The freedom of speech campaign

Today I learnt of a new copyright infringement case that is headed by AntiPiratGruppen (Anti-Piracy Group), which is a pendant to American groups like RIAA and MPAA. The group’s activities have created quite a stir in the past year or so, nationally as well as abroad.

Apparently, Keld Bach posted a news item in his weblog about the release by DJ Danger Mouse of ‘The Grey Album’, a musical experiment “recorded over new beats and production made using the Beatles White Album as the sole source material.” Since the people at EMI aren’t too happy that Danger Mouse didn’t ask for permission, his release is considered copyright infringement. Wired News has more on that story, as does professor Lawrence Lessig from Stanford Law School. Consequently, AntiPiratGruppen has found Keld Bach’s links to be illegal and in violation with that eleged copyright.

But anyways, that’s the deal. So what does Keld Bach have to do with all this? Well, I ask myself that same question. In the USA, organizations like Electronic Frontier Foundation and Creative Commons exist to support and expand the artistic abilities that we are all born with. In Denmark, it apparently all comes down to how much money you are able to spend on lawyers to defend your freedom of speech and freedom to spread information freely over the Internet. In fact, the actual infringement by Keld Bach concerned a link of his to Creative Commons, where the album could also be downloaded. Like it’s been stated many places already: if it’s suddenly illegal to link to a site that informs you of your rights, what the h*ll is going on?

The whole thing is summed up nicely in this (danish) article from Flix.dk.

Personally, I have no problems linking to any of the information above. I can accept that it is .. problematic .. to link directly to P2P-links from websites. But in this case, the copyright issue with DJ Danger Mouse is a month old, not even resolved, and yet a private individual is forbidden to convey a hyperlink to this piece of art.

If that isn’t effectively censoring information, let alone inhibiting artistic expressiveness, then I don’t know what it is ..?