German Police Creates Confusion about What’s Being Legal

Due to a German police-conducted crime prevention program, German speaking Internet users can now keep themselves informed on the status of their online activities by checking a new 76 page PDF.

"In the web of new media", as the (so suggestive) title goes, addresses hot present issues such as media competence (just because is written on a site doesn’t make it true), protecting minors from online abuses and intellectual property rights.

Of course, file sharing couldn’t have been omitted from the program. Its illegality (in most of the cases) is brought again to the attention of educators, parents and teenagers. Typically, such come with suggestion for legal download stores like iTunes, but this time they skipped it. They found this advice to be more proper:

"Use software programs that make it possible to record songs from Internet radios. There are also lots of bands that give music away for free on their web sites."

A rather unhappy local music industry is to be expected after this recommendation but who can argue with the police, after all, you’re not allowed to download material from "obviously illegal sources", like most file sharing networks, but you can go right ahead and rip online radio streams – that’s totally within legal boundaries. Thank God we have such a great legal guidance!