German politician caught in its own two-strike model trap
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Deutsch: [Deutscher Politiker tappt in eigene 2-Strikes-Falle | http://www.unwatched.org/EDRigram_9.19_Deutscher_Politiker_tappt_in_eigene_2-Strikes-Falle?pk_campaign=edri&pk_kwd=20111011]
Siegfried Kauder, Chairman of the Legal Committee of the German Parliament,
who has recently announced a plan to introduce a two strike model for
persistent allegedly illegal downloaders, was found himself to infringe
copyright.
The system proposed by Kauder includes two warnings to Internet users
considered to repeatedly download copyrighted works without permission after
which, the respective users might lose their Internet access.
Soon after having announced its plan, Kauder was found to infringe copyright
by posting on his blog at least two copyrighted photos from a photo sharing
site without the agreement of the author.
In an attempt to correct the situation, the politician removed the photos
and even tried to turn the odds into his favour by showing how efficient his
plans might be. “I’m grateful that I got the opportunity to show how the
warning model works. The use of the two copyright-protected photographs was
brought to my attention. The photos were then removed, so the warning model
works,” he stated for Der Spiegel. Only that he continued to infringe the
law by not removing the respective photos from his server.
However, the case might not end up here as one blogger, Tobias Raff , has
already initiated a criminal complaint against Kauder for infringing article
108 of the German copyright law asking the Berlin Prosecutors to look into
this case. In the meantime more than 1500 people the website
Abgeordnetenwatch (German MPs monitoring site) are supporting a question
asking Kauder to explain why he breached the copyright law and why he
shouldn’t have his Internet connection cut off. So far, the deputy hasn’t
answered these questions.
Politician Violates His Own Two-Strikes Anti-Piracy Plan (1.10.2011)
http://torrentfreak.com/politician-violates-his-own-two-strikes-anti-piracy-plan-111001/
Copyright fighter Kauder has violated copyright (only in German, 29.09.2011)
http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/netzpolitik/0,1518,789073,00.html
Criminal charges to Siegfried Kauder for copyright infringement (only in
German, 30.09.2011)
http://tobias-raff.org/2011/09/30/strafanzeige-gg-siegfried-kauder-mdb-cdu-wg-verstosses-gg-das-kunsturheberrechtsgesetz/
Abgeordnetenwatch – Questions to Kauder (only in German, 28.09.2011)
http://www.abgeordnetenwatch.de/siegfried_kauder-575-37692–f312709.html#q312709