While Norway is
not an EU member it is obliged as a member of the European Economic Area to
implement the Copyright Directive. A law proposal was presented to the national Parliament on 2 April 2003. Concerning Article 6 the proposal allows circumvention of copy
protection and other technical measures for private use. Electronisk Forpost
Norge has lobbied for more balanced rights during the preparation process
of the law and is expected to publish a closer analysis of the proposal soon at
their homepage.
Unfortunately, in Sweden
there has not been any notable public effort and we can only fear what will
result. So-called grass root resources are scattered and do not enjoy media
publicity. Electronic Frontier Sverige exists but is not active. Several Linux
user groups might be more active but lack knowledge and political connections.
Finally, the rather informed and well-connected editors of the popular
Slashdot-like gnuheter.org are not politically active.
Also quite surprisingly, the editor of
gnuheter.org who has participated as an expert to the Swedish law preparation
wrote in a recent column that he was very surprised that Norway
could propose a private use exemption to the circumvention ban. He concluded
that it was a novel idea and would be clearly against the Directive. The reader
of this report should by now see that the Norwegian approach is not unique.