[OT] Today I feel tired, very tired... Greece is going back to the last century...

Well, well... While checking the Mmcafe website today here is what I found on the News page :

*** From www.Mmcafe.com ***
At first I thought it was a bad joke, but it seems to be true: Videogames are now banned in Greece.

According to one Greece based videogames site "Gameland", Arcade games, home consoles, and PC games are all Banned by the Greek Government, escalating from a movement to control modified arcade sets used as gambling machines. Details can be found in the [ Site ] , so check it out for more details. (note: the site runs ona 128K line, so reaching it might be a bit hard.)

Special thanks to George Anastasiadis for the news. - Henry A. Moriarty
***

It was so unbelievable that I decided to check the Site

*** From www.Gameland.gr ***
August 31, 2002

A fight has began!

First of, I will have to introduce myself. My name is Costa Sgantzos (aka: Whacker) and I am the webmaster of this page. This is an eponymous answer to several people who (anonymously) dispute our thesis on such an important matter. We are no insane (well, not just yet anyway...) and we are not posting lies! The law EXISTS and every arcade store in this Country is closing; one after another. And there are worse things that will follow... Console and Computer games will be their next target, sooner or later.
***

There was a petition on the site and a copy of the law...

***
START OF LAW 3037
***
LAW NR 3037

Banning of games

The President of Democracy
We present the following law which was voted by the Parliament

---------------------
Article 1
Game categories
---------------------
According to notion of the commands of the current law:
a. Mechanical games are those, for whose operation it is necessary to use muscle force.
b. Electrical games are those, for whose operation it is necessary to be dependent on electrical mechanisms.
c. Electromechanical games are those, for whose operation it is necessary to be dependent on electrical
mechanisms AND use muscle force.
d. Electronical games are those, for whose operation it is necessary to be dependent on electrical
mechanisms that also have some calculating (accounting) program.
e. Entertainment "technical" games are those, whose result depends exclusively on the ability and skill of the
player, and its use is solely for entertainment.

The Entertainment "technical" category also includes all card games which had been characterised as
"technical" games, according to the statement of law F.E.K A21.


----------------------------------------------
Article 2
Banning of use or installation of games
----------------------------------------------
1. It is prohibited the operation of games of type "b", " c" and "d" of Article 1 (including in personal computers)
placed in public places such as hotels, cafeterias, organization halls and inside any other public or PRIVATE
place.
2. The Mechanical games, are only permitted to be Entertainment "technical", as defined in the previous Article.
Regarding those games, it is prohibited to make any bets between any persons or to include any financial gain
for any of the players involved. Such bets will attract penalties described in Articles 4 and 5.

-------------------------
Article 3
Internet organizations
--------------------------
The prohibition of using computers described in Article 2 does not affect internet companies, as long as none
of the games (described in Article 2) are being operated.
To be able to run an Internet company, a special permit is required from the municipal or the state (where the
company belongs) and from its starting point (port) if it is a boat based company. According to the first
application of this measure, the company should be equipped with this permit before the end of three months
after the start of this law.

----------------------
Article 4
Criminal sanctions
----------------------
1. Any persons who manage or depend on centres or other places as described in paragraph 1 of Article 2
where games prohibited by the previous Articles are in use or even exist, will be penalised with at least
three months of jail plus a fine of at least 5,000 Euros. If this offense is repeated, the penalty will be at least
one year of jail plus a fine between 25,000 and 75,000 Euros. The court will also command the confiscation
of all those games.
2. The orders for the games of type "c", in paragraph 1, paragraph 3 and 4 of Article 7 of the coded command
29/1971 are followed accordingly.

-----------------------------
Article 5
Administrative sanctions
-----------------------------
1. Apart from the criminal sanctions, if it is found that a prohibited game, according to the commands of the previous
articles, there will be a fine of 10,000 Euros for every such game and permanent taking away of the business
license, according to the orders of Article 7.
2. The fine will be based on the decision of the corresponding authority, in paragraph 1 of Article 6, who had
found the violation. In this decision the violation will be described, the fine will be underlined, as well as the
order in use. Together with this decision, a copy of the violation report will be notified towards the violator.

-----------------------------------------
Article 6
Report of confirmation of violations
------------------------------------------
1. The police authorities are responsible to enforce this law. The port authorities are responsible for boats
traveling domestically, and for any other boats staying at the corresponding port.
2. If the authorities for the "body for fighting financial crime" find violations of the law for the games, they
will impose the sanctions and will proceed to actions described in the previous article.

----------------
Article 7
Authorization
----------------
1. The terms, conditions, procedures and permits for Internet companies are determined by the common decision
of the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Internal Affairs, Ministry of Public Administration, Ministry of Public Order
and Ministry of Trading.
2. A similar decision establishes the authority which enforces the taking away of business licenses, the
procedure of taking it away as well as any other necessary details for applying the orders of this law.

--------------
Article 8
Tax returns
--------------
Whoever has already paid " tax for running businesses with entertainment technical games" for 2002 for
electronical, electrical or electromechanical games, will have their tax returned corresponding to the time
of the publication of the law in the Government's Paper until the end of the year. No returns will be made
in the case of violation of the law for games and there is no awaiting court case in front of the Committee
in paragraph 4 of article 15 of law 2753/1999 (FEK 249 A').

---------------------------------------
Article 9
Maintained and transitive orders
---------------------------------------
1. With the orders of this law, there are no complications with the orders of the law 2206/1994 (FEK 62 A')
as well as the rest of the orders regarding casinos.
2. From the start of the enforcement of this law, the three-member game committees which are established by
the orders in paragraph 4 of article 15 of law 2753/1999, cease to exist. They will still exist though, until the
finish of check up of the game machines that had been binded by the auditor authorities and for which there
had been a reserve.

