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Finnish government's proposal for EUCD implementation

10 October 2002 10:39 by Petteri "dRD" Pyyny | 8 comments

Finnish government released today its proposal how it wants Finland to implement new European Union Copyright Directive that each EU member state has to implement into its local laws by 21st of December, 2002.

EUCD, which was approved by European Union in last year, restricts circumvention devices that bypass copy-protections on copyrighted media, such as CDs, DVDs, etc. As it is already approved, it can't be rejected anymore, but each member state can apply various restrictions and relieves to it when they implement the local versions of the law. Finland's original proposal was similiar to the UK's recent proposal -- those could be described by calling them pretty fascist. Finland's original proposal, drafted by the Education Ministry, didn't give virtually any rights to consumers, scientists or librarians at all. After a pretty heavy lobbying from various citizen rights' groups, they have amended the wording pretty much, but obviously there's only so much that a member state can do.

New proposal is slightly twisted, IMHO :-) It allows individuals to copy copy-protected material they own, for their own personal use, just as usual. Proposal also allows individuals to circumvent copy-protection mechanisms in order to backup their CDs, DVDs, eBooks, etc. But the proposal also outlaws distribution of circumvention tools, such as DVD rippers. So, if the proposal is accepted by Finnish parliament, Finnish consumers can legally rip their own movies as much as they want, but the sites who distribute DVD rippers violate the law :-)

One nice thing though -- proposal specifically says that DVD region encoding is NOT a copy-protection mechanism and therefor selling "modified" DVD players that allow all regions to be played, will be perfectly legal in Finland.

But yes, if the law passes like this and if the UK (where AfterDawn is ALSO based :-) doesn't allow non-commercial DVD ripper distribution, it seems that we will remove all DVD rippers by 21st of December from our site. And I expect other European DVD ripping sites to follow the suit. But DVD region code hacks will stay ;-)

Source: Ministry of Education's press release

Permalink to this article | Topic: Lawsuits & Legislation

Sweden to outlaw peer-to-peer file swapping (30 July 2003)

Sweden's EUCD proposal online (18 June 2003)

European Commission: downloading pirated material should be legal (3 February 2003)

EUCD implementation delayed in most EU countries (17 December 2002)

Is DeCSS legal in your country? (13 August 2002)

UK Patent Office's preparations for EUCD are online (10 August 2002)

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seanbyrne (Member) 11 October 2002 1:15
This doesn't look good as I live in Ireland; a member of the EU. I didn't even though that there was such a law implemented in the EU to restrict the distribution of circumvention tools. Say goodbye to macrovision remover boxes and chipping a DVD player to remove macrovision. I wonder if someone thought of hosting these utilities on an Island on International waters or even on a satellite! Though very expensive at present, it may be the only future alternative to illegally hosting the utilities :-) [ + quote]
dRD (I hate titles) 11 October 2002 1:48
This has been thought and implemented pretty damn well for over 4 years now: http://www.havenco.com/ Petteri Pyyny Webmaster http://AfterDawn.com/ Please read our guides before posting questions! Guides are available here: http://www.afterdawn.com/articles/ [ + quote]
Ghostdog (Senior Member) 11 October 2002 7:18
Crap. This was almost good news. You can backup all you want, but the tools used for this are illegal? Well, like you said, twisted. [ + quote]
dRD (I hate titles) 11 October 2002 7:28
Even tools aren't illegal, just distribution of the tools is illegal. So you can HAVE the tools, but you can't distribute them (share to your friends, setup a website to offer those, etc). Petteri Pyyny Webmaster http://AfterDawn.com/ Please read our guides before posting questions! Guides are available here: http://www.afterdawn.com/articles/ [ + quote]
Ghostdog (Senior Member) 11 October 2002 12:48
So stupid. You can have the tools and use them, but you can�t burn them on a CDRW and give it to a friend. [ + quote]
Ketola (Admin) 14 October 2002 7:09
Yeah, but it's ok for your friend to come over and copy them himself. Atleast I think it is, since that doesn't fall under distribution. Jari Ketola Administrator http://www.AfterDawn.com [ + quote]
dRD (I hate titles) 14 October 2002 9:40
So, Jari, when do we set up a centre in Finland where everybody can take their disks with them and copy the rippers from our machines?-) Petteri Pyyny Webmaster http://AfterDawn.com/ Please read our guides before posting questions! Guides are available here: http://www.afterdawn.com/articles/ [ + quote]
Ghostdog (Senior Member) 15 October 2002 11:57
But then again you�re just leaving the software around the site, it�s the poeple that come to "your house" and copy the stuff themselves. Just kidding, a loophole like that would be cool. [ + quote]