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

U.S., cough, international pressure much?

[tibit]

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.

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

[Vanderhoth]

It's a fine balance for the media cartel. They can't come out and say, "Yeah, piracy is helping improve our profit margins." because 1) they make money from suing pirates, while making money from piracy promoting their products and 2) if they admit they've been lying and everyone starts pirating content there's a chance piracy could end up hurting their bottom line.

Personally I think it's best for them just to ignore piracy and not comment on in one way or another; just go on selling your products. If you're offering at a reasonable price, in an accessible format and people like it then they'll buy it, but trying to control every aspect, especially with digital content, is just going to generate malice and is just cutting off their nose to spite their face.

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

[Ragzouken]

no one wants to control people who create things; nobody is trying to force the people who create things to do anything. they just want to remove the control over people who reproduce what other people have created.

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

[Pecisk]

No need for U.S. or international pressure. Finland is subject of multiple so called "intelectual property" agreements, which require lot of rules in question to be implemented in national law. And you can't overrule it - sorry, that's why they went "IP trade agreements" in first place.

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

[Vanderhoth]

I don't know, I'd kind of like it if those content creating people would just let me buy/use their products in my country. I live in Canada for frig sakes and I can't subscribe to Hulu and get the crappy watered down version of netflix without a proxy server or VPN. It's like they go out of their way to limit their markets to stop us from giving them our money. I can't count the number of times I've clicked on a link in an article to some news story or a youtube music video and received the "Content not available in your region".

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

[IamTheRealMike]

But why should someone who creates something not be able to control how it's used? That seems pretty basic. It wouldn't exist at all if not for them.

See, the problem I have with copyright reformers is that copyright is a quite well thought out piece of law (relative to most, anyway). It gives people who create things an optional tool that they don't have to use. It allows everything from Hollywood movies to open source software. If someone felt their work was best given away for free, they could certainly do that, or they could use a creative commons style license and many people do.

Now the situation we have is that a whole generation of people doesn't have any respect for other peoples work. They feel they deserve free movies, music and software because "zomg industry!!!" (reality check - the content industries are quite small relative to others, like the tech or energy industries). They feel that people who create things should have fewer options than today, less freedom to decide how their work is used, because gosh isn't it annoying and inconvenient when you want something and can't afford it?

Much though I dislike the way the US government puts political pressure on other countries, Finland does not, last time I checked, have an equivalent to Hollywood. Probably its people would benefit if the government just shrugged and said, well, we don't create much relative to other people so why bother enforcing their copyrights? Might as well take what we can for free! Party time!!

The problem is if everyone does that, you kill the goose that laid the golden egg. The idea that nobody who creates movies or writes software cares about money is naive and childish. People do create less when they are unable to earn an income doing so.

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

[Thanshin]

Yeah, like wedding photographers, jewelry artists, poets, screenwriters, game producers, web programmers, novelists, small film makers - nothing but control freaks!

Not that I agree with the previous post, but you seem to mistake the media industry with the media creators.

The relationship between the two is more or less the one between cows and Nestlé. They milk the cow, process the product and even draw a cow in the envelope picture, but I wouldn't equate attacking Nestlé with being against cows or milk.

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

[Thanshin]

Nestlé being Nestle.

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.

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

[Anonymous Coward]

First of all, it's not the creators who have the control.
Secondly, it's the punishments that go overboard.

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

[Ragzouken]

Maybe there are good reasons to give people control over intellectual property, but I don't get why anyone would think that's obvious or some inherent right or entitlement. Why should making something prevent other people from making the same thing with their own resources? When you introduce an idea into popular culture you are planting a seed on someone else's soil. Then, like Monsanto, you are saying "you aren't allowed to use this plant without my permission, or in ways I don't approve of". It clearly doesn't have the same strength as physical property, and I can't take it as obviously something a creator is entitled to.

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

[NeutronCowboy]

But why should someone who creates something not be able to control how it's used? That seems pretty basic. It wouldn't exist at all if not for them.

Because no one - no one, not a single person on earth, ever - creates in a vacuum. Everyone steals from everyone, gets inspiration from everyone else, and so much content gets created that it is guaranteed that two people will create very similar art. As such, copyright is by definition an inhibition of the creative process. For a real-life example, see the lawsuits about red double-decker buses in front of a black-and-white Big Ben.

