[darryl]

@RobertDDL. Thanks for posting these links. It appears that these provisions, including giving copies to close friends, are not uncommon in the civil law countries of the EEC. Presumably these provisions also do not extend to whole books?

I must say I'm surprised. I have posted a number of times that I considered particular things were unlikely (or likely) and have been proved wrong on a number of occasions. I think it's a function of my exposure to the ridiculous intellectual property laws in the large common law countries, and particularly the United States, and the enormous influence of lobbyists which have distorted the law against the interests of consumers. I am astonished that "rights holders" would permit such an exception to exist, and presume that it was a trade-off for the levy which, even more amazingly, extends to computers, at least in Sweden.

Having said this, I am not generally a fan of the EEC's approach to this type of issue. I think a levy is a terrible impost. On the other hand, I like the fact that the law recognises reality, which is that people are going to share music and movies with friends. But is it fair to allow this without a levy? Or, given the reality, would it really make any difference? A "sane" copyright law should reflect reality, and the reality is that books, music and movies are trivially easy to duplicate and distribute, and it is happening all of the time. Yet these industries remain viable. Attempts to encourage "voluntary compliance" by use of terror campaigns in the US, where young children have been sued for apparently downloading a few songs, has not worked. I wonder if recognising reality and allowing similar rights in, say, the US, would result in massive losses to the industries concerned. Though I am sure that we would be told it did irrespective of what actually resulted. If we are to have sane and enforceable laws perhaps rights-holders will need to abandon the idea that they must receive money from every single copy. This is not happening now despite laws which are unenforceable but classify ordinary people as criminals. I'm not stating my opinion yet, as I don't know that I have formed one. Simply food for discussion.