Breaking the law

Today I consider becoming a law breaker. To be precise, whether I will, or not, still depends on the Parliament of Finland. They will be voting on the copyright law proposal by the government found here. If it passes, it will for forbid people from copying material that is copy protected. This makes making a safety copy of a movie you own illegal.

The law would also make distributing means to break copy protection illegal - one of the consequences of this would be to make watching dvds in Linux illegal.

Jyrki J.J. Kasvi, the MP who has fought against the law, also says that it would make transferring software or databases over the Internet illegal. Knowing him as an honest politician I believe him even though I have not read through the proposal.

Reading it through is a little bit too much, considering that the text is a whopping 200 pages. I wonder how many MPs have read the document and how many will just vote yes, because their party tells them to. If you want to do something, do that NOW. Contact your MP and tell him what you think about him, if he votes for the law.

The plan to break the law, would be to distribute linux libdvdcss (distributing, or using it to view copyrighted and copyprotected dvd, will be illegal, if the law passes) and also to watch a movie using the same libdvdcss. The best way to do this would be to have as many people as possible doing it on the very same day and then going to the police to give themselves in.