Music industry sends dissuasion to heise online

Found on Heise on Sunday, 30 January 2005
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On behalf of several major firms in the music industry (BMG, edel, EMI, Sony Music, Universal Music and Warner Music), the Waldorf law firm of Munich sent Heise Zeitschriften Verlag a dissuasion this Friday.

According to the music industry, simply providing a link to the start page of the web site of a copying software manufacturer constitutes a violation of this law. Furthermore, Heise Verlag is accused of having provided "instructions on how to get around anti-piracy measures" in the above news item.

As Dr. Thorsten Braun, legal adviser at the German Association of the Phonographic Industry, put it, "Freedom of the press is not a carte blanche: instructions and tips on how to perform illegal acts are inadmissible and have nothing to do with serious reporting."

"The article contains neither instructions, nor advertising. On the contrary, it is expressly stated that the use of this software is illegal in Germany. Providing a link to a manufacturer's web site goes without saying in online reporting and is completely irrelevant anyway in light of the fact that our readers are familiar with and know-how to use Internet search engines," explains Christian Persson, editor-in-chief at heise online.

Wait... there just was something similar in Norway yesterday. What's with all those tries to gag websites recently? The music industry is going way to far with that. I guess that also means that talking about the "shift key copy protection crack" or "text marker un-protection" is considered illegal now.