GRONINGEN,
8th of June 2004 '“ A collaboration between the Free University of Amsterdam,
academic authors from different EU Member States, RankOne Media Group (the
people behind CDFreaks.com) and Elaborate Bytes AG (producer of CloneDVD)has
made it possible, to realize the European Copyright website project:
http://www.euro-copyrights.org.
The website has been initiated since the United
States of America
put the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in place. There has been a lot
of confusion on the circumvention of copy protections and legislation on these
subjects often is not clear and is difficult to understand - especially for the
lay-person with little interest in such issues.
Not many Europeans know
'“ only the ones that live in a country, like Germany, where the law has been
adapted already - that the European Union has introduced the European Copyright
Directive (EUCD) which dramatically changes the legal situation in its member
states. Certainly now with European Elections coming up, European legislation is
an important issue. Since many complain that the decisions made by the European
parliament are not clear, Euro-copyrights.org aims to improve the availability
of information about the EUCD.
To tackle all these problems before and
as they appear, Elaborate Bytes and the RankOne Media Group have teamed up with
the Free University of Amsterdam to give answers to daily questions for computer
users, like:
- Am
I still allowed to copy my lawfully obtained Audio-CD or Video-DVD for my
private use? - What
is the legal difference between protected media and non-protected media?
- How
and when has the EU Copyright Directive been implemented into national law in
which EU Member State? Has
it been implemented at all?
Every
EU Member State has to adopt the new rules of the European Copyright Directive
into national law, but: "The provisions of a Directive do not have to be copied
verbatim in national law. A Directive aims for a result." writes Kamiel J.
Koelman of the Free University of Amsterdam on http://www.euro-copyrights.org.
'We
had to get familiar with the new copyright law, to know how to proceed with our
products, especially CloneCD. We discovered a lack of serious information and
decided to take on this project," says Stephanie Messer, PR Manager of Elaborate
Bytes. 'The cooperation with the Free University of Amsterdam is important for
us to ensure the necessary completeness and objectivity of the information."
Experts on copyright laws from different European countries will
explain, in an easy-to-understand way, how their national copyright laws will be
adapted, especially regarding online and digital usage of copyrighted works. The
coordination on the content of the website was realised by the Free University
of Amsterdam.
'We feel education is an important and essential weapon
against the misunderstanding of such an important issue", says RMGs Marketing
Director Jan-Willem Aldershoff. 'The law affects almost every single computer
user in the European Union and our experience has taught us that only a few
people truly know what is allowed and what isn't, we hope we can take away those
misconceptions", he added.
The website offers FAQs, for German Dutch and
Danish readers, that soon will be
translated into English and other languages. The website is public as of today
and can be found at http://www.euro-copyrights.org.
About
the Computer/Law Institute, Vrije Universiteit (VU),
Amsterdam
The Computer/Law institute is part of the faculty of law of the Vrije
Universiteit of Amsterdam
(The Netherlands).
Its core activities consist of research and teaching on subjects in the area
where law and digital technology meet. For more information on the Computer/Law
Institute, see: http://cli.vu. For more information
on the Vrije Universiteit, see: http://www.vu.nl/english/index.cfm
About Elaborate Bytes
Elaborate Bytes AG is
a swiss software company known for developing high quality copying software like
CloneCD and CloneDVD. As a consequence of the European Union Copyright Directive
and its implementation in
Germany
in September 2003 combined with bilateral agreements, Elaborate Bytes chose to
stop selling CloneCD. Therefore, being directly affected by this new law and
having learned how indefinite it is, Elaborate Bytes contributed to the
"euro-copyrights" project to give an objective, profound and easy-to-understand
overview of the new copyright law in Europe
to politically, legally, economically, and privately interested individuals and
organizations. More information about Elaborate Bytes can be found at the
Elaborate Bytes website: http://www.elby.ch.
About
RankOne Media Group
Rankone Media Group is a privately held company
from the Netherlands
specializing in web-development, content delivery and e-commerce but also
involved in projects such as Euro-rights.org. The main project is CDFreaks.com
(http://www.cdfreaks.com) a website
which often reports about digital copyright law changes and consequences in the
United
States
and Europe.
More information: http://www.rankone.nl.
Source: Euro-copyrights.org
