Swiss Government Declares Downloading for Personal Use Legal

[XSAlliN]

The government of Switzerland has issued a statement declaring that it will not take action to alter current copyright laws allowing the downloading of music and movies for personal use. The statement is the result of a lengthy study conducted by the Swiss government into the impact of so-called “piracy” on the entertainment industry.

...

Switzerland’s findings are just the latest in a series of reports showing that the downloading of music and movies is far less harmful than the entertainment industry would have us believe. In July Douglas C. Merrill, formerly of Google and then EMI, one of the three main record labels, said in a keynote address that his research while at EMI showed that users of torrenting service LimeWire were among the best customers in the iTunes music store. Around the same time, Telepolis published a report (Google Translation) stating that users of the recently raided kino.to website tended to pay more at the box office than the average moviegoer. Meanwhile, another study conducted by Northwestern University (PDF) showed that users of peer-to-peer client software – i.e., BitTorrent users – bring in a substantial amount of money for the large ISPs.

...source.

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Not the first people with this conclusion - but they're the first government... All i can say is - good for them, one of the few open-minded governments around this world...

[El Mano]

Not the first people with this conclusion - but they're the first government.

Nope, this has been the rule in Spain for years now. As long as you don't earn money with the downloads, you are free to download whatever you want.

It is only piracy if you earn money, ie, if you sell pirate copies etc.

[Otis11]

[K404]

The music and film industry solution to this is simple... ban the intarnetz in Switzerland

[[XC] Synthetickiller]

When did limewire become a torrent client?

[Otis11]

When did limewire become a torrent client?

That's what you got from this article???

Idk why I found that so funny...

[El Mano]

The music and film industry solution to this is simple... ban the intarnetz in Switzerland

It would be easier if the product came with some added value. For example, all language tracks rather than just two or three, a digital download code, lyrics, posters, whatever.

Right now a downloaded movie is a much better product than a retail DVD or BR disc: I can play it on a HTPC, on my desktop PC, on the TV etc. It doesn't matter if the disc gets scratched and most important, I can add any audio or subtitle track I want.

Games industry found a solution (or kind of) with multiplayer mode. You might play the single player with a downloaded copy but if you want to enjoy the multiplayer you most likely need to buy the game.
The music and film industry needs to find a value like this to become competitive against internet downloads.

[XSAlliN]

Nope, this has been the rule in Spain for years now. As long as you don't earn money with the downloads, you are free to download whatever you want.

It is only piracy if you earn money, ie, if you sell pirate copies etc.

A thing of the past i presume... Spain passes anti-piracy law allowing to quickly close websites that facilitate illegal downloading

[m^2]

Nope, this has been the rule in Spain for years now. As long as you don't earn money with the downloads, you are free to download whatever you want.

It is only piracy if you earn money, ie, if you sell pirate copies etc.

This is mostly true in Poland too.
With the exception that it doesn't apply to software and that you can't give stuff to strangers - so you can use P2P only as a 100% leech. Though both restrictions are largely ignored.

[El Mano]

A thing of the past i presume... Spain passes anti-piracy law allowing to quickly close websites that facilitate illegal downloading

In the end they didn't. The Fking socialists have been trying to pass that law all through their term of office but in the end they failed to pass it.
The last cabinet meeting had that point in the agenda but during the meeting some of the ministers realized it would be a mistake and didn't pass it

[SexyMF]

I am not clear on these report findings. Are they saying that people who download movies are downloading something they have already seen by paying for it at the movie theatre or video store?

Otherwise it is tough to justify that people taking things (which cost money to make) for free is not damaging. If the ISP's make money because of traffic, that hardly seems like a justification. They don't give any of it to the content provider.
I also find it incredulous that people who download music for free would be purchases of music from legitimate vendors.

Would also be nice to see demographics/socio-economic standings, against the stats collected.

