The story of Finnish copyright law

Copyright law has received much attention in Finnish press for past 3 days.
The new Finnish copyright law is in its final stage in parliament. What started over 10 years ago in WIPO has lead to an evil law and citizens are protesting against it. Members of parliament are reported to receive over 600 e-mail a day about the new law and its flaws.

Citizens sending mail are terrorist
The X-minister of culture Kaarina Dromberg who was responsible for the first version of the law has said that the members of parliament are victims of e-mail terrorism. (see the update below) The current minister of culture x-miss Finland Tanja Karpela has said that there are certain forces behind the e-mail flood. She is right. The e-mails were send by worried normal citizens. The ones that voted the members to the parliament. The ones that have enjoyed freedoms of consuming copyrighted material. The citizens that are affected deeply by the new law that takes those rights away.

The leader of left wing party Suvi Anne Siimes said in her Blog that the citizens and members of parliament are late. The law has gone through committees where there was a chance to make changes. Member of Parliament Jyrki Kasvi notices that "If a member of parliament isn't a member of the committee they have only one chance to influence the law".

Law in different committees
The law has had mixed response from different committees. The constitutional committee said that consumers have right to make private copies of works that are they have legally bought. The culture committee didn't care. They didn't care to listen to the expert study  by Marja Leena Mansala who said that citizen should have a right to bring couple (less than 10) Cd's to country with out showing where they bought them and their legality. Best of all the study was commissioned by minister of culture. The new law treats citizens as criminals from the beginning. It is up to you to show that you have a right to bring a CD from the common market of EU when you come back from your trip to say London.

Corruption and lobbying behind the scenes
The law was written 2002 when Dromberg was minister of culture. She had a special adviser Lauri Kaira who is currently manager of Finnish performance rights organization Gramex. His responsibility is "outside relationships". It is like the scene in lord of the rings. The king is without power, the land is weak and the special adviser hisses his message to ear of the king. Copyright is hard for most politicians to understand. The Industry lobby had their inside man to take advantage of the fact.

The Finnish press has also found out that the civil servant Jukka Liedes (also holds a high place in WIPO) who was responsible of the copyright chapter of the ministry has been in the board of ESEK. ESEK is part of GRAMEX the organization led by Lauri Kaira. ESEK is responsible for distributing GRAMEX monies for the artists. Law professor Olli Mäenpää is saying in Tietokonelehti, that it doesn't sound right that there is such connection with the industry and the civil servant.

Update: Dromberg send a correction to my post: "Haluan hieman oikaista väitettä, jonka mukaan pidän tekijänoikeuslakisähköposteja lähettäneitä kansalaisia terroristeina. En tiedä, mistä väite on peräisin. Suurin osa saamistani viesteistä on ollut asiallisia, eikä minulla suinkaan ole mitään sellaista palautetta vastaan. Joukkoon mahtuu kuitenkin myös haukkumisia ja haistatteluja. Kyseisiä viestejä kritisoin ja toivon niiden lähettäjille hieman harkintakykyä."

English summary (my translation): "I have no idea where the terrorism claim came from. Most of the e-mails I have received have been OK, but some were impolite. I am critisising the latter ones and would hope that the senders would think before sending them."

Comments

[Marco Raaphorst]

Great post!

Copyright for music is probably one of the most restricted ones. No fair use, even sampling less than one second of an old record needs clearance of the original work!

So if you're doing art successfully, you need a lawyer too these days...

[homepuch]

Keep the fight against those mind-blinded politicians!!
In Spain we are going the same way where the music industry is in close connection with the government, and the citizens seem to have no power.

[Richard GrosJean]

So much for Finland having the least corrupted government in the world...

[Tero Lehto]

JUkka Liedes, director at Ministry of education (minedu.fi) in Finland and leader of the groundwork for the new copyright act, has also got a financial reward for this work for the benefit of music industry in 1991.

This was reported by Helsingin Sanomat last Friday (in Finnish only, sorry):

""Liedes on myös saanut ääniteteollisuuden etujärjestöltä ÄKT:ltä Erikois-Emma-palkinnon vuonna 1991. 'Epäilemättä taustalla olivat ne merkittävät ansiot, jotka hänellä oli tekijänoikeuslainsäädännössä tuottajasuojan parantamiseksi', muisteli ÄKT:n toiminnanjohtaja Arto Alaspää palkinnon jakoperusteita ... "

Original article: http://www.helsinginsanomat.fi/tuoreet/artikkeli/1101980976832

Needless to say, there's definitely no corruption in Finland. ;-)

[Ola]

It's good to hear whenever the people speak up. There is a related law proposition in Sweden where the government wants to take up taxes for sold blank CD:s and DVD:s to pay large music companies for losses through downloaded music.
This is just insane when you think of the small bands who make and sell their own albums. After the law they have to basically pay the large companies for their own music. It just plain sucks.

[Ardana]

Here in Holland you already pay copyright for empty CD's and DVD's. It's not much, it's a weird idea, since indeed the money is only going to the big compagnies, but at the same time it's a reassuring idea. But I doubt is that's the target of this rule.

Got a friend that was against illigal copieing, and now he pays too. He changed his mind saying "If I pay for it, I want to have the benefits, and if I pay for it, I'm entiteled to copy and download".

So I don't think it's that bad.

One thing I'm missing in the articel: it sais that talking about copyright can be punished under the new law, but it doesn't give more info about it. I think that's a bit against the freedom of speech thought, which almost every country has put in his laws.

[Ahti Vänttinen]

Just a short note to correct two things. First, Lauri Kaira does not lead Gramex. Hannu Marttila does. Also, to say that ESEK distributes Gramex monies is a little misleading. Gramex distributes the bulk of the money itself, but ESEK provides production support/grants for artists/musicians and producers. In this respect, ESEK grants also some money from the Ministry of Education.

[jani koivisto]

Here in Finland we also pay copyright for empty cd's and dvd's.
Ja suomeksi: Mehän maksamme tääällä jo kasettimaksua, joka perustuu oikeuteen äänittää/kopioida musiikkia mistä tahansa. eli uusi laki on ristiriidassa kasettimaksun kanssa!