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UK Copyright Extension in Exchange for Censorship?
Awel writes "The UK opposition leader, David Cameron, says in a speech to the British Phonographic Industry that his party would work to extend the copyright term to 70 years and crack down on piracy. But in return, labels would have to agree to bear more 'social responsibility', which appears to translate into avoiding lyrics that glorify 'an anti-learning culture, truancy, knifes, violence, guns, misogyny'. He doesn't spell out how this would be achieved in practice.
This follows the publication in December of a UK government report recommending that the standard copyright term in Europe remain at 50 years (and not be raised to 70 or 95 years)."
Looks like copyright is returning to its roots..
So Cameron is basically promising to do his part to make speech less free, so long as the labels promise to do their part to make speech less free? Score.
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so the government decides what may hear, and the recording industry what we may listen to. great.
Well, this puts me right off David Cameron.
What's up with the UK recently? It's bizarre. People complain like hell about the EU imposing laws on the UK, but if it is the UK gov doing it, nobody bats an eyelid.
For example, smoking. I hate smoking, it's horrid. But if people want to do it, they should be able to go to pubs where it's allowed. If people want to listen to music that glorifies "an anti-learning culture, truancy, knifes, violence, guns, misogyny" then they should be able to. And if people want to copy music or books or whatever of an artist that is well dead and buried then they should be able to do that too.
To all the people who doubt the social relevance of the "copyright reformist" debate... here is a perfect example of why we should be concerned. Not only is there yet another push for copyright extension, but this extension is being used to bargain for government censorship too.
The irony, of course, is that one of the main problems with effectively-perpetual copyright is the many restrictions it places on open commentary and free speech. Perpetual and rigidly-enforced copyrights essentially produce a chilling effect in the domain of free public discussion. Since copyright is a government-granted monopoly, it is hard to not label this as censorship.
So we get a double-dose of censorship: copyright extensions limit our ability to freely discuss and produce derivative art of the culture we are a part of... and these same extensions are used as a lever to enforce a government-mandated version of decency. In my mind this seriously calls into question the notion that copyrights are there as a service to society, encouraging distribution of artwork to the people... or have we given up on that interpretation of copyright entirely?
His offer is that if the recording industry will give up some of their own free-speech rights, the government will reward them by curtailing citizens' free-speech rights?
music about "anti-learning culture, truancy, knifes, violence, guns, misogyny" is street music which, gasp, is sold on the street
by the time it gets in the hands of the kids of these fine legislators, it has been picked up by a label and redistributed. stopping that part of the process won't lead to the death of street music, it will just mean that street music will get distributed by other means
kids are stupid. they listen to stupid things. then they grow up. and become responsible. and become members of the house of commons. i wonder how many of this guys peers, if not himself, were getting stoned in the back of a car listening to "we don't need no education..." and other wonders of pink floyd's "the wall" 25 years ago
you can't stop teenagers from being retarded. that's just what teenage years are all about
hey david cameron: "How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat!"
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Fortunately the majority of British voters see Cameron for what he is; someone who'll do and say anything to get back into power. It will be a sad election that sees his greasy mug in Downing St.
That said, Brown doesn't exactly make me jump for joy either. Guess I'll carry on doing what I've done for the last 10 years, vote for apathy and stay at home.
This only covers the first 1/4 of the speech. Again, I'm disgusted by the skewed view of the entire debate that is being presented. This results from either paying little to no attention to what is going on, or an intentional misrepresentation in order to garner the favor of a particular industry. In either case, it's not a good place from which to start setting social policy.
Still, that generally only pumps up your profit for an additional 5-10 years.
After 20 years on sale, your profit is practically nothing ... UNLESS you wrote a masterpiece.
But if you wrote a masterpiece then:
1. You probably got rich by then anyway.
2. The public wants you to WRITE ANOTHER ONE
3. A sequel/new book would earn a ton more money and also can pump up sales of the first thing.
Net Net, it is in the PUBLIC'S interest that after just 10 years, copyrights run out. AND it does not significantly affect any creator's income.
The real reason why we have copyright laws over 10 years is not for the writer, but instead for the major corporations that can make money lots of tiny sales 15, 20 or 50 years after creation of the author. It is pretty much ONLY them that really benefit, at the expense of society by a LOT.
Now, there is one other factor - derivative work. Movies based on books etc. That kind of thing it is reasonable to allow the original writer to retain. But honestly it should ALWAYS be the original writer, i.e. the right should not be saleable. That prevents them from selling it to a corp for a quick profit and then having the corp. massacre their work. By requirin the original actual author to give always give consent, we can increase the quality of the work.
