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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.'"
Perhaps I am a minority here, but I see prolonged copyright protection is a good thing. I don't want my nurtured stuff to be sold on some thieves bazaar by hoarders and internet opportunists. Why would anybody be against copyright? What is the motivation against it? What is their plan? To release and disseminate our works for free under tenancy of untouchable server masters? A pirate world reigned by some advertisement fed vultures serving our hard work over the Internet?
American IP principles? That's a good one. The US had much weaker laws than most of Europe for over a century (Berne convention was 1886, and the US joined in 1988, and we didn't really pass Europe up until the DMCA in 1996). During that period, global demand for US entertainment media rose dramatically. Perhaps some Europeans were paying attention and realized if they had a more permissive culture, they might get their own Hollywood.
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IMO, the law on DRM should be this: you can protect your property with DRM or you can protect your property with copyright law but not both. If you elect to protect your property with DRM, you can still seek injunctions or collect real damages but you are no longer eligible for statutory damages under copyright law.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
For most people on here, the issue isn't the existence of copyright - not even the summary states that. The issue is the fact that, in America and apparently the EU, most works copyrighted in our lifetimes will not enter the public domain until the overwhelming majority of us are dead. In America, the copyright laws have essentially ensured that the songs I hear on the radio today won't enter the public domain until my grandchildren are due for retirement.
Ideally, the working principle of copyrights should enable the author to recoup their time and monetary investments in a work, and then provide a platform upon which subsequent works can be based. If copyright worked the way it is supposed to, sampling in the style of Timbaland (roughly one old song sampled per new song) wouldn't be the norm; sampling as originally started with the Beastie Boys and De La Soul in the late 1980's and early 1990's would have continued throughout the decade (interesting article on sampling here: http://clearance13-8.com/AShortClearanceHistory.htm). That article discusses the fact that the budgets for sampling royalties for many of those records far exceeded the recording budgets, because everyone and their cousin wanted a slice of the album sales because a five second sample of a song recorded 30 years prior was being used.
The general consensus here, as much as I can group it together, is that copyright isn't *bad*, it's simply being abused. As a mobile DJ, my clients don't owe me money every time they watch their wedding video, nor would I expect them to. No one is saying that it's bad for your "nurtured stuff" to be protected and earn you a living. What is generally held with disdain is the fact that it's kept that way for decades past the point where the original work has earned the creators a profit, and THAT is what is being fought against.
As someone who makes a living off of creative works, I strongly disagree. Say that you have an author who writes an incredible book. He or she dies a week after its publication. Under your scheme, the author's family gets one week's revenue even though the author put in five years of his or her life to create the book in question. That's hardly reasonable.
What you're failing to take into account is that unlike other occupations, unless an author, painter, sculptor, composer, or performer is working for a corporate overlord, he or she gets paid over time as the product sells. That means that he or she has spent years creating something that will help support his or her family afterwards. The incentive to create is based on the promise that the creation will be worth something to his or her family going forward, and it is that promise that encourages authors to accept that delayed payback. If you change the law so that the delayed payback won't happen at all if you die too soon, you're encouraging people to limit themselves to jobs that pay you as you go along, and thus significantly reducing the incentive to create.
The purpose of copyright is to encourage people to create creative works. It's unimportant whether copyright will continue to encourage a particular author to create new works. The promise that the new work would pay to feed his or her family after its creation was what encouraged the author to create the existing work. Therefore, it should not matter whether the author is alive or dead; the author's kids or other beneficiaries should have the right to that income.
Further, your scheme could encourage less reputable publishers to off their authors so that they don't have to keep paying royalties. :-)
I'm strongly of the opinion that copyright terms should be for a period of 14 years, renewable by the author or his/her descendants for 14 more. The author's death should have no part in the copyright term whatsoever.
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