If every time you come back and look for a new "compromise" then it's just a ratcheting system moving the equilibrium point further and further away FROM the public's interests TO the "rightsholders'" interests. A compromise was reached last time. This is just furthering the Copyright Industry.
How about someone propose we limit copyright and any other such right (with the exception of trademarks) to 20 years. Works marvels for patents! We see lots and lots of new patents, so for patentholders it's working out great. We see lots of great ideas and products become public domain and become much more affordable. THEN we might talk about a compromise of 20 years "free" and an additional 20 years for a hefty fee (so high-value properties only can be protected).
But no. We always start out with the already-bad "status quo" and ONLY make it worse. Every. single. time.
It's about time "creative people" get the same treatment as "innovative people" 20 year patent, 20 year copyright. That's how long you have to monetize your monopoly, after that the creation/invention gets to benefit society in the public domain. Lots of problems solved.
"Personal electronic sites are only allowed to put news owned by that person, and are not allowed to 'quote', 'gather' or summarise information from press organisations or government websites,"
I can't believe the US Government is expressing "concerns" over this... they should support this bold and courageous stance against this widespread copyright infringement!
[/sarcasm]
The problem is that the majority of VOTERS is still the sheeple (those born when electric typewriters were considered high-tech and before) and they care zero about copyright and know even less about it.
That is why there's a rush now to create big fat nooses where they will stick our necks in. 20-30 years from now nothing can be done; like the Berne convention being part of TRIPs and TRIPs being mandatory to be part of the WTO. It's all inter-locking, think chains that are locked together with many padlocks, so even if one or two padlocks fail, it's still all held tightly together: either EVERYTHING needs to fail at the same time, or it will sail on as if nothing happened.
The "solution" is to eventually come to a new set of trade agreements, which in article one declare any other, previous ones for null and void... the 1880's Berne convention to be named first.
Yes, you read that right. The Berne convention which started the ridiculous idea of copyright lasting for half a decade while the creator's corpse started decaying in the ground was finalized mere DAYS after Geronimo surrendered at Skeleton Canyon, AZ.
Geronimoooooo! should be the official Battle Cry for the Copyright Minimalists, referring to how old that archaic that bottom card, the Berne Convention, in the "IP" House of Cards is.
One thing that irks me is the amount of attention that is given to this marketing ploy. Just ignore it. There are more important things than some MPAA list.
If any change is made to rules regarding "fixations", it should also be explicitly stated that the expiration of the copyright to the fixation trumps any other right, i.e. a copyright in the lyrics cannot stop the recording from becoming public domain, in the sense that the copyright to the lyrics does not apply for the lyrics *as fixed in the recording*. You would not be allowed to transcribe them from the fixation and publish those, but you can still share the recording all you want.
There is a similar issue with "The Pinball Arcade" on XBoX 360 - the publisher Crave Entertainment went bankrupt and now the developer Farsight needs to get the rights back through the bankruptcy judge in order to sign with another publisher.
This means that XBoX 360 owners haven't seen a new table in ages.
Everyone seems to have forgotten that when I use my scanner to make a digital copy from an 1880s magazine, itself long in the public domain, the resulting digital file apparently is under a brand new copyright.
So if someone creates an image based on "girl from the back with flowers" that won't stop you from making your own "girl from the back with flowers" but you can't just copy the exact same image... because if you can, there are going to interesting developments... how about sheet music? Photographs? etc.
It's obvious YouTube has been compromised. We need a new one. So maybe not "NewTube"... but what is going to be the "next" YouTube and how are we going to prevent the (c) industry to get a little bit too friendly with them?
LiveLeak? DailyMotion? Any suggestions?
Don't look at Kim Dotcom; he's also of the here's-an-API-and-delete-what-you-want-and-if-it-turns-out-to-be-wrong-there-is-no-penalty-whatsoeve r variety.
It's all relative; you can even argue that p2p-filesharing could be legal under the above-quoted rules;
the "normal exploitation" of a work would be offering it for sale in a store, having it play in a movie theatre, etc. etc. - the private sharing between individuals without any kind of compensation for the sharing is certainly not "normal exploitation" and does not interfere with it, nothing is stopping the rightsholder from doing so.
For the second part we need to define "unreasonably" - currently it is made to be "whatever might possibly, however far-fetched it seems to be, give off the scent of a potentially lost sale now or at some point in the (far) future". If you want to give your citizens freedoms, then you can narrow that "unreasonably" considerably.
