhd 15y ago
    The whole "Volksverhetzung" thingamajig, i.e. you're not allowed to deny the Holocaust, display swastikas etc. The US has its hate crime laws, but these usually don't restrict free speech in the same way. A few European countries share these specific restrictions by the way (or at least some of them). Including Switzerland.
    - waqf 15y ago
      And in the U.S. you aren't allowed to advocate the violent overthrow of the government, to shout fire in a crowded theater, to distribute child porn or to conspire to blow up airliners. The only difference is that U.S. culture teaches you to believe that those exceptions "aren't covered by free speech", i.e. they don't count because we said so ... just as o1iver thinks about Holocaust-denying.
      - tedunangst 15y ago
        Except your examples aren't really even examples of speech, free or otherwise. Walking around with a swastika on your arm is quite different than actively holocausting people.
        waqf 15y ago
        For convenience of argument I will retract the child porn example, but "conspiring", "shouting" and "advocating" are much closer to a common-sense understanding of the word "speech" than is "walking around with [any particular symbol] on your arm". Unless you totally missed the words "conspire" and "advocate" in my post, I'm not at all sure what you're trying to say.
        tedunangst 15y ago
- mhd 15y ago
  Lately Switzerland seems to have a small right-wing problem, first banning the construction of minarets and then voting to deport criminal foreigners. A few of my Swiss friends found this quite embarrassing and attributed it to the vagaries of direct democratic processes and voter turnout. But as you say, each place has its crazy idiosyncrasies, and in the grand total, Switzerland scores pretty highly in the list of countries to live in. Unless you hate mountains and/or chocolate, of course. (Or they won't let you in, which might be an issue)
  - CaptainZapp 15y ago
    That's the price you pay for direct democracy. Sometimes really, really bad laws get accepted by the population in a referendum. Actually the Swiss Popular Party (SVP, the right wing party) didn't do too well in the most recent elections. While they hoped to achieve > 30% of the popular vote, they're hovering around ~26%. A lot of their candidates for the smaller house of parliament (Ständerat, would be the Senate in the US) got actually hammered. So from a perspective of reason things actually seem to be looking brighter.
  - danssig 15y ago
    Why would it be a problem to deport criminal foreigners? And if you think Switzerland is hard to get into, try to get into Denmark.
    - tedunangst 15y ago
      Because what usually happens (or what makes people angry anyway) is that someone who's been living in the country for ten years gets deported because of a shoplifting offense also committed ten years ago. Violates the principle of no ex post facto laws.
      - danssig 15y ago
        Any citations on that? I've heard people claim that but in actual practice I believe it's only used against career criminals. The issue I've heard complained about is that if there is a career criminal dad, he can cause the whole family to end up getting deported (though I'm not sure that one is true either).
- arethuza 15y ago
  "UK has big brother issues and crazy libel laws" Nitpick: England has crazy libel laws.
- rmc 15y ago
  I don't hear a lot of negatives about Switzerland It's probably one of the most expensive countries in the world to visit. They probably hide a lot of the money of corrupt governments and world leaders. Also this might be good or bad, but it's all very neat and tidy. All the roads in rural areas are all very good and all the grass is clipped. Makes the place feel totally tamed. (Though good roads is a plus, just makes for some not-as-interesting motorbike touring)
  - getsat 15y ago
    > It's probably one of the most expensive countries This is said by everyone about every country ever. Is this fact, or does my previous sentence cover it?
- roel_v 15y ago
  "Of course, I don't hear a lot of negatives about Switzerland." Apart from being a country that gets much of its wealth from hiding the blood money of dictators and criminals? Right.
- kzrdude 15y ago
  "Sweden wants everyone to think they hate men." What does this mean?
- JoshTriplett 15y ago
  > Of course, I don't hear a lot of negatives about Switzerland. Take a look at the tax rates.
rickmb 15y ago
As far as copyright is concerned, it has nothing to do with "reasonable and open to progress". The main differences are: * The powerful copyright-industry mostly resides in the US. European countries that have somewhat of a copyright industry of their own (France, UK) are considerable less "reasonable". * Success in European elections is way less dependent on corporate financing. Lobbying is way less effective if the politicians you target don't need your money. It's not less corrupt, but more about influence and favors, and the US copyright lobby has relatively little to offer in that respect. In other words: the copyright mafia has less politicians in their pockets, and therefor less influence on public policy.
Tycho 15y ago
Because they import most of their entertainment form America, maybe?

