Comment Context on Kyyrä's comment (Score 5, Informative) 661
The interview from which this was quoted is about the new Finnish copyright law, which is basically a Finnish version of the DMCA, following the EU directive on national copyright laws. (The interview was originally published in the Tietokone magazine; rumor has it that Mr. Kyyrä was less than amused at being quoted verbatim, and a cleaned up version was put up a few hours later.)
The high points of the law include (these are mostly quoted from Electronic Frontier Finland's FAQ on the law at http://www.effi.org/tekijanoikeus/laki/tekijanoike us-faq.html (Finnish only)):
- prohibition on sale, distribution, possession and "organized discussion" (yes, it says this; no, "organized discussion" is not defined; yes, it's hard to see how this isn't against the Finnish constituion) of products whose purpose is the circumvention of DRM (this would include all non-sanctioned DVD players using something like libdvdcss);
- prohibition on copying of "efficiently" protected music or other copyrighted material to, for example, MP3 players; this is sort of allowed in one clause and expressly prohibited in another (this has been the major point seen in public discussion in the last few days);
- prohibition of "parallel" import of goods from outside the EFTA; individuals can still order goods from outside the EFTA, but all (including private) resale is prohibited; it doesn't actually matter whether the import is "parallel" or the only import, it must still be sanctioned by the copyright holder;
- possibility of expansion of the "cassette tax" (currently paid for recording media such as audio tapes and CD/DVD-Rs sold in Finland; money goes to the record labels based on how many records they sell, IIRC) to other media that "may be used to store copyrighted material"; this potentially includes all hard drives.
"Efficient protection" is a key concept in the law, but is not actually defined. According to the committee responsible for the law, protection is "efficient" if it was "meant to protect the copyrighted work from being copied". So it could be said that this law makes the shift key an illegal circumvention device.
The law was written pretty much behind closed doors, with only "experts" from the record label trade bodies and similar organizations heard. Also the head of the committee, Jukka Liedes, sits on the board of ESEK, a sub-organization of Gramex (a trade association which represents record labels in Finland). The Ministry of Education, which is the ministry responsible for the law, has also been forwarding press releases penned by the abovementioned organizations pretty much verbatim and quoting them in interviews.
It is a matter of discussion whether the committee responsible for the law is actually evil and corrupt, or just so incompetent that they have no actual idea what the rules proposed by the industry actually mean in practice.
The law was accepted in its current form today, with an official (but not having any power of law) note attached effectively saying that "there's some stuff in there that should be fixed". I understand that the law will be headed for the final yes/no vote in the parliament in the near future. In my opinion, it's very likely that it will be pushed through; the recording industry has put their rather powerful propaganda machine in high gear and (I assume) also their lobbying machinery after the outcry from the public began.
The minister of culture Tanja Karpela (who is the "owner" of the law) has refused to admit that there are any problems with the current version of the law, even though it has obvious internal contradictions as well as contradicting the constitution. When opposition to the law first started making headlines, she stated her suspicion that it was a result of "machinations by certain parties" (that's a pretty much literal and verbatim translation). It would appear that she is mostly repeating statements prepared by someone else regarding the law. (She is also known for proposing a "voluntary" firewall effected by consumer ISPs to block child porn sites; implementation details have not been forthcoming.)
A review on the effect of the law on consumers has been slated to be held in one year's time.
Please correct me if I got some details wrong.
The high points of the law include (these are mostly quoted from Electronic Frontier Finland's FAQ on the law at http://www.effi.org/tekijanoikeus/laki/tekijanoik
- prohibition on sale, distribution, possession and "organized discussion" (yes, it says this; no, "organized discussion" is not defined; yes, it's hard to see how this isn't against the Finnish constituion) of products whose purpose is the circumvention of DRM (this would include all non-sanctioned DVD players using something like libdvdcss);
- prohibition on copying of "efficiently" protected music or other copyrighted material to, for example, MP3 players; this is sort of allowed in one clause and expressly prohibited in another (this has been the major point seen in public discussion in the last few days);
- prohibition of "parallel" import of goods from outside the EFTA; individuals can still order goods from outside the EFTA, but all (including private) resale is prohibited; it doesn't actually matter whether the import is "parallel" or the only import, it must still be sanctioned by the copyright holder;
- possibility of expansion of the "cassette tax" (currently paid for recording media such as audio tapes and CD/DVD-Rs sold in Finland; money goes to the record labels based on how many records they sell, IIRC) to other media that "may be used to store copyrighted material"; this potentially includes all hard drives.
"Efficient protection" is a key concept in the law, but is not actually defined. According to the committee responsible for the law, protection is "efficient" if it was "meant to protect the copyrighted work from being copied". So it could be said that this law makes the shift key an illegal circumvention device.
The law was written pretty much behind closed doors, with only "experts" from the record label trade bodies and similar organizations heard. Also the head of the committee, Jukka Liedes, sits on the board of ESEK, a sub-organization of Gramex (a trade association which represents record labels in Finland). The Ministry of Education, which is the ministry responsible for the law, has also been forwarding press releases penned by the abovementioned organizations pretty much verbatim and quoting them in interviews.
It is a matter of discussion whether the committee responsible for the law is actually evil and corrupt, or just so incompetent that they have no actual idea what the rules proposed by the industry actually mean in practice.
The law was accepted in its current form today, with an official (but not having any power of law) note attached effectively saying that "there's some stuff in there that should be fixed". I understand that the law will be headed for the final yes/no vote in the parliament in the near future. In my opinion, it's very likely that it will be pushed through; the recording industry has put their rather powerful propaganda machine in high gear and (I assume) also their lobbying machinery after the outcry from the public began.
The minister of culture Tanja Karpela (who is the "owner" of the law) has refused to admit that there are any problems with the current version of the law, even though it has obvious internal contradictions as well as contradicting the constitution. When opposition to the law first started making headlines, she stated her suspicion that it was a result of "machinations by certain parties" (that's a pretty much literal and verbatim translation). It would appear that she is mostly repeating statements prepared by someone else regarding the law. (She is also known for proposing a "voluntary" firewall effected by consumer ISPs to block child porn sites; implementation details have not been forthcoming.)
A review on the effect of the law on consumers has been slated to be held in one year's time.
Please correct me if I got some details wrong.
