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Does new Europe law mean slammer for DRM crackers?
Posted on 13/05/02 17:04 by Jan Willem
TheRegister has an intresting article for our European visitors and CloneCD users. The article speaks about upcoming European legislation that will not allow circumvention of copy protections and will probably also make CloneCD an illegal piece of software in the countries that are member of the European Union.
The new European Union Copyright Directive (EUCD) would however not criminalise anyone who circumvents a copyprotection, any one circumventing a protection would face civil and not criminal court actions in Europe. An organistation called Campaign for Digital Rights (CDR) is keeping an eye on it:
There are two threads to the directive (A6.1 and A6.2), dealing with banning circumvention and the devices which assist it, he explained. UK laws already ban devices, but there have very few uses of this law. "It's unlikely that the UK will criminalise circumvention; that'll just be actionable in the civil courts," Keegan. However "other European nations may be softer or harder on the laws and implementation", he added. This is ironic since one of the aims of the EUCD is to standardise laws across Europe, but in practice, the directive may lead to greater diversity. So far the EUCD has received little attention but the CDR aims to mobilise opposition against the directive, which the Recording and Publishing Industries are heavily lobbying. The CDR is also protesting against music industry plans to market copy-protected CDs. |
It seems that Europe will not have it's own DCMA, but a weakered version of it. This is however enough to stop (fear) developers from making software to circumvent copy protections.
It seems that one company however saw this coming: Elaborate Bytes. Who moves to Switserland that is not a member of the European Union.
Read the entire article on TheRegister here.
Source: Theregister.co.uk
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DAMN, soon I'm gonna have to move to RUSSIA ( the border is just 7 km from here ). they don't care about the copyrights there...
I have a feeling new copy protections will make CloneCD obsolete before this legislation goes through.
WTF....now we'll have to watch recording companies in the EU go through the hessian bag and ashes routine the frigging RIAA staged for the worlds benefit...will these pissants ever learn...:7
By
Guest,
Monday 13 May 2002 20:51
ha - well organizations and ppl - have to understand that we live in a world - that id not fair. if a user is to use legit software - buy original games and cds - then he must be making a n awful lot of money ......which is not the case. So either there would not be a market, to buy the copyright protected "goodies" or prices would have to come tumbling down.
either would not be good for them.
Just imagine that .... i cannot understand how those "bussinessmen" are so stupid...
but then again most of them are gambling with non existant money, in the stock exchanges - and mortgage peoples souls. HA !
Then the HW and SW lobby should also wake up and take some actions to save their business. Was it only pure chance that Liteon suddenly sold so much drives or could it be that there was something behind? Plextor would also be affected. And a lot of developers, and many many more...
And of course the ppl shouldn't accept that a handful of idiots is about to change the fundaments of the society.
Happy Birthday to you 
