Copyright Issues in Germany

Currently there is a heated discussion about copyright and legalisation of peer-to-peer networks going on in Germany. At the moment the fronts are the Piratenpartei on one side and the artists, authors and their managers on the other. Mainly it relates to music, films and pictures.

The whole thing is very complex, but the main issues/problems/discussion points are:

• an industry of attorneys that write large quantities of cease-and-desist letters in order to generate lawyer fees
• a lot of users that illegally download the latest music, films, etc.
• a legal situation that not corresponds to the technical situation
• a lack of understanding that an act is unlawful
• lack of alternatives

Everything counts in large amounts  

At the beginning it sounds good to not criminalise a great part of the population, stop the greedy attorneys and simplify the legal situation. But you have to ask yourself  who is paying for that in the end.

If you talk of not criminalising private copies then we are not talking about copying a CD for a good friend or e-mailing him the latest “funny-cat”-video. That was maybe the case some 10 to 15 years ago. It was not a great problem as it wasn’t done on a regular basis and the range of influence was normally limited to family and friends (of which you have to first find someone with the same taste). But we are talking about 1 person being able to share with millions of others (interested!) through peer-to-peer networks.

They call it “private” because the persons who offers to share doesn’t make any money with it. They say it is not stealing, because if you copy something nobody loses anything. Technically speaking that is correct as the artist still has the original file on their PC. But it is commercial nonetheless, because if the consumers have the picture/film/music on their PC, laptop or mobile devices very few of them will buy it later. The argument that it helps to get a first impression is just hypocritical, this is not the normal human nature and the statistics show otherwise as well.

 So the artists loses a lot of potential buyers of which some would have bought the product (as hardware or electronically). And if these some number in the thousands or millions it is a big loss and for some artists this may be the reason to not continue, because they can’t make a living.

Are there alternatives? In my opinion yes. You can buy mp3 via amazon, iTunes store or similar shops even song by song if you don’t like the whole album. There are picture databases online or video streaming platforms. So in general I don’t see a problem acting lawful and showing some respect to people who need to live from making art.

These things being expensive is not an argument. Just because you don’t have the money doesn’t give you the right to take it. Especially as there are not essential for survival.

Exaggerations

On the other hand there are some exaggerations relating to the protection of art.  Three same notes together in another piece of music are declared a copy. And copying your legally bought DVD onto your own PC isn’t possible due to copy protection.  Every personal vacation photo is treated like a Picasso painting. If it is very unique, difficult to produce or something else this would be ok, but the umpteenth photo of a beach or the White House?

And then the lawyers fill a cease-and-desist letter to generate money. In some cases even these accusations are not (knowingly) correct. Evidence is difficult to interpret and it depends a lot on the judge. So one rightfully feels angry and used by this industry.

Summary

After having the situation so far the only point that remains is to decide how to solve it. By legalisation of downloads or by trying to make this industry of attorneys less profitable. The first option would be to make the artists pay for something they have not invented. Just because some black sheeps use it, can’t allow us to stigmatize all artists.

So at the moment I can’t symphasize with the position of the Piratenpartei, because it would simply be to unfair. Doing something against the industry of attorneys would be the best solution in my opinion. As far as I know there is a discussion of limiting the lawyer fees for cases like that. Maybe that will do something. And it would help if people would think before downloading, posting or sharing pictures, music or films.