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House Judiciary Chairman Plans Comprehensive Review of US Copyright Law
SEWilco writes in with news that U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte plans on conducting "...a comprehensive review of US copyright law over the coming months.""In a speech given in celebration of World Intellectual Property Day at the Library of Congress today, Goodlatte mentioned a few examples of the sorts of problems that he hopes to address in such a review: 'The Internet has enabled copyright owners to make available their works to consumers around the world, but has also enabled others to do so without any compensation for copyright owners. Efforts to digitize our history so that all have access to it face questions about copyright ownership by those who are hard, if not impossible, to locate. There are concerns about statutory license and damage mechanisms. Federal judges are forced to make decisions using laws that are difficult to apply today. Even the Copyright Office itself faces challenges in meeting the growing needs of its customers - the American public.'"
Do you really think that the end result will be better, and not worse?
need to fix abandonware and older versions of software that are no longer sold (maybe limit that to vers needed for old hardware / os's)
I was looking for a older ver of this software and they where not selling it and there e-mails said that there older vers that where not up to our standards and also said it's not legal to just download the older ones they are not selling (but they ones they are selling don't work on the older hardware / os's)
Copyright in the digital age is ridiculous and unenforceable, but the same technology that troubles copyright nowadays has largely removed the disadvantages of patronage, as crowdfunding is becoming popular, why not just go back to patronage? it's not a tax on the public and it's a correct way of paying for the actual effort of producing media.
I'd happily pay $100 for a certain movie -- but the copyright owner won't sell! BigCorpInc has decided there isn't enough profit to be made so they won't make it available. But a core of diehard fans has been trying to track down remaining copies. I've had a worldwide ebay search running for years now and zero hits. A few copies are known to exist in the private collections of actors who were in the film -- but they don't want trouble from a potential future employer, so they won't make "illegal" copies for us fans.
Once the copyright owner no longer offers the product for sale, the law should allow fans to distribute copies for free. The owner is essentially saying "I can't figure out how to distribute this." Well, we can. So get in gear or get out of the way. It's not costing you lost sales when you refuse to sell.
In a sane world, "a comprehensive review of copyright law" would lead to cutting copyright terms back drastically. Something on the order of 14 years plus an optional, one-time 14 year extension. This would take care of abandoned works (after 14 or 28 years they'd be public domain) and would enable us to simplify copyright law. A sane world would also set different penalties for "non-commercial infringement" (you shared that movie on a P2P network for free) and "commercial infringement" (you burned that movie to a few dozen DVD discs and sold them for $5 each).
Of course, I don't think we live in a sane world. Instead, I'm sure we'll see proposals helpfully "guided" by the content industry. Perhaps terms will be lengthened. Maybe penalties will rise. Perhaps more criminal penalties will be enacted and law enforcement will be forced to take a bigger role in arresting individuals whose crime was installing a P2P program that shared out music files on their computer. (Because, you know, law enforcement has nothing better to do than help the RIAA/MPAA enforce their business model.)
I *really* hope that sanity will prevail, but I'm not holding my breath.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
So does disney owe royalties to the families of the writers of the books they base their movies on?
At some point ideas become part of the culture and are no longer owned by anyone person. I believe the founders had it right with a 14 year term and one 14 year extension. We should go back to that model, but the extension should cost enough to ensure that not every work is extended for the full term.
My republican senators act like they represent Los Angeles rather than the red state that actually elected them.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Here's my summary of what's frustrating about American politics:
Overall, Republicans represent most of my interests better than the Democrats, but dear lord can they be horrifyingly stupid and clueless on other issues, copyright and technology in general being big ones.
If you can't convince them, convict them.
Democrats are owned by the entertainment industry, so you know anything coming from that side of the fence will be to protect those dinosaurs' business models at the expense of the public.