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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)
"The calls are coming from inside your house!"
"Congress is looking into this issue."
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
But the wording concerns me and implies that they are looking to extend copyright instead of cut it back
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
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.
Mickey's copright will expire in 2018. They are going to get at it early this time.
The only way we can stop this is to go after Disney shareholders.
"What is wrong with enforcing the laws we have?" Aside from the fact that some of the laws we have are wrong-headed and counterproductive (e.g. copyright terms that not only outlive the creators, but also their children, and even their grandchildren, thus stifling independent creative appropriation), there's the fact that the laws we have don't make any sense (as in "I have no idea what this means", not just merely misguided) in the context of modern technology.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
. What is wrong with enforcing the laws we have?
You mean like the DMCA and copyrights that last for a gazillion years?
This so-called "review of copyright law" is being conducted by the same people who work on behalf of the Media Cartel and created the DMCA and extended copyrights to last forever, along with other ridiculous laws.
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.
Which is exactly my point. They already done enough damage. There isn't any need to make things worse.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
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.
That's what this sounds like based on the language...
Do you honestly think they are going to change it for the better? What did the media corporation's political donation check bounced?
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
" '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"
I think we all know where this is going. Total extinction of any notion of "fair use" so that every image you ever did a right click-->save to file on will be an independent criminal act punishable by not more than 5 years in jail and a $50,000 fine.
Let me tell you what this industry fears the most. Let me tell you what makes the execs in this industry shit their pants and drink too much after work. The idea that you will chose to do something else with your time. The notion that you will choose to spend the half million of so waking hours you have over the course of your life doing something else.
If they can't get those away from you because your attention was directed elsewhere, doing something more engaging, then they're fucked. You want one of my precious hours to look at your Desperate Housewives / Jarhead crap ? You should be so lucky.
I used to just think that people who did mass downloading when they *could* have bought the stuff were total assholes who would just cheat any and all the systems of civil society which make things tolerable for everyone. I still sort of think that, but what I don't think is this represents a good application of our justice system and my tax dollars -
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/03/18/downloading-case-cant-pay/1997127/
What I think is this is a sado-system designed to turn even the meekest and most law abiding of our citizens, the ones that get up every morning to got to their underpaid , dead end jobs just to keep their noses and their children's noses slightly above water, into criminals.
This is a system run by the financial elite solely for their benefit . Elites whose mega-crimes go completely unpunished no matter how globally catastrophic their effects and how many people's lives are completely destroyed by their criminal actions. This is a system whose prosecutors look and look at those crimes but can't find anything but reasonable doubt, while the ordinary citizen can be assured they will be punished beyond any definition of reason and beyond all any definition justice for the even the meekest and most innocuous of infractions.
To the publishing houses and record companies and entertainment business and especially to Mickey Mouse and all the diseased and dysfunctional special interest politics he has come to represent to my generation I say this- we're going to take yoru out. We're going to decimate your industry and leave you with nothing- no customers, no interest, no money, and no power.
There's exactly nothing you can do to stop it, counter it, co-opt it or benefit from it. The future in no way includes you irrespective of how broadly you interpret the word "includes". You're all walking dead men, grotesque corpses staggering around, wailing for blood but finding none.
I think the majority of Los Angeles would disagree with you on that one.
You're on to the idea, but not quite there.
1) Shorten the term. It should be about 5 years. The first term is automatic and free. Subsequent terms require copyright-holder registration.
2) Require payment for the extension based on revenue generated in the current term. A copyright tax, essentially. And the amount of revenue should be worldwide gross, not local, not net, and certainly not open to loopholes and interpretation like other tax codes. The rate applied to it should be a flat percentage.
3) Do not limit extensions.
4) If you miss the extension deadline by even a day, it's public domain. No exceptions.
5) Public domain is permanent and irrevocable. No exceptions.
6) All transfers must be registered. A one-time filing fee may be charged. This does NOT reset the clock on the current term. Transfers during the first term are free, except for the filing fee.
7) Copyrights cannot be registered to non-entities (e.g. companies that went out of business) or foreign entities (e.g. foreign copyright havens) and retain copyright protection. This means that to retain a copyright in the US, a foreign entity must set up a local shell corporation to hold copyrights for them. Unregistered copyrights go to the public domain after the first term.
That gives everyone what they want. Disney can keep Mickey locked up for a million years, as long as they don't run out of money. Abandonware is public domain within a term length. No more abandonware that doesn't have an identifiable owner. And no more congressional shenanigans due to treaty pressure pulling stuff into an undefined foreign copyright term after it's been in the public domain.
Alice in wonderland was 86 years.
It was published in 1865 and the movie came out in 1951. Lewis Carroll died in 1898, so using today's Life + 70 it would still have been in copyright.
The copyright actually expired in 1907. This means they have already done this.
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.
More like "what can we do for you to up your weekly payments?"
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!