Again, it's a privately run site that has been caught this time for uploading game trailers and now has to pay GEMA fees for the background music.
And what about GEMA and the music industry? They continue to do their job and in doing so, they also trample over virtual corpses. Doesn't matter, it's just the internet. It's just virtually already convicted and indebted youth before entering professional life. And anyway, where would we end up if everyone just uploaded random videos online for fun...
But it's not just that - in my opinion, it goes far beyond that. Not only are people criminalized for trivial matters on absurd grounds, but ultimately, GEMA and the music industry (and don't even get me started on the artists - they're at the very end of the sausage-making process and the 5 euros they would get for the game trailer site could really make a difference) are making double and triple profits from exploitation rights - even if they are only marginally affected, as in the case of game trailers (for whose background music, by the way, the game manufacturer has usually already paid - if it is original game music).
Where is the right to quote within reasonable limits? There is such a right for written works - why doesn't something like this exist for music?
Just to summarize Pfahl's story once more. This was the accusation:
The former CSU politician and state secretary in the Kohl government is said to have received 3.8 million marks, or approximately two million euros in bribes from Schreiber for a tank deal with Saudi Arabia in 1991 and not declared it for tax purposes.
And this is the deal:
Pfahls and his defense reached an agreement with the court: For an admission of guilt at the beginning of the trial, in which the 62-year-old Pfahls admitted the payments from the arms lobbyist Karlheinz Schreiber, the defendant was promised a maximum sentence of two years and three months and the possibility of early release after serving half of the sentence.
Who else besides me has the impression that the higher the amounts involved, the more trivial the punishment? All are equal before the law? Forget it.
Although I seriously wonder why I expected anything different after Kohl got away with breaking his oath of office without major problems - and people accuse me of being a cynic - reality regularly surpasses me by far ...
Imagine an agency of the state government tasked with surveying the entire country. A sensible idea, after all, one must know where there is space and where there isn't, where rivers, houses, roads, railways, and plots of land are, and all the other things that are around.
Imagine further that this agency is naturally funded by tax money - sensible, since it is a service to society. The survey technicians working there are paid from the public purse and do what they do best - survey the area.
Imagine further that these data are also used for maps for private individuals. Commendable - even if the maps are significantly more expensive at almost 8 euros than other maps, they are based on much more precise data and are beautifully detailed at 1:25,000 - ideal as hiking maps.
Imagine further that this agency also operates an online service where you can zoom in on all maps - down to the scale of 1:1,000. Very nice, to take a closer look at the area in detail. Unfortunately, the window is very small and thus the overview is not really very good. In return, you can mix in aerial images.
Imagine further that this agency also provides the map data in digital form - with software only for Windows. That's bad. That's rarely stupid - Java has been around for 15 years, should also be known in such offices and agencies. Moreover, the DVD with its almost 50 euros is not exactly cheap (or rather, the 1:50,000 is not - the 1:25,000 are two DVDs, no idea about the price - probably double). And did I mention that they were so stupid to make it only for Windows?
Now imagine that the data on the Windows DVD are indeed based on a standard format (GeoTIFF - basically map material as TIFF with additional geo-data for the precise determination of the position of the graphic tiles). But on the Windows DVD, these data are encrypted - to prevent any user of a non-publicly-officially-approved operating system from accessing them. That's shit.
Now imagine that upon inquiry, this office informs you that of course you can also get the data in the standard format - for a measly 3 euros per square kilometer of map coverage. That is an audacity. If you imagine all that together, then you have the Landesvermessungsamt Nordrhein-Westfalen.
What do I pay my taxes for again? So that I can be screwed twice?
