Does it begin to become apparent that IP searches will be used, often more successfully, for ends other than protecting IP? Research ACTA now. Tell your friends. This one is really under the radar (granted, the radar is particularly heavy these days).
Combine this with surveillance powers and border searches of computers, and you have 1) the ability to find anyone with a copy of anything on their computer or person and 2) a 'legal' reason to apprehend anyone they choose based on a trumped-copyright offense.
Now that the financial industry has tanked, IP is really the only thing sustaining US economic hegemony. Expect fastracking of Anti-Counterfeiting trade agreement, stronger lobbying of EC Commission to pass IPRED2 and more pressure at home to facilitate criminal prosecution. Combine with DHL increasing its surveillance through laptop and document searches and what have you got?
When will Europeans realize that it's US lobbyists, and not academics that the Commissions listens to. Also, more than 'performers' these benefits go to record companies, lumped together with broadcasters as neighboring rights. Labeling this a benefit for poor performers is the same trick as 17th century printers saying 'it's about the poor authors'. It never was, it never will be. Performers will continue to get screwed, just as they always have. It's the lobbies, Europe.
When will Europeans realize that it's US lobbyists, and not academics that the Commissions listens to. Also, more than 'performers' these benefits go to record companies, lumped together with broadcasters as neighboring rights. Labeling this a benefit for poor performers is the same trick as 17th century printers saying 'it's about the poor authors'. It never was, it never will be. Performers will continue to get screwed, just as they always have. It's the lobbies, Europe.
For a stupendous treatment of this and related topics, especially the relationship between public health and germ warfare, see Melinda Cooper's Life as Surplus: Biotechnology and Capitalism in the Neoliberal Era. (Univ. of Washington). Indonesia is so on point.
At least the link between 'security' and the extraordinary lobbying power of the IP industry is now becoming clear. Everyone has infringing material on their laptop. With pending enforcement legislation (S. 3325, the "Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act of 2008," see eff.org for more info)and the secretive Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, no one is safe from the police state. If you live in the world, you have 'something to hide'.
There's no such thing as 'renew and renew and renew' copyright. It comes into existence automatically upon creation and expires automatically at the end of the term. Only the US once had mandatory registration (until it was forced to comply with the Bern Convention a mere 100 years after its appearance). In fact Bern prohibits such formalities. Copyright is easy.
How easily we have come to accept that characters should be trademarkable at all. This was a ruse by Disney to extend Mickey's copyright into infinity and no one can afford to challenge Disney. Trademark is designed to indicate the authentic origin of goods. Mickey does not make goods, he merely appears as an image - classic copyright, no? Maybe this case will put paid to this long misuse of trademark law once and for all. In 1964, copyright extended for 28 years, renewable, but where not renewed, public domain after 1992, which is where Mickey would live today, where it not for the army of Disney lawyers twisting the law to their own desires.
Agree completely, 'business models' are becoming increasingly ridiculous. As far as payola argument goes, though, this turnabout is not confined to radio. Music videos were first seen as promoting artists until the industry began to realize they could collect for their use as programming rather than pay to have them shown and the rest is history. Similarly with 'personality rights'. People used to hire PR people to get there name and image out there. Now name and image, like everything else, are commodities to be packaged and sold, and 'pirated'.
The US has been hitting everyone where it hurts for over a decade. Finally, the rest of the world is retaliating. International IP, or TRIPS, is a creature of WTO, and a perfectly legal target.
On the post: Why ISPs Shouldn't Be Copyright Cops
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