Stand up for your rights-- but wait, what are they?

October 2, 2005 1:13 AM

A new, controversial lawmaking its way through the Finnish parliament is confusing, but its implementation may infringe on already existing Finnish laws of free speech. With decisions set to be made later this week, a demonstration has already been planned for Tuesday. On the other hand, some sources seem to be saying that this new law should present no major issue. Thus, it seems like there's a small amount of confusing legal voodoo going on: while the law wouldn't make it illegal to copy music to MP3 players, it would mean that "the breaking of copy protection for the copying of the content of a sound or video recording for personal use would be prohibited." It looks like no one knows exactly what they want out of this law, or how to interpret it. DMCA, anyone?
posted by taursir (6 comments total)

Whoops, that link shouldn't have been in there the first time.
posted by taursir at 1:22 AM on October 2, 2005

From the link about the demonstration:
Problems of the proposed copyright law
...
The sales ban in Finland on articles that were originally published outside of the EEA.

Sales ban? I can only suppose that 'EEA' here is some form of the EU. How can you ban such sales in the 'global economy', or more basic, free speech and free thought? Would this mean that folks up there can't order some DVDs from Amazon.com, for international delivery?

Its one thing to seek to protect the intellectual property of publishers against pirates. It is quite another to enlist the strong arm of the law to enforce market manipulation for the sake of corporate profits.
posted by Goofyy at 7:49 AM on October 2, 2005

Goofyy : "Would this mean that folks up there can't order some DVDs from Amazon.com, for international delivery? "

Possibly. After all, I can't order video games from Amazon.com for international delivery.
posted by Bugbread at 8:44 AM on October 2, 2005

Sales ban? I can only suppose that 'EEA' here is some form of the EU. How can you ban such sales in the 'global economy', or more basic, free speech and free thought? Would this mean that folks up there can't order some DVDs from Amazon.com, for international delivery?

The sales ban would prevent further distribution of copyrighted work originally distributed outside the EEA, except for single copies for private use. So buying dvds from Amazon would be legal and selling your used dvds would be legal too, but you couldn't buy 20 dvds and resell them.
posted by lazy-ville at 10:14 AM on October 2, 2005

The EEA is the tariff-free zone comprising the EU and the EFTA.

I'm gonna meh. The Register can't get worked up over it, and they can get worked up over nothing.
posted by dhartung at 2:08 PM on October 2, 2005

I'm going. Pick up your banners!
posted by hoskala at 2:57 PM on October 2, 2005