Eastern European Police proudly closes legal online Library

[LCF]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Yes, the digital age has thrown many laws for a loop, particularly the intellectual property laws. Unfortunately it may be some time (if ever) until it is in better shape to protect the authors while still allowing proper access to their work.

The situation described in the O.P. is just one more example of what is taking place in this brave new world and what is necessary to bring the laws, the creators, publishers, sellers, etc. into it.

Definetely. But until this day, at least the current laws could be observed and applied to everyone, not only to the corporations and the people with influence. But this is a rather general problem in Bulgaria, the library closing was just the parade example of it.

Originally Posted by omk3

@LCF
This is a sad case you are describing, but not surprising.

There was a popular site in Greece, nothing to do with books, that was accused of pandering. The accusations were false, but that was for the court to decide. The first step of the police was to confiscate all the servers, and detain the webmaster. The webmaster is now free, but his whole computer equipment is still in the hands of the police, two years later. The trial has been postponed two times already.

Why I bring all this up: Is it maybe the case that the police has to act on any accusation, and then await trial? I would think the opposite would make more sense, but maybe not in urgent or dangerous situations. If that's the case, maybe the impromptu library will be found not guilty in the end.

What is certain is that there is still regrettably a huge void in the law about everything to do with the digital world, and sometimes even the police or the courts are at a loss on how to tackle the issues that arise.

Wow, I guess the Bulgarian police has learned from the south neighbors. At the moment the man is free (there is no 6 people crew, there is one person), but the main server has "suffered heavy hardware damages" (I guess a crowbar was involved), and the back-up one is "evidence", which from my experience (car of a friend taken as evidence) will come up in about 2 to 3 years from now, probably broken too, with the data promptly erased.

I guess I'm not saying this for the first time, but there were so many ways (fro publishers side) to handle the situation and make it a profitable one, but they chose the most stupid, conservative and annoying for the readers (from whom they want to collect incomes) way. From what I understand, they just want the world to rotate a few rounds back and the ebooks to disappear... Not much future for them with this way of thinking (IMO). Here is the place to say, that not all the publishers in Bulgaria stay behind this, and if the blogs of some prominent authors are to be trusted, none of the authors/translators (the actual copy right holders) were happy about the police action.

[darknessangel]

The new book burnings...

GJMS

[nashira]

Originally Posted by darknessangel

The new book burnings...

GJMS

Except because ebooks are files, and getting rid of them is extremely simple... no one (except, perhaps, groups like MR) will even blink about it.

[LCF]

Currently 7000 people in a group on facebook would disagree with you. And the group was grounded 2 days ago whith 7000 000 possible targets (approx. Bulgarian population). They were 4000 about 14 hours ago.

[omk3]

Glad to see there's so much interest

[Ea]

Originally Posted by Geppetto

You are just saying nonsenses. Spain and Bulgaria are European Union countries: they MUST FOLLOW European Union directives on copyright.

You are not allowed to make a reproduction (even partial) of a copyrighted work if you don't have explicit permissions from the copyright holder. Full stop.

Originally Posted by Geppetto

You are not allowed to make a digital copy of the book you own.

You are not allowed to photocopy the book you own in its entirety.

That's what European Union directives on copyright say.
A European Union country must come into line with European Union norms.

Wrong, it's allowed in Denmark for personal use, provided you do it yourself and no revenue is made from it (though it's illegal to break copy protection).

Originally Posted by whitearrow

You can't legally rip a CD you own to format-shift, or transfer a non-macrovisioned VHS tape to a DVD?

You can in Denmark - again provided you do it yourself for your own use and don't break copy protection.

And if I read my source between the lines, the illegality about not breaking copy protection has been grudgingly added to please copyright holders, as it's explicit that it's understood that it's a bother for the end user.

Source: http://infokiosk.dk/sw9430.asp (in Danish)