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European Court Strikes Down Law Allowing Users to Rip Their Own CDs
- anigbrowl 11y agoSeizing on the opportunity to use this supranational directive to overturn a democratically-enacted law The directive exists pursuant to action of the European Parliament* which is also a democratic institution, as someone with Jeremy Malcolm's outstanding education is surely aware. * http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:32001L0029:EN:HTML http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:... I'm not expressing an opinion on the merits of European copyright law; I'm not familiar with this case or the details of EU regulations, and I'm not suggesting the EFF is wrong to oppose this provision of EU law. I just get irritated as a citizen of the EU when people dismiss anything that comes out of Brussels as 'undemocractic'. Why does the EFF keep pandering to lowest common denominator like this? If I want xenophobic arguments I'll buy a tabloid newspaper.
- beedogs 11y ago"xenophobic"? Is that really the word you're going to use here? Bit ridiculous.
- sago 11y agoIs it not accurate? Portraying the democratically elected EU as 'undemocratic' because it is in contrast to a national government suggest to me that the source of the misrepresentation is due to them not being English (in this case). That, and a very long track record of such sentiments being aired by those who are more transparently xenophobic. I don't see how it is ridiculous.
- beedogs 11y agoThe EFF has a "very long track record" of being xenophobic? Well, now I've heard it all.
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- anigbrowl 11y agoArguably so, but the European Parliament is nevertheless a democratically elected institution. The size of MEP's electoral districts is typically smaller than US Congressional districts and nobody questions whether the House of Representatives is a democratic body. You don't have to approve of how it works to acknowledge this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apportionment_in_the_European_Parliament#2014_Amendment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apportionment_in_the_European_...
- comboy 11y agoWell, I'm from Europe and I don't like most of the things that come out of Brussels. In fact, when polls are made it would seem majority share my view. Maybe then 'undemocratic' is not such a bad name for it? It's tons of bureaucracy with very little democracy.
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- tonyedgecombe 11y agoI think the majority don't have a clue what laws come out of the EU versus their own parliament. The EU has about 33 thousand employees, this is hardly tons of bureaucracy, just UK local government has 2.3 million employees.
- DanBC 11y agoA lot of local government are not strictly bureaucrats but are people providing services.
- psykovsky 11y agoBureaucracy services, mostly.
- DanBC 11y agoTeaching? Libraries? Rubbish collection? Street cleaning? Public health? Social care; adult social services, child protection social services? Most of that isn't what people think when they hear bureaucracy.
- psykovsky 11y agoAll those services are surrounded by huge bureaucratic machines. As is any private company who wishes to make business.
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- makeitsuckless 11y agoThe European Parliament is pretty f-ing far from a democratic institution. Just because it has an election attached to it (for which the turn out is so ridiculously low they might as well not bother) doesn't make it a democratic institution. Any power the EP has or doesn't have (mostly the latter) didn't come about through democratic process. Imposing a faux parliament on people, especially one that operates without the context of a democratic government, doesn't make it a democratic institution. Never mind the fact that so many of these parliament members are the deeply corrupt representatives of corrupt countries. And the people know this, hence the fact that the majority of the people of Europe now boycots these elections. Especially in countries that have a decently functioning democracy themselves. Everything that comes out of Brussels is undemocratic, unless it pertains to the sovereign nation of Belgium. Also, can we keep it civilized? If you don't call all opponents to your EU dreams "xenophobic", I won't call you a "eurofascist", agreed?
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- _0ffh 11y agoThe facts of the given case notwithstanding, a lot of what happens on the EU level is quite undemocratic, IMHO. The reason being, that most of the power in EU institutions still lies with the Commission, not with Parliament. Commissioners are appointed by the national Governments, and not elected, and so twice-removed from all democratic processes.
- beedogs 11y agoThis idiotic decision will not stop one single CD from being ripped in Europe.
- JadeNB 11y agoI don't think that any but the most naïve lawmaker believes that these laws will stop the behaviour they criminalise. Rather, they simply further the "3 felonies a day" state of being (http://www.harveysilverglate.com/Books/ThreeFeloniesaDay.aspx)—and http://www.harveysilverglate.com/Books/ThreeFeloniesaDay.asp... I will set aside (because I honestly don't know what I believe) whether that is an intended or unintended effect.
