Slashdot Mirror
UK Think Tank Calls For Fair Use Of Your Own CDs
jweatherley writes "The BBC reports that a UK think tank, the Institute for Public Policy Research, has called for the legalization of format shifting. In a report commissioned by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, they state that copyright laws are out of date, and that people should have a 'private right to copy' which would allow them to legally copy their own CDs and DVDs on to home computers, laptops and phones. The report goes on to say that: 'it is not the music industry's job to decide what rights consumers have. That is the job of government.' The report also argues that there is no evidence the current 50-year copyright term is insufficient. The UK music industry is campaigning to extend the copyright term in sound recordings to 95 years."
The report goes on to say that: 'it is not the music industry's job to decide what rights consumers have. That is the job of government...
Well, actually, no... It's a basic human right to be able to access the cultural sphere. The statement above is simply a crypto-fascist bureaucrat's attempt to justify stealing control over cultural access from the music industry and hoarding it for himself.
Now I don't want to all libertarian on ya, and all that, BUT... Being able to listen to music or watch video or interact with any cultural form on a machine that you own is a fundamental and basic right that comes with the purchase of the machine. It's really time to put that concept into the forefront of all discussions of the topic of so-called intellectual property (a contradiction of terms, actually).
No entity, whether governmental, corporate, religious, or whatnot, has a authority (or the 'job') to control people's (that includes you and me and everyone else) access to the common human culture that we share. That we share with ourselves, our ancestors, and all future generations to come.
This is the starting point of all discussions on the subject, not the distant final dream. This is what Thomas Paine must have felt when constructing his work on basic liberty, Common Sense, two hundred plus years ago. This deep inner belief that certain things are basically not negotiable, like the right of people to use computers to access cultural activities in any way that the computers are able to do.