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Crowdsourced Finnish Copyright Initiative Meets Signature Requirement
First time accepted submitter Koookiemonster writes "The Finnish citizens' initiative site (Finnish/Swedish only) has fulfilled the required amount of signatures for the third initiative since its founding. This means that the Parliament of Finland is required to take the Common Sense in Copyright initiative into processing. The initiative calls for removal of copyright infringement as a crime, reducing violations by private individuals to a misdemeanor."
Torrent Freak notes "This makes Finland the first country in the world in which legislators will vote on a copyright law that was drafted by citizens."
It would be really surprising if there are no "eastereggs" written by lobbying lawyers in there...
I wonder how much U.S., cough, international pressure will they get so that there's no chance of any such law ever passing. Should this initiative succeed in Finland, there's no knowing what other countries may pick up on the idea - and that would really be disastrous to the public image of the media cartel. Note that I specifically said "disastrous to the public image". As far as I can tell, it'd actually improve the bottom lines of the cartel, but they themselves seem to pretend otherwise. It's an industry driven by a bunch of control freaks, it's not even about money anymore.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
Politician's better watch out and rush to make that illegal. It'll be terrible if people realize they can make their own common sense laws rather than depend on politicians taking money from lobby groups to tell them how to think.
How will politicians survive without lobby groups paying their salary?
Can anyone from Finland chime in and let us know if this is likely to go ahead untarnished by the political process, or will it be a given lip service and normal politics resumed ASAP?
-- Braden's law of data: All data spends some of its lifetime in an excel spreadsheet.
Just like the rest of these proposals have been. The initiatives have no real effect but to distract the public and create a false sense of power for the people.
The political process is not as straightforward as the article suggests: It will first be passed on to a committee which will listen for various experts and interested parties, including copyright holders' associations. The committee will then be free to make amendments and changes to the proposal, even though the proposal is already written in a form of law text. After the committee it will probably be subjected to other various committees for review, for example the constitutional committee to check if it is in alignment with the constitution. At the end of this long committee process is the public vote in the Parliament, which is most often just a formality.
Therefore it is not guaranteed at all that the intended changes will pass even if the law will be changed in the parliament.
?SYNTAX ERROR
It seems most copyright laws are "drafted by citizens," those citizens just happen to work for copyright lobbyists.
There will be no "vote on copyright law that is drafted by citizens". Some committee will just say that there are legal reasons why this can't happen and that's it. All this stuff does is stir up public discourse, which is IMO a good thing though.
I want to play Free Market with a drowning Libertarian.
This means that the Parliament of Finland is required to take the Common Sense in Copyright initiative into processing.
And they will refuse this initiative according to the due process. Anyone who believes in 2013 that non-binding petition can make any tiny amount of difference needs to have a reality check.
You either have direct democracy inscribed in your constitution or you don't.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
I think they got it all wrong, a petition is worthless on these kinds of topics.
It's like making a petition for dropping all taxes... Who wouldn't want to sign it?
A law legalizing gay marriage was proposed by 76 (of 201) MPs. The Legal Affairs Committee voted 9 to 8 to not let it go to a vote in the parliament, citing lack of time and low priority due to not being signed by a majority of MPs. There's been talk of citizens' initiatives getting the same treatment; specifically (unsurprisingly) an initiative on gay marriage that got the required 50k signatures in a few hours.
The law on citizens' initiatives requires any that get over 50k signatures to go to a vote in the parliament. However, it can be delayed indefinitely if the relevant committee never decides to bring it to a vote by the full parliament. After the next election, any remaining initiatives are scrapped.
Obviously, this goes against the spirit of the law, so there's a good chance the situation will change.
Who would have thought they could get that much signatures?
(the phrase you're looking for is "required number of signatures.")
We have a similar system here in the USA, where ordinary citizens can write whatever law they want and have our Congress vote on it.
Its just that instead of submitting millions of signatures to Congress, you have to submit millions of dollars.
So if I set up a print shop that prints and sells copies of recent bestsellers and sells them dirt cheap to bookstores that sell them at deep discounts to consumer's that's a misdemeanor? How about if I download copies of the latest movie releases, burn them to DVDs and ship them all over Europe?
Unless i'm demanding you work for me and given me the result of your work for free, I am not controlling you.
If you won't produce under terms that are acceptable to the public, then don't produce. Your ass will be hit by the door on the way out.
You also don't get paid for each time the company reuses the work you did for them: you get paid the once. You want paying each time a copy is made? They will refuse. You have to create more work to get paid more money.
But the "copyright creators" do not want to perform to the same standard, even when they bring up that standard as a method to "prove" that they deserve and are entiteld to special treatment.
Remove all penalties whatsoever for what is simply participating in culture.
Parliament will vote on it, as required... the outcome will be that they voted no. End of story.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
>Why should making something prevent other people from making the same thing with their own resources?
I can scour the web/junkyards for free parts for a Ford F150, build it, get it licensed and sell it as Ford F150. Why cant we do that with say music or movies?`
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
... calls for removal of copyright infringement as a crime, reducing violations by private individuals to a misdemeanor.
Uh, guys, a misdemeanor IS A CRIME Petty theft and simple assault and battery are also misdemeanors. Maybe something has been lost in translation. Otherwise I think this initiative is a sad sellout. Copyright infringement ought to be a civil matter, damnmit.
If I make shitty lemonade and nobody wants to buy it at $2 a cup, then I can't demand that it is MY RIGHT to demand that much.
Copyright leeches ("artists" they call themselves) would prefer to take from the public (domain) and NEVER give back.
If you won't create unless you get copyright, don't create.
Most laws are written by citizens of the country.
You have to be a citizen to be a government official.
And even when some record label writes some copyright law for the US, most likely a US citizen, who was part of said corporation, wrote it.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.