Kesty 15y ago

It's worth mentioning that in Switzerland only downloading copyrighted material for personal use is Legal, not uploading. So P2P and file sharing is still illegal since you are uploading while downloading.

icebraining 15y ago
Some people have actually turned leeching to a whole new level by creating torrent clients which only download. As long as you're not using private trackers with ratio limits, you're able to download all you want without ever committing copyright infringement, at least in countries where downloading isn't illegal.
- Kesty 15y ago
  I think that will defeat the purpose of file sharing. The fact is that Switzerland is treating piracy like drugs. It's not that bad if you use them, it's definitely bad if you are selling them.

CaptainZapp 15y ago

Well, yes. It always was. Using services like allofmp3.com in Switzerland was and is perfectly legal (if you can find a way to pay for it). There's a reason for that: Swiss legislators believe that it can not be up to the user of a download site to judge if this site is legit and is licensed to sell downloads to Swiss customers. This doesn't mean that uploading is allowed. As soon you upload files or even fragments of files you crossed the line into illegality. The whole "It is very terribly illegal what you're doing here, downloader!" hokum was basically pushed by IFPI and the content industry. It's a lie (at least in Switzerland).

rickmb 15y ago
Same in the Netherlands, although currently the government is trying to push through legislation that will change all that. However, the majority of parliament is still against. Hopefully the minority government will think better of forcing the issue.
huhtenberg 15y ago
> This doesn't mean that uploading is allowed. Wouldn't this effectively make swarm/torrent downloading illegal?
- simonair 15y ago
  Of course; any kind of peer-to-peer service that actually uploads data you don't have a license to distribute is illegal. But fear not --- the Swiss have a solution for that, too: http://bitthief.ethz.ch/ http://bitthief.ethz.ch/ "BitThief is a free riding BitTorrent client, that is, it downloads from BitTorrent swarms without contributing any resources itself."
rplnt 15y ago
Slovakia and Czech Republic too. It's not illegal to download copyrighted content, only sharing is. So using rapidshare and all that is perfectly fine. However, torrents and other kinds of p2p (or even hosting ftp) is not.
seanalltogether 15y ago

fla 15y ago

It's also worth mentioning that entertainment is quiet expensive in Switzerland. For example watching a 3d movie at the local theater will cost you around 21CHF (~17€ or ~$23). Wich is really expensive IMO.

lowglow 15y ago
I think it's about the same in San Francisco if you're watching a 3D Imax flick. I'd love to move to switzerland, but I've heard it is difficult to get a visa.
- JSGraef 15y ago
  Getting a visa in Switzerland is extremely difficult (for non-EU nationals). The employer needs to first prove that they cannot find an adequate candidate in Switzerland, then they must prove that no adequate candidate can be found in EU countries. Once that's proven, they're free to choose from the "rest of the world". That's step one. Then there are (naturally) plenty of other factors that go into the acceptance process, but those are generally easy.
  - guard-of-terra 15y ago
    I've heard that Swiss Google takes people in without much problems. Obviously they've figured it out.
    - waqf 15y ago
      I just assumed that Swiss Google primarily recruited EEA citizens. Do you know otherwise?
      - guard-of-terra 15y ago
        I know about (not personally) a couple of Russian who are currently employed there.

VonLipwig 15y ago

Wait.. what is this? A Government talking sense! Wow! Most of my friends 'acquire' digital content. All spend money on cinema, entertainment events, video games and legit DVD's and box sets of things they really like. In all cases the decision to go pirate is convenience + cost. A DVD at £14 is seen as too expensive. Similarly 79p for a single audio track file which you only need to play on your iPod seems a little pricy. Since Spotify came about everyone I know has cut back on music downloaded. Apart from iPod tracks there is no reason to get the actual file. If pirated content disappeared overnight I personally would mostly live without. If I did buy a DVD for a silly price, that would mean I wouldn't be visiting the cinema that week. I think the majority of my friends would do the same. The trouble with law makers is the influence the music and film industry have on them. The facts are there to be seen. Someone who goes out of their way to get a pirate copy of something will typically spend more on entertainment than those who don't. The music industry likes to believe that every track downloaded is 79p they could have had. That isn't the case at all. If you took away all pirated material you would restrict discovery of new entertainment. Film / Music people may get slightly more money from certain people but the majority of this money would come at the expensive of other things. I am not saying piracy is good but it certainly isn't the devil which many law and policy makers make out it is and its nice to see this acknowledged by an EU state.

