Ever wondered whether you’re breaking DRM legislation or now? Even the experts don’t quite know what’s legal, as this recent Norwegian survey shows. I translated the results into English for your reading pleasure; for the Norwegian original follow that link.
As Jon points out, it’s a wonder even half of teenagers know what “illegal downloads” is supposed to mean. Oh, and Norwegian law differs somewhat from other countries’ laws, just to complicate things.
| † | Cultural dept | Jon Bing (IT law professor) | Kripos (Police) | IFPI (film and music industry) | EFN (EFF Norway) |
| Arne’s three year old daughter doesn’t exactly treat the children’s DVDs Arne has bought with respect, and has rendered many of them unplayable. So Arne has started making backup copies of his DVDs right after he buys them, before giving them to his daughter. Because Arne’s not very good with computers, a friend does this for him. |
Permitted with limitations. | Unclear | Illegal | Illegal | Illegal |
| Arne has a lot of DVDs. When he travels, he transfers some of them to his iPod so he can watch them on the plane. |
Unclear | Unclear | Unclear | Illegal | Unclear |
| Arne has downloaded thousands of songs from various online shops. This has cost him several thousand kroner. Arne can’t make backups of all this on his own, but knows that it’s important to have a backup, so he archives his music on an external storage service (like mp3tunes.com) so he won’t lose his music if his computer breaks. |
Permitted | Unclear | Permitted with limitations. | Illegal | Illegal |
| Arne uses some of the songs he’s bought online as ringtones for his phone. |
Permitted with limitations. | Unclear | Unclear | Illegal | Permitted with limitations. |
| Arne’s mother got a new Creative player for Christmas. Arne hasbought a lot of music on iTunes that his mother wants to listen to. So Arne converts the music he’s bought on iTunes so it can be played on his mother’s Creative player. |
Unclear | Unclear | Unclear | Permitted with limitations. | Unclear |
| In the USA Arne bought a perfect children’s game. When he got home, he discovered the game couldn’t be played because it was for the wrong zone. So he wants to modify his Playstation so his daughter can play the game. |
Permitted | Permitted | Illegal | Permitted | Permitted |
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Martin
The vacous stupidity of these regulations actually make me angry. We’re in a market which is neither for the producers, nor the consumers, but for the distributors and managers. And the government is dancing to their fiddle.
And then they can’t even get their act together about what the legislation means. Sigh.
(Oh: Your blog still doesn’t like me, Jill.)
Jill
Why doesn’t my blog like you? Ugh, I hear others get server errors and nonsense, what’s that about anyway? It doesn’t make sense that it should work fine for some and not for others?
And yes. Idiotic regulations.
Martin
Maybe I have bad breath?