Slashdot Mirror
UK Reviewing Copyright Laws
Uebergeek writes "It looks like the UK is going to be reviewing its copyright laws. Prime Minister David Cameron specifically cites the US's Fair Use doctrine as something they wish to incorporate into their own laws... apparently they wish to 'encourage the sort of creative innovation that occurs in America.' One can only assume that they've been missing the continual assault on the Fair Use doctrine here in the States."
Well, I guess that they might see the value in the law as written, even if that doesn't tend to be how the law plays out.
Copy Canadian laws instead of American ones.
While I wholeheartedly welcome the opportunity to improve some of the frankly stupid laws floating around at the moment, the pessimist in me wonders how this will be twisted by lobbying into some ridiculous new round of laws. I'm going to wait six months before I celebrate this.
Windows in 6 Bytes (IA-32) : 90 90 90 90 CD 19
Finally, UK TV might dump all those brain-dead quiz shows where people "know things" and that David Attaboy or whatever and his animal sex preoccupation and move towards more proper explosion-based documentaries like we have in the US.
And the news? Good grief - I watched UK news and the whole time it was just people talking about facts and things. There wasn't a SINGLE ARGUMENT or fight during the entire show. What the hell kind of news reporting is that?
This space available.
As an avid fan of David's shows on conservations, perhaps instead we can deport Glen Beck to insure that citizens of the UK really are brain dead and thus unable to challenge our technological superiority.
Starts good end bad. The pessimist in me is that due to "compromise" with "industry leader" a tad tiny bit of fair use will be added, but in addition heavy fine , prison stay will be added for copyright infrigement, and maybe even copyright lengthened a bit.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
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visit randi.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_dealing#United_Kingdom
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Cameron says, "So I can announce today that we are reviewing our IP laws, to see if we can make them fit for the internet age." However, he fails to mention that they are already "reviewing" the UK copyright laws under the veil of ACTA and in secret. This is just a bit of fluff to remove some heat from what is already a done deal.
Patent litigation: A doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction... in which everyone seems willing to push the button
kudos to the first country to adapt a voluntary collective licensing system as a tax.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voluntary_Collective_Licensing
20 bucks a year per capita = no more damn bs
Don't hold your breath. He's a Conservative. Note that everything he said was to make things better for business. It's unlikely to end up a positive thing for the people.
Being better for business isn't necessarily the opposite of being better for the people.
Being better for an outmoded and artificially supported business model certainly is bad for the people, mind you.
RUGBYRUGBYRUGBY
While we desperately need some sanity injected into the system after the Digital Britain Bill, I suspect this is going to really favour big-media's use of our copyrighted work.
"He said the law could be relaxed to allow greater use of copyright material without the owner's permission."
There must be plenty of companies drooling at the idea of smash and grab raids on flickr accounts and GPL'd software.
Please remain calm, there is no reason to pani... wait, where are you all going?
Why would Cameron, a deeply conservative aristocrat, care one bit about what the riff-raff can do with his supporter's "intellectual property"? The British have caught the plague that began on my side of the Atlantic: kleptocrats compose a huge part of government, and they've been on a crusade against egalitarianism since the 1980s. Everything done by conservatives in power is aimed at enriching the already rich and reducing everyone else to desperate peasants. They yearn for a return to the Gilded Age or worse. If a conservative creates policy that benefits the people at large, he's done it by accident. Academic rationales and appeals to the public, however erudite or reasonable they might appear, are just meaningless words put together by consultants who specialize in creating talking points that promote a particular narrative among a particular audience. These statements are tools with a particular purpose, not sincere attempts to explain the genesis of an action and demonstrate its worth.
Knowing this, you must consider every action taken by a conservative through the lens of their ultimate goal. If Cameron says he wants to revise copyright law to foster creativity, don't take him at his word. Ask yourself, "In what way will these modifications enrich powerful backers? What loopholes exist? What narrative is the government trying to push? What does it prepare the population to accept? How can the change under consideration be used to hurt the opposition? Where are the lies? Where is the selective truth?"