- spiritplumber 11y agoI'm in favor of anything that degrades the respect for the rule of law qua law. We'll have direct democracy on this stuff yet! Look at the Swiss.
- JadeNB 11y ago> We'll have direct democracy on this stuff yet! Look at the Swiss. Sorry, I'm not sufficiently up to date on this stuff to know at what about the Swiss to look. Could you elaborate?
- istvan__ 11y agoGood old greed. The speed CDs and the music industry is disappearing probably will solve this issue going forward. Music is getting more and more fragmented and smaller and smaller styles show up that are very specific to a particular location. This will help to dismantle the music industry lobby probably.
- bhrgunatha 11y agoI hear this argument very often but I don't see any strong evidence that it is happening in the majority case, nor will happen. The music/entertainment industries have been relatively slow to react to digitisation, the internet and technological advances, but their lobbying prowess is frightening. Just look at their power and handywork at the national level instigating ridiculous and oppressive laws and at the international level at the trade agreements being instigated. Just like in the linked article. I do agree that small scale/localised success - the long tail as it used to be referred to - is a positive force too. It looks like we all just have to learn to live with both camps (and many more besides) being given scope to thrive. Hopefully that's the best outcome, but this type of out of touch and obtuse legislation is not helping.
- istvan__ 11y ago"In early 2015, Bandcamp released an announcement that artists using the website had officially gotten $100 million in total from music sale" Total music industry is 15B (afaik). It is 1/150th of the entire music industry and that is just one site. I think the artist make more on Bandcamp and other music distribution platforms than on big labels, that might be the reason why Bandcamp is greatly successful.
- bhrgunatha 11y agoWell that's incredibly positive and I wasn't aware of that. I'm used to seeing more of the news that artists get almost no money through Spotify and similar channels or that consumer websites like Pandora getting legally harassed.
- alextgordon 11y ago> THE QUEEN on the application of > (1) BRITISH ACADEMY OF SONGWRITERS, COMPOSERS AND AUTHORS > (2) MUSICIANS’ UNION > (3) UK MUSIC 2009 LIMITED Perhaps, as a token of defiance, we should compile a list of the people at the top of these organisations, and forbid them from using our software. There's a time and a place for spite, and this is it.
- npongratz 11y agoThe BipCot NoGov license [0] might provide a template, replacing "government" with "[leaders of] media organizations" (or whatever), as applicable. But if you're looking for something with teeth, this probably won't meet your needs -- as they say, "It is not copyright-based, it is entirely shame-based." [0] http://bipcot.org http://bipcot.org
- jkot 11y agoThis is just UK. I dont think it will fly in Spain, Czech rep or other parts of EU. For start there is author tax to compensate authors for fair use, it is collected as VAT on empty mediums and printers. With this law many powerful people would loose money. I would welcome it, since it means cheaper hardware. And secondly: YES! More stupid laws like this, more DRM and people will turn to free music under Creative-Commons like license.
- pjmlp 11y agoPeople will just pirate more.
- serge2k 11y agouh sure okay. People will continue to obey copyright laws as closely as ever. right.
- Oletros 11y agoFrom the linked text. > The government's choices are now to remove the private copying exception—making personal copying illegal again, or to supply additional evidence that copyright owners suffer no or minimal “harm” from personal copying, or else to begin imposing a new tax on users to compensate the indust This is exactly the situation we have in Spain, a tax was created to compensate private copy. Sure it would fly in Spain
- psykovsky 11y agoMinor correction, the authors tax charged on printers and copy mediums is in addition to VAT, not the same as VAT.
- hrbrtglm 11y agoMinor correction, depends on the eu countries, but in France, the authors tax charged on copy mediums is in addition to the product price without VAT, and then VAT is applied to the whole. So you pay VAT on the authors tax. To be clear you pay tax on tax, a french speciality.
