Copyright Rumblings

dcunning writes "The Economist has a short opinion piece entitled Copyrights: A radical rethink that suggests (horror of horrors!) going so far as reverting back to the original copyright term of 14 years, renewable once. The article suggests that, in exchange for this, the 'content industries' be given 'much of the legal backing which they are seeking for copy-protection technologies.' A worthwhile and fair tradeoff?"

Comments

And this is relevant because?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would the content industries be content with a fair compromise when they can buy enough influence to have all the legal, anti-copy methods they want, and enough influence to buy 357 year copyrights?

Re:And this is relevant because?

[Zemran]

Maybe because they realise that they cannot have it all their own way. As Americans get a rapidly worse deal the situation in the rest of the world becomes more obviously different. How do you think it will be in a few years when you can buy things, legally, anywhere else in the world that you cannot buy in the US and everyone in the world can see the stupidity. Even the polititians will start to feel like idiots after a while. A lot of Walt Disney cartoons become free to copy in the rest of the world soon,but not in the US. Will the US start search all mail coming into the country? Or do they have to face up to how absurd the situation already is? Will the US move forward or continue to make a fool of itself?

Re:And this is relevant because?

[mickwd]

This is relevant because its an article in a magazine written for important business people which is talking about the issue, and telling them that there is a serious problem here. This is much more significant it terms of publicising the issue to the world at large than a bunch of people on a techies-only website wingeing amongst themselves and (with a small handful of exceptions) not doing anything significant about it.

Does copyleft expire?

[duckpoopy]

Is there any such expiration date on open source code licenses?

Not a fair tradeoff

[Fished]

It would not be a fair tradeoff to give up the copy protection battle for shorter copyright terms. Here's why: if I am not allowed to possess technology that could be used to copy copyrighted material (whether I use it for that or not) I will not be able to copy the materials even after the 28 years copyright expires. So far, I am not aware of any DRM technology that does a very good job of supporting expiration of protection.

Further, the problems related to fair use remain. I have an affirmative right to use short segments of copyrighted material in other works. For example, if I wanted to preach a sermon demonstrating how media culture affects us, I might want to use a short clip from the truman show. I have that right under fair use - but I can't do it from a DVD legally right now because of the DMCA which prevents me from legally owning the technology that would enable it. The chilling effect is a scary thing.

Re:It'll never happen

[Bonker]

This is correct. Copyright violation right now has the same stigma of speeding. You know its dangerous. You know it's against the law. You also know that *Everyone* does it. Even lawmakers.

Passing a law like this is the equivalent of abolishing speed limits in exchange for forcing auto-makers to put anti-speeding technology in cars.

There are legitimate reasons to speed (medical emergencies, accident evasion, etc...) and there are legitimate reasons to copy of copyrighted material. Exchanging one for the other simply isn't workable.

An Exercise In Futility

[Dr. Wu]

Why do I have the feeling that this decade is going to be known as the "Mine! Mine!" decade.

The genie is out of the bottle, and no law, technology, or ad campaign is ever going to put it back in. Copyrights have been violated since the first artist in history signed their name (or stamped their mark) on their work.

(and as a descendent of one of the artists in Altamira, I would like my cut of the souvenir profits)

Why the recording industry (and others) now feel threatened enough to start raising a fuss, is because it's just become much easier. Although, overall, I don't see how it can really hurt their bottom line. They are making many times the profit on their product than they did in the 70's, 80's, and 90's (am I the only one who's noticed how $1 and $2 paperbacks are now selling for $9 - $12. Was there a sudden paper shortage that I never heard about?). Don't even get me started on CD's, do you really expect me to believe that the bottom line cost of a CD is twice as much as a cassette tape (considering the markup).

If the industry would get smart and offer their products at a decent price, it would help to insure that the run-of-the mill consumer is not tempted to use other means to acquire the product. But if they expect that a few words in a lawbook is going to stop what has already started, they are dreaming.

Dr. Wu

PS: If the music industry is so perfect themselves, then why are they settling the lawsuits against them for illegal price fixing.

Music CD Settlement

Another grand idea... wasted.

[Art Popp]

The author makes a great case. He proposes trade-offs that would be in everyone's best interest. And that's why it will never fly.

The problem is the content industries feel they "deserve" the original copyright term, and that the digital age is simply infringing on their "rights." And, quite short-sightedly, that all they need to do is get "better" laws and the next generation of technology will put it right.

Hundreds of people proposed very reasonable, in fact still too expensive, methods to make music available online. The problem with these systems was that they were reasonable. The current system of paying $15 for CD with 3 good songs 2 mediocre, and the remainder, crap is extremely profitable. No self-centered individual would endanger such a system for one that would allow a user to pay $3 each for their two favorite songs and ignore the rest. It just won't happen.

These people will fight tooth and claw to retain total control of our culture until we wrest it from their grasping hands.

The next generation of crypto-verifying players, and per user-agreement encrypted, signed music downloads, will be a telling test. They will lower the prices enough that many people won't care. They will then usher in laws that make any tool that plays digital music a "tool of piracy." Large proprietary software corporations will step right into the meal line with their ticket in hand, and the FOSS community will be all that stands in their way. Should be exciting to watch.

Re:So let me get this straight...

[gilroy]

Blockquoth the poster:

Is that correct? Does the DMCA not apply to circumventing acess protection to copyright works? How can this still apply after the copyright has expired?

Yes, it's correct. The DMCA, while nominally a copyright act, has a lot of (hopefully) unintended consequences. Because a DRM scheme might be used on many, many works -- and because those works would pass into public domain at different times -- work on breaking any DRM scheme is prohibited. Consider: Books A, B, and C are all protected by Frobozco Magic Digital Rights Management Technology. Book A goes into public domain in, say, 2077, but B and C enter public domain in 2082. If you're allowed to crack FMDRMT in order to read Book A, you'd also possess the technology to read B and C, even though that would be infringement.

Now, you might wonder, shouldn't it be the actual infringement that is illegal, and not the mere potential to infringe? Old school, yes. But not in the brave new world of intellectual "property".

Of course, this encourages the Content Cartel to lock up everything behind the same DRM, and to continue using it for many many years. That way, even the "public domain" works cannot be legally accessed without paying a fee. That's the way we're going to get perpetual copyright. The Sony Bono Act was -- pardon the pun -- strictly Mickey Mouse in comparison.