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."

Comments

In Soviet Brazil

[mjwx]

Copyright laws work for the good of the people

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[Fluffeh]

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*

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[cappp]

Nope. This is a proposal, not an actual change to the laws. The article on ArsTechnica makes that very explicit.

For those interested in reading the entire thing - it's available here.

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[cappp]

The proposed "Fair Use" rules in Brazil read:

Article 46. Not an insult to the use of copyright protected works, dispensing with even the express prior authorization of the owner and the need for compensation by those who use them in the following cases:
I - reproduction by any means or process of any work legitimately acquired, if made in one copy and by the copyist, for his private use and not commercial;

II - reproduction by any means or process of any work legitimately acquired, where to ensure its portability or interoperability, for private, noncommercial

III - playing in the press, news or informative articles, published in newspapers or magazines with the name of the author, if signed, and the publication of which were transcribed;

IV - to use the press, in speeches at public meetings of any kind or of any work, and when it is justified to the extent necessary to fulfill the duty to report on news events;

V - the use of literary, artistic or scientific works, phonograms and broadcasting of radio and television shops, exclusively for customer demonstration, provided that the said establishments market the media or facilities to enable its use;

VI - a theatrical performance, recitation or declamation, the audiovisual display and musical performance, provided they have no intention of profit and that the public can attend free of charge, held in the family circle or in schools, when intended for use by bodies teachers and students, parents and other persons belonging to the school community;

VII - the use of literary, artistic or scientific evidence to produce judicial or administrative;

VIII - the use in any work of short extracts from existing works, of whatever nature, or entire work, when the visual arts, where the use itself is not the main goal of the new work that does not jeopardize the operation normal work reproduced or unjustifiably prejudice the legitimate interests of authors;

IX - the reproduction, distribution, communication and the provision of public works for the exclusive use of disabled persons where the disability involves, for the enjoyment of the work by those people need to use at any particular process or still some adaptation of the protected work, and provided that no commercial purpose in the reproduction or adaptation;

X - reproduction and making available to the public for inclusion in portfolio or professional resume, to the extent required for this purpose, since he who wishes to disseminate the works by such means is one of the authors or person depicted;

XI - the use of pictures, or other form of representation of the image, custom, when performed by the object owner ordered, with no opposition from the person represented or, if dead or absent, his spouse, his ascendants or descendants;

XII - playback of lectures, conferences and classes for those to whom they are addressed, prohibited the publication, regardless of the purpose of profit, without prior written permission of whom ministered;

XIII - reproduction necessary for conservation, preservation and storage of any work, non-commercial purposes, if carried out by libraries, archives, documentation centers, museums, film and other museum institutions, to the extent required to meet its goals;

XIV - the quotation in books, newspapers, magazines or other means of communication of passages from a work for study, criticism or controversy, to the extent required for the specific purpose, stating the name of the author and origin the work;

XV - a theatrical performance, recitation or declamation, the audiovisual display and musical performance, provided they have no intention of profit, which the public can attend free of charge and they occur to the extent required for order to achieve and the following assumptions :
a) for educational purposes only;
b) with the purpose of cultural diffusion and multiplication of public opinion formation or discussion by film soci

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[Sulphur]

They make their ethanol from sugar which is more efficient than corn.

Once an ethanol market is bootstrapped, one can switch to cellulose which uses no foodstuffs.

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[TubeSteak]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries'_copyright_length
Brazil: Life + 70 years

It's a joke to talk about "a fine and balanced approach to copyright law" while ignoring life + 70 years of copyright protection.
They'll be doddering seniors before anything created in their lifetime is public domain.

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[captainpanic]

It's not crazy or upside down at all.

The United States Economy is built largely on IP law. We export research, science, art and knowledge to other countries which manufacture products based on that investment.

Publishers and Manufacturers just put data on disks and pages. Without IP laws standing in their way they could make DVDs for $0.01 each. They still make just as much profit as before (actually more since they can sell a DVD now for $1 and pocket $0.99 instead of $0.001 profit on manufacturing they would charge before.

They're leading the way because they have no interest in protecting intellectual property.

You seem to suggest that Brazil does no research at all, has no universities, no industry that does any inventions, that it produces no movies, no music, and has no culture.