People do create less when they are unable to earn an income doing so.

Some of the most fun I had with music was attending house concerts a friend of mine was throwing. These people will keep singing with or without copyright. Some of the best pictures I've seen come from amateur photographers. They'll keep doing it with or without copyright. Same for painting, games and any other art form.

You're mistaking getting rich with making money, creating art with selling art, and that less is always worse. Even if 90% of all artists stopped creating, there'd still be more art around than you can ever consume.

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

[AmiMoJo]

If such agreements become incompatible with Finnish law they will have to be abandoned. I can't really see how that would end up hurting Finland more than it would the US.

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

[Salgak1]

Of course, the obvious reaction:

Blame Canada

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

[G-forze]

True to some extent, but the Finnish copyright law as it is written today goes above and beyond what is demanded in the treaties. This is one of the things this initiative is trying to correct. Lowering penalties for infringement, allowing more "fair use" scenarios and promoting legal distribution options is what this is about. Not about rolling back any treaties.

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

[Thanshin]

They don't want you to be one of their clients.

Fortunately it's not a problem as long as you don't need them to be one of your providers.

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

[Pecisk]

They are technically "overruling" even constitution, it doesn't mean that they can be incompatible with it though. Only way to strip those rules from law book is void agreement. But for that there can be much wilder political and economical consequences.

Would like to see healthy discussion about it anyway of course.

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

[Ash Vince]

No need for U.S. or international pressure. Finland is subject of multiple so called "intelectual property" agreements, which require lot of rules in question to be implemented in national law. And you can't overrule it - sorry, that's why they went "IP trade agreements" in first place.

Finland could ignore these treaties. America would go to the WTO crying foul, the dispute settlement body would probably agree, then finland would have to either repeal the relevant law or suffer the consequences. In this case the most likely consequence would be the US getting to take retaliatory measures of some kind against Finland, either an import tariff on Finnish goods or maybe even getting to crap all over finnish copyright.

This might be just what we need to get rid of Linus as he loses the copyright on linux to some huge american corporation (obviously this bit is a joke).

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

[Vanderhoth]

I was just thinking how ironic it would be if that link didn't work. I use to be a big south park fan, so I've seen it.

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

[Pecisk]

Ok, then it is doable then, good to know :) Of course, question is if there's goodwill from politicians to do this, but still...if agreements doesn't block it, there's some hope :)

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

[Pecisk]

I didn't say that you can't ignore treaties. You can. But you can't precisely pinpoint implications. Starting from lawsuits, and ending with political fallouts.

U.S. is biggest IP producer to date, so they will protect their export. I can fully understand them. World couldn't allow such agreements in first place.

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

[Oligonicella]

First of all, you're wrong, the creators have the control. I own the copyrights on my works and I control them. I can, however, choose to enter into a contract and allow someone else to publish them (although I still own them) or I can sell them outright. Well, I have to admit I'm a bit wrong - *copyright infringers* attempt to usurp that control.

The punishments *can* be harsh, but typically it's simply an order to quit and provide restitution.

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

[Vanderhoth]

Fortunately it's not a problem as long as you don't need them to be one of your providers.

That's easy to say when you're not the one surfing the net and come across several news articles a day that consist of blocked videos. I remember once CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) posted an article with a link to a youtube video that just said "Content not available in your region" The article was only up on CBC for about 20 minutes before they corrected it, but it was still kind of a slap in the face when our own public news corporation is posting stuff their supposed audience can't watch because we live north of the border.

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

[Oligonicella]

Does this include your employer (or a client) simply deciding they don't want to deal with you anymore and using your output without any recompense? If not, please explain why an author doesn't deserve the same type of protection you do on their livelihood.

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

[Oligonicella]

No normally. But if you use it as a template, manufacture clones and sell them, yes.

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

[Oligonicella]

This is about the most shallow and lame excuse for reaching for justification I have ever read. Are you seriously so thin of mind that you think music is the only thing that is effected by copyright? Does that thinness extend to the inability to understand that those producing "free" music and videos are just creating promotional pieces in hopes of generating a paying audience?

"Someone forced themselves to push out a turd just to get money, not because he really liked to do it."

Nice straw justification for the dehumanization of the artist attempting to make a living at art so you can live with yourself for ripping them off.