tripa 15y ago
Switzerland is not an EU state.
- iwwr 15y ago
  No, but you could rent a VPN connection located there and permanently avoid EU harassment.
  - dasil003 15y ago
    Suddenly the Swiss position seems quite enterprising.
    - 15y ago

killnine 15y ago

Wait... what is this? A Government doing research? Weighing solutions? We should all print this article and mail it to our government

tomlin 15y ago

> ...the Swiss government has been conducting a study into the impact downloading has on society, and this week their findings were presented. This is where I stopped and took a moment. The government did research. Proactively. For the good of its people. To the Swiss government, the people of the country (or, the impact to the people of the country) are/is considered before an external interest. That isn't to say the external interest isn't important, just not as important as the people. That's the difference. In North America, we concern ourselves with jobs so much that it actually makes them go away. If you sympathize with the industry, the industry takes advantage and cements itself to a position of necessity. Artists will continue making movies and music because that's what artists do – with or without the entertainment industry. The entertainment industry needs us, we don't need them.

rasur 15y ago
Switzerland has Direct Democracy.. with the result that - as far as I can see as an expat now living in CH - the government seems to respect the peoples wishes. Yes, it's quite odd, but very good!
eli 15y ago
The United States government routinely does research. Some of it is actually quite good. See for example http://fpc.state.gov/c18185.htm http://fpc.state.gov/c18185.htm Of course that doesn't mean they always listen to the results.
jordan0day 15y ago
"To the Swiss government, the people of the country (or, the impact to the people of the country) are/is considered before an external interest." How would you consider the American music industry an "external interest" in the USA? While the RIAA and the labels aren't citizens, they're generally comprised of citizens. That is, when a music label gets special treatment, that means those citizens who work for that label get special treatment. I'm not advocating the craziness that is current copyright law in the USA by any means, and while the above statement might sound like justification for all the evil the RIAA and the like have done over the years, the issue is hardly black-and-white. "Artists will continue making movies and music because that's what artists do – with or without the entertainment industry." I think this is a very broad, gross generalization. Sure, musically-inclined folks will probably still continue to play instruments or write songs as a hobby, even if there weren't a financial incentive -- but I hardly think the thousands (hundreds of thousands? millions?) of people currently involved in the entertainment industry would all be starving artists/producers/technicians/special effects artists/movie theater operators/etc. purely out of some all-overriding drive to create/produce/engineer/operate. Let's say we flipped the law and made it illegal to sell music & movies. On the plus side, we'd probably have relatively little low-quality "pop" music & remakes of remakes in the theaters. On the negatives, we'd almost certainly never have, say, the Beatles White album, 2001: A Space Odyssey, WALL-E, etc.. It's not because without a financial incentive the Beatles wouldn't have made music, they just wouldn't have been able to devote the time and resources that they did. Kubrick might have still made a film like 2001, but how possible is it he would have been able to make it of the same quality? Again, I'm not saying I agree with our current system of basically entertainment industry-by-fiat, but it's not nearly as simple as "we'll always have art regardless of if there's an industry to support it!"

michaelfeathers 15y ago

The MPAA and RIAA could declare war on Switzerland, but there are all of those mountains.

mattee 15y ago

Easy for them to say. But are they also ok with people creating counterfeit Swiss watches?

cbs 15y ago
That is a very different aspect of intellectual property. While related in the broad scope, as far as the constraints of this report and the subject of downloading copy-written materiel go it is irrelevant.
- mattee 15y ago
  I don't think you understood my point. If Switzerland's economy financed movies and depended on the revenue from those movies to employ people, their government would have a different view of people downloading free movies and music. It is a different aspect of intellectual property rights, but the argument is the same in both cases.
  - wccrawford 15y ago
    It's still illegal to upload. In other words, it's not illegal to buy a counterfeit watch, but it's illegal to make one. (Yes, the analogy still doesn't hold well.)
    - tonfa 15y ago
      Mattee is still right that part of the decision from the Swiss gov comes from the fact that file sharing does not hurt the Swiss local economy (they explicitly say it). I don't think there's anything wrong with it, they exploit their status of being a small country. The Swiss have always been ignoring other countries problems and only do what benefits them most (hence the fiscal situation and the protection of the bank industry). If you can afford doing it, why not do it?
    - enjoy-your-stay 15y ago
      Funnily enough, if I understand it correctly, it is illegal to import counterfeited goods into Switzerland and border guards will sometimes check your purchases when returning from holiday to make sure you haven't any in your luggage.

hammock 15y ago

"I buy the music of bands I really like. I buy their albums as a conscious choice to support them." This argument is made a lot, but it's weird. Music isn't CHARITY! It's a manufactured good. I don't give KitchenAid $150 for a stand mixer to "support them and the great things they create." I do it to buy their stand mixer. Just to be clear, I'm not a copyright advocate. Just think it's a twisted frame of mind to think about music as above.

