What Would You Ask For in Copyright Law?

BlastM asks: "The Australian Attorney General's Department, as reported recently on Slashdot, is accepting public input in a review of fair use exceptions (or lack thereof) in our copyright laws. Being an Australian citizen, I'll be directly affected by any reforms that are made, and under the Copyright Act in it's current form it's hard to avoid breaking the law nearly every day, whether format shifting music, recording broadcast TV shows or sharing movies via P2P or with friends. The question I pose to the freethinking minds, here: What fair use rights should be defined under copyright law? Is the use of a static, defined set of rights too restrictive? What's right/wrong with the copyright laws where you live?"

Comments

These

[4of12]

are very reasonable starting points IMHO.

Re:Less of it!

[jc42]

Everything was fine pre-DMCA.

Not really. The famous Girl-Scout case was years before the DMCA was passed. This was the case in which the Scouts were sued for permitting their members to sing copyrighted songs around a campfire. And note that all the negative publicity didn't work in this case. The Girl Scouts are paying an annual fee for the right to sing around their campfires.

Then there are the explanations of how it comes to be that Happy Birthday is still under copyright, although it was written in the 1880's. The current owner gets several million US dollars per year for permissions to sing the song.

None of this is the fault of the DMCA.