[XSAlliN]

No - what they're saying is that companies should adapt to modern times and stop living in the past - by treating current technologies as they treated the old... same goes for some ignorant consumers - apparently... Because they can't ban major technologies like the internet - just cause some greedy companies don't want to adapt. The damage piracy does is insignificant wile the gains are substantial even for artists (gaining more popularity their music sells better, they have more concerts and so on...) on the other hand - approving this laws - the damage would be overwhelming... both to economy and evolution, just so that some company can gain more control.

Only countries ruled by companies have approved this laws...

[Andrew LB]

It is only piracy if you earn money, ie, if you sell pirate copies etc.

^^^ I just want to make things clear to all of you who go to the internet for legal advice... the above statement completely false. Ignorance of the law will not convince some Judge to go easy on you if you do find yourself in the unfortunate position of being prosecuted for copyright infringement.

Copyright infringement (aka Piracy) not only applies to selling software, music, movies, etc... but also to distribution, personal use, and in some circumstances, public display... without the prior written consent of the licensor. In addition to the aformentioned products, things such as photography and its usage are automatically protected by intellectual property law. For example, you take a photograph of a motherboard that is really good and you post it up here on XS to show it off. Now even though you made the photograph public by posting it on XS, it did not give anyone legal usage rights to your photograph. So if Fugger wanted to use the photo as a backdrop for an advertisement for Xtremesystems, under the law he MUST contact you and receive your direct consent (typically in writing) to use the photograph.
And don't think this kind of situation is rare. These procedures are necessary to protect peoples property and to ensure your hard work (the photograph) isn't stolen by people who simply want to rip you off.

I remember a few years ago a guy here on XS (i think) had taken some amazing photos of a recently purchased Thermalright heatsink and just like in the hypothetical... posted them up. Well, it turns out someone affiliated with Thermalright "borrowed" the photographs and used them for product photography on thermalright.com . Long story short... the guy found out what had happened and after a phone call... Thermalright got off really easy by just sending the guy pretty much their entire product line for free. If the guy wanted to be a , that little mistake by thermalright could have cost them tens of thousands of dollars.


And as for Spain... you again are incorrect. Spanish courts recently ruled that it is not illegal to provide guidance such as links to places where copyrighted products may be obtained, the act of downloading, sharing, selling, and using copywritten products without the legal right to do so is against the law and will be prosecuted. Spain's copyright infringement laws differ from most countries in that they make a clear distinction between commercial and non-commercial infringement and the penalties are very light for non-commercial infringement.
Personally, Spain's lax enforcement of such laws is a product of a country that isn't an innovator in any field of business which results in no need to protect what your country doesn't have. Plus such laws would prevent Spain from obtaining such things the easy way... through theft. Does anyone here know which other EU country has similar copyright laws? hehe. Greece.... the country my grandparents gladly left behind in the 1930's to immigrate to the United States. The similarities between Greece, Spain, Portugal, and the Big Government nanny-state political left-wingers here in the US are uncanny. When is the world going to realize that Socialism DOES NOT WORK. It's great in theory but human nature has proven it time and time again to be a complete failure. How many jobs have been created under Obama now that he has spent $5,000,000,000,000 with absolutely nothing to show for it. amazing....

[Toysoldier]

Some food for thought

http://torrentfreak.com/i-dont-care-...should-110911/

http://torrentfreak.com/the-copyrigh...rights-110320/

I'm not promoting torrentfreak or anything, but simply wants to put some perspective on this entire "piracy" debate.

[Andrew LB]

No - what they're saying is that companies should adapt to modern times and stop living in the past - by treating current technologies as they treated the old...

So you're saying that in order to adapt to "modern times", one must give up those outdated concepts of property rights, intellectual property, and ownership of products that may have taken months, years, or more? Suddenly you're 'old fashioned' for wanting people to PAY for my product that I took a massive financial risk in order to bring it to market? I put everything on the line for my product and and you have the audacity to say "I don't care how much work and capital it took to create... I want it and you should just give it to me so I don't have to work."

Now I see why there is no french translation for "to earn". Closest thing they have is "to get".