--------------------------
Articles 10, 11, and 12 describe the changes in the laws only for card games and are not relative with the
game machine orders.
--------------------------

ATHENS 29th of July 2002
***
END OF LAW 3037
***

Ok I know this has nothing to do with D&D, but I just feel like I could share with you this great text of law... Sometime you realize that politicians in your country are not the most impulsive you could find.

What next, will the Greek government ban all home videogames, forbid any newspaper publication, start to hunt and burn witches, or something worse?

Oh, I really feel tired today

PS : I'm not sure I can post the links to the other websites on a thread, please tell me if I have to Edit.

It looks like its time to move out of Greece and organize a boycott.

I should start a poll asking what is the best part.

- The 3 months of jail if the incriminated material simply exist, even if not used?
- The special permit recquired in order to run an Internet company? (This permit thing reminds me bad things...)
- Or the fact that the second article prevents the existence of Casinos in Greece?

Oh Btw, for those who're not aware, 1 euro = 1 US $.

That's horrible. Almost fascist. If it happened to me, I would already be writing letters to newspapers and organizing protests.

Besides, I don't think cutting off an industry which makes more money than music will help Greece's economy much.

Start a smuggling operation of videogames and get rich !! You dont pay taxes too... so double the gain.

Geesh... people complain instead of seeing a magical opportunity for profit

( I suppose their intended target were Gambling machines ? Silly mistake and they included videogames in theory ? Imagine being arrested in Athens because you had a gameboy in your backpack ! Bombs are normal... but not gameboys. Cell phone games would have to be "neutralized" !! )

Originally posted by Rashak Mani
Start a smuggling operation of videogames and get rich !! You dont pay taxes too... so double the gain.

Click to expand...

Rashak, you are bright! Count me in.

Seriously, since it wasn't a joke, I'm really surprised so few people exprimed their point of view on the subject. This law really forbid things like using (or simply owning) a simple game on your computer at work. And if you're caught, 3 months in jail and 5000$ out of your pocket! This is incredible, I'm not even sure this law can be defended (in fact I'm pretty sure it can't) if attacked in front of an European court.

Well, I feel like a bad ugly evil necromancer reviving a few seconds such an old tread but I wanted to post the situation about this law and share it with all who care about it (I am not the only one? Please don't tell me I am alone?? Anybody???).
It seems that the Greek government overreacted but this law could very well end into the trash after all.

From Cnet News
***
By Matt Loney
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
September 11, 2002, 10:46 AM PT


A new Greek law banning the playing of electronic games was declared unconstitutional by a judge, and the charges against three people were dismissed.
The decision by a judge in Thessaloniki, Greece, could eventually result in the law being repealed, according to reports in the local press.

Before Tuesday's decision, computer game players and Internet cafe owners in Greece said they would fight the law. According to opponents, the law was conceived to address illicit gambling but was written so broadly that playing any electronic game could be considered illegal.

Indeed, the three people released Tuesday operated or worked at Internet cafes, and, according to a Greek news Web site, the police officers who searched the cafes testified that they did not observe any Internet gambling going on--just customers playing chess and other non-gambling games over the Internet.

A draft of the bill, which was brought before the Greek parliament at the end of May, stated clearly that all games supported by electrical, electromechanical and software means were banned from public places, according to Nikos Kakayanis, managing director of a string of Internet cafes called The Web. A board member of The Web, Christos Iordanidis, was among those facing charges Tuesday.

When the bill was discussed again in July, said Kakayanis, "a member of the opposition party expressed concern that it would only be a matter of time before the owners of illegal gambling machines moved whatever machines they were using for gambling (coin-ops, PCs, consoles) from their stores (to) private places." As a result, the law was modified to include every private place as well, said Kakayanis.

"Nobody from the members of the parliament realized or could foresee the effects that this would have for PC games, Internet games and game consoles, simply because they are not familiar with that side of technology," Kakayanis added. The bill became law July 30.

Each of the three people charged with violating the law faced up to three months imprisonment and a fine of about $5,000.
***

Seems like good news to me.

The law is incredibly stupid. If they wanted to stop gambling, there are better ways to do it that writing an overreaching law like that.

BTW, probably the main reason that you haven't seen a ton of responses is because the message was posted in the middle of the night (in U.S. time). There are a lot of non-U.S. ENWorld members, but I think we're in the majority.

That is the most incredible thing I've ever seen.

They didn't think about the ramifications because "the government was not familiar with the technology". If they weren't familiar with the technology, what the heck were they doing passing laws on it!?

I hope for everyone's sake that law is nullified as soon as possible, because it's ridiculous. Haven't any of these politicians got sons? Don't they apply the law to their own homes?

Grrr! Politicians are idiots sometimes!

---

On a related note, and to amuse all football lovers on the boards, apparently a judge threw out a case about someone misusing Paul Gascoigne's name in the autumn of 1990 because he'd never heard of him. Don't worry about it if you don't get the reference.

Actually, we were warned about this in a thread in the D&D Software forum approximately two weeks ago, when it was first put into action.

I know everyone here thinks this law is sheer lunacy, something you wouldn't see except in a third-world dictatorship or some such silliness. But each country has the right to make and sustain its own laws, no matter how silly they are.

I would urge the people of Greece who are upset with this law to get moving, because silence equals complacency.

Meantime, I have a Greek coworker who I will ask if he has heard about this yet.

Maybe it's just me, but doesn't "Greeks banning games" have the same sound of lunacy as "British banning tea?"