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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?"
I always wonder why there can't be something concerning commercial availability. If software isn't sold anymore, shouldn't that modify copyright? What about when a book or CD or movie is unavailable? What about so-called abandonware?
I'm probably in a minority, but I think America's Fair Use Clause is already pretty sensible, it states:
"Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include --
(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work."
The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.
If we'd actually enforce this doctrine and not pass things to circumvent it, like the DMCA, I think oftentimes we'd find the law on our side. How does Australian law differ from these provisions?
I think alot of the bickering about IP rights comes from industries using money to skew the issues and interpret the law in their favor, and no strong voice stating what the law actually is or moving that it should be enforced fairly.
My main problem with copyright in the U.S. is that it is used to basically remove works from the populace. The vast majority of works are tossed in storage after they don't become hugely successful and are never seen again and often become completely unavailable. If I were rewriting copyright laws I'd require that all copyrighted works must be available for sale at a reasonable market rate or the copyright on them expires immediately (with an exception for works still in progress or about to released) and cannot be reinstated. I'd also require that two copies of every work to be copyrighted be provided free of charge to a national archive, thus ensuring that they will not disappear. (This used to be law in the U.S. but was repealed at the same time most of the rest of our copyright laws were rewritten by lobbyists.)
This still allows artists and publishers to make money on works, but also preserves them for the public when those companies stop offering them.
1. Copyright must be applied for. If copyright is not applied for within 1 year of publication, the work is public domain.
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
To get a copyright for a work, you should have to register a highest-possible-quality unencrypted digital copy of the work with the copyright office.
At a minimum, this guarantees that works don't vanish from existence before their copyright expires, denying the public domain their content.
Additionally, you could add criteria to address abandonware-- if a work is not produced or sold for a period of 10 years, it becomes available from the copyright office for a small copying fee, and has becomes part of the public domain.
Alternatively, this could act as a form of "mandatory licensing," where you can purchase the work for a nominal fee from the copyright office, and the proceeds are split between the office (for maintaining this library of works) and the copyright holder. This way, even people who are no longer able to sell their works could make a modest sum from the sale until the copyright expires, and people would have access to works that would have otherwise disappeared.
I'd ask for unrestricted use for education. Specifically state-funded education at the k-12 level. One of the stipulations should be that the copyright holder/publisher should provide, at cost, a copy of material for each student that needs the material.
As much as I loved books like Tom Sawyer, I hated having to pay for them out of pocket.
And I know something has been written in the last 100 years that students SHOULD be reading, but can't because of copyright.
This should include music (sheet for the band members and performances for appretiation classes), movies, books, software, etc. Basicly anything that can be copyrighted should be avalible at no cost to students.
There would be an exception for books written specifically to be used as textbooks.
I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
The after X millions is asking for trouble. Who is to determine what a "pile of money" is? How often does that need to be updated due to inflation or in reference to the "pile of money" that was invested in said copyright?
My thoughts on copyright are it should not be transferable. Meaning that the creator is the soul owner of the copyright, not the record company or their family hundreds of years after the original creator is dead. I also believe that it should last the lifetime of the creator, but they can waive it and put their creation into the public domain at any time.
The only problem is that copyright could then be circumvented via patents or trademarks or some other legal tricks. Although Walt Disney is dead. Even if the copyright were to disappear for Mickey Mouse, I doubt any Mickey Mouse cartoons would be able to be in the public domain due to trademarks on the Mickey Mouse name and image, so we are still stuck.
So redistribution for no profit, no matter at what scale it occurs, should be legal? What if this means that a large studio (that can afford the bandwidth) could just host a copy of any indie film so that the makers see no profit?
...to redo the entire copyright system, I would rather present suggestions within the current system, to halt a disturbing trend:
1. It should be illegal for any copyright protection scheme to enforce restrictions on non-reproductive use.
Examples:
Fast forward disabled, protected by CSS: Illegal
Fast forward in an "open" bit: Legal.
Region restrictions, protected by CSS: Illegal
Region restrictions in an "open" bit: Legal.
2. Copyright must be granted under the Berne convention. But protection of a copyright protection scheme is only granted on the condition that decryption keys are placed in escrow with the government, to be released into the public domain at the same time as copyright expires. If this key is protecting several works, it will be released when the first work enters the public domain.
Example:
[Movie company] releases a DVD. The symmetric key is placed in escrow with the government. When the copyright expires, that specific key is released.
[Music company] releases a compilation CD with a single key. When the first track enters public domain, the key is released (which would quickly lead to a system where each object is protected by its own key).
The public/private key pair in CD/DVD/TV players are never released, only the specific instances of keys.
3. All DRM systems which have the characteristics of a sale must allow resale under the first sale doctrine free of any comission, even if a license can not be reliably revoked (i.e. the buyer gets his copy, the seller keeps his). However, after invoking this the old original is considered an illegal copy, subject to relevant copyright law.
4. If the work is protected by a DRM system, the company must provide replacements at cost. Proof of ownership may be either damaged media, or reciept if the content is uniquely tied to the user. (As medialess content is).
Example:
DVD broken: Replacement.
iTMS tunes lost in disk crash: Replacement
DVD gets stolen: Car/home insurance case. Too easy to commit fraud otherwise.
These are areas where DRM is threatening to undermine basic consumer rights. While this is not nearly enough, I fear it will be hard enough to save even this much.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
How exactly is the Library of Congress "the best library in the world"? Seriously - I want you to justify that claim.
It isn't the biggest, it has 128m items, British has 150m - check the websites. Does it have the best librarians or something? Best coffee machines, perhaps?
What makes it the best library in the world? Please reply, I genuinely want to know what makes you think that.