European Parliament Blocks Copyright Reform With 113% Voter Turnout

New submitter mcmadman writes "In a bizarre turn of events, the legal affairs committee of the European Parliament, voted to weaken a reform of the copyright monopoly for allowing re-publication and access to orphan works. What is surprising is that the voter turnout happened to be 113%. That there were three votes too many, and that these three votes determined the outcome, was pointed out to the committee. Unfortunately, when this was done, along with formally requesting a re-vote, the re-vote was denied."

Comments

This is end of democracy

[lorinc]

Or at least, a visible proof of it. Perhaps it ended long ago, but now there is no possible denial.

Re:This is end of democracy

[lexsird]

You can be a democratic socialist. Democracy means basically the majority rules. If the majority is socialistic, then you will see socialistic policies in place.

Relax Francis.

How can that even happen?

[artor3]

This isn't some big election with millions of votes getting counted. This is 23 people in a room, 12 on one side, 11 on the other, and the eleven declaring themselves the victors while the twelve just shrug and accept it. Do the people on this committee care so little for democracy that they just blithely accept it when their opponents' imaginary friends cast ballots?

Re:How can that even happen?

[wvmarle]

A re-vote was requested, immediately when this discrepancy came to light. Which I may assume is the moment the results are given - it's not that hard to add up.

This re-vote was denied however, leaving two important questions open. How come the votes were counted so wrong, with so small numbers? And why was this re-vote denied?

Re:How can that even happen?

[Anonymous Coward]

Better question: Why isn't a re-vote automatic in this kind of circumstance? Or, why is it even possible to deny a re-vote after such an obvious error? This is why politicians fail us...anyone with half a brain would implement more sensible procedures.

Re:It's only a committee

[Znork]

This legislation would seek to prevent this and increase the overall value to humanity with NO money lost by putting them in public domain.

As there is a vast overproduction of entertainment today the competition is for the consumers time. Thus, any material that is presented for free cuts into the revenue stream of the for-profit production companies, and even worse, entrenches the idea that entertainment might come for free.

Remember, these companies consider basically any time spent not giving them money stealing.

Re:The minutes of the meeting disagree

[CharlyFoxtrot]

Anti-EU story turns out to be manufactured or grossly exaggerated. Color me surprised. If these kind of stories didn't turn out to be BS 99% of the time, I'd be a lot more concerned.

What was the count on the decision not to revpte?

[IBitOBear]

It's a case of who watches the watchers. When you corrupt an organization it is best done in-depth and it is most successfully done from the top.

We "Americans" (e.g. the United States of part, but we are working diligently on spreading our scheme to the rest of America) have a system of Checks and Balances. That is it doesn't have to Balance if you can make sure nobody Checks. We use this system for nearly every purpose. It's nice to see Europe following our lead. Or perhaps they deeded it to us as some point, which doesn't matter, we will take the credit.

As to this being the end of democracy, well you are using the wrong definition: Democracy is the means by which we ensure we are governed -no- -better- that we deserve.

Seems to be working out pretty much "as expected" here.

Re:It's only a committee

[martin-boundary]

The bill is talking about "orphaned works" which are those works that will never again see the light of day because no owner claims them. It is likely that when the copyright expires in 70 years, with nobody to preserve them, or assign their rights to a publisher who can, these works will be completely lost to humanity.

If you live in Europe, write to your MEP. Vote fraud is no joke.

Who cares? If you live in Europe, or anywhere else for that matter, start scanning those books and put them up on the web. There are places like formerly library.nu (now defunct) which will accept the scans, and replicate them. Fuck the publishers, and fuck the politicians. They can't be trusted with our human heritage.

Re:Math

[Hentes]

Because if the temparature is above that, it rains. If below, it snows.

Re:It's only a committee

[MysteriousPreacher]

A tax or any other kind of payment would be complicated to administer. It'd require clever handling of works that are published and developed over time - such as a Wikipedia page or OpenSSH.

With any copyright discussion, the elephant in the room has to be the length of copyright terms. Drop the terms down to far more reasonably limits and we see many such problems go away. Publishers can continue to benefit from older works, so long as they can find ways to enhance them, thus creating a derivative work that is subject to a fresh copyright term. They already do this for movies, either through adding fresh content or by remastering.

Why we allow copyright beyond 15 years for anything at all is to me a travesty. A publisher that cannot make a reasonable return within 15 years really should think long and hard about their business model and the quality of their work.

Re:Whoops

[AmiMoJo]

This is standard practice in the EU. When Ireland held a referendum and rejected the Lisbon Treaty, the EU technocrats didn't like the results so they just held ANOTHER referendum six months later.

Er, no. They did what any sensible person would do when their proposal was rejected: listen to the objections and fix it. They changed the stuff the Irish didn't like and then the Irish approved the changes. What's wrong with that? You expect them to give up totally at the first rejection over any aspect what-so-ever?