NORWAY CONSIDERS DIGITAL COPYRIGHT LAW UPDATE

Findlaw reports that Norway is considering a new digital copyright law. The law would make it illegal to decode copy protection on CDs or DVDs, or to provide software for doing so. This would make it illegal to copy the contents of CDs on to MP3 players, but it would remain legal to make copies of CDs and DVDs on to the same medium (i.e. on to another CD or DVD) for personal use.

Gisle Hannemyr, of the University of Oslo's Department of Informatics has condemned the law as being unclear and unenforceable. "We are going to be a nation of lawbreakers if this law is passed in its current form," he has said.

The IPKat listens to his CD collection while he still can

The IPKat isn’t sure that the type of medium in question is a principled way of sorting out what is and is not copyright infringement. Surely gaining a licence to listen to a copyright work should be about getting the right to hear the work itself, rather than to only hear the work in one form. A cynical IPKat suspects that this is a great money-maker for the industry. People who’ve bought CDs will have to pay again to get their music collections upgraded to MP3 format.

Things to convert to MP3s here, here and here