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EUCD implementation delayed in most EU countries

17 December 2002 13:36 by Petteri "dRD" Pyyny | 6 comments

The European Union Copyright Directive, EU's own little clone of notorious DMCA law, should be implemented by European Union member countries into their existing legislation by 22nd of December, 2002 -- this upcoming Sunday. But now it seems that none of the countries is ready to do so in schedule.

According to various sources, the only country who might be able to implement the required changes into its existing legislation is Denmark. Other countries seem to miss the deadline -- some of them, such as United Kingdom, badly.

The EUCD, once implemented, basically makes it illegal to sell or distribute any device or software that makes it possible to circumvent a technical copy-protection mechanism. Good example of such tool is DeCSS which allows circumventing the CSS copy-protection found on DVD-Video discs.

Each member country can have their own little alternatives of the law, but basically most of the countries seem to adapt the worst possible methods for implementation. Only handful of countries, including Finland where AfterDawn.com is located, have allowed the use of such tools in their draft laws-- even though distributing is still illegal. Finnish draft of the new copyright law makes a mentionable exception -- it states that DVD region codes are not considered as "effective technical copy-protection" and allows region-free DVD players and tools that circumvent the region coding.

According to Finnish equivalent of EFF, called EFFi (Electronic Frontier Finland), the Finland's draft is currently "stuck" in parliament's committee and is not expected to be implemented before January -- it might even get delayed over the Finnish elections. In the UK, the law has been delayed as well and now the report in the UK Patent Office's pages says that the law should be implemented in the UK's legislation by 31st of March, 2003.

Once the law comes into effect in Finland, AfterDawn.com's DVD ripper selection will either disappear or to be limited to users outside EU only.

Source: AfterDawn.com

Permalink to this article | Topic: Lawsuits & Legislation

A patch unlocks MovieJack to allow copying of protected DVDs (29 September 2003)

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

Sweden's EUCD proposal online (18 June 2003)

DeCSS Johansen goes back to court (2 March 2003)

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

Finnish government's proposal for EUCD implementation (10 October 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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A_Klingon (Moderator) 18 December 2002 1:57
Hopefully you will still be able to host the ripper section as long as you post a disclaimer clearly letting people know what the legal issues are. It's all so damned stupid anyway. People will be able to download rippers off the 'Net anytime they want to, regardless of how legal the powers-that-be deem them to be. -- Mike -- [ + quote]
Ghostdog (Senior Member) 18 December 2002 3:16
Yay, some good news for a change. It�s probably a bit late to try and stop this thing now. Klingon, you wouldn�t happen to have a time-machine somewhere in the garage, so I could go back to the days before EU and tell eveyone what the future brings? [ + quote]
A_Klingon (Moderator) 18 December 2002 3:21
Wouldn't matter anyway GhostDog; they'd never believe a word you'd tell them anyway! -- Mike -- [ + quote]
dRD (I hate titles) 18 December 2002 4:39
We're most likely going to set up a different domain or make an arrangement with some existing site for DVD rippers and host the domain outside US and EU and link the downloads from AfterDawn.com to point to that domain (not directly to the files) and add an disclaimer that states the that the responsibility of deciding whether the downloader is legally allowed to download the tools in question is with the person who is downloading, not with the site. Or something. Darn, we gotta hire a lawyer.. Petteri Pyyny Webmaster http://AfterDawn.com/ Please read our guides before posting questions! Guides are available here: http://www.afterdawn.com/articles/ [ + quote]
8bit_bytr (Inactive) 18 December 2002 7:55
Never understood the region coding thingy, or for that matter the copyright issue. They seem obsessed with upsetting the comsumer, we always get the rough end of the stick. Why don't they crack-down on the professional pirates? I know for a fact that pirates don't bother burning their own disks. They steal/buy original dyes of the CD/DVD and 'press' their own. Put another way, if you are going to make counterfeit money you wouldn't use a photocopier would you? Play Atari today, it won't break-down tomorrow ;-) [ + quote]
A_Klingon (Moderator) 18 December 2002 9:50
Well, that should work, Petteri, but the problem, as with .mp3 downloading, is that the courts look more piercingly at those providing (hosting) the files rather than those downloading them. However, in those countries where the EU has little-to-no jurisdiction, I can't see too much of a problem. But then there's another 'grey' area: Those providing links to places where the files are available. Could be tricky. Like I say, it's all so damned stupid anyway, because if push comes to shove, people will go P-2-P if they have to. -- Mike -- [ + quote]