AfterDawn: News

Finland's DVD backup case goes to Appeals Court

The closely followed court case in Finland that will ultimately decide whether DVD movies can be legally copied for personal use or not, is heading to the Finnish Appeals Court.

Last week, Helsinki District Court sent shockwaves through the media industry in Finland and across the EU by ruling that the CSS encryption mechanism found on virtually all commercial DVD-Video discs can be cracked legally. The ruling stated that CSS cannot be described as "efficient copy protection mechanism" due the widespread availability of tools that allow cracking it. Finnish legislation, which is based on European Union Copyright Directive, clearly states that cracking "efficient" copy protection mechanism is illegal.



Now, the prosecutor in the case has announced that she will bring it to the appeals court. This will mean that the case will be postponed by several months. If the appeals court decides not to alter district court's decision, the prosecutor can still ask the Supreme Court to overturn the original ruling.

Source: Tietokone (in Finnish)

Written by: Petteri Pyyny @ 30 May 2007 8:51

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• 5 comments

• tefarko

  Quote:cracking "efficient" copy protection mechanism is illegalwell, if it can be cracked then it´s not efficient so it will never be a crime... :)

  30.5.2007 09:56 #1

• jdempsey

  So if we want to make hacking something legal we just need to spread the tools around until its easy for everyone and then its OK? Sounds good!

  30.5.2007 10:11 #2

• borhan9

  Let the games begin as they say. I feel this is going to become a lengthy battle.

  30.5.2007 14:31 #3

• klassic

  This ruling may very well stand because of the way the law is written. But not all countries laws use the same verbage as the finland law. And you better beleive that they are working on ways to rewrite the law to remove this wording.

  30.5.2007 19:38 #4

• Unfocused

  This will still be a major landmark decision that we as consumers can actually cross our fingers and hope for the best.

  28.6.2007 05:49 #5