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

[TheP4st]

But why should someone who creates something not be able to control how it's used? That seems pretty basic

It do seem basic, however do you really believe that for example Britney Spears, RHCP or any upcoming artist signed to a label by contract have any control of what they create? If you do, then we'd better not continue debating the topic as we obviously live in parallel universes and we'll never be able to even begin to understand each others differentiating opinions.

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

[ultranova]

I can't really see how that would end up hurting Finland more than it would the US.

And that's the problem, actually. Finnish politicians have this weird thing going where they show their responsibility and altruism by hurting their own country. It lets them pretend to be European leaders or global leaders rather than the leaders of a small, insignificant country at the arctic circle. And being leaders, it's not them but the rest of us who pay the price.

That's the reason why Finland typically goes above and beyond what any bad agreements actually require: a weird form of national self-harm. And it's why this initiative doesn't have any chance of passing.

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

[tverbeek]

A huge part of the problem is that copyright terms have ballooned in the last two centuries from the US's 14 years (with a 14-year extension if the creator was still alive), to a minimum of 50 years after the creator dies – longer in most countries – and well over a century if the material is produced by a corporation. Instead of a fairly brief window for a creator to profit from the work while creating new works, it's become either a hereditary legacy for the creator's descendants to live on, or an effectively permanent monopoly for for a corporation to license. The purpose of copyright and patents as outlined in the US Constitution ("to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries") is no longer being served.

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

[TheP4st]

As such, copyright is by definition an inhibition of the creative process. For a real-life example, see the lawsuits about red double-decker buses in front of a black-and-white Big Ben.

I believe I know the image you are referring to, but I have never heard about a lawsuit in relation to it so I got curious as well as disturbed at the thought of the ridiculousness artists are faced with, sadly my search-fu failed me in my attempts to learn more. Can you provide a citation?

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

[silanea]

The subtle point of the Initiative that seems to be lost on you is that there exists a whole spectrum of possible implementations of copyright law in between the quasi-Hitlerian approach taken by Hollywood and the rest of the high-volume industry and the free-for-all approach envisioned by fourteen year olds in the comment section on TPB. Making sure artists are compensated for their work is one thing. Very few people seriously argue against that. But allowing the monopolisation of culture for the lifetime of several generations? Bankrupting or imprisoning people for sharing a few songs or films? We treat arsonists, drunk drivers and drug dealers less harshly than the punishments some of the high-profile filesharing cases resulted in.

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

[dkleinsc]

no one wants to control people who create things

That's not true: The RIAA, MPAA, ASCAP, and quite a few other large organizations would very much like to control people who engage in creative work so they can extract a large portion of the revenue that fans are willing to pay.

For example, there are thousands of good independent musicians out there touring, selling their CDs at their gigs, and nowadays selling or giving away their tracks online. You probably haven't heard of most of them, because the RIAA ensures that radio stations only play music distributed by them, and major retailers only sell recordings from their artists.

Similarly, there are lots of independent filmmakers out there doing making films and selling DVDs. Many of them make a decent living at it by doing corporate promos and training videos and such, but they also sometimes try to have the next Clerks or Blair Witch Project. You probably haven't heard of them either, because they can't get widespread distribution.

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

[green1]

I believe the authors should get exactly the same type of protection I do on their livelihood. I get paid hourly, once I have completed an hour of work I will never be paid for that same hour again. Why should it be different for someone who makes something copyrighted? I am not able to obtain any future royalties on the ethernet cables I install today, and the end customer gets full control of them to do whatever they want. They will never have to compensate me further if they want to move them, re-terminate them, sell them, or put data signals accross them. Once I've installed them, and they've paid me, we're done and I no longer have any say whatsoever in what they do.
Authors created work for thousands of years before copyright was invented. I don't see them stopping even if copyright were to vanish altogether.

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

[jalopezp]

It does, yes. But this is why you should never do any work before signing a good employment contract. Information does not work like that because anyone can copy it and many people can enjoy it. You can't make a contract with everyone in the world before you produce your art. But this does not mean that you can force them to pay for something that is intrinsically free.

Also, it is definitely intrinsically free. The only reason you can charge for it is because an artificial monopoly (copyright) has been legally created so that an artificial shortage can be introduced into the market. This is not necessarily a bad thing - but we should certainly be clear about where natural rights are.

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

[ArcadeMan]

You can blame our Canadian media companies, they're the ones licensing things for decades and preventing Netflix from getting movies and TV shows.

