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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).'"
I wish they would just choke on their own corruption. But then the evil spirit might come out of them, and then we'd all be screwed.
I heard whispers of a rumor campaign- thanks, Slashdot for setting me straight!
Much Madness is divinest Sense --
To a discerning Eye --
Much Sense -- the starkest Madness
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
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*.
This illustrates the problem with the thinking. Corporations are made of people and corporations are set up by people so the people can work together in an organized way. Ever heard of "United Artists". It's one of the big studios now, but it was set up by actors and other "artists" who got tired of the man taking their money. Now they are the man. Is it fair? Should they be able to use the money they made doing the real work to finance the work of other artists? Really what is the difference between a corporation investing in a film and an artist giving a helping hand up to the next generation of artists? Not much, in practice.
It's lobbying.
Politics does not select for politicians who are deep thinkers -- although possibly there may be a few odd examples. Politics favors the gregarious, the people pleasers, the networkers.
So, suppose you are such a person, who makes his way in the world by being popular. You aren't stupid by any means, and let's stipulate for the purposes of argument you are not corrupt, but well intentioned. Still it's a fair bet you probably aren't the kind of person who likes to hike to a lonely spot in the mountains, to spend a pleasant afternoon contemplating the role of the unrestricted flow of information in maintaining a vibrant and free society.
But this is exactly the most important kind of issue that comes in front of you as an elected official. And in all probably, you don't have a deep reservoir of accumulated thought to draw upon when this comes up. You have deeply held convictions but you haven't worked out how they all apply in cases like these.
So, being a gregarious person, you draw upon the thoughts of others who had the foresight to propose the connections in advance. Furthermore, being a people pleaser by nature, your first inclination when they did this was to receive their argument favorably. You certainly did not tear it down and throw it in their face as a load of rubbish.
Having received the argument favorably, and since the argument connects the question to some of your values, like "private enterprise", you're primed to take it up as your own.
That's why buying access is such a huge win for special interests and a huge loss for democracy. It's not that there isn't corruption, of course there is. But a politician doesn't have to be personally corrupt for you to corrupt his opinions.
It's an odd thing, but being the kind of person who likes to spend quiet afternoons contemplating big questions, I have found vigorous "men of action" remarkably easy to steer. They're always up to do something and they think of themselves as "far sighted", but that usually means they don't have a clear view of how the ground in front of their feet is connected to the goals they see on the horizon. And they tend to be completely unaware that they are acting without a road map, so when you slip one under their nose, they internalize it. You can see that this is just one of many possible alternatives, but they have a way of seeing it as the one true path that they have been following all along.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
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
In Spain we have "Private Copy Right" granted by Constitution that forbids Penal cases against copyright infringement (in absence of lucre). Discovery causes can't be Civil, so copyright infringement is not illegal. That is not inflexible or narrower than the "fair use" doctrine. The war over the lucre definition is over and we won.
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