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> work to extend the copyright term to 70 years and crack down on piracy
...Sir Cliff Richard, The Who and Sir Paul McCartney backed the campaign to extend the 50-year term
...enough said
Right... because the first thing to do in the fight against piracy is to broaden the definition of piracy to include twenty years worth of extra music. In other news, Cameron announced that as the first step in a crackdown on murder, the definition of "murder" will been expanded to include drunk-driving. He said that government claims that this would increase reported cases of murder by 12000% as "exagerated".
> He argued that extending the term would give an "incentive to the music industry to digitise both older and niche repertoire which
> more people can enjoy at no extra cost".
Right... so, extending the copyright term to include works which are currently in the public domain, and thus free and legal to use for any purpose will help people enjoy these works at "no extra cost"? In other news, as part of a campaign to try and get kids to exercise more, Cameron announced plans to put all public playparks into the hands of private companies that will charge for their use.
> Mr Cameron said: "Most people think these are all multimillionaires living in some penthouse flat. The reality is that many of
> these are low-earning session musicians who will be losing a vital pension."...
>
I don't get it...how is this an exchange? It sounds like there are two things this type of person wants, longer copyright and censorship, so why is one being offered "in exchange" for the other? The two go hand-in-hand, making it harder to distribute material and harder to produce material about what you want. This looks like a sock puppet job. Now if it was "decrease copyright term for increased censorship" or vice versa, that would be an exchange.
~Eien no Inori wo Sasagete~ Searching for my Hatsumi...
"We'll allow you guys to soak up even more money that you don't deserve, as long as you contribute to our Big Brother-like atmosphere!" Should I take solace that this will almost certainly get laughed off by Labour?
Let's stop dilly-dallying and just change "-1: Overrated" to "-1: Disagree" or "-1: Doesn't Subscribe to Groupthink".
Hmmmm.... Your comment got me thinking. You describe an "implied contract" between a consumer and the corporation. I agree with that: the consumers were sold something ("here is a work... it will enter public domain in X years"), whose value is then afterwards altered ("sorry... it will now enter public domain in X+Y years!"). So the consumer is being ripped off.
But authors are, too. When I publish something and assign the copyright to the publisher (in exchange for whatever terms), it is with the knowledge that the work will enter the public domain on a given date. However if the laws are suddenly altered, then my contract has been changed without me agreeing to anything! If an additional 20 years of protection are afforded, how can those extra 20 years be included in a contract retroactively? What if I wanted the work to enter the public domain on a particular date? The original contract guaranteed that, and now the government imposes a law that invalidates the assumptions of my previous contract!
I think a consumer arguing that an implicit contract had been violated would be interesting... but I think if an author, who had assigned the copyright to another party, vocally said that they would sue to regain control of the "extended time" of any copyright extension... that might draw some much-needed publicity to this debate.
Imagine what would happen if *all* authors said they would reclaim the "extended time" from copyright extension. I bet the publishers wouldn't be so keen to support extensions in that case. Rights of the authors indeed.
This illustrates to me the symbiotic relationship governments and businesses have with each other in democracies. In their words it's protecting the consumer from themselves while making music more available. In the double-think tradition of Orwell this makes sense. Too bad it doesn't seem like there is a choice nowadays in democracies. You get to vote for different people, but it's all the same basic ideology; the corrupt supporting the corrupt. That is, businesses supporting politicians, and your average voter being fed the same old FUD, appeals to emotion, etc. without any De facto choice or say in the matter. The popular vote really doesn't seem to be supporting anything popular. Career politicians supporting career business people who support career politicians. It's the mobius strip of Western progress.
Economic benefits in return for social responsibility. Read: more profit if you apply (self-)censorship to ensure the restoration of Victorian values. The next step will be ofcourse to ban anything that is critical, obscene, rebellious or hurtful to the feelings of the majority. I can recall at least two other regimes from the last century that offered benefits to individuals, companies and organisations, when they would apply censorship and spy on family, friends, neighbours and employees. This is all very much in-line with recent developments in the UK. Oher examples are: many in the UK think, supported by populist politicians, press and media, that there are terrorists and child molestors on every street corner (ofcourse all non-British). Consequently, there are more and more calls to ditch human rights legislation and to cut freedom of speech, all in the name of fighting terrorism and anti-social behaviour. People get political positions through cash donations (cash for honours). Police kill innocent people and no one gets charged. Two-year old in a pram cannot enter a supermarket wearing a hoodie. Fourteen-year old girl gets arrested for chalking love signs and butterflies on a pavement. Father gets arrested for making pictures of his son playing football, not having a license. All social-economic problems here are caused by artists, scientists, immigrants, teenagers or the European Union, so they should and will be punished. The true culprits, politicians, laywers, the popular media and greedy business people walk free and get rewarded for their opportunism.
-- Neminem laede, immo omnes, quantum potes, iuva.
So basically, I, the consumer, get screwed both by what he is barganing for and what he is barganing with. Wonderful.
.there is enough of everything for everyone.