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Google Pushes Back Against US Copyright Treaty
Hugh Pickens writes "Internet companies led by Google joined groups representing Web users to challenge the Bush administration's bid to toughen international enforcement against copyright pirates. The companies said the US courts and Congress are still working out the correct balance between protecting copyrights and the free exchange of information on the Web and a treaty could be counterproductive. 'There's this assumption that what is good for Disney is what's good for America, but that's an oversimplification,' said Jonathan Band, an intellectual property lawyer representing libraries and high-tech companies. 'There's also what's good for Yahoo and Google.' The US, Japan, Canada and other nations said last year that they would begin negotiations on an agreement aimed at cracking down on counterfeiting of such goods as watches and pharmaceuticals, and the piracy of copyrighted materials, such as software and music recordings. A leaked draft of the deal showed that the treaty could force Internet service providers to cooperate with copyright holders."
"There's this assumption that what is good for Disney is what's good for America, but that's an oversimplification," said Jonathan Band, an intellectual property lawyer representing libraries and high-tech companies. "There's also what's good for Yahoo and Google."
What about what's good for PEOPLE????!!!!
That's all the information I need.
They know it won't get passed if it's done publicly.
No sig today...
was the "safe harbor" provision. It basically kept the ISP's and websites for the most part out of the net-cop business.
btw: When one of the few very profitable American companies in this current economy makes a statement like
"It really could be used as a way of restricting the growth of U.S. Internet companies overseas"
perhaps the US government should listen
"Where does that leave its citizens?" $700 billion in the hole
I have nothing compelling to say
Is that supposed to imply that what's good for the economy is good for Ameria? Where does that leave its citizens?
He may have been talking about international copyright violations. International in relation to american copyrights. So presumably, americans would not be included in that because they're not international, they're nationals falling under national copyright.
His interests wouldn't be in copyrights held by people or groups in other countries enforcing their copyrights on american pirates. It's something that would of course be a part of any treaty, but the quote is blurby, maybe he adresses it more later on but it didn't make it into the article.
Anyway, I think the point of his statment was about how american companies enforce their copyrights overseas and was looking at it from a buisness standpoint. American citizens weren't mentioned because that wasn't what he was talking about maybe?
copyrights and patents.
Germany used to be quite famous for making fakes of machines used in the British textile manufacturing effort (right down to copying the name of the manufacturer). Many European countries didn't bother with patent protection as it interferred with their ability to make cheap knock offs.
If Einstein had been a chemist, he wouldn't have been working in the Swiss patent office, because at the time, the Swiss believed that you couldn't patent anything chemical. Canada didn't recongize drug patents until the 1960s (if memory serves).
This rich-country enforcement of patents and copyright is "kicking away the ladder" - most first-world countries conveniently ignored patents during their development, when it was to their economic benefit to be able to rip technology off from more well-to-do nations.
I find myself avoiding products and services from companies that try to crap on my rights. I believe I am not the only one, since over the years many of these companies have withered or died. They can blame piracy, they can make up excuses for their shrinking bottom lines, but in the end the cause of their demise is their hostility to the very people that made them great in the first place.
I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.
Don't Copy That Floppy!
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The correct balance would cut copyrights back to 14 years, require disclosure of source code to receive copyright on software, ban business method patents, and ban the use of technologies that prevent a work from entering the public domain. The government is going the opposite direction it should if it's interesting in establishing a proper balance.
My suggestion: One Copyright of 25 years, with two renewals of 25 years each. Then its OVER.
Really, the I would only let Natural Persons have renewal rights. Corporations would just have to live with expirations as a price of doing business. Just like replacing old equipment after a few years, you write it off like a depreciation.
Behold, this dreamer cometh. Come now, and let us slay him... and we shall see what will become of his dreams.
They can pass their little secret treaties, but how long and how seriously do they think people who are not privy to these secret meetings will honor these treaties?
If our rights as common people are being so openly snubbed, then this means the end of the copyright, because no one is going to respect it.
This is already happening, but I am surprised these copyright idiots don't see that what they are doing, these secret meetings and taking into consideration only "powerful" interests is destroying what they want to accomplish. They forget that without people getting on board of this train it is going nowhere fast.
And my counter offer would be 10 years, once and no more.
As an alternative: first year is free, second year is $100. Doubling every year thereafter.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
"Where does that leave its citizens?" $9,788 billion in the hole
Fixed.
09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
Well, it's not authoritative (I'm at work and don't have time to dig up primary sources), but here's an overview of what happened:
Studios flee to Hollywood[1]
In the early 1900s, filmmakers began moving to the Los Angeles area to get away from the strict rules imposed by Thomas Edison's Motion Picture Patents Company in New Jersey. Since most of the moviemaking patents were owned by Edison, independent filmmakers were often sued by Edison to stop their productions.
To escape his control, and because of the ideal weather conditions and varied terrain, moviemakers began to arrive in Los Angeles to make their films. If agents from Edison's company came out west to find and stop these filmmakers, adequate notice allowed for a quick escape to Mexico.
Working without disturbance from Edison, the Biograph Company moved west with actors Blanche Sweet, Lillian Gish, Mary Pickford, Lionel Barrymore, and others, to make their films. After beginning filming in Los Angeles, the company decided to explore the neighboring area and stumbled across Hollywood.
Biograph made the first film in Hollywood, entitled In Old California. After hearing of Biograph's praise of the area, other filmmakers headed west to set up shop.
The first motion picture studio was built in 1919, in nearby Edendale, just east of Hollywood, by Selig Polyscope Company, and the first one built in Hollywood was founded by filmmaker David Horsley's general manager Al Christie in 1911, in an old building on the southeast corner of Sunset Boulevard and Gower Street. Movie studios began to crop up all over Hollywood after Christie's appearance, including ones for Cecil B. DeMille in 1913, the Charlie Chaplin Studio in 1917, and many others.
[1]: http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h3871.html
[2]: http://webpages.dcu.ie/~flynnr/hollywood_history_1891_-_1917.htm (interesting timeline)
[3]: http://www.cobbles.com/simpp_archive/edison_trust.htm (details on Edison's monopoly, which Hollywood broke)
Primary sources would take longer than I have to dig up, but you get the idea.
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