What do you think about circumventing geographic restrictions? - Page 16

HarryT · 03-01-2015, 06:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by darryl

Perhaps we have a Swedish lawyer or someone else familiar with the Swedish law who can comment. It is a most interesting and strange provision which I doubt is replicated elsewhere in the world. Then again, I was surprised to find it in Sweden, hence my query as to Tompe's sources. Once again, my thanks to Tompe for providing the link.

Recording from the radio, for personal use, is legal in the UK, but you're not allowed to give those recordings to anyone else, or sell them.

darryl · 03-01-2015, 06:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HarryT

Recording from the radio, for personal use, is legal in the UK, but you're not allowed to give those recordings to anyone else, or sell them.

Precisely. I don't think laws allowing recordings or copies for personal use are unusual. It is allowing the giving away of those copies. And not only to family members but to friends within a social circle. It would be very interesting to look at the case law surrounding this Swedish provision to see just where the line has been drawn.

tompe · 03-01-2015, 07:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by darryl

The commentary suggests that "private use" extends to family and social circles. The Wikipedia article referred to this as including family and close friends. It would be interesting to look at the case law on this.

What is also clear is that it does not extend to copies of a whole book, thought apparently the same cannot be said of music or movies.

Yes, whole books seems to be an exception.

There is some debate about what "private use" means but there are court cases that have said that family and close friends are included.

Some people argue that it does not need to be close friends at all (that friends are enough) and that it can be many copies but that is not an accepted interpretation. For my example one copy to a friend is enough for my point and that is definitely legal and ethical.

And it seems absurd to me to argue that you legally and ethically give a copy to a close friend that then move away to another country or something and that would make it unethical for you to sell or give away a LP or similar.

Also in EU to be allowed to have this kind of exception in the laws you must have a tax or similar on blank media and money have to producers. And I know that there are more EU countries that have or has had this kind of tax so I assumed they also had this kind of exception in the law.

tompe · 03-01-2015, 07:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pdurrant

My guess would be that 'specimen' in this case is a translation of a legal term meaning the original copy. That is, one may make copies for private use, provided that the thing being copied was obtained with the copyright holder's permission.

This is necessary to make clear that it's not permissible to copy an unauthorised copy.

Yes. And also you have to make the copy yourself. You cannot leave it to a shop or hire somebody to make a copy.

tompe · 03-01-2015, 07:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HarryT

It's also interesting to note that is specifically excludes "entire books" and "digital copies of digital sources". That would suggest that it's legal to (for example) record from the radio, but it's not legal to copy a CD, which is a digital source.

It is legal to copy a CD so it does not mean that. Most web pages that discusses this mentions explicitly that copying a CD is allowed. I do not remember that in the Swedish text. The exception is computer programs and whole books.

tompe · 03-01-2015, 07:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HarryT

That's precisely why I question the claim made in this thread that it's "generous" to "share" your ebooks with your friends. Sure, your friend probably does think you're being generous, but the problem is that it's not your property that you're so generously giving away - it's the author's. Both the law and - IMHO - ethical considerations should, to my mind, dictate that it's the author who has the right to determine who to give copies of his or her books away to, and nobody else.

That discussion is about LP and CD collections. And that is your property.

HarryT · 03-01-2015, 07:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tompe

That discussion is about LP and CD collections. And that is your property.

No, the post I was referring to was talking about ebooks. LPs were a separate issue that Catlady raised.

tompe · 03-01-2015, 07:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by darryl

You and Paul may be right about this, even though it would mean the use of the term would be redundant, as I thought this was accomplished by this passage:

This paragraph does not give right to make copies of a work when the copy
that is the real master produced or made available to the public
in violation of § 2 . The Act (2005: 359).

This I think is the law change that made it illegal to make copies from "illegal copies". Before I am pretty sure that downloading was legal regardless of what you downloaded if it was for private use.

Quote:

Perhaps we have a Swedish lawyer or someone else familiar with the Swedish law who can comment. It is a most interesting and strange provision which I doubt is replicated elsewhere in the world. Then again, I was surprised to find it in Sweden, hence my query as to Tompe's sources. Once again, my thanks to Tompe for providing the link.

Why do you think it is strange? When I last read the Berne convention it had some text mentioning that countries was allowed to make exceptions and I think they gave some examples.

tompe · 03-01-2015, 07:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by darryl

Precisely. I don't think laws allowing recordings or copies for personal use are unusual. It is allowing the giving away of those copies. And not only to family members but to friends within a social circle. It would be very interesting to look at the case law surrounding this Swedish provision to see just where the line has been drawn.

Well, one exemple I saw was that giving to people at work was not OK. That was not considered to be close friends. Notice also that it says "enstaka" (a few) so it might be that for example 10 copies is not OK but 2 copies is OK. But I doubt there is any cases given any information about that limit.

tompe · 03-01-2015, 07:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HarryT

No, the post I was referring to was talking about ebooks. LPs were a separate issue that Catlady raised.

Yes, and my example was about that.

darryl · 03-01-2015, 07:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tompe

Yes, whole books seems to be an exception.

There is some debate about what "private use" means but there are court cases that have said that family and close friends are included.

Some people argue that it does not need to be close friends at all (that friends are enough) and that it can be many copies but that is not an accepted interpretation. For my example one copy to a friend is enough for my point and that is definitely legal and ethical.

And it seems absurd to me to argue that you legally and ethically give a copy to a close friend that then move away to another country or something and that would make it unethical for you to sell or give away a LP or similar.

Also in EU to be allowed to have this kind of exception in the laws you must have a tax or similar on blank media and money have to producers. And I know that there are more EU countries that have or has had this kind of tax so I assumed they also had this kind of exception in the law.

