Once Again, Dead Content Creators Seem To Sign A Lot Of Pro-Stronger Copyright Petitions
from the funny-how-that-works dept
Four years ago, as the debate over copyright extension was going on in the UK, some people noticed that a petition from "artists" that was sent to the government had a bunch of signatures from artists who were dead. Apparently, they wanted copyright protection from beyond the grave. That worked so well in the UK, that it's apparently been expanded to all of Europe. We recently noted that the pro-stronger copyright Gallo Report was approved by the EU Parliament, but now some are noticing that the petitions in favor of it, once again, appear to have included at least one dead filmmaker. Separately, some noticed that the signatures appeared to include a disproportionate number of Hungarians, so Amelia Andersdotter decided to contact a few of the Hungarian filmmakers listed as having signed the document, and they told her they never signed any such thing. Other petitions show similar oddities, including content creators who have come out in favor of file sharing and those not even in the EU. From the looks of things, there's at least a pretty strong appearance of various industry groups simply signing the names of a long list of filmmakers and musicians to pad the listings...Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Filed Under: copyright, gallo report, petitions, politics
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My bet is total dishonesty.
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They also know that half of Hungary would have signed the petition if they'd only known it was there instead of going back in their family trees to Attila the Hun.
(In fact Hungary is where Attila's Hun's settled after he scared the crap out of Rome.)
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Perhaps then dead people could get their dead friends to sign it. They can start a dead persons lobby. What would it be called? The American Association of Dead Persons (AADP)?
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isnt it a federal offense to impersonate?
This may also be fraud and racketeering as there is profits to the people commuting the offense.
sign your us govt is totally corrupt...nothing will happen
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Re: isnt it a federal offense to impersonate?
FYI this is Europe
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Re: isnt it a federal offense to impersonate?
/snark-o-meter
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oh so hollywood can sign anmyones name now?
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Well, maybe they went up to the dead persons grave, notified them, asked for their approval, received no objection, and figured it was OK to sign the petition on their behalf.
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Free ads
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Any surprise?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Carey_%28writer%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_Save_the _Queen
That's why I argue that it should be recognized as an example of the genre ghoulmusic - music to stir the ghoul!
But the woman's got ghoul
Worth all money and gold
And all the love that I have belongs
To the woman with ghoul
The woman's got ghoul, yeah
The woman's got ghoul
The woman's got ghoul
Speaking facetiously, though, shouldn't someone in Europe take said industry groups to court for - among other things - bringing the institution of petitioning governments for redress, into disrepute? Shouldn't someone in Europe take the various governments to court for bringing themselves into disrepute?
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one small step...
Unless this of course has already happened (quite likely given the push for e-voting machines).....
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Petition Signatures
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Petition Signatures
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Time for a Business Model patent
1. Get listing of all 'living impaired' residing in graveyard.
2. Stand in middle of graveyard and announce, I'm filling out a petition for XXX, anyone residing in these premises who doesn't want to be included as a signor on the petition, please speak up now, or notify me after the reading.
3. Read petition and ask for any objections.
4. Sell 'completed' petition to organization wanting bogus results/response/etc.
5. Profit....
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Humanity
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copyright
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replied
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