You're right that it seems that Brazil has little interest to protect IP. But the reason is not because they don't produce any IP themselves. The reason is that they see the added value of sharing it.

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[PopeRatzo]

What a funny turned upside down world.

There has been a quiet revolution going on in South America for at least the past decade. With countries moving to the Left and succeeding. We get to hear about Hugo Chavez and what a terrible man he is, but except for the North American corporate tools that still ply their trade down there, and right-wing thugs for hire, he's pretty much beloved. We don't hear about it because the corporate press in Venezuela (and Peru, and Bolivia, and Brazil) refuse to tell the story, but these South American countries have been succeeding not using an American-style, "free-market", corporations run everything system, but with a center-Left, enlightened form of Socialism that's a lot more like Northern European success stories like Sweden and Denmark. In Brazil, for example, there's this widespread belief that the rich natural resources (like the Public Domain) actually belong to the People instead of a banker or shareholder.

In fact, "European-style" Socialism can learn a lot from some South American countries. It's still far from perfect, and as you say they're not quite "First World" yet, but they're coming on strong and unlike other places, it's happening for everyone, not just the rich.

I spend a lot of time in Brazil and elsewhere in South America. I just got back from Campinas where I went to play my cavaquinho in a samba festival and hike a bit. I have friends down there at various socioeconomic levels and ethnic backgrounds, and they all tell me the same thing.

Seriously, there's a story to be told about the South American successes that's going to take a lot of people by surprise.

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[stein.dagostini]

WRONG! We do not raze rainforest for that. Because rainforest soil is HORRIBLE for agriculture. Brasil has HUGE plains much more suited to sugar cane production. Most of legal rainforest razing is to create cattle and most of the ilegal one is for high grade wood that is sold to US and Europe black markets to poduce nice expensive furniture. Learn a bit before spelling crap here. Brasil uses ethanol as a MAINSTREAM fuel for like 30 years already. And Brasil has MORE preserved natural vegetation than US or ANY country in europe. Rainforest soil is extremely thin and not appropriated for agriculture. Brasil has a low production of wheat because here is too hot and humid for that. But we produce soy and other foods in very very large scale, IN fact Brasil is only surpassed by US in grain production.

Including _fair use_!

[Mathinker]

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.

Re:Including _fair use_!

[Kitsune Inari]

makes it impossible to implement any kind of reasonable DRM

any kind of reasonable DRM

reasonable DRM

Oxymoron detected.

With Liberty and Justice for all

[Anonymous Coward]

Take that, USA.

not unusual

[Tom]

Really not surprising. When the US was a small, backwater english colony, it was also famous for its piracy (of books, in that time).

It is the countries with the massive content industries that have the strict copyright regimes. Brasil isn't home to Hollywood or very many international music superstars.

Re:not unusual

[Tom]

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).

Re:Nice trice - but who cares?

[FlyingGuy]

Here I am with MP's yet I feel compelled to respond to you...

If you RTFA you would see that it explicitly sites making a personal copy for use on whatever player you desire. But if you give a copy to a friend with the DRM broken then you are still committing a crime and that is fair since it is NOT fair use.

Now having said that, I certainly expect a flood of torrents to start comming from Brazil if this gets enacted into law because people still think that if they buy a DVD and then rip it to make a copy to "should be able to rip it and use on a portable player, media server etc." they somehow have the right to give it away to their pals and put it on a web server for everyone to have a copy.

That is why this begins with, "I - reproduction by any means or process of any work legitimately acquired, if made in one copy and by the copyist, for his private use and not commercial;" [emphasis is mine] because in point of fact doing anything other then making a copy for personal, non commercial use is a copyright violation even under these terms and is in point of fact illegal and that is as it should be

Re:All cracking legal?

[shutdown -p now]

Now the real fun can start: Brazilian programmer produces tool that removes DRM from material with US-owned copyrights. Fully legal in his native country. Would this person be liable to prosecution in the US? And indirectly by producing such a tool banning himself from visiting the US for the rest of his life?

Ever heard of Dmitry Sklyarov?

Not the first.

[krischik]

Switzerland explicitly allows DRM breaking since 2007.