This type of provision does make sense in the context of some sort of levy on blank media. The exclusion of whole books also makes sense in this context, unless the levy extends to hard disk space as well as blank media, an unlikely scenario. I am not surprised at the existence of this type of provision where there is a levy, and your assumption about similar "exceptions" in other countries with a levy may well be correct. What I am a little surprised about is the apparent extent of the exception. I would be surprised to see another provision extending to even close friends. Though I have been surprised before. It is a matter of where the line should be drawn.

tompe · 03-01-2015, 08:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by darryl

This type of provision does make sense in the context of some sort of levy on blank media. The exclusion of whole books also makes sense in this context, unless the levy extends to hard disk space as well as blank media, an unlikely scenario. I am not surprised at the existence of this type of provision where there is a levy, and your assumption about similar "exceptions" in other countries with a levy may well be correct. What I am a little surprised about is the apparent extent of the exception. I would be surprised to see another provision extending to even close friends. Though I have been surprised before. It is a matter of where the line should be drawn.

Actually the levy applies to computers with a hard disk. See:

http://www.copyswede.se/in-english/u...-levy-rates-2/

I would find it very strange if this exception was restricted to only family. Then the motivation seems to be that we cannot stop that so we will allow it. But with that reasoning we should allow pirating since we cannot stop it.

No the motivation for the law is that people share and discus things like music with a few persons (which might be family or close friends). And that considered to be a good thing and the law like to allow this. Then it seems a bit absurd to me to restrict this to only family when the behavior of sharing in this way is mostly between close friends. And why should people without a family not be allowed to share music and talk about it?

tompe · 03-01-2015, 08:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by darryl

Thank you very much for the link. This is a most interesting provision.

This is a translation of the relevant part of the link to Wikipedia.
[INDENT][I]

The first paragraph does not authorize the

1. construct works,
2. make copies of computer programs, or
3. make copies in digital form of compilations in digital form.

Number one is more like "make a building". Was this the source for the opinion that you could not make digital copies? It does not say that. "compilations" here most probably means things like a phone book in digital form.

darryl · 03-01-2015, 08:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tompe

Number one is more like "make a building". Was this the source for the opinion that you could not make digital copies? It does not say that. "compilations" here most probably means things like a phone book in digital form.

I'm not sure, as that wasn't my opinion. I agree with your comments about compilations. This could also arguably cover things like anthologies.

RobertDDL · 03-01-2015, 12:40 PM

Germany:
http://anwalt-im-netz.de/urheberrech...eberrecht.html

Austria:
http://www.illsinger.at/wordpress/?p=442

In both countries, an individual person is entitled to make a limited number of copies ("Musik, Filme, e-Books" -- music, movies, ebooks) for private use, as long as they are not sold, not made available to the public, and as long as the original had been lawfully obtained.

Some differences between German and Austrian laws exist, for instance, in Germany it is illegal to circumvent copy protection, while in Austria it is not, but to a large degree they are similar.

From the first source:

"Die Kopien dürfen nur für den eigenen privaten Gebrauch gemacht werden, zum Beispiel für den CD-Player im Fahrzeug oder als Zuwendung für Personen, zu denen man eine engere persönliche Beziehung hat, wie Verwandte oder Freunde. Mit diesen Kopien darf kein Erwerbszweck verbunden sein."

My attempt at translation: "Copies may only be made for private use, for instance to be used with the CD player in the car, or to be given to persons with whom a close personal relationship exists, as with relatives or friends. No monetary gain may be sought from these copies."

So much for the law. The moral issue, as always, we all must decide for ourselves.

Similar Threads
Thread	Thread Starter	Forum	Replies	Last Post
The morality of circumventing geographical restrictions only to buy cheaper ebooks	K. Molen	General Discussions	208	03-06-2015 12:03 PM
Geographic restrictions - a different perspective	taustin	General Discussions	96	01-11-2012 02:03 PM
How to get around geographic restrictions, legally.	HorridRedDog	General Discussions	5	03-06-2010 02:37 PM
Damn these Geographic Restrictions - Help!!	AFK_Matrix	Deals and Resources (No Self-Promotion or Affiliate Links)	22	02-10-2010 09:17 AM
Fictionwise Geographic Restrictions	Blue Tyson	News	15	09-28-2009 06:44 AM

03-01-2015, 12:40 PM	#240
RobertDDL Whatever... Posts: 197 Karma: 1114225 Join Date: Feb 2015 Location: Austria Device: PocketBook InkPad 840, Touch HD 2	Germany: http://anwalt-im-netz.de/urheberrech...eberrecht.html Austria: http://www.illsinger.at/wordpress/?p=442 In both countries, an individual person is entitled to make a limited number of copies ("Musik, Filme, e-Books" -- music, movies, ebooks) for private use, as long as they are not sold, not made available to the public, and as long as the original had been lawfully obtained. Some differences between German and Austrian laws exist, for instance, in Germany it is illegal to circumvent copy protection, while in Austria it is not, but to a large degree they are similar. From the first source: "Die Kopien dürfen nur für den eigenen privaten Gebrauch gemacht werden, zum Beispiel für den CD-Player im Fahrzeug oder als Zuwendung für Personen, zu denen man eine engere persönliche Beziehung hat, wie Verwandte oder Freunde. Mit diesen Kopien darf kein Erwerbszweck verbunden sein." My attempt at translation: "Copies may only be made for private use, for instance to be used with the CD player in the car, or to be given to persons with whom a close personal relationship exists, as with relatives or friends. No monetary gain may be sought from these copies." So much for the law. The moral issue, as always, we all must decide for ourselves.