Not likely to understand its implications
Well the Finnish parliament aren’t going to change their controversal and confusing new copyright law, except for a worthless preamble…
Professor Jukka Kemppinen feels that the separate preamble authorising limited personal home copying is insufficient. In an interview with the Finnish News Agency on Thursday, he also says that the proposed legislation is so complicated that Members of Parliament are not likely to understand its implications. He points out that not even all experienced jurists are sure how the law should be applied.
In Kemppainen’s view, the bill would set up bureaucratic obstacles to trade, and hurt Finnish competitiveness. Consequently, he thinks that it should be completely rewritten. He recommends that Parliament urge the Government to begin a comprehensive reform of copyright legislation in Finland.
The next time you’re inside the voting booth, remember this piece of legislation, and maybe you’ll choose a more liberal candidate who’d oppose this.
Dunno, but the “nation shows its appreciation”. MuroBBS guys at it
http://karpela.taukopaikka.com/
Comment by Hank W. — Fri, Sep 23rd, 2005 @ 1:45 pm
Tanja Karpela is causing a quick erosion of my belief in democracy. Perhaps Plato’s system would be better?
Comment by Tarja Rosenberg — Fri, Sep 23rd, 2005 @ 3:52 pm
It would be ok to have this airhead as the minister of culture, as long as she didn’t make any decisions that affected anything. The Kepu bosses could just gang-bang her at their leisure.
Comment by Tarja Rosenberg — Fri, Sep 23rd, 2005 @ 3:55 pm
Tarja: Word!
Comment by Make — Fri, Sep 23rd, 2005 @ 4:23 pm
LOL
Don’t forget these either, especially this one. No wonder she wants to block certain websites from public computers… 
Oh and by the way Phil, think about joining the campaign even though it’s in Finnish and the site still seems to be a bit under construction (something in English here).
Comment by Joonas — Fri, Sep 23rd, 2005 @ 10:19 pm
It seems like a general politic consensus or line Finland should obey and follow all the EU directives literally, regardless of how indistinct or against consumer rights they are. The “Euro-DCMA directive” has been the main argument used both by the ministry of education (responsible for preparation of the law) and minister of education Tanja Karpela (center).
I haven spoken and emailed with Jukka Liedes, the director at ministry of education in Finland and the man who lead the outline of the law, and every time I ask about these things I seem to get too much different answers. It seems that ministry of education has been under more pressure they could handle, and as also mr. Kemppinen has said, this law has been too difficult for them both on abstract level and technology wise.
Officers at ministry of education have used very weird analogies to describe what’s that “effective copy protection” in the law. I assume it means they don’t understand at all about technology or digital music, so they have to use analogies of pigs on the field or free milk from a cow. And I have tried to ask what I can or cannot do with my CDs, but you just can’t get direct answers.
Comment by Tero Lehto — Sat, Sep 24th, 2005 @ 2:11 pm
Guess what! Big Brother just came down on little ol’ me!
I just got mail from my university’s computer centre telling me to remove the movie American Pie 3 from my computer because it violated copyright law. Apparently NBC Universal had tracked my BF’s download and told the university to shut down our connection and reopen it only if we remove the movie from the computer and promise never to do anything like that again.
Since the connection is in my name, I’m the one held responsible. But my BF is the one who’s hot for the downloads. I think he and I need to have a little talk. American Pie 3 for crying out loud!
Comment by Anzi — Mon, Sep 26th, 2005 @ 1:57 pm
The law is foolish, but again, we haven’t seen any viable business options developed that will protect the rights of artists. It’s all very cool to come down on the recording industries, and feel a vicarious thrill of sticking it to the man, but in the end, piracy hurts artists.
It’s also incredible disingenuous for Finnish welfare statists to declare themselves opposed to all copyrights and patents, as the main export industry of Finland’s welfare state consists of high-tech products that are completely dependent on the preservation of patent rights.
If it’s okay to rip off media products, it’s also okay for the Chinese to build counterfeit Nokia cellphones. And it won’t be long when that will take place.
Comment by Finnpundit — Mon, Sep 26th, 2005 @ 5:38 pm