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Brazil Forbids DRM On the Public Domain
nunojsilva writes "Cory Doctorow reports that the Brazilian equivalent of DMCA explicitly forbids using DRM-like techniques on works in the public domain. 'Brazil has just created the best-ever implementation of WCT [WIPO Copyright Treaty]. In Brazil's version of the law, you can break DRM without breaking the law, provided you're not also committing a copyright violation.' This means that, unlike the US, where it is illegal to break DRM, in Brazil it is illegal to break the public domain."
Copyright laws work for the good of the people
What a funny turned upside down world. The first world nations are striving to work against the people, and the not so first world nations have this crazy idea to work for their people.
*sips coffee*
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
This is a masterful inversion of the motivation behind the treaty which more or less makes it impossible to implement any kind of reasonable (in the eyes of the likes of **AAs) DRM --- because the DRM has to enable at least limited copying since fair use/dealing is one of the exceptions the DRM has to enable. If everyone can copy X seconds out of of a work (X > 0), then if enough people join forces, they can copy a work of any finite length.
Take that, USA.
Brazil burns a lot of ethanol (world's first sustainable bio-fuel economy), so they can be energy self-sufficient as well. How the hell will the enlightened world ever be able to embargo them into submission?
> but isn't it at odds with modern hardware?
It's "at odds" with the concept of DRM, itself, actually, because the DRM system has to enable limited copying (for fair use --- see my comment above).
This is just a proposal for the law, because of its incompatibility with the status quo of global commerce (as you point out one of many problems) I think it has very, very little possibility of actually becoming law in its proposed form. Unfortunately....
Yes I have (I recall the gist of it at least), and that was what I was thinking of indeed.
Most countries have the power of the courts strictly limited to crimes committed within their own country. Other countries limit their jurisdiction to crimes committed within their borders, and crimes committed outside those borders by their own citizens.
It seems though that the US has no such limitations: certain acts committed by foreigners in a foreign country where such act is fully legal, but which is illegal in the US, may be prosecuted under US law when that foreigner is in the US. And I recall even reports of US agents abducting foreign citizens in a foreign country, taking them to the US, and prosecuting them there.
Scary.
Well, apparently these days one has to spell out everything on /. instead of being able to rely on basic intelligence in the reader.
I'm sure Brasil has a comparative pool of creativity to the US, Europe, Burma, Greenland or any other place on earth. There are some local differences depending on whether or not creativity is valued in a culture or not so much, but as it's a basic human trait, they are pretty small.
However, Brasil does not have a massive industry based on copyright. And copyright is, first and foremost and no matter what they try to tell you, an economic law. It gives you you a monopoly on commercial use of your works.
So, without an industry that is strong in copyright, the country has no major incentives to be a strong proponent of copyright. On the contrary, turning a blind eye to the use of foreign copyrights is a reasonable thing to do (less money flowing out of the country for goods with no tangible value).
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Actually, Brazil has been plenty socking it to the (Gov't of the) USA lately, as part of one of the BRIC bloc (Brazil, Russia, India, China) of large economy's that don't give a crap what the USA has to say about a lot of issues. Take for example Brazil hosting negotiations and setting up a deal between Turkey and Iran regarding uranium enrichment. USA was not pleased and made a lot of waa waa noises at the UN but as far as those three are concerned the USA can stuff off and get off their lawn, thank you.
The USA is still the most powerful nation on earth, but they're at a tipping point and it's not just the BRIC countries that are coming to realize that they can do whatever the hell they like and the USA can just shut up
If you don't risk failure you don't risk success.
Please understand a bit more before spouting this. A capitalist country with a consumer-based economy requires business protection. What's good for the company is often good for the people. Yes there are some areas in which businesses have benefitted at the expense of the individual, but there are many cases that go the opposite way. You just don't hear people complaining about them.
To digress a bit, it's like when you learn a word for the first time, and suddenly hear it everywhere. You think it's coincidence, but it's really just that you are paying more attention to it. So someone gives you an anti-consumer example, and then you're looking for it everywhere. That's what individuals complain about, and if you talk to enough individuals, that will be all you hear. A company that pays low wages is controlling costs, and is often preventing those jobs from being lost completely as they are sent overseas. It is a balance in which the individual decides whether to work for a company, and the company tries to woo the employees while not giving so much that the cost of the good or service is overpriced.
It is a difficult balance, and without business we have neither jobs nor products. So we must concede some points to them.
Before someone starts on about corporate pay and lobbyists and all that, remember that the "invisible hand of the market" takes a long time to act, and it is currently swinging in the direction of shareholders having input on pay packages (so they can determine whether profits go to a single guy who makes few decisions on his own or to dividends). And more importantly, if you owned a business, wouldn't you want to have some discretion as to what to do with your money? Subject to the whims of the market of course. We need business and business needs us, and if you don't like a business stop buying and educate your friends and neighbors.
I had a co-worker say that her daughter was caught in one of the mid-range RIAA lawsuits. I discussed some options found here, she decided to just settle. Hearing that decision, I asked her what her daughter was listening to these days (it was summer break). "All legal, paid for CDs, no downloading" she replied. By whom, I inquired, and some of the most radio-popular names spilled out. I told her, you know you're just giving more money to RIAA member companies, the same ones that just got thousands of dollars from you without going through the court system. She then told her daughter that her entertainment budget would be severely curtailed next school year and would have to make decisions about buying music in an informed manner. She was enabling anti-consumer tactics against herself, and had no idea. Ignorance, my point is, is more anti-consumer than any law or ruling or regulation could ever be, and we do it to ourselves.