The Copyright Laws in various countries

[dvd2svcd]

There is in generel confusion as to what is legal and what is not legal in various countries. I thought it might be a good idea to make a thread with links to the laws explained in laymen terms. For instance here is a link to the Danish Ministry of Culture about the newly EU InfoSoc law explained short and precise (in danish only):

http://www.kum.dk/sw5386.asp

(The good thing is that it is legal copy digital media but not to break the encryption, except if that is needed to be able to play it. So for instance if you're using Linux it is fully legal to decrypt a dvd :D)

(Another great thing for us in Denmark, it is legal to borrow DVD's at the library and copy it)

(And finally, it also mean that dvd2svcd is completely legal to distribute and host as was my biggest fear concerning the new law)

Please keep the thread clean.

[killingspree]

i found the copyright act on the internet, but somehow one can't link to it (java scipt...)
anyway the law is called "urheberrechtsgesetz" and in §42 the regarding issues are treated. if someone can't find it on http://www.ris.bka.gv.at/bundesrecht/ (where i found it; only in german i guess... ) i can post it here or pm the text.
still this is more a general law not specifically regarding digital media like DVD. but still regarding only this text you should be legally allowed to do copies of the dvds you own.

oh... and searching the net for the austrian law i found the following site that might be interesting to any germans (and probably austrians and swiss too)
http://www.privatkopie.net

regards
steVe

[Scandinavian]

This is a very interesting discussion. I read both the information bulletin from the Danish Culture-Department mentioned above and the complete verdict in the Jon Johansen case. It seems that the traditional Danish/Norwegian fair use policy is rather liberal: "If you copy from a original you have legal access to, go ahead." The danish government explicitly includes DVDs borrowed for example from a libary. The Johansen verdict does not discuss borrowed videos but sais you can copy if you have legal access to the video. It also stresses, just as the danish site, that the original you copy from must be legal. The danish site also stresses that it is legal to circumvent copy protection - even under the new EU directive - if your intention is to play the DVD (eg.Linux) and not to copy. It is a shame though that this new directive severely disturbs our liberal Scandinavian tradition in regard to being able to copy for back-up purposes.

Scandinavian