AfterDawn adversly impacted by new Finnish copyright laws

Via email today from one Charles Trino, we learn of some horrific news. It seems that the Finnish website AfterDawn, is being dealt a serious blow due to new copyright legislation passed last fall. They are taking steps now to avoid possible litigation that could become possible after the legislation takes effect January 1, 2006. Here is a quote from that news report from the Afterdawn website.

As Finland has traditionally enjoyed quite relaxed copyright legislation, the change is dramatic. Previously, copying for own personal use (whether you owned the CD/DVD/book/whatever) was perfectly legal and the authors were compensated by blank media levy. Now, the blank media levy will remain in place, but at least the following things will change:

• Circumventing copy protections, even for personal use, will be illegal. (it states so in the law, even tho the government tried to argue that the right wont be pursued by government, but nothing stops record labels, movie studios, etc to do so)
• Distributing (even for free) tools (whether physical devices or software) that allow circumventing copy protection mechanisms will be illegal. (this includes DVD rippers, tools that allow copying copy-protected CDs etc)
• Advertising tools that allow circumventing copy protection mechanisms will be illegal. (and the law doesn't state how advertising is determined. So, basically simply linking to a page that has DVD ripper downloads from your own site can be considered "advertising")
• Possession of tools that allow circumventing copy protection mechanisms will be illegal. Even for personal use.
• Guides on how to circumvent copy protection mechanisms can be considered as "tools" and thus are also illegal.
• Worryingly, even "organized discussion" on how to circumvent copy protection mechanisms, will be illegal. (and no, Finland doesn't have similar to American Supreme Court that determines whether laws are against constitution, but when laws are approved, they by default are in harmony with constitution and can't be later overturned on basis that they are un-constitutional)

Among other things, they must remove all guides and tutorials dealing with instruction of circumvention of copyright measures. They must also remove software that is used primarily for such purposes. Here is a list of the changes coming to the Afterdawn website and it's forums quoted from an article posted there today:

But as a summary, here are the changes that will take effect on 1st of January or shortly after that date: Forums No changes. The law states that "organized discussion about breaking copy protections" will be illegal, but as nobody on our forums is planning to develop tools that break copy protections, we don't think it applies. Additionally, as everybody knows, our forums aren't exactly very organized 😉 And moderators aren't our staff members, our admins don't participate in threads discussing about how to break copy protection methods, ever. Guides References how to use tools that allow circumventing copy protections will be removed This means that guides converting AVIs to DVD, etc will remain intact. This means that guides converting copy-protected DVDs to other formats will stay on our site, but the detailed instructions on how to use tools like DVD Decrypter, etc will be removed from those guides Guides considering just how to break copy protections, will be removed (AFAIK, only one guide applies here) Software section Major changes. All tools meant solely for DVD Ripping and/or ripping copy-protected music CDs will be removed. This is a major blow to us, as our site has one of the largest DVD ripping software collections on Earth. But the law is very clear with this one, tools like SmartRipper serve really only one main function -- ripping copy-protected DVDs -- and are therefor illegal from 1st of January, 2006. Other site areas No changes. Stuff like glossary, FAQ section, etc will continue operating as they do now.

They go into great detail as to the specifics of the changes to take place shortly, you may visit this link in order to read them in their entirety. This is a sad day for all consumers around the globe and further illustrates the degradation of fair use rights in todays corporate guided society.

We certainly feel terrible for those on the AfterDawn website and we must congratulate them for all their contributions over the years hosting software and guides. In addition, we commend them on taking the steps necessary to avoid being victimized by these new draconian laws.

If you thought the deterioration of fair use rights was merely a problem isolated to one country or one government, you can now see that clearly, this is not the case. If you thought the Internet was safe and separate from being influenced by laws written in the physical world, you also got another wakeup call.

Source: Afterdawn