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European Court Strikes Down Law Allowing Users to Rip Their Own CDs

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Re: European Court Strikes Down Law Allowing Users to Rip Their Own CDs

#61

Post by _0ffh »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #25
comboy wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, 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.

I 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.

The EU Commission is regularly abused by any plurality of national governments to push for Europe-wide legislation that those governments want, but would not be able to enact nationally without significant voter backlash. So, they use European law as an excuse to say "See, we also do not want this, but we are forced to do so!". Same process as happens with international treaties like TPP or TTIP, which when signed would force numerous unpalatable changes to national laws.

Ed: And there's much of the reason for the bad rep of the EU inside of the EU. The rest (mostly in the UK) is due to Murdoch's personal interests, obviously.

Re: European Court Strikes Down Law Allowing Users to Rip Their Own CDs

#62

Post by batou »

guard-of-terra wrote: post #60
batou wrote: post #32

Lets 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.

You 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)

I'll have to steal more then to get my money's worth...

Re: European Court Strikes Down Law Allowing Users to Rip Their Own CDs

#63

Post by 2a0c40 »

antientropic wrote: post #57
loup-vaillant wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That doesn't make all these countries undemocratic. A few examples do show a blatant lack of democracy, though. In France, we had a referendum regarding the new European constitution. We refused it at 60% (not counting abstention, which by the way was relatively low). Then a dozen months later, the same constitution came back (sections were shuffled around, but it was mostly a copy-paste job). No referendum this ti…

It was not undemocratic. Your parliament was democratically elected. It had a mandate to do things like ratifying new European treaties. The problem was holding the referendum in the first place. Direct democracy does not work because it's a recipe for paralysis.

Doesn't it? Did you check Switzerland?

Re: European Court Strikes Down Law Allowing Users to Rip Their Own CDs

#64

Post by simias »

comboy wrote: post #13
anigbrowl wrote: post #2

Seizing 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:... I'm not expressing an opinion on the merits of European copyright law;…

Well, 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.

Don't forget that politicians of every country tend to take the credit when the EU does something popular while they're quick to blame Brussels when poorly-received reforms are made.

Not to say that everything's great in europe's current state of affair but be careful not to be too influenced by political propaganda. Remember that the political direction of the union is set by the council which comprises the various head of states of the union. It's not like the parliament is this rogue extranational body that unilaterally dictates its will to the members of the EU.

Re: European Court Strikes Down Law Allowing Users to Rip Their Own CDs

#65

Post by _0ffh »

istvan__ wrote: post #4

Good 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.

While I share much of your sentiment, I cannot share your optimism. Never underestimate the power of corporate rent-seeking lobbyism. Where I live, we do not only pay surcharges for blank CDs and DVDs, but printers, mobile phones, CD- and DVD burners, hard disk drives, etc. Practically, for any and all ways of storing data, both the drives and the media.

And it all vanishes in the huge, bottomless maw of corporate greed, with little ever reaching any actual artist. It largely divides into shareholder value, outrageous manager payoffs, and.... errr... "investments" (meaning, money for more lobbying and bribes).

Re: European Court Strikes Down Law Allowing Users to Rip Their Own CDs

#66

Post by bnolsen »

DanBC wrote: post #44
psykovsky wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bureaucracy services, mostly.

Teaching? 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.

you left out the most important..national defense...oh sorry, most of the EU dumped that on the US so it could afford all these social programs!

Re: European Court Strikes Down Law Allowing Users to Rip Their Own CDs

#67

Post by npongratz »

alextgordon wrote: post #15

> 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.

The 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

Re: European Court Strikes Down Law Allowing Users to Rip Their Own CDs

#69

Post by dethos »

rsto wrote: post #20

European 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 o…

In Portugal a similar law will start to be applied from July on. Most storage devices will see an increase in the price so that "copyright holders" can be paid, when what you just want is to store your own photos. ridiculous.
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