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Rumors of a 'Whisper Campaign' Forming Against Fair Use
An anonymous reader writes "Ars Technica reports that a group of companies and organizations it calls 'big content' is currently engaged in a worldwide 'whisper campaign' against Fair Use. 'The counter-reformation in question takes the form of a "whispering campaign" in which ministries in different countries are told that plans to expand fair use rights might well run afoul of the Berne Convention's "three-step test." The Convention, which goes back to the late 1800s, was one of the earliest international copyright treaties and is now administered by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).'"
Members shall confine limitations and exceptions to exclusive rights to certain special cases which do not conflict with a normal exploitation of the work and do not unreasonably prejudice the legitimate interests of the rights holder.
According to Wikipedia, the three steps are:
1) certain special cases
2) do not conflict with normal exploitation of the work
3) do not unreasonably prejudice the legitimate interests of the rights holder
I'm no lawyer, so I don't have the background to understand that kind of gobbledygook. Maybe that's the problem. Maybe laws written for the sake of the governed should be written in a language they understand.
The rich bastards who own the corporations really rule the world, but they're working hard to quell a counter-revolution. They are NOT patriots od any country, no matter what country they lay claim to. They only care about their own personal wealth and power and the rest of us can go to hell as far as they're concerned.
Fair use? How about "expanding" fair use in the US to what the founding fathers envisioned, and "limiting" the endless copyrights that would have appalled them?
I have decided that I will respect no copyright older than ten years old, period. I urge everyone else to join me. I think twenty is reasonable, but damn it THIS IS WAR.
Oh yeah- I refuse to honor ANY copyright held by a corporation. Only a writer or painter or other artist should hold a copyright. Disney can go to hell (actually he probably already did).
Yeah, I'm in a bad mood. So sue me.
-mcgrew
PS- I hold copyrights. I have two ISBNs that should have already passed into the public doimain. I'm not against copyright law, only the INSANE copyright laws that are in effect now.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
I do vote with my wallet by legally purchasing the copyrighted materials I find interesting.
It is amazing to me the lengths producers of nothing except dissent will go to acquire and misuse intellectual property of others.
Oh the shame.
Fixed that for ya. And it does not need to be a "group" to be doing that. They do it anyway as this is what their interests call for.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
The irony of completely fact-free scaremongering about a "whisper campaign seems to have been missed by all parties...
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Oh yeah- I refuse to honor ANY copyright held by a corporation.
Bless!
Only a writer or painter or other artist should hold a copyright.
Think about how that might work with, say, an instruction manual.
An instruction manual with, say, 200 contributors (like the service manual for a Boeing 737).
Each of those 200 content creators would have a share of the copyright. To print a new copy of the manual, you'd need to get permission from each of them -- or their descendants.
Of course, you might say you were only referring to Art with a capital A. In that case, let's consider a movie like Event Horizon. I'd say about 50 people had major creative input into that. Perhaps the right to distribute the movie to a given theatre should be split between all 50?
But the practical problem is only really the *small* half of the stupidity contained in the post above. You're saying that artists should not be able to sell their copyrights. That they should only be able to make a living by distributing their own works -- that artist and publisher must be combined into one role. That nobody should be allowed to buy the rights to creative work on spec, thus nurturing and publicizing new talent.
I refuse to honor ANY copyright held by a corporation.
So 6 guys get together and form Little Green Man Entertainment Ltd and make a computer game and sell it. But not to *you*. No, *you* pirate it because you refuse to honor any copyright held by a corporation. To buy these guy's game would compromise your *principles*.
Maybe if they all shared the copyright, rather than giving it to their company, you'd shell out the 20 bucks. But not until then. Because *you* are making a *stand*.
I assume that if they sold the copyright to a larger, multinational company so they could get on with making the next game rather than publishing, then your rage and bafflement would tower *even higher*. The mind boggles.
I refuse to honor ANY copyright held by a corporation.
Rarr!