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

[jalopezp]

Duh, honouring IP agreements is a requirement to be in the WTO and therefore the European Union. The relevant agreement is TRIPS.

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

[ElectricTurtle]

What you and the broader industry keep assuming is that there is only one model, 'create stuff to get paid' which also frequently assumes some sort of royalty model for getting paid in perpetuity for some nice thing made a ludicrously long time ago. There is a good reason this sticks in the craw of so many people. The rest of the world that labors and toils for the infrastructure that allows society to live doesn't get to be paid in perpetuity for work they've done. They 'get paid to do work' and that pay (generally speaking) happens once per unit of work. There is nothing today that prevents artists from 'getting paid to create' instead of 'creating to get paid'. We live in a kickstarter era, if you have proof of talent you can take that to the market and simply ask them, 'will you pay me to make a thing?' And if so, they will get as much money as the market will support in advance. There is then NO REASON for them to be paid in perpetuity for that thing every time somebody copies/references/remixs it. They've gotten the money the market wanted to give them already. It should now be free to the rest of the world.

My fundamental problem with all IP law (copyrights and patents etc.) is that it presumes to dictate to people how they can and cannot use or configure their own property. If I have a storage medium, no government or corporation should be able to tell me that the way I order the bits on it magically makes it legal or illegal. Similarly for patents, if I want to use my tools and my raw materials to make something, the fact that somebody else thought of it first should be immaterial. And don't bring me any bullshit about innovation. More innovation is being stifled by patent law than buoyed by it, and indeed the winners are often not the small fry inventors but the conglomerates who get wind of their work and have both faster R&D and bigger legal departments. Patents go to people with the best patent lawyers, not necessarily actual inventors.

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

[TheP4st]

So, should Ford be able to control your car after you buy it?

Haven't you noticed? A shocking amount of people believe in principles where that would be the case, and no arguments can ever sway them. The problem is that the believers in that principle actually think that a world where Ford controls your car after you but it isn't that bad after all. Perhaps to them, it is even preferable?

The Believer might be a minority in pure numbers but they are a vast majority in pure monetary interest and influence. The giant corporations and their executives largely are leeches creators who give a piece of themselves -their soul if you are so inclined- to create a piece of art, be it a movie, song or drawing that make you and I stop; think and evolve emotionally.

Genuine art is created by people for the people, deviate from this and we end up with east block propaganda posters and Justin Bieber being the epitome of art. That is not a world I want to be part of, do you?

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

[Miamicanes]

> But why should someone who creates something not be able to control how it's used?

Because there's a blurry line that, once crossed, transforms a creative work from a mere commercial expression into part of society's cultural tapestry. Once that happens, you could argue that the creators should still have the right to profit from it for a term, but that the original creators themselves no longer truly "own" it in any moral or cultural sense. It has become bigger than they are.

Some examples:

* Disney's "Victory through Air Power" and "Song of the South". Walt Disney himself sought to personally destroy every copy of VtAP after World War II. He failed only because a lost copy was sitting in a Department of Defense warehouse. The film, viewed today, is positively horrifying... a thousand times more when it sinks in that it's a *DISNEY* film showing yellow planes with slanted eyes divebombing American ships. It's definitely not a cartoon to show little kids for entertainment. BUT, it's one of the most potent records we have today for understanding the cultural background of America's involvement in World War II. It vividly illustrates it in ways that are chillingly real because it's so over the top. The era's newsreels are so sanitized, they almost qualify as comedy. But a *DISNEY* film playing to blatant racial stereotypes? Whoah. That's big. It makes it really sink in how totally Americans were into World War II locally.

Under Berne-inspired copyright law, Disney (as the film's creator) has the absolute right to destroy it. ***SHOULD*** they?

* Disney's "Song of the South". This has always been a problematic film for Disney. It was controversial when it opened in theaters because it talked about one of America's most culturally-taboo topics at the time. No, I don't mean race relations... I'm talking about (*shudder*) /divorce/. Yep, that's right. For anybody who's never actually seen the original movie from start to finish, it's about a kid from Atlanta who gets sent to live with his grandparents on their farm in the rural south while his parents go through a messy divorce out of sight. Everything else was subplot. Complicating things even MORE for Disney, some of their most popular and enduring characters, memes, and marketable songs came from that very movie. Hell, half of Frontierland's characters and rides were inspired by it.

