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BBC NEWS
Legal victory for 'DVD hacker'
An appeals court has cleared a Norwegian man of DVD piracy charges.
The court upheld an earlier verdict that Jon Johansen, 20, had not broken
the law by creating a system that could get around copy protection on
DVDs.
The ruling is a setback to anti-piracy efforts by the Hollywood studios.
The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) said it was disappointed
by the court's decision, saying it encouraged others to circumvent
copyright controls.
Free to copy
The case was seen as a major test of Norway's computer protection laws
Mr Johansen, known as "DVD Jon" by the net community, created his program
to watch films on a Linux-based computer.
“ The actions of serial hackers such as Mr Johansen are damaging to honest
consumers everywhere ”
MPAA statement
He then posted the program onto the net in 1999.
His software, called DeCSS, could decrypt disks by stripping the Content
Scrambling System from DVDs.
The US movie industry had accused DVD Jon of theft. But an Oslo court said
in January 2003 that he was free to do what he wanted with DVDs he bought
legally.
The appeals court has now agreed with the original ruling, throwing out
the case of the MPAA.
In her 30-minute ruling, Judge Wenche Skjeggestad said Mr Johansen could
freely copy DVDs he had bought, adding he had not violated Norway's laws
protecting intellectual property.
It is not clear whether the case will now go before Norway's supreme
court.
'Damaging' ruling
In a statement, the MPAA said it was disappointed by the ruling.
"The actions of serial hackers such as Mr Johansen are damaging to honest
consumers everywhere.
"While the ruling does not affect laws outside of Norway, we believe this
decision encourages circumvention of copyright that threatens consumer
choice and employment in the film and television industries."
The Hollywood studios say piracy costs them $3bn a year in lost sales.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/technology/3341211.stm
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BBC NEWS
Copying own CDs 'should be legal'
A think-tank
has called for outdated copyright laws to be rewritten to take account of
new ways people listen to music, watch films and read books.
The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) is calling for a "private
right to copy".
It would decriminalise millions of Britons who break the law each year by
copying their CDs onto music players.
Making copies of CDs and DVDs for personal use would have little impact on
copyright holders, the IPPR argues.
Copyright issues have, in the past, been steered too much by the music
industry, the report said.
Public respect
IPPR deputy director Dr Ian Kearns said: "When it comes to protecting the
interests of copyright holders, the emphasis the music industry has put on
tackling illegal distribution and not prosecuting for personal copying, is
right.
"But it is not the music industry's job to decide what rights consumers
have that is the job of government."
POLICY PROBLEMS
“ When the economic, the political, the cultural and the moral are closely
connected in a policy problem, policy frameworks need to be built to
recognise this. ”
According to research from the National Consumer Council, more than half
of British consumers are infringing copyright law by copying CDs onto
their computers, iPods or other MP3 players.
Report author Kay Withers said: "The idea of all-rights reserved doesn't
make sense for the digital era and it doesn't make sense to have a law
that everyone breaks. To give the IP regime legitimacy it must command
public respect."
Intellectual property laws are currently being reviewed by the government.
Chancellor Gordon Brown has asked chairman Sir Andrew Gowers to report his
findings back ahead of the pre-budget report in November.
The IPPR is hoping to influence this with its report, entitled Public
Innovation: Intellectual property in a digital age.
Its key recommendation is that any policy regarding Intellectual Property
policy should recognise that knowledge is a public resource first and a
private asset second.
Social glue
The so-called knowledge economy is growing fast as the traditional
manufacturing of goods is replaced by more intangible assets.
With it is a growing paradox in which intellectual property is both a
commercial and cultural resource.
“ Knowledge must, therefore, perform the roles of both commodity and
social glue, both private property and public domain ”
IPPR report
"The internet offers unprecedented opportunities to share ideas and
content," the report says.
"Knowledge must, therefore, perform the roles of both commodity and social
glue, both private property and public domain," it adds.
The report looks at how Digital Rights Management (DRM) technologies -
which restrict the sharing of music or other intellectual property - are
affecting attempts to preserve electronic content.
It argues that the British Library should be given a DRM-free copy of any
new digital work and that libraries should be able to take more than one
copy of digital work.
Ms Withers said: "We charge the British Library as being the collective
memory of the nation and increasingly it has to archive digital content.
"More and more academic journals are delivered digitally but copyright
laws aren't designed to deal with digital content."
She said there was often a conflict between DRM and accessibility
technologies which needs to be addressed.
"Someone with poor sight may use a screen reader technology and may have
to change the format of the content to use it but some DRM technology
isn't sophisticated enought to take this kind of thing into account," she
said.
The report also calls for the government to reject calls from the UK music
industry to extend the copyright term for sound recording beyond the
current 50 years.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/uk/6095612.stm
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