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
it is interesting to see ministers and legal wranglers reaching back this far in copyright history for a sense of stability and coherence in copyright law. it shows desperation, confusion, fear. however, what the internet has done to copyright is yet a more fundamental reordering of the landscape than even law going back to the 1800s
it is simply that at one time, the means of production and distribution of media was confined to a few players. this meant that agreeing on rules, and compliance and enforcement was relatively simple and straightforward. as recently as the 1980s, if someone was counterfeiting vhs tapes, for example, the operation was ponderous, slow, required a heavy initial investment, and was relatively easy to trace and shut down those few random players. this limited piracy to a few hardy organizations
but today, the power of global distribution that was once confined to the likes of bertelsman and sony is in the hands of every college kid. enforcement? ha! compliance and agreement on the rules? ha!
the assumptions about distribution that created copyright law as we know it is so fundamentally altered as to be so alien a landscape that copyright law is simply completely and utterly destroyed. for those of you doubting this, you are simply in denial. you can't make a law that is impossible to enforce. well, you can, legislative bodies do it every day. but it simply doesn't mean anything, it's hollow, it's a joke. that's what our copyright law has become
the last ten years has simply been a slow process of awakening the world to this fact. the next ten years will simply be more awakening to this fact, everyone getting on the same page: copyright law is broken. utterly
this is what they mean by disruptive technology. the internet destroyed copyright law by making every single individual in 2000 have the same distribution power that was confined in 1990 to sony and bertelsman
obviously, rights and morality and ownership in the realm of media are issues that are still valid. these issues still need to be addressed legally. but the legal and compliance framework around these issues will need to be built almost from scratch, and copyright law as we know it must be thrown out almost in its entirety: all the basic assumptions it is founded upon are completely reordered
personally, i think some form of copyleft a la "free" software will be the basis for our new legal framework about all media and distribution: music, books, movies, etc
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
You mean "hypocrisy", not "irony".
Other countries don't use the same term, and the exceptions aren't all the same, but "fair use" is a very common concept.
Few countries make the use of snippets for review, criticism or quotation illegal, for example. The details vary, but the basic principles are pretty global.
Some countries go considerably further than the US. Over here in Germany, for example, I can legally copy a CD for a friend. That's called the "Privatkopie" ("private copy") and is the law's acceptance that people will do these kinds of things anyway, so within some limits (very few copies, and for personal friends only), it's allowed. (and yes, it's under attack from the copyright lobby)
Copyright laws are slightly different in every country, and with so much variety, every claim that something is a world-only is almost guaranteed to be a lie.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
... when fair use is outlawed then the only use will be unfair use. Otherwise why publish?
...a game of Chinese Whispers instead! Next thing you know "Fair Use" will be said in the same sentence as "Supporting Organised Crime" or "Supporting Terrorists". Probably by the RIAA or the MPAA next time they go to Congress or a Court Case..
Laters Sol "Have you found the secrets of the universe? Asked Zebade "I'm sure I left them here somewhere"
As a Muslim, I'm interested to hear just what you think the "true nature of Islam" is, Mr AC.
I hate printers.
"Whisper campaigns" are only evil and underhanded and scandalous when your enemies do them. Don't you know?
It's all part of the new moral and ethical code. It goes like this: "we get to win".
Anything -- no matter how despicable, harmful or dishonest -- that causes "us" to win is holy and justified. Anything else fails some moral and ethical test and further demonstrates why "we get to win" -- because the other side is shown to be monstrously evil by the moral and ethical lapses that we've applied to them.
Don't you know how important "we" are?
Taxation? Yes. A clever ploy to give an incentive for conversion to the Dhimmis who don't really care about their religion and their offspring.
Oppression? If by that you mean legal historical social discrimination or segregation, sure but to a much lesser degree than black segregation in the U.S for instance and based on varying interpretations of hadiths, not the Koran. Shame on any muslim who is guilty of lack of love, tolerance and respect for human life, regardless of belief. Hell, shame on any human.
Enslavement? No. Specifically forbidden and a mortal sin.
The problem is that people amalgamate religion and fallible, temptable, potentially evil adherents. People are the problem with their pesky free will and weakness of character. If you expect a religion to just reprogram any self-proclaimed muslim into a saint, then feel free to bash Islam all you want because it clearly failed.