Japan Makes Private Copying Illegal

from the wrong-direction dept

Plenty of countries have reasonably pointed out that the entire point behind copyright laws was to protect again commercial for-profit copying -- and thus, private, non-commercial personal use copying really shouldn't be covered by copyright laws. Of course, for an entertainment industry hell-bent on filing lawsuits against people rather than adapting to the marketplace, this is a serious, serious problem. So, the recording industry has been lobbying hard in any country that carves out an exception for private copying, trying to make it illegal. Unfortunately, it appears they've won in Japan. A new copyright law has been passed that specifically says that private, non-commercial copying is infringing (via Cybeardjm). This really isn't all that surprising, given that Japan has also been pushed on copyright extension and a recent court ruling found that uploading your own content for personal storage could be infringement. Still, it's yet another victory for entertainment industry lobbyists who will do anything possible to pass laws to protect old business models.

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Even Movie Industry Execs Seem To Think The DMCA Is Unreasonable

from the do-as-we-say dept

We've pointed out for a long time that the DMCA is bad for innovation and needlessly inconveniences users. It seems the point is becoming so obvious that even senior executives in the movie industry are beginning to tacitly acknowledge (via Ars Technica) that the DMCA is unreasonable. At a conference on DRM last week, Scott Smyers, VP of network and systems architecture for Sony Electronics, admitted that he makes backup copies of his kids' DVDs. For those keeping score at home, not only is copying DVDs illegal under the DMCA, but Sony itself participated in a lawsuit to shut down a company making precisely the sort of DVD-backup software Smyers is presumably using to copy his kids' movies. Meanwhile, Jim Helman, the chief technology officer of MovieLabs, a research organization funded by the major studios, says that one of the most promising new devices on the horizon is a video jukebox that will let you rip your DVD collection onto a hard drive and then stream your movies to all the devices around your house. That is, unless the studio-backed DVD-CCA uses the DMCA to prohibit the creation of DVD jukeboxes. Helman and Smyers are absolutely right. If only their bosses would listen to them. They should point out to their bosses at the major studios that allowing people to create useful hardware and software products could be good for their bottom line, because it would make the movies they sell more useful to consumers.

Timothy Lee is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Timothy Lee and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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Germany Says Nein To Private Copying

from the who-would-want-to-do-that? dept

A bunch of folks have submitted the news that Germany's upper house of parliament has approved a new copyright law that forbids any kind of private copying of music or movies. There aren't many details in the Variety article about why such a strict law would get approval, though it does note that the politicians ignored widespread criticism against the law. Obviously, this is the type of law that some large entertainment companies would push for, though if it really does become the law, they'll find that it harms them a lot more than it helps them. That's because forbidding private copying will make music, movies and TV shows a lot less valuable to purchasers. If you can't rip a CD to mp3 format to place on your iPod, that CD is suddenly a lot less valuable. It's amazing that such a law would pass, but the end result is going to be criminalizing a large segment of the population while making entertainment products a lot less valuable. It's hard to see how that's beneficial to anyone. Update: In the comments there's a good clarification, that suggests the Variety report isn't entirely accurate (or at least leaves out some of the details). This may just forbid circumvention of copy-protected material -- and then forbid any additional copies of content that was originally copy protected. Thus, it might not forbid copying a CD or DVD that has no copy protection. Still, given how many people still make private copies of copy-protected music in order to listen to it on a different device for convenience, this would still criminalize a lot of activities -- though, perhaps not as many as the original report suggested.

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Canadian Recording Industry Suddenly Against Private Copying Levy It Fought So Hard For

from the suing-is-more-lucrative dept

For many years, the recording industry has been able to convince the Canadian government that it needs to add a "private copying levy" to various forms of blank media, to reimburse the industry for any "private copying" that happens on that media. This is pretty questionable for a number of reasons -- basically amounting to a government tax to support a private industry and its inability to adapt its business model to the market. At times, this private copying levy can be an astounding 70% of the cost of blank CDs. Once mp3 players (specifically the iPod) started to become popular, the recording industry fought to have the private levy attached to those players as well. In late 2003, the industry got its wish -- but with a catch. A ruling found that the devices could be taxed, but if they were, then downloading unauthorized content would be seen as legal (uploading unauthorized content would still be illegal). A judge later overturned the iPod levy, but some in the industry have kept fighting for it, and the Copyright Board of Canada supports extending the levy to iPods.

However, in a surprise move, the Canadian Recording Industry Association (basically, Canada's version of the RIAA -- controlled by American record labels, of course) has come out against extending the private copying levy to mp3 players, admitting that if the levy is extended (even though it will send millions of dollars directly into recording industry bank accounts), Canadians may (incorrectly, in the view of the CRIA) start to believe that downloading is legal. Of course, some people pointed out this loophole in the recording industry's efforts to extend the private copying levy years ago -- but it seems that it just occurred to the powers that be. Once again, it's a case for the industry to be careful what it wishes for. The private copying levy makes the industry a ton of money, but does so at the expense of anger from purchasers of any blank media. Still, that anger is probably better than the anger generated by thousands of lawsuits against file sharers based on flimsy evidence.

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