Chile's New Copyright Legislation Would Make Creative Commons Licensing Impossible For Audiovisual Works

from the no-freedom-to-make-it-free dept

Fri, May 20th 2016 12:48pm — Glyn Moody

Techdirt has written many times about the way in which copyright only ever seems to get stronger, and how different jurisdictions point to other examples of excessive copyright to justify making their own just as bad. In Chile, there's an interesting example of that kind of copyright ratchet being applied in the same country but to different domains. It concerns audiovisual works, and aims to give directors, screenwriters and others new rights to "match" those that others enjoy. Techdirt has already written about this bad idea in the context of the Beijing Treaty on Audiovisual Performances. But it turns out that Chile's proposed copyright legislation adds an extra twist that makes it even worse, because these rights will be unwaivable -- an approach we've seen before in Portugal. Here's what that will mean in practice, as explained on infojustice.org by Luis Villarroel, from the Chilean organization Innovarte:

the music composer of a work embedded in any audiovisual work, the writer of the drama, the Director, the camera man, etc, will not be able to waive their rights or license for free through a creative commons license or any other open licenses, or give works to the public domain.

To make it worse, because of the national treatment obligations this bill will also apply to foreign audiovisual works.

According to Villarroel, the legislation is being promoted by the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers -- and by Chilean collecting societies. By an amazing coincidence, the new licensing fees will all be administered by the latter. Villarroel first wrote about this move last year, when the legislation was approved in Chile's House of Representatives. Despite the delay, it is apparently back on the agenda, and will be considered by the Senate, the country's upper house, soon.

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Filed Under: chile, copyright, creative commons

13 Comments

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That One Guy (profile), 20 May 2016 @ 12:52pm

Let's just remove another layer of deception shall we?
Move like this, stripping away the rights of creators as to what they can do with their own creations make it all the clearer that modern copyright law has very little if anything to do with protecting the actual creators, and everything to do with protecting the profits of those that buy the laws.

If you're not legally allowed to do what you want with your creation, up to and including giving it in it's entirety to the public should you so wish then it's not really yours now is it?
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Anonymous Coward, 20 May 2016 @ 1:17pm

Re: Let's just remove another layer of deception shall we?
They know it, we know it, the media knows it.

Anyone willing to do anything about it or media with a big enough loud speaker to call a spade a spade? Few... to non-existent!
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Anonymous Coward, 20 May 2016 @ 1:28pm

Re: Let's just remove another layer of deception shall we?
Copy protection laws were almost never about the artist and have almost always been only about big media.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 May 2016 @ 1:33pm

If this law passes, does this mean that YouTube, Vimeo etc. will be given a massive bill by the Chile collections societies?
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bob, 20 May 2016 @ 1:38pm

a blanket and rope tied to four corners does wonders.
I lived in Chile for almost 2 years. At least in the southern part of the country, but I suspect all over, pirating of media is commonplace. Walking down a street you could see in store windows stacks of DVDs that had a printed out cover and a burned copy of the movie inside.

Probably the funniest thing I ever saw was that street vendors would lay out a blanket, tie a set of ropes to each corner meeting in the middle. The idea was if the police came around the corner, you could pull the rope from the middle the blanket and all your goods would get pulled up into a sack looking bag and you could just relocate to a new location.

Option two was to just offer the cop a DVD of their choice and you could go on selling for a while till the next patrol came by.

I even met a teen that would employ middle aged men to be the salesmen of the wares he download and burned the night before.

Needless to say a country can outlaw whatever it wants, people will just do it anyway and find more creative means to circumvent the law.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 May 2016 @ 2:05pm

Re: Let's just remove another layer of deception shall we?
Copy protection laws shouldn't even be about the artist. They should only be about the public. Needless to say they are bad for both the public and the artist. The only ones that benefit are the distributors.
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Peter (profile), 20 May 2016 @ 2:08pm

It's a surprise only for those ...
... who think copyright is about protecting the interests of creative people. Until they have been dead for 70, right?

Copyright legislation is about protecting the income of publishers, and they have nothing to gain from public domain (or creative commons and such nonsense).
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That One Guy (profile), 20 May 2016 @ 2:13pm

Re: Re: Let's just remove another layer of deception shall we?
True, my comment was more aimed at those buying the laws who insist that the laws need to always be ratcheted up 'for the creators', the very same creators who are being told that no in fact they do not own the rights to their own creations here.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 May 2016 @ 2:22pm

This is an old prediction of mine - that the wealthy will try to outlaw giving things away for free. They can't conceive or at least don't care that someone would ever give something away for free so they just outlaw it. If it costs money to sell things, then they'll have less competition from free stuff and they may just be able to buy up more property to sell and make a profit.
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Arthur Moore (profile), 20 May 2016 @ 4:27pm

Re: a blanket and rope tied to four corners does wonders.
I saw this in Rome. A patrol would come through and the vendors would all grab everything. When the police were gone everything was back in place. It's so strange to us country folks. I've lived in a city of 300k people, and street vendors were the exception not the rule.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 May 2016 @ 6:19pm

Re:
They want to make charity illegal
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Anonymous Coward, 21 May 2016 @ 4:23am

Are they going to block youtube,
etc cos there is so many public domain films on it .
This is just collection society,s looking for money
and sponsoring a bill .
So tv stations in chile will no longer show public domain films or some foreign programs as it will
hardly be worth working out all the payments
on older programs .
Also its a great attack of creators rights,
many writers give away some books ,ebooks to
promote their work and build up a fan base .
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bikey, 23 May 2016 @ 2:30am

Comes just as Ken Loach puts all his films on youtube...
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