Under Berne-inspired copyright law, Disney has the absolute right to destroy it, or at least prevent anybody from watching it commercially. ***SHOULD*** they? ESPECIALLY when you consider that even the original high-ranking NAACP members who complained about it later admitted that they'd never actually WATCHED it prior to issuing their condemnation, and conceded that while they weren't really *happy* with it, their original gut reactions were a bit overblown.

* Star Wars. The holiest of holy films that defined the childhoods of Generation X... and George Lucas' determination to screw with it to wring a few more bucks out of the original (or at least, the current copy re-edited and re-assembled from original footage). Nobody will argue that Lucas shouldn't have the right to make "improvements" with each new release... but should he ALSO have the right to suppress distribution (even when he's compensated fairly) of the original version? Remember, we aren't just talking about a mere movie. Star Wars (oops, "Episode IV: A New Hope") practically DEFINED the childhoods of millions of American (and eventually, European, Asian, and other) kids. If the Earth were about to be hit by a planet-killing asteroid, a rocket ship were about to leave earth with a few dozen survivors to keep the human race alive, and they had to choose between a copy of Star Wars (the original) and the bible, I put the odds at at least 40-50% that the rocket would be taking off with a copy of Star Wars on board.

Under Berne-inspired copyright law, George Lucas has the absolute right (assuming he hasn't sold it to Disney) to refuse to ever license the origina

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

[Vanderhoth]

The point still stands, the media cartel is preventing us from getting content and forcing us to find alternate means of consuming something we otherwise might pay for. I pay for Netflix, but only because I can get a free proxy so I have the American version. If I had the crappy Canadian version, which I did initially and canceled, I wouldn't bother paying for Netflix and would just pirate the content I want to watch. Which is what I do when I can't find something locally at a reasonable price.

To me it doesn't matter if it's the American or Canadian media cartel, they both do the same thing and it's ridiculous to stop people from paying for something they want when you're trying to make money by selling a product, but only to certain people. There are a lot of other products this is done with.

At one point I wanted to by a dedicated media server I found one I liked at Best Buy, but was disappointing with the specs on it. I looked it up on-line to compare it with other similar machines and found there was an american version of the same system, except it actually had good specs. The Canadian version came with 2 GB ram, and a 250 GB hard drive, the American version was 8 GB ram and a 1 TB hard drive for basically a $100 more. They wouldn't ship the American version to Canada and for awhile I contemplated having it shipped to my mother in South Carolina and having her ship it to me.

Another example, Amazon's Kindle Fire. My brother and sister wanted to get one for my step-mother, quite a while ago, and had planned on ordering one from the states until I pointed out that you couldn't use the Amazon app store or the network the Fire ran on in Canada.

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

[SuricouRaven]

"But why should someone who creates something not be able to control how it's used?"

Enforceability. Laws don't come free - it costs tax money to run even civil courts, and much of copyright is now a criminal matter so there is the cost of investigations. There's the social costs too - it's near-impossible to enforce copyright in the digital age, so the only way to be effective in doing so requires either an automated censorship system of some sort (youtube), or restrictions on the availability of technology that can be used for infringement (DMCA laws, the 'blank media tax'), or draconian punishments for the few who are caught in order to scare the rest straight. All very bad things. Then there's the classic issue of rights: They are often in conflict. If you grant a creator control over something they thought up, then you are also denying the use of that something to other people.

You can't just pass laws based on vague moral hunches. You need to consider if the costs (outlined above) are justified by the benefits (Increased production of creative works, created jobs, moral rights of creators).

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

[SuricouRaven]

There are alternative models. My favorite is the kickstarter approach:

1. Studio makes a trailer for their potential awesome movie (Movie in this example, it works for other media too).
2. Studio announces production cost.
3. People pledge their money towards production, considering how much they want to see the movie, how much they've liked things by the studio in the past, and so on.
4. If enough people pledge, the studio takes their money and makes the film. They have an incentive to do a good job, because if they churn out rubbish no-one is going to contribute to their next project.

The content gets made, the people get paid, and no copyright is required at all.

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

[Anonymous Coward]

But why should someone who creates something not be able to control how it's used?