With the Internet, the cloud, mass storage, and all kinds of connected devices the circumstances changed to re-interpret what is reasonable. You should not force the circumstances to comply with outdated rules.
Think Galileo and the invention of the telescope. You cannot simply hold on to the "rule" that the Earth is the center and the Sun revolves around it anymore.
"(2) Any country may denounce this Act by notification addressed to the Director General. Such denunciation shall constitute also denunciation of all earlier Acts and shall affect only the country making it, the Convention remaining in full force and effect as regards the other countries of the Union."
There. You can also get rid of both the WIPO "agreements". The problem, and you can point the finger straight at the good ole US of A for that, is the WTO TRIPs agreement.
THERE IS NO WAY TO GET OUT OF TRIPs OTHER THAN QUITTING THE WTO!
And if you think that was an oversight, I feel sorry for you. This was a deliberate Lock-In.
But: where there's a will, there's a way. It's up to us to make sure the politicians HAVE that will. Yes, at first there will be little they can do. But what they CAN do is become VERY VOCAL: "if it was up to us, we'd change the copyright term to 10+10 after publication, and we extend our hand to every other nation who feels the same."
Then it's just a matter of time. But when everyone just keeps quiet and pretend nothing is wrong or nothing can be done, does EXACTLY what the evil minds behind all this intended. Image: Emperor Palpatine, condescending smile, "everything is proceeding as I have foreseen"
Most people watch TV in their living rooms using traditional cable or satellite options. In fact, [b]more than 95 percent of Americans get their information[/b] and entertainment that way
That's what we've been saying all along: the copyright industry also controls the flow of information, but here you have Nielsen confirming it.
Don't forget that North America also includes Canada, and right now two things are being sneaked through:
1. CETA - includes various IPR proposals that are not in the publics best interest: pharma patent term extension (remember the ratcheting-mechanism? Up up up and never down)
2. ACTA - recently a Bill C-56 was introduced in the Canadian rubber-stamp-iament that paves the way for the ratification of ACTA. Yes, it is March 2013, and Yes, the US is demanding that Canada ratifies ACTA.
If we're amending the DMCA anyway, what absolutely needs to be fixed is the take-down system, in the sense that you have, under penalty of perjury, need to have a good-faith believe that the work you demand to be taken down is actually the work you are the copyright owner of, or its authorized agent.
Right now you can claim birds singing is infringing on Star Wars Menace, as long as you are the copyright holder of Star Wars, or its agent. If you are not, you are in trouble... but the work you complain about can be anything, even something blatantly different, and there is NOTHING that can be done -- under the DMCA.
This whole thing is a bit like a MPAA/RIAA Religion (through the USTR mouthpiece), concocted in the "land of the free", and like usual, the new converts are even more fanatical and hard-line than the Original Believers. The UK can be lucky it's not as bad as Japan. Remember that video http://vimeo.com/45864549
Now imagine it in Japan with Japanese officers and a Japanese prosecutor, all to show the US how much of a "true believers" they are in IPR-Protection. These blocks are what the UK does to express their unquestioning Belief.
If anyone thought there would be a mass persecution of alleged "infringers", that would be a bit naive. The Malicious Minds behind all this know full well there would be a public backlash, or at the very least this would become an "ISSUE" come election time.
"Rights" holders are very careful that anything "digital" other than cyberattacks (used to ratchet even further) are NEVER discussed in a big publicly televised debate.
"Compromise"
How about someone propose we limit copyright and any other such right (with the exception of trademarks) to 20 years. Works marvels for patents! We see lots and lots of new patents, so for patentholders it's working out great. We see lots of great ideas and products become public domain and become much more affordable. THEN we might talk about a compromise of 20 years "free" and an additional 20 years for a hefty fee (so high-value properties only can be protected).
But no. We always start out with the already-bad "status quo" and ONLY make it worse. Every. single. time.
Presidential Appointee
Soccer
It's about time "creative people" get the same treatment as "innovative people" 20 year patent, 20 year copyright. That's how long you have to monetize your monopoly, after that the creation/invention gets to benefit society in the public domain. Lots of problems solved.
Special 404 or something? :)
I can't believe the US Government is expressing "concerns" over this... they should support this bold and courageous stance against this widespread copyright infringement!
[/sarcasm]
Sheeple
That is why there's a rush now to create big fat nooses where they will stick our necks in. 20-30 years from now nothing can be done; like the Berne convention being part of TRIPs and TRIPs being mandatory to be part of the WTO. It's all inter-locking, think chains that are locked together with many padlocks, so even if one or two padlocks fail, it's still all held tightly together: either EVERYTHING needs to fail at the same time, or it will sail on as if nothing happened.