AndrewDucker 15y ago
Well, if you're not a copyright advocate then you pretty much believe that the cost of music ought to be the marginal cost of duplicating it (i.e. as close to zero as makes no difference). If you think it should be higher then you _do_ support the right of the owners of the music to forbid others from copying it (i.e. copyright).
burgerbrain 15y ago
Actually, this attitude is the traditional one, and your's is the more radical. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patronage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patronage
cbs 15y ago
Just think it's a twisted frame of mind to think about music as above. Most people who are serious about music buy merch at shows for the explicit purpose of supporting the artist. It is a pure form of voting with your wallet, "I want you to exist, sell me unrelated goods I have no need for". I gave MC Lars $X for two t-shrits, not because I wanted T-shirts but because I wanted to support him and the great things that he creates. Hell, I even bought a floppy disk full of animiated .gifs from Math The Band. I don't even have a floppy drive, I just had a good time at their show. It's a manufactured good A good that, unlike a mixer, has no utility and the only reason for purchase is that you like it.
- billybob 15y ago
  If people really only want to support musicians, it would make more sense to just hand them a nice note with some cash and walk away. I mean, isn't it weird that they want to make music, and you want to hear music, but it doesn't pay unless they make and you buy a t-shirt that you don't want? It's like, you make software that I want, but I won't buy software. I require you to make and sell me a lawn ornament, which I will throw away.

rglover 15y ago

I can't help but think of this scene from Cool Runnings after reading this article: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVrcnyn5ZZ4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVrcnyn5ZZ4

tux1968 15y ago

Time to get a Swiss proxy account. ;o)

edanm 15y ago

"The other side of piracy, based on the Dutch study, is that downloaders are reported to be more frequent visitors to concerts, and game downloaders actually bought more games than those who didn’t. And in the music industry, lesser-know bands profit most from the sampling effect of file-sharing." Hate to burst the bubble, but this is a pretty stupid conclusion if you're trying to advocate for piracy. People who download more tend to buy more. Why is this surprising? Obviously, the people who download more are the same people who care more about entertainment, so of course these are also the people who'll pay more. That is absolutely irrelevant to the discussion of whether piracy is a net benefit. It's mixing up causation with correlation. Download more pirate content is not causing people to go to more concerts - the people who would "naturally" go to more concerts are the same people who would "naturally" buy more music, but are now simply downloading more music. Note: Or at least, that's another theory, which is also the correct one in my opinion. My point is that this fact doesn't prove in any way that piracy is good.

dbrannan 15y ago

Here is my experience: • I took my family to see the Incredibles - cost $7.50 x $5.00 = $37.50 • I like it so much we purchased the DVD - cost $19.50 • Somehow the DVD broke, so in a fit I purchased it through iTunes - $14.95 • Lost that hard drive and had no back up - torrents save the day. My philosophy is pixar has already made their mint on me. This one movie cost my family $71.95, and I'm not about to pay for it again.

jgeralnik 15y ago

I would argue that what copyrights should do is give rights holders the exclusive right to make a profit off of them - other people should not be able to simply steal your ideas and sell them. That said, copyright does not mean that you must be paid for your work. If you can offer a service that people want to pay for, by all means go ahead. If people are not willing to pay for your work, find another job. Back when distribution cost money, it was a reasonable service that was provided. Specifically, rights holders allow corporations to use and distribute their intellectual property and then people would pay for the service of distribution. With distribution free in today's world, there is no longer profit to be made by controlling distribution. However, those corporations want to create artificial scarcity so that they can continue to use their old business model. We do not have any responsibility to sustain obsolete business models. With no money to be made in simple distribution, content creators must focus on different services if they wish to make a profit. There are many different ways to do this. One option is to reform digital distribution - make it more convenient to purchase than it is to pirate (Netflix, Spotify). Another option presented earlier in this thread is live performances, but obviously that does not work in every industry. Yet another option presented is to monetize creation - appeal directly to fans, run kickstarter campaigns, etc. Find people willing to pay money for you to create more content. Because at the end of the day, people focusing on the old model of distribution are offering me a service I don't need. I can obtain information for free - the costs of digital distribution are zero. Profits must be found elsewhere. The exclusive right to make a profit should continue to belong to the content creator, so you still cannot sell copies. However, since distribution is free, I see no problem with giving away copies.

MichaelGagnon 15y ago

New business idea: Setup proxies in Switzerland. Customers pay a subscription to download pirated content from their Swiss account. From there, you can transfer the customer's data to their home account in the US (or wherever). Seem perfectly legal to me. For extra value added you can do AV and other quality control to make help customers find and safely download pirated content. I wonder if Switzerland foresaw such businesses...