German Politician Breaks His Own Anti-Piracy Rule

Siegfried Kauder, Chairman of the Legal Committee of the German Parliament, wants to introduce a new law that will cost pirates their internet connection if they'd be caught twice downloading copyrighted material. After only a few days, the politician was caught posting a few pictures that didn't belong to him on his personal website.

According to Torrent Freak the pictures were taken from a photo sharing site and to somehow clean his image, Kauder claimed that he had licensed them from their owner. However, the legal holder of the materials stated that the chairman had never asked for his permission.

A user highlights the fail moment in a comment made on Parliament Watch, pointing out the fact that his page contains the picture posted on Panoramio by one of the members.

A German news publication quoted him saying that this only shows that the model proposed by him is functional.

“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,” Kauder stated for Der Spiegel.

It has also been discovered that, even though the pictures were deleted from the actual website, they're still hosted on its servers, which can also be considered an act of piracy. This comes to outline the fact that so-called piracy acts can be committed by mistake and on the other hand, it's clearly hard to stop doing it even after you are warned that you are doing something illegal.

To a certain point, these kinds of laws are necessary, but this actually proves that you cannot make absurd regulations over night. Copyright infringement is a delicate matter, subject to controversy and protest and it should not be taken lightly.