EU Parliament Group Opposes Long Copyrights and Oppressive DRM

the_arrow writes "Apparently there are some politicians who 'get it.' At least it seems that way after reading an entry on the blog of Rick Falkvinge (founder of the Swedish Pirate Party). He says the Green party group, fifth largest in the European Parliament, has officially adopted several of the Pirate Party's stances in a new position paper (PDF). The Greens say, 'the copyright monopoly does not extend to what an ordinary person can do with ordinary equipment in their home and spare time,' adding that a 20-year protection term is more reasonable than 70 years. They go on to say, 'Net Neutrality must be guaranteed,' and also mention DRM: 'It must always be legal to circumvent DRM restrictions, and we should consider introducing a ban in the consumer rights legislation on DRM technologies that restrict legal uses of a work.'"

Comments

Copyright steals our public domain

[mykos]

Never forget that. Long copyright steals our public domain.

Before digital distribution, 5-7 years was considered an adequate amount of time to monopolize an idea. You'd think that number would go down with faster distribution because the creator could get it out there faster.

Re:Twenty? Try 10

[suutar]

I have no problem with the author, editor, proofreader, typesetter, et al getting paid for their effort. What I do have a problem with is stuff that was good enough for me to enjoy, but not good enough to stay in print forever, _ceasing_to_exist_ when the printed copies of (e.g.) Analog from the 1970s have all rotted away. The publisher probably won't believe enough people will pay for the Adventures of Ferdinand Feghoot to reprint them commercially (and they're probably right), but nobody else can reprint them at all... leaving the only copies of this stuff on pulp paper.

H. G. Wells's work seems to be some of the most recent stuff that's in public domain without the author explicitly saying so. With Disney trying to protect Steamboat Willie forever, I don't see that changing. So from now on (almost certainly for the rest of my life, at least) there will be essentially two bodies of work that can be gotten: reprints of stuff older than about 1920, and whatever is currently for sale. That's it. And that's not fine. That's not "Progress in the Useful Arts" in my book.

So while I understand why you as an author want your rights protected, and I'm happy to keep you fed and housed and producing new work if it's any good, I'm not happy enough to keep your grandchildren fed and housed off your work that I'm willing to watch the good-but-not-fantastic stuff just vanish.