Canadian Labour Congress Considers Reversal On IP Policy

An anonymous reader writes "The Canadian Labour Congress is considering a dramatic reversal of its stance on copyright and IP policy. CLC is comparable to the US AFL-CIO, but Canada is over 30% unionized. The campaign 'we must change copyright and IP law to fight evil counterfeiters and copyright pirates' is actually succeeding in Canada. Quoting the CLC's new policy resolution: '... this critical issue requires a far-reaching response involving legislative and regulatory reform, policy change, and allocation of proper resources to combat the problems. The Canadian government must be given the structure and resources to mount a sustained attack on this pervasive problem, both within Canada and internationally. The criminal and civil laws in Canada must provide adequate deterrence. And consumers must be educated that counterfeiting and piracy are not victimless, nuisance crimes, but instead strike at the heart of our long term economic security.'"

Comments

Re:Sigh

[bky1701]

Your sarcasm is inaccurate.

Copyright (and patents) was created so that artists and inventors could work for themselves, rather than a rich patron, which had been the case for centuries before. It had the goal of encouraging the creation of new works and allowing for more artistic freedom than existed.

It failed.

I'll grant that it may have worked for a time, but big corporations eventually came in and perverted it into a state-enforced version of the old patron system.

Copyright was never about trying to make labor compensated, and for good reason; it's an asinine idea. Why should someone make money simply for doing what they want? If what they do is worth money, someone out there will pay for it. It is not the state's place to try to protect *ANY* person's business. That's the basic principal of the free market, which the US and many of the other copyright-loving countries supposedly believe in.

Even if you refuse to accept that copyright was not intended for that purpose, it's obvious it does a piss-poor job of compensating effort. The few people who happen to have been taken under the wing of their corporate patrons are richer than the vast majority of humans, and most everyone else trying to produce some kind of artistic work is as much a 'starving artist' as ever, and by most measures worse off.

By now, just shortly into copyrighting works if you look at the big picture, we're already running out of totally original ideas. Some say such a thing doesn't even exist, but it's debatable so I won't assert that. It is, however, a fact that it is almost impossible to create any kind of work in the modern world without running the risk of violating someone's copyright, patent or trademark. The effect? The bar of entry is raised to only those who can afford it... the ultra-rich, and the media conglomerates.

The simple fact of the matter is, copyright just ensures that the old patron system not only live on, but is more entrenched legally AND socially than ever before. It has failed it's purpose, it has failed us, and we as the people who it was supposed to serve now need to take back what is ours.