Sweden's government has suggested changes in the country's copyright law so it follows the European Unions Copyright Directive (EUCD) by the year's end. The most important changes they suggest are the following:
 It will be illegal to copy content which exist without content holders' permission. This means for example that it will be illegal to download copyrighted music from the popular P2P programs. - The right to copy content for personal use from an original source will still be left but somewhat limited. For example it will be illegal to duplicate an entire book in a so called "copy shop".
- The tax on blank media, cassettes, VHS tapes, MP3 players etc. will be changed. Now the charge is 0.02 SEK per minute of recordable playing time on the device. This charge is suggested to be increased to 0.025 SEK per minute for analog devices while digital devices will be charged with 0.0025 SEK per megabyte for write-once media and 0.007 SEK per megabyte for rewritable media. This means for example that a DVD±RW disc will be charged with about 31.40 SEK(!)
- It will be illegal to break the copy protection and encryption of copyrighted content. This strictly means that you will no longer be allowed to backup your DVD movies or copy protected CDs.
* 1 SEK ~ 0.13 USD or 0.11 Euro |
And don't laugh at us poor Swedes because if you live in EU your country will likely get a similar law soon. The complete proposed changes of the Swedish copyright law can be found here (part 1) and here (part 2) (in Swedish).
Source: Sweden's Department of Justice
