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."

Comments

Re:U.S., cough, international pressure much?

[NeutronCowboy]

The people who create things want to control how they bring their work to market. You want to control the people who create things. Who's the control freak?

Coming from a staunch conservative like you, this line amuses me. It betrays a complete lack of understanding of what copyright is, where copyright originated, what its purpose is and why people are upset with the current copyright regime.

Here, let me clue you in:
1) Copyright is a law that restricts the ability to make copies of anything human made.
2) Copyright is an evolution of the old royal print charters. Knowledge was known to be power, and the kings of yore realized very quickly they didn't want just anyone printing whatever they wanted.
3) The purpose of copyright is to control the flow of information and goods. Some of it can be good (it gives writers a chance to make a living), some of it can be bad (it gives people the chance to manipulate the flow of knowledge).
4) What people are upset about is that current copyright terms go far beyond benefiting the original creator, have criminal penalties on them and actually make it very difficult to create something without getting lawyers involved. The only reason you don't see every novelist ever being sued by everyone else is because most are penniless.

Now that you know the story, feel free to participate in the discussion.