White House Petition Launched To 'Recast Copyright For The Digital Age'

from the way-past-due dept

A whole bunch of folks (surprising, given the number of signatures on the petition so far) have sent over a new "We the People..." petition on the White House's site, asking the White House to "recast copyright law for the digital era." The petition notes that the public has lost respect for copyright law, and the government should take steps to fix that, including securing first sale rights, more transparency and a right to remix.

The public disregards copyright law because it is out of sync with the digital age. We want the right to resell digital content (ebooks, etc.) that we've paid for. We need transparency in the marketplace to understand what rights we have.

Additionally, as responsible creators we need to be able to freely remix existing music and other forms of creative expression to create new works without undue fear of prosecution. This upholds the original Constitutional purpose of copyright, which is to promote progress.

This will nurture the process of innovation and the sharing of our culture. The language of the existing copyright law must be changed to accommodate the way information is being created and consumed in our digital world.

There can be plenty of debates over where to set copyright law's specific boundaries, but it seems clear that if it's ever to regain any kind of respect, it needs to move in the direction advocated above. I don't know the specifics, but apparently this petition was first put together by a "digital copyright" class at Dominican University, and a bunch of its students appear to be tweeting about it...

Filed Under: copyright, copyright reform, digital age, petition, white house