The "solution" is to eventually come to a new set of trade agreements, which in article one declare any other, previous ones for null and void... the 1880's Berne convention to be named first.
Yes, you read that right. The Berne convention which started the ridiculous idea of copyright lasting for half a decade while the creator's corpse started decaying in the ground was finalized mere DAYS after Geronimo surrendered at Skeleton Canyon, AZ.
Geronimoooooo! should be the official Battle Cry for the Copyright Minimalists, referring to how old that archaic that bottom card, the Berne Convention, in the "IP" House of Cards is.
Relevancy
(untitled comment)
The Pinball Arcade
This means that XBoX 360 owners haven't seen a new table in ages.
Simple.
The MPAA on the other hand can make tons of money with their creations, so any use by you is copyright infringement.
And All Was Well In Dodd-land.
Scan
So if someone creates an image based on "girl from the back with flowers" that won't stop you from making your own "girl from the back with flowers" but you can't just copy the exact same image... because if you can, there are going to interesting developments... how about sheet music? Photographs? etc.
NewTube
LiveLeak? DailyMotion? Any suggestions?
Don't look at Kim Dotcom; he's also of the here's-an-API-and-delete-what-you-want-and-if-it-turns-out-to-be-wrong-there-is-no-penalty-whatsoeve r variety.
(untitled comment)
the "normal exploitation" of a work would be offering it for sale in a store, having it play in a movie theatre, etc. etc. - the private sharing between individuals without any kind of compensation for the sharing is certainly not "normal exploitation" and does not interfere with it, nothing is stopping the rightsholder from doing so.
For the second part we need to define "unreasonably" - currently it is made to be "whatever might possibly, however far-fetched it seems to be, give off the scent of a potentially lost sale now or at some point in the (far) future". If you want to give your citizens freedoms, then you can narrow that "unreasonably" considerably.
With the Internet, the cloud, mass storage, and all kinds of connected devices the circumstances changed to re-interpret what is reasonable. You should not force the circumstances to comply with outdated rules.
Think Galileo and the invention of the telescope. You cannot simply hold on to the "rule" that the Earth is the center and the Sun revolves around it anymore.
(untitled comment)
All Our Pr0n Belong To Everyone!
Berne Art. 35 para 2
There. You can also get rid of both the WIPO "agreements". The problem, and you can point the finger straight at the good ole US of A for that, is the WTO TRIPs agreement.
THERE IS NO WAY TO GET OUT OF TRIPs OTHER THAN QUITTING THE WTO!
And if you think that was an oversight, I feel sorry for you. This was a deliberate Lock-In.
But: where there's a will, there's a way. It's up to us to make sure the politicians HAVE that will. Yes, at first there will be little they can do. But what they CAN do is become VERY VOCAL: "if it was up to us, we'd change the copyright term to 10+10 after publication, and we extend our hand to every other nation who feels the same."
Then it's just a matter of time. But when everyone just keeps quiet and pretend nothing is wrong or nothing can be done, does EXACTLY what the evil minds behind all this intended. Image: Emperor Palpatine, condescending smile, "everything is proceeding as I have foreseen"
Interesting tidbit...
That's what we've been saying all along: the copyright industry also controls the flow of information, but here you have Nielsen confirming it.
CETA / ACTA
1. CETA - includes various IPR proposals that are not in the publics best interest: pharma patent term extension (remember the ratcheting-mechanism? Up up up and never down)
2. ACTA - recently a Bill C-56 was introduced in the Canadian rubber-stamp-iament that paves the way for the ratification of ACTA. Yes, it is March 2013, and Yes, the US is demanding that Canada ratifies ACTA.
Another DMCA Fix
Right now you can claim birds singing is infringing on Star Wars Menace, as long as you are the copyright holder of Star Wars, or its agent. If you are not, you are in trouble... but the work you complain about can be anything, even something blatantly different, and there is NOTHING that can be done -- under the DMCA.
Re:
Religion
Now imagine it in Japan with Japanese officers and a Japanese prosecutor, all to show the US how much of a "true believers" they are in IPR-Protection. These blocks are what the UK does to express their unquestioning Belief.
(untitled comment)
"Rights" holders are very careful that anything "digital" other than cyberattacks (used to ratchet even further) are NEVER discussed in a big publicly televised debate.
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