Finally, consider the most important question of all: "Will the net effect of this action be to enrich the wealthy?" The answer will invariably be "yes".
Don't hold your breath. He's a Conservative. Note that everything he said was to make things better for business. It's unlikely to end up a positive thing for the people.
Um, unless you want to live as a hunter-gatherer, you kinda need business. Now, BIG BUSINESS, ie the multi-national corporations, need curtailing. Those guys are unscrupulous.
In Victorian England it was the mill-owners that opened the schools and hospitals and provided cheap housing for their workers, because it was ultimately beneficial to the business. Similarly, loosening the noose on copyright isn't so much to help the man in the street, it's to help the entrepreneur in the street make money, any benefit to the hobbyist is just trickle-down. But it's all good.
But based on everything I've read online, including here on slashdot, US copyright law is the most absurd in the world. As far as I can see there is basically no fair use if you live within the United States of America. Even if US law allows it I would hazard to guess that many people are unwilling and reluctant to apply "fair use". The litigious nature of your corporations and government almost ensure that most sane persons will err on the side of caution, and maybe not publish anything at all in fear of being sued. How the fuck does fear encourage innovation?
After a little research, it seems to me that Israel is the first (and only) nation in the world where "fair use" is possibly a "right" (see the section titled ' New User "Rights" ').
This is since Sept. 2009. My impression is that the decision has been appealed but hasn't been heard yet. I wouldn't be surprised if Obama's administration wouldn't have a few (unofficial) things to say to the Israeli government when the appeal comes up in the Israeli courts.
Fair dealing isn't really similar. It's limited to a very specific set of situations that mean that most people are not able to take advantage of it. As an example, parody is not considered fair dealing.
It's unlikely to end up a positive thing for the people.
Indeed. If you read down this a bit you'll notice that they also want US style software patents. Idiots.
I think the main problem though is big corporations vs small startups rather than business vs the people. We need the small startups to create the jobs that will get us out of the recession and I hope he realises that.
While we're here thinking how good this is that we will be able to post reviews of films,games and music on our blogs and not get takedown notices. But what this really means is that shitty british TV that does no original thinking (the news channels just report what they read on twitter) will just compile youtube videos and such without having to pay or ackowledge anyone. Which in a nice rounded world of share-alike licenses may seem all groovy, until you realize they're surrounded by adverts and on subscription channels. Heck, they'll probably even advertise it as a kind of internet summary show so that you don't have to go to the effort, risk viruses or bumping into paedos, etc. And the dumbass british public will probably lap it up.
Also if the law becomes "using less than one minute of footage" from any source but your hilarious slapstick youtube video is only 59 seconds long they'll be able to lift the whole thing. Again, in the world off CC this might not be too bad, but woe betide you if you accidentally use 1:01 of a clip from a commercial movie in your review because the law is clear and you'll go to jail. Of course if a big media company slips up in the same way they'll only get a letter from OfCom about it.
If you don't risk failure you don't risk success.
Enshrining it as a right kind of suggests that the copyright holder has more of a right to the content than they actually have. In fact, the copyright holder is granted a temporary monopoly, not because of any intrinsic "rights" (he doesn't have any to the content), but to benefit society. So, you don't need fair use as a "right", you already have all the rights anyway. Fair use is an exemption to a temporary monopoly.
There are Liberal Democrats before the election, and there are Liberal Democrats now. In opposition, they were a noble party, standing up for peoples rights. Now, not only are they going along with Tory policy, their ministers are implementing Tory policy. There is virtually nothing left of the noble ideals of before.
The instant change is a wonderful demonstration of how power (and the hunger for it) corrupts.
The Lib Dems manifesto included a number of things diametrically opposed to the Tories - e.g. tuition fees in universities. Don't expect much help from their quarter.
A friend of mine who studied law said that parody can come under the "ctriticism" exception and there was legal precedent to this effect. I suspect that this is somewhat more limited an exception than in the US though. It is certainly the case that British publishers and producers will usually clear it with the copyright holder but this could just be playing safe.
.. is theft of culture.
