Chile Gets New Copyright Law: Some Good, Some Bad

from the doesn't-sound-all-that-good dept

We recently wrote about how India had proposed changes to its copyright law that included a few surprisingly good ideas (and a few really bad ones). However, some other countries have been changing their copyright laws as well. Earlier this year, a friend involved in these things told me to keep an eye out for Chile's new copyright laws, suggesting that I would be pleasantly surprised. Michael Scott points us to a brief description of the recently approved changes to copyright law in Chile... and, like India, it looks like a mix of good and bad. And, contrary to what I had hoped for, the bad seems to outweigh the good. To be fair, the summary is very cursory, so perhaps there's more to the changes than what's written. But the report highlights three changes, and from the summary, it seems like one change is good, one is bad and one is probably neutral.
The changes that will soon go into effect can be divided into three groups: the establishment of a new framework of exceptions and limitations to copyright and related rights, the incorporation of new offences, increased penalties and the consecration of new tools intended to prosecute crimes against intellectual property, and an extensive chapter on the liability of Internet Service Providers (ISP).
The first one is obviously the "good." More and better exceptions -- a la fair use -- is an unquestionably good thing. But, looking at the few details provided, it doesn't look like broad fair use-style exceptions were added. Instead, the exceptions look pretty limited:
For example, extending the framework of action for libraries and nonprofit archives in terms of the reproduction, translation and digitization of a particular work allows for it to be used for criticism, illustration, teaching or research purposes and also expands the use of works that aim to benefit a person with visual or hearing impairment.
Those are good exceptions, but those a pretty small subset of the type of exceptions that any good copyright law should have.

The "bad" is the second one. Increasing penalties makes little sense when penalties for violating copyright law are already way out of line with the "harm" done. The "neutral" one is the last one, concerning liability for service providers. Creating good safe harbors for service providers, so they're not blamed for the actions of their users, is definitely a good thing. But the devil is very much in the details -- and what the requirements are for a service provider to qualify for those safe harbors. While the report says "the ISP must meet certain requirements in order to be exempted from liability," it does not detail what those "certain requirements" are.
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Filed Under: chile, copyright, copyright law


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  • identicon
    vyvyan, 30 Apr 2010 @ 12:44am

    "certain requirements" will be added at the request of media industry as and when required.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    world wide revolution, 30 Apr 2010 @ 2:27am

    TIME to end economic copyright terrorists

    TIme to go mob style on actors and musicans and there labels and there distributing cronies that are wasting all the worlds money time and effort and destroying human rights around the world

    im all for punching them out, dragging them under cars for 500 feet
    and tossing dead cats and animals at there houses and cars as they go buy.

    YES eggs also work wonders just make sure there CHICKEN eggs

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    tcbrothers, 16 Mar 2011 @ 7:33am

    Chilean copyright law

    A broad view of the Chilean law of copyright was posted here: http://www.simenon.cl/new-chilean-copyright-law/

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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