Why should they?? Does Ford get to decide how you use your car? Does kellogs get to decide what you can and can't do with that box of corn flakes? If you give or sell me something, it's MINE. You no longer have any rights to it whatever, except copy rights.

See, the problem I have with copyright reformers is that copyright is a quite well thought out piece of law

The concept of copyright is extremely good, the actual laws are disastrous, and I say that as someone who holds copyrights that should have fallen into the public domain by now. First are the exceptionally long terms. Art is like science and engineering, in that what comes new is from something old, "shoulders of giants". Imagine how technology would stagnate if patents lasted as long as copyrights? Well, art is stagnating under the weight of copyright law. I could not profit from this because it incorporates the lyrics from a forty year old song. That song should not be under copyright!

If you get caught shoplifting a DVD from WalMart, it is a misdemeanor with only a small fine. Get caught torrenting it from TPB and you can be ruined financially. THIS IS JUST INSANE!! Look at the DMCA; that's a clusterfuck of epic proportions. If the work is protected by technology, why does it need to be protected by law?

Why should Paramont be able to claim with no proof at all that I infringed their copyright and have my work removed from the web? It's not happened to me but it's happened to others. And the onus is on the alleged infringer to prove his innocence, rather than being on the accuser to prove his accusations before the material is removed?

Copyright law as written is so bad that you have people actually calling for copyright's abolition. If the laws were sane you wouldn't have that, and you'd have a hell of a lot less "piracy" as well. There is absolutely no reason whatever that dead musician's works from half a century ago should be protected, and there's no reason non-commercial infringement should be illegal at all, let alone able to result in imprisonment. Piracy is, after all, just PR.

-mcgrew

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

[SuricouRaven]

I'd also add a more modern classic: The Church of Scientology has a history of using copyright to silence any criticism of the books central to the organisation. Anyone who quotes or even paraphrases from the books in order to point out the sillyness within faces the risk of a lawsuit - and even if they can successfully claim fair use, the legal fees can easily drive an individual into financial ruin. How much control should they have?

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

[ctr2sprt]

That's a great idea, but the problem is that the cost of digital reproduction is near enough zero as makes no difference. If you publish an e-book, and I buy a copy for $5, why would anyone else buy a copy when they could get one for free from me? Some people would do it out of habit. Others would do it because they feel it's the honest thing to do. But most people would not. I've got to imagine that it would be really hard to make a living this way.

You'd probably have to switch to a Kickstarter-like model. The prospective author uploads a high-level summary of what he wants to write. People who want to read it donate a couple bucks. The author then writes something and releases it for free. This would probably work, at least in a sense, but it'd be hard to fund longer works this way. You'd get a lot of short stories, novellas, and serials. I've got nothing against those formats, but I do like to have some diversity.

Philosophically, we're both in total agreement. I really only have a problem with how it would work (or not) in practice. I think a more realistic solution would be to have copyright, just like we do now, but with a drastically reduced term. Like, one year by default, up to a maximum of five years if you apply for an extension each year. If you can't break even on your copyrighted work in less than five years, you're never going to. If people are willing to wait for your copyright to expire rather than buying now, your work isn't important enough to deserve protection.

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

[dryeo]

Wedding photographers are a good example. When the copyright law was updated in Canada, photographers had it changed so that they be default keep the copyright on that wedding you hired them to photograph. Previously the default that if you hired someone to create a work, you kept the copyright. Now if you don't put it into a contract, you have to pay for every reprint you want to give away after paying a good wage for a photographer to shoot pictures of your wedding.
Seems like control to me.

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

[fnj]

It's an interesting discussion, one in which two completely different thought processes are on exhibit, and I know for goddam sure which side of that debate I am on ...

Still and nevertheless ...

The initiative and hence the basic discussion in its connection is not about whether copyright should exist and be enforced. It is about how draconian and dishonest the penalties should be.

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

[ScentCone]

You certainly are a fine artist yourself. Your straw man creation is a masterpiece!

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

[Artifakt]

But why should someone who creates something not be able to control how it's used?

How about, because they sold it to somebody, so they don't own it anymore. That's usually a pretty good answer.

If the media companies want to retain control, they should stop selling the content, and stop making it look like a sale to the public while trying to make it something else by laws that violate fundamental legal principles - Contacts that the consumer doesnt actually sign, and that they can't read until after they pony up the money. Trying to retain control by hiding what you are doing, lying to the other party, and such is fraud. Why are you defending fraud?

