Dutch log

My notes I posted to mailing list reproduced on this:Here is the major announcement from the government:http://www.beehive.govt.nz/ViewDocument.aspx?DocumentID=28024and the actual proposed legislation is here:http://www.parliament.nz/NR/rdonlyres/5A88D15B-C4A1-42C2-AE75-9200DD87F738/48250/DBHOH_BILL_7735_40193.pdfSome quick highlights as I read the act: (Note I am not a lawyer)Reverse engineering IS allowed under some circumstances - basically for interoperabilityformat shifting is allowed but only initially for 2 years, this can be extended though (or not)time shifting is allowed provided you don’t keep it and it’s not available on demandISPs are basically not liable (provided they follow take down notices)allowed to alter commercial software if the vendor doesn‘t fix problems in reasonable timeanti-TPM (DRM via another name) is prohibited for sale or for producing (seems to cover open source). Fines of $150K or 5 years jail. Doesn’t seem to prohibit if you have a copy but you can’t write it yourself, sell it or tell others about it. Does make it an offence if you use it to copy copyrighted material. But you are allowed to use anti-TPM for “interoperability of software” so conceivably you could use software to play Itunes or DVDs on Linux. But this only applies if you have asked vendor for a copy you can use and they don’t supply in a reasonable time.Overall this seems to be much better than DMCA of the USA but far from perfect. It is probably better than people could have hoped for.IanAlso Slashdot storyAnd a blog entry on it.…more