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Deutsch: Deutscher Politiker tappt in eigene 2-Strikes-Falle

Siegfried Kauder, Chairman of the Legal Committee of the German Parliament, who has recently announced a plan to introduce a two strike model for persistent allegedly illegal downloaders, was found himself to infringe copyright.

The system proposed by Kauder includes two warnings to Internet users considered to repeatedly download copyrighted works without permission after which, the respective users might lose their Internet access.

Soon after having announced its plan, Kauder was found to infringe copyright by posting on his blog at least two copyrighted photos from a photo sharing site without the agreement of the author.

In an attempt to correct the situation, the politician removed the photos and even tried to turn the odds into his favour by showing how efficient his plans might be. "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," he stated for Der Spiegel. Only that he continued to infringe the law by not removing the respective photos from his server.

However, the case might not end up here as one blogger, Tobias Raff , has already initiated a criminal complaint against Kauder for infringing article 108 of the German copyright law asking the Berlin Prosecutors to look into this case. In the meantime more than 1500 people the website Abgeordnetenwatch (German MPs monitoring site) are supporting a question asking Kauder to explain why he breached the copyright law and why he shouldn't have his Internet connection cut off. So far, the deputy hasn't answered these questions.

Politician Violates His Own Two-Strikes Anti-Piracy Plan (1.10.2011)
http://torrentfreak.com/politician-violates-his-own-two-strikes-anti-p...

Copyright fighter Kauder has violated copyright (only in German, 29.09.2011)
http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/netzpolitik/0,1518,789073,00.html

Criminal charges to Siegfried Kauder for copyright infringement (only in German, 30.09.2011)
http://tobias-raff.org/2011/09/30/strafanzeige-gg-siegfried-kauder-mdb...

Abgeordnetenwatch - Questions to Kauder (only in German, 28.09.2011)
http://www.abgeordnetenwatch.de/siegfried_kauder-575-37692--f312709.ht...