          Now the situation we have is a whole business sector doesnt have any respect for other people's right to either an honest sale or honest lease contract. They feel lying to their customers should be part of their business model because "zomg one born every minute!!!" (There's a little of what you were dishing out back at you).

It wouldn't exist at all if not for them

My daughter wouldn't exist if not for me, so why can't I control her? (Hints, she's 30 years old - plus I raised her right, so she is a rational autonomous adult that nobody else needs to control). I'm trying to sell a car I own right now. It wouldn't exist at all if not for a Nissan plant, but it also wouldn't exist in its current state, with the resale value it has, if not for my upkeep. The law made me do some of that upkeep, but to achieve safety on the roads, not better resale value. The law is full of examples of things that somebody brought into existence but did not gain the right to do anything they want, to it or with it, just because of that. If creation is what should give absolute control, nobody creates land ex nihilo, so I guess you are arguing that land can't be owned. That's probably not where you want your logic to lead.

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

[ScentCone]

Now, you tell me, who is the entitled baby?

The one who wants pet entertainment slaves to make them stuff for free. That's who.

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

[ScentCone]

Now if you don't put it into a contract, you have to pay for every reprint you want to give away after paying a good wage for a photographer to shoot pictures of your wedding.

No, now you pay for whatever the contract between the two parties says. You know, the think you both talk about and agree to before anyone signs anything or any money changes hands? If you don't like what a photographer charges, or what they're willing to sign over to you (license-wise) as part of that transaction, just go strike a deal with any of the thousands of other photographers looking to compete. Who cares what the default is? Do you sign contracts or spend thousands of dollars on professional services without looking things over?

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

[tibit]

Exactly. Google has a payment processing business. Couldn't they collect micro payments, like $0.10 per video just to enable such things without the "unavailable" bullshit? Especially that the content for crying out loud is available . It's sitting right there on the server, they had to add extra logic to disable the content ! It's just that some idiots who pretend they are poor but really don't care for our money. Too lazy to make the content available, they'd rather whine about poor abused media.

Heck, it's like my three year old. When he's hungry and you try to feed him, he's throwing a tantrum because, well he's hungry so he won't have no food nor anything else. Only after you force a couple bites into his mouth does he get the idea that well, food is good, and he should rather be eating than screaming. That's how the media cartels are. Exactly how.

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

[fnj]

giant corporations and their executives

At least I can understand these people even if I hate them as a class for what they have largely turned into.

It's the tools, the apologists, the morons who slurp down their dose of corporatist indoctrination who are forever impenetrable to my understanding.

Another way of saying what I am thinking is, I know and understand those who make themselves the enemies of what is right, at absolute best parasites on the people, but my truest disgust and disrespect I reserve for those who are too lazy and stupid to engage the common enemy even in their own minds and in common discourse.

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

[fnj]

Nobody forces any of them to sign with a label. I know some who make an honest living without doing so.

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

[tibit]

We don't have respect for the work because they don't have respect for themselves. Myself I'd like to see copyright law that forces one's hand: either you license it on reasonable terms, or it's public domain. Media hoarding should come to an end. A publisher of a book out of print doesn't care for a reprint or a digital edition? Boom, public domain. A video available in U.K. has been unavailable in the U.S. for a year? Boom, public domain. And so on. That way there would be no more human creativity that's basically locked up by a system of law that promotes indifference and laziness - the very anathema of promoting the progress of useful arts.

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

[tibit]

Hear, hear. Especially that there are niche markets that may turn out not so niche once the market gets to speak and the "analyses" of the marketeers are refuted.

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

[fnj]

The solution is it should be legal to copy things in perpetuity without giving the content creators a dime because I'm an entitled baby, gimme gimme gimme.

"The solution is it should be legal to enforce a monopoly for all practical purposes in perpetuity (certainly as it applies to me) on my work, because it supports an unnatural model for income which I want to perpetuate."

The reason it is unnatural is because it can only be supported by using naked force against people who are engaging in acts which in no way cause me damage. The only way you can torture their acts into "damage" is by assuming I am somehow entitled to their money in return for ... nothing.

Just something to think about. There are merits to the case for copyright, but there are also merits to the case against.

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

[kiwimate]

no one wants to control people who create things; nobody is trying to force the people who create things to do anything. they just want to remove the control over people who reproduce what other people have created.