[Cold Fussion]

You've managed to turn this into politics, congrats. You can have your Laissez-faire economy, but unfortunately when the whole thing falls apart every 20 years everyone suffers.

[Vardant]

So you're saying that in order to adapt to "modern times", one must give up those outdated concepts of property rights, intellectual property, and ownership of products that may have taken months, years, or more? Suddenly you're 'old fashioned' for wanting people to PAY for my product that I took a massive financial risk in order to bring it to market? I put everything on the line for my product and and you have the audacity to say "I don't care how much work and capital it took to create... I want it and you should just give it to me so I don't have to work."

Now I see why there is no french translation for "to earn". Closest thing they have is "to get".

What about the consumers right?

You can't even make a copy of anything you own, because it's all copyright protected. In some places, you can't even make a copy or you can, but only if you don't try to circumvent the protection so you're basically SoL.
When you buy original DVD/B-R, you're bombarded with ads, that you can't skip against piracy...then some stupid laws or w/e they are. Guess what, the pirate doesn't have to go through that, so why should we?

Nowadays, you don't own games, you're only renting them and they can cut you off anytime they like, change EULA without you even noticing, but that doesn't matter, once you sign it, you're done. You traveled to Asia, bought a game there, registered on Steam when you came back? Well tough luck buddy, you can't do that, Valve says so. In the best scenario, you have lost a few bucks, in the worst, your whole account is gone, forever.

You want to sell your games eh? Good luck with that, you might as well be a pirate, because they put you on the same level.

You can't even buy a HW and own it, at least not from Sony or so they want you to think.

They're not keeping up and they don't want to, because they own the market and they basically dictate the laws, luckily not everywhere are ppl so stupid and willing to trade money for freedom.

[AliG]

Are any major software companies based in Switzerland? I think its cool that the government is standing in favor of the people, but I certainly would not want to be a local business if a good chunk of my customers could legally use it for free

[Vardant]

The law is only about movies and music, downloading software is still considered piracy.

[ggdh]

This is mostly true in Poland too.
With the exception that it doesn't apply to software and that you can't give stuff to strangers - so you can use P2P only as a 100% leech. Though both restrictions are largely ignored.

I read on polish law forum that it is legal to download (not upload) with only exemption for software which needs to be removed after 24h of testing. But it is not clear if you have to remove the file that you downloaded or to uninstall the program!

Also, you can get 30 day Filesonic account for ALMOST NOTHING (~ 1-1.2 EURO).

[fellix_bg]

Nowadays, you don't own games, you're only renting them and they can cut you off anytime they like, change EULA without you even noticing, but that doesn't matter, once you sign it, you're done. You traveled to Asia, bought a game there, registered on Steam when you came back? Well tough luck buddy, you can't do that, Valve says so. In the best scenario, you have lost a few bucks, in the worst, your whole account is gone, forever.

The general trend for games and software, as a industry, is to move more and more as a service and less as a commodity. That means more emphasis on the license type of end-user agreements, narrowing down exactly how the "service" can be used. And this definitely puts "ownership" in the bin. Cloud-based services will only accelerate this trend to new heights.

[Think]

That's great news. To bad Canada has basically become a nanni state ( socialist ) on so many levels.

[Vardant]

The general trend for games and software, as a industry, is to move more and more as a service and less as a commodity. That means more emphasis on the license type of end-user agreements, narrowing down exactly how the "service" can be used. And this definitely puts "ownership" in the bin. Cloud-based services will only accelerate this trend to new heights.

Good bye mods, community translations, bug fixing etc.

When this happens, I'm done with gaming.

I'm already not buying SW ToR, because I will never install that Origin spyware on my PC. Unless they find a way around it like they did with BF3.

