Swedens EUCD makes the DMCA look soft.

[Zebo]

Link here

It very clearly states that all tools and software that allow circumventing copy protection mechanisms (whether built by programming or by mechanical means) will be banned within the European Union. The directive doesn't specifically make it illegal to use such tools, but makes it illegal to distribute, sell and advertise such tools. Prime example of such tools are DVD rippers. So, if a site is located within the European Union, it can't distribute DVD rippers (if its national country has already implemented the EUCD).

Sweden has obviously decided to take things a bit further than EUCD would require. In addition to banning distribution of copy protection circumvention tools, Sweden's proposal makes it also illegal to download copyrighted material from P2P networks (traditionally within the EU, downloading illegal material is perfectly legal, but distributing it -- such as sharing the material via P2P networks -- is illegal) and also adds a levy to blank digital media to compensate copyright owners for lost revenue (such levy has existed years in various countries, such as Finland and Canada).

The most dramatic thing is probably the proposed rate for the media levy -- the levy (or stealth tax or whatever you want to call it) would add a decent SEK31 (appx. ?3.4 or $4.0) to each blank DVD-RW or DVD+RW disc despite its existing retail price. The proposed levy for recordable discs (whether a CD-R or DVD-R or other digital medium) is SEK0.0025 per megabyte and SEK0.007 for re-recordable discs (such as DVD-RW, CD-RW or DVD+RW).

 

[XZeroII]

ouch

 

[her209]

I bump my head.

 

[Jmmsbnd007]

$4 per DVDRW?

 

[HappyPuppy]

Sounds like a good way to kill DVD technology.

 

[ViRGE]

They can't outlaw fair use, so they outlaw the technology. Nice.:|

PS The breakdown on the tax is approximately this: $.23 a 700MB CD-R, $.63 a CD-RW, about $1.43 for a DVD+/- R, and then the $4 rate for DVD+/- RW. This means a 100 CD-R spindle now has a $23 tax on it :Q

 

[Anubis]

do these people think at all?

 

[GoodRevrnd]

Quoted from some guy on a Swedish DC hub:

but ...all you out there are my friends and i'm in my rights to share with you

Hehe...
This is pretty lame though. I wonder of Daemon tools can emulate reading DVDs.

 

[Legendary]

Ironic countries like Russia are the most free in this sense nowadays.