- rsto 11y agoEuropean Copyright legislative is an inconsistent mess. Right now, in Austria, the government is up to demand 6% of the price of any digital storage device, to compensate copyright holders when the legit consumers of their work execute their right to make a private copy. So the European Court apparently just has settled that in one country of the EU, consumers do not have the right to make private copies, while in others consumers just got a new tax to do so. AFAIK the Austrian model follows German legislative. What a mess.
- pparkkin 11y agoFrom the linked text. The government's choices are now to remove the private copying exception—making personal copying illegal again, or to supply additional evidence that copyright owners suffer no or minimal “harm” from personal copying, or else to begin imposing a new tax on users to compensate the industry for that “harm”. Which sounds to me like UK has the option to start collecting a similar surcharge to compensate for the right to make private copies of works. They are not required to ban private copying completely.
- rsto 11y agoThanks, I read the article but this sentence must have slipped my attention. I really would like to see them to supply evidence that copyright owners suffer no or minimal harm from personal copying but guess they won't even bother attempting.
- raverbashing 11y agoWell, the levy is the least of their problems In Germany there's the issue of GEMA and the draconian policies. Also users of bittorrent are fined liberally
- Atropos 11y agoThe article is about a decision of the UK High Court, not the European Court of Justice, so it only applies to the UK.
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- makeitsuckless 11y agoIn other news: not single person who rips their own CDs in all of Europe will give a crap. Also, the only people still buying CDs don't rip them, and the rest of us have ripped their last CD over a decade ago. The actual impact of this decision is close to zero, and therefor not a strong argument for copyright reform. Many countries still have outdated laws on the books nobody bothers with, making noise about this just gives the impression copyright reform isn't urgent.
- dmoo 11y agoExactly, I'm old enough to have many hundreds of CDs, cassettes and vinyl, it's quicker to download an album that I own than to go and look for it around the house let alone including the time to rip it.
- batou 11y agoLets be realistic here. So I'm going to go and delete 90% of my mp3s and go and purchase a CD player this afternoon. Actually nope, I'm going to continue to steal all my music out of a combination of apathy and disdain for the system. Oh and continue to go to the odd gig.
- guard-of-terra 11y agoYou and some other commenters miss the point completely. Now the "rights holders" will have right to tax every storage medium you buy. n% of what you pay for your HDD goes to them. (And I don't know who is that, since everybody I lisen to won't get a cent)
- batou 11y agoI'll have to steal more then to get my money's worth...
- jwildeboer 11y agoThe teaser is wrong. It's a UK court, deciding for the UK. Not on the European level.
- calibwam 11y agoWhile not wrong, as the UK is in Europe, it is a misleading title.
- Trombone12 11y agoThe same story as reported by Ars technica[1] paints the EU law as the hero that produced some slight advances in copyright regulations based on essentially a completely reversed causuality than reported by the eff. "The UK's music industry has successfully landed a significant judgement from the UK's High Court, countering a copyright exception that was brought in by the UK government last year. Since last October, there was a law that allowed you to make private copies of your own music; now the future of that law is uncertain." "The UK government brought in the new copyright exception under a European Union directive that gives national governments that power, but which requires compensation to be paid to artists unless the harm caused to them by the change in copyright law is minimal." It is also fun to contrast the position on the rights holders between the eff: "Neither can we fully absolve the rightsholders from blame;" and Arstechnica: "The refusal to accept gracefully legislative changes is not new for the copyright industry. Perhaps the most egregious example of its dog-in-the-manger attitude [snip]" [1]: http://arstechnica.co.uk/tech-policy/2015/06/music-industry-wins-against-uk-government-over-private-copying-of-music/ http://arstechnica.co.uk/tech-policy/2015/06/music-industry-...
- colomon 11y agoI'm curious. This is phrased as a ruling on CDs. But doesn't the logic used suggest that if I buy an album on MP3, I cannot copy those files to my server and phone? It would be really weird if (US prices here, maybe UK is different?) I spend $15 on a CD I can only listen to the music using the original CD in a CD player, but if I spend $9 on an MP3 album, I can copy it to all my devices.
- pmontra 11y ago"UK court". Reading "European court" made me think it was a ruling by an EU level court. That would have a different fallout.
- MatthewWilkes 11y agoI think the EFF needs to send its people on a copywriting course, this article is so poorly written it's almost unreadable.