Fair Use is, in fact, a product of the US Constitution. There are two separate and somewhat conflicting constitutional provisions in play here:
Fair Use is a doctrine developed by judges in the 19th century to help resolve the conflict between these two provisions. It was later codified in the 20th century, but with the intent of preserving the existing judge-made law.
Rights enshrined in the Constitution do not enforce themselves. Some constitutional rights are so well-established that they seem to enforce themselves, but in marginal cases these rights must be asserted in court. In a noted recent case, a group called Citizens United was prohibited from speaking about a presidential candidate during the election, because of the source of some of its funding. Political speech is at the very core of the First Amendment, but the question was a close one, and could only be established by asserting it in court.
The fact that Fair Use must often be defended in court comes from the fact-intensive nature of the doctrine, making it difficult to decide a priori whether Fair Use applies or not. This uncertainty, combined with the American Rule for paying legal fees (each party pays his own lawyers), skews the playing field in favor of the big copyright holders. This is true even though Fair Use is, at bottom, a Constituional right.
they might even enshrine fair use as a right.. rather than merely as a "defense"
When the U.S. Supreme Court upheld serial extension of the copyright term in Eldred v. Ashcroft, the opinion of the Court included a section strongly implying that were it not for the fair use defense, copyright would violate the First Amendment. This suggests at least that freedom of the press implies fair use.
There was a massive range of setups, plans and living environments. Obviously there was some extremely greedy and extremely generous mill owners (and a variety in between). But even that over-simplifies the situation as out of the need to support their workforce (e.g. providing schools, hospitals etc) many (e.g. http://www.robert-owen.com/Robert Owen) encouraged community involvement and personal self-improvement, for the purpose of creating a vibrant, content and sustainable workforce rather than direct profit. Over time co-operative employer-employee agreements developed and these helped pave the way for socio-economic theories like socialism and communism - developed by Marx and Engels whilst living in Victorian England.
"Indeed. If you read down this [guardian.co.uk] a bit you'll notice that they also want US style software patents. Idiots."
On the contrary. As someone else stated above, the goal of the Tories is to enrich the already wealthy, in particular the upper class wealthy. Supporting a US style patent system is a great way of achieving this as it shuts out small businesses and gives huge amounts of money to lawyers (typically upper class). A US style software patent system would be terrible for society, but lucrative for the few. As long as the tories can justify this by claiming it encourages innovation (it does not), they will go for it and it certainly is not because they are idiots.
Name one "business model" that isn't artificially supported by laws?
Drugs?
You'll note that even the biggest busts, e.g. the seizure of 30 tons of cannabis last week in San Diego, seem to have no effect whatsoever on either supply or pricing.
You'll also note that organized crime and violence go hand-in-hand because criminal groups have no other means other than loose, mafia-style collusion to resolve disputes.
The fact is that we want laws to protect property and business models. If you disagree, I suggest moving your business operations to Mogadishu.
The reasons you can name them off the top of your head, and I also know them off the top of mine, is that they were the exceptions. Considering the vast numbers of mills and factories in Victorian England, those exceptions are few indeed.
You'll note that even the biggest busts, e.g. the seizure of 30 tons of cannabis last week in San Diego, seem to have no effect whatsoever on either supply or pricing.
I don't think you can claim it has no effect on pricing. Cannabis does not cost anywhere near $60 per 1/8 oz to produce and transport but that seems to be the going rate around these parts. The cost of hiding from law enforcement and dealing with police raids/theft/etc is included in the current street price. If cannabis was legalized tomorrow prices would drop by a non-zero amount. At least until the Government got it's dirty paws in the game and started taxing it :)
The fact is that we want laws to protect property and business models.
Agreed that we need laws to protect property rights, but not business models. The marriage between big business and government is destructive to society and hinders economic growth by propping up failed business models that would otherwise be swept away in the creative destruction of capitalism.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
More than Canada, California itself both in legal and illegal crops produces a fuckload of cannabis. Really, the Californians have it all going for them: they have cheap mexican shit, expensive top-of-the-line hydro, gourmet crops in mendocino and a big import from BC...
It doesnt get better than Cali...
NO SIG