[m^2]

Copyright infringement (aka Piracy) not only applies to selling software, music, movies, etc... but also to distribution, personal use, and in some circumstances, public display... without the prior written consent of the licensor. In addition to the aformentioned products, things such as photography and its usage are automatically protected by intellectual property law. For example, you take a photograph of a motherboard that is really good and you post it up here on XS to show it off. Now even though you made the photograph public by posting it on XS, it did not give anyone legal usage rights to your photograph. So if Fugger wanted to use the photo as a backdrop for an advertisement for Xtremesystems, under the law he MUST contact you and receive your direct consent (typically in writing) to use the photograph.
And don't think this kind of situation is rare. These procedures are necessary to protect peoples property and to ensure your hard work (the photograph) isn't stolen by people who simply want to rip you off.

^^^ I just want to make things clear to all of you who go to the internet for legal advice... the above statement completely false.

Or rather - there may or may not be a country where it's correct, but definitely is not correct globally and *think* it's incorrect even in Andrew LB's place - because it entirely fails to take into account stuff like fair use.

I read on polish law forum that it is legal to download (not upload) with only exemption for software which needs to be removed after 24h of testing. But it is not clear if you have to remove the file that you downloaded or to uninstall the program!

I'm pretty sure it's untrue. From what I've been taught this year by a person who does copyright for the living, the fair use clauses that allow limited piracy don't cover software at all. There are some other fair use permissions, but they apply only to software that you licensed.
Now I looked for a reference:
https://pl.wikisource.org/wiki/Prawo...e_%28ustawa%29
The latest update in the wiki is from 2006, I don't know if the law changed since then, but I don't see any reference to 24 hours in there.

So you're saying that in order to adapt to "modern times", one must give up those outdated concepts of property rights, intellectual property, and ownership of products that may have taken months, years, or more? Suddenly you're 'old fashioned' for wanting people to PAY for my product that I took a massive financial risk in order to bring it to market? I put everything on the line for my product and and you have the audacity to say "I don't care how much work and capital it took to create... I want it and you should just give it to me so I don't have to work."

Speaking for myself:
Copyright and "creators making money" are 2 separate concerns. I do think that copyright does much more bad than good as it is and doubt that any form of it would be beneficial. And I make a living creating copyrighted content and want to continue to do so. My employer uses the law to their own benefit - it would be stupid not to do it - but I don't think that it's needed. There are many business opportunities that don't involve selling copies. Ask Red Hat. My employer uses some of them too.
Cheap and perfect copying made copyright unenforceable, but it created options unavailable before. Times change and so should the law.

[Otis11]

While I do agree with the right of content creators to profit from their material, I support this because they take their "rights" to far.

As to me? Last thing I pirated? A movie when I was in 6th grade... and I didn't even know it was illegal. Friend gave me a link to an online movie and that was that.

I simply tuned out most media in my life because I'm fed up with the **** these companies pull. I watch movies at friends house with those that get the movies, cuz I refuse to support the industry and I also refuse to lower my standards of myself to purposely break the law. (Not saying I look down on those that do, I just chose not to myself because I don't think it's right.)

This pretty much sums it up:

What about the consumers right?

You can't even make a copy of anything you own, because it's all copyright protected. In some places, you can't even make a copy or you can, but only if you don't try to circumvent the protection so you're basically SoL.
When you buy original DVD/B-R, you're bombarded with ads, that you can't skip against piracy...then some stupid laws or w/e they are. Guess what, the pirate doesn't have to go through that, so why should we?

Nowadays, you don't own games, you're only renting them and they can cut you off anytime they like, change EULA without you even noticing, but that doesn't matter, once you sign it, you're done. You traveled to Asia, bought a game there, registered on Steam when you came back? Well tough luck buddy, you can't do that, Valve says so. In the best scenario, you have lost a few bucks, in the worst, your whole account is gone, forever.

You want to sell your games eh? Good luck with that, you might as well be a pirate, because they put you on the same level.

You can't even buy a HW and own it, at least not from Sony or so they want you to think.

They're not keeping up and they don't want to, because they own the market and they basically dictate the laws, luckily not everywhere are ppl so stupid and willing to trade money for freedom.

Cheap and perfect copying made copyright unenforceable, but it created options unavailable before. Times change and so should the law.