Re: status update LT 2003 CD

From: Alexander Schmehl (alexander@schmehl.info)
Date: Mon Jun 02 2003 - 15:26:37 CEST


Good Morning,

> > > > a. "Officials" see that and think "Hmm, let's take a close look to
> > > > the CD." - maybe you could run in difficults.
> > > If the "Officials" take a look at the CD and there is no such label,
> > > _then_ there could be trouble, whether legally grounded or not.
> > "Could this", "might that". Anything we know for sure?
> For sure is that we can only give away CD's to minors containing games
> after it got rated for money by the FSK(?) and has one of their labels.

Well, there is this "backdoor" used by MS and others for their
Software. Windows contains Minesweeper, Solitair and other small games,
and has no USK rating. But their products are "allowed" to be sold to
children.

"Allowed" is in this case a little difficult. I refer to c't 10, Page
18ff (http://www.heise.de/ct/03/10/018/ last but one question) , the
interview with Mr. Karle from the rheinland-pfälzischem ministry for
education, woman and youth.

He got asked, why MS may ship their products with games, and if Linux
Distributions may do the same.
He distinguishs beetween "Bildträger" und "Trägermedium". The first one
needs the USK rating, the later one, may go without, if the hole
character of the product has no influence, compareable to the influence
of movies oder games, to the evolution of children and youngster, and
if the product has a complete different purpose.

"This applies for example on on lexical works with small motions
picture sequences, and - at the present general legal conception - on
the products named above [MS Produkts and Linux Distributions]."

So I ask again: Anything we know for sure?

Honestly I don't know how many games are on the CD, I guess it isn't
that much and we don't ship ego shooters. So I think the disc might
fall through this "backdoor".

> In cases where a CD (or DVD etc.) is not rated and has no offical label
> it's for 18+ only. So if we don't pay and give away the CD to minors Grisu,
> myself and maybe Joey will have the risk to get sued.

Okay, I think I see this point, but I realy dislike to tell a
seventeen year old teenager, that I'm not allowed to give him a CD (and
I'll keep on giving away Knoppix CDs, after a talk about Linux in a
school).

So what about this "solution": Everyone at the booth formaly gets his
own quantum of discs, for whome he and only he is responsible. So I can
give the seventeen year old teenager a disc, and if a "official" sees
this, he will sue me, since neither you, nor grisu or joey are
responsible for my act.

> I don't think that we would follow this law with a parody. IMO it's a
> way of protest against this law.
Then I think we should make the parody as clear as possible and make
the "18+ only contains freeciv" label as big as possible, so every damn
idiot should understand that as an parody.

cu
Alex


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