Because some people in #Germany seem to have fallen for the music/film industry's whispering lies: It is perfectly legal for you to rip/copy unprotected music CDs that you get from the library or a friend/family member.
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Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:wrote last edited by [email protected]
Because some people in #Germany seem to have fallen for the music/film industry's whispered lies: It is perfectly legal for you to rip/copy unprotected music CDs that you get from the library or a friend/family member. It is called #Privatkopie (UrhG §53) [1]. This right is the reason you pay a levy on every storage device (SD Card, hard drive etc) you buy. That levy compensates the right holders. However, you officially cannot copy media that are copy protected. 1/7
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Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:replied to Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange: last edited by [email protected]
You do NOT have to own the original media to make a #Privatkopie. If we are friends, we could meet at my place and you can rip all my CDs to your hard drive and take them home to listen to the music, if you want to.
But note: these copies can only be made for personal use. You cannot share them publicly or for a fee. But you are perfectly fine when you rip an unprotected music CD and put the WAV or MP3s on your player devices. You have paid for that right. You should use it. 2/7
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Enrique Barcellireplied to Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange: last edited by
@jwildeboer how about if we don't live in Germany. Can we buy a HD in Germany, get it shipped over and apply the same rules? - we would have paid the levy, right?
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Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:replied to Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange: last edited by [email protected]
Now, there is a lot of discussions since many years on what constitutes a "working copy protection system" (wirksame Kopierschutzmaßnahmen) that you are not allowed to circumvent to make a copy. Is CSS on DVDs really working, when the code to circumvent has been available as Open Source since many years? Well, I am not a lawyer, so I won't answer that for you. Is copying cached downloads from Spotify allowed under this rule? AFAICS a clear no, but again, IANAL. See https://irights.info/artikel/privatkopie-und-co/5090 3/7
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Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:replied to Enrique Barcelli last edited by
@kikobar Yes, you would have paid the levy but you are not using the device under German jurisdiction. So I guess nope, the right does not extend to non-german territory.
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Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:replied to Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange: last edited by [email protected]
My real point here is: If you don't use the rights you have, you will lose them. I pick up dozens of music CDs from my local library in #Munich every few weeks, rip them to my music collection and bring the CDs back to the library. There is nothing wrong with that. So far 100% of the CDs I got from the library are completely unprotected, no DRM, so all is good. And I have been introduced to a LOT of music that way
This thread is part of my "Solutions are better than problems" series 4/7
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Pixelcode 🇺🇦replied to Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange: last edited by
@jwildeboer @kikobar I'd phrase it differently: If you did that and visited Germany one day, you would not be prosecuted. That's the only effect German law would have for you.
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Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:replied to Pixelcode 🇺🇦 last edited by
@pixelcode And you could theoretically get into trouble when you take your German hard drive with tons of music on your vacation to a country that doesn't have the right to a private use copy. But that's beyond my point @kikobar
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Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:replied to Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange: last edited by [email protected]
The levy (called Pauschalabgabe) is by the way €0,30 per USB stick or SD card. For hard drives, SSD it is €4,44 per device. For my old iPod classic, which I guess would be classified as "MP4-Player) it is €2,50. Source: https://www.bitkom.org/Themen/Urheberrechtliche-Abgaben-auf-Geraete-und-Speichermedien 5/7
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lobingerareplied to Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange: last edited by
@jwildeboer Have you ever tried to track down, how much of that will arrive at the artists?
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Vashreplied to Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange: last edited by
@jwildeboer
Hm, good point, the part with the library CDs is new to me though.For DRM material it is absurd: lets say I want to delete my Amazon Account or it is deleted by Amazon for whatever reason: I will loose access to my 300 books I bought perfectly legal.
It would be stupid to continue this road so I switched to epub. But I can not legally convert the Kindle books to epub since it is protected material, even though the content can be considered same as a regular book. BS law.
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Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:replied to Vash last edited by [email protected]
@Vash And that is where you, and many more people go wrong: "I will loose access to my 300 books I bought perfectly legal" — you didn't buy the books. You paid for a limited license that can be modified at any time, it's in the license agreement with Amazon you accepted. Same with digital music you pay for at Apple Music etc. You only get a license. Not a physical copy. We all need to "unlearn" to use the term "buying" for these kind of transactions.
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Ben Avisonreplied to Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange: last edited by
@jwildeboer I’m curious how the money from the levy is distributed to rights holders, especially if those rights holders are not in Germany themselves. If the answer is “it isn’t” then the practice you describe could be considered to be immoral despite being completely legal.
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Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:replied to Ben Avison last edited by [email protected]
@benavison The practice was tested at the German Supreme Court back in the 1970s and accepted. The money is distributed to various organisations that also pay out to non-german artists. But this levy is just one part. The libraries pay additionally per CD they put in their catalogue for the right to lend the CDs to their members etc.
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Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:replied to Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange: last edited by
@benavison The revenue generated by the levy on storage devices goes to the https://www.zpue.de/en/ (ZPÜ) who then distributes the money to their member organisations, who in turn pay out to their members, which can be musicians, actors, film directors etc.
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Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:replied to Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange: last edited by [email protected]
(I consciously decided to post this thread in English. My (many) German followers will understand it too. But my experience tells me that this thread in German would quickly devolve in weird „yes, but” fringe arguments and name calling. I don’t need that today 6/7
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Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:replied to lobingera last edited by
@lobingera best I can give you are the 2022 numbers from the ZPÜ at https://www.zpue.de/download-center/192-transparenzbericht-2022/file.html There you can see that they took in around 280 million € that they distributed to their 9 members. Biggest chunk comes from smartphones, storage devices add up to around 16 million in 2022, quite a jump from the 6 million in 2021.
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Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:replied to Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange: last edited by [email protected]
At https://social.wildeboer.net/@jwildeboer/113052227866312061 some numbers from 2022. Around 280 million € was generated (and distributed) by the levy. 6/7
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Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:replied to Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange: last edited by [email protected]
(I consciously decided to post this thread in English. My (many) German followers will understand the content and arguments of the thread. But my experience tells me that this thread in German would quickly devolve in weird „yes, but” fringe arguments and name calling. „You are not a lawyer“ etc. I don’t need that today 7/7
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Jesper Lundreplied to Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange: last edited by
@jwildeboer Great thread! A related question is whether the current level of compensation through levies (e.g. storage media covered, now including mobile phones, and amount per medium) is appropriate when today there is very little copyrighted content which can actually be copied for private use? (mainly due to streaming services replacing distribution on physical media).