Except that it does control the people who create things. People who create things say "here is my invention/creation/concept, and I want the rules governing use and reproduction of that thing to be this and this and this". The creator can, if she chooses, say "go ahead, copy at will, I welcome it". The creator can also say "nope, I want my creation to be constrained by these rules".

Copyright infringers say "stuff what you want, I'm going to do whatever the heck I like". By their actions, they remove any choice from the creator. Remember, if the creator wants his things to be copied, there are plenty of ways to accomplish that. It would be far more fair for consumers to say "I don't like your choice of restriction by copyright, so I'm going to boycott and not acquire any of your stuff", and let the market forces decide if that business model wins or loses.

But of course that would mean you have to give up something you might want, and we can't have self sacrifice on principle, can we?

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

[meta-monkey]

Remember that part in The Matrix, when Morpheus is taking Neo through the Construct, with the woman in the red dress?

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

[ScentCone]

The purpose of copyright and patents as outlined in the US Constitution ("to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries") is no longer being served.

Except that the things it costs hundreds of thousands or many millions of dollars to create wouldn't exist at all without the ability to bring back those costs (and the profit that makes it worth risking all of that money) sometimes many years after huge checks are written for talent and production budgets. Don't like it? Just stick with the artists who are willing to give away their copyrights immediately or after a short period of time. If you're right, and the giving up of copyrights shortly after a work is completed is the morally right thing to do, then there should be all sorts of right-thinking artists happily walking away from their copyrights. Surely enough to keep you entertained without having to buy entertainment from an artist or publisher that distastefully hangs onto their own rights for much longer. Besides, how could you enjoy entertainment made by someone whose judgement and moral character is so abhorrent to you? Presto! Ignore them, and stick with the give-up-the-rights-early crowd. Surely they make enough movies, music, novels and texts to appease you.

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

[cheesybagel]

You do not seem to know the business model very well. Wedding photographers usually have zero and sometimes even negative profit selling photos to the newlyweds once you take into account equipment and consumables. The profit is achieved by selling copies of the prints to people attending the wedding itself. A lot of these photographers do contract work for advertisement agencies as well. In this case the client gets to own the digital files. The difference is the client pays a lot more, a whole lot more than a wedding couple is willing to pay.

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

[orgelspieler]

We discussed it on Slashdot here.

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

[dgatwood]

But why should someone who creates something not be able to control how it's used? That seems pretty basic. It wouldn't exist at all if not for them.

I build a box. I sell it to you. It is your box. If you decide to use it to ship something to your cousin Raul, that is your right. If you decide to cover it with a tablecloth and use it as a plant stand, that is your right. If you decide to use it as a toilet, that is your right. Once legitimately transferred in exchange for payment, that box becomes yours. This is the natural ownership model that goods have had for millennia.

Why should content creators have the right to dictate what the purchaser of their content does with it at all? Merely because more work went into the design and less into the manufacture? That's a fairly arbitrary distinction.

See, the problem I have with copyright reformers is that copyright is a quite well thought out piece of law (relative to most, anyway).

Not sure about Finland, but that's certainly not true in the U.S. Over here, there are so many contradictory exceptions and edge cases that it is often almost impossible to know if you are on the right side of the law.

It gives people who create things an optional tool that they don't have to use.

Again, no. Copyright is automatic in Berne signatory nations (the U.S., most of Europe, etc.). Copyright isn't optional. Unless you explicitly release something into the public domain, it is protected by copyright. And even if you do release it into the public domain, because many countries do not recognize the right of a creator to release something into the public domain, it is not possible to fully opt out of copyright if you create a work in a country where copyright is automatic, as it is in the U.S. The best you can do, legally, is provide it under a perpetual "Do whatever you want with it" license.

They feel that people who create things should have fewer options than today, less freedom to decide how their work is used, because gosh isn't it annoying and inconvenient when you want something and can't afford it?

Not at all. They feel that people who create things should get paid for actually creating new things, rather than stringing out copyright to near perpetuity and resting on their laurels while milking their works for every penny that they can possibly get. They feel that once they have paid for something, they should have the right to use it in any reasonable fashion that they desire, just as they would if they bought a box or a table. The alternative—content creators being able to dictate things like transferability, format shifting, import and export, etc.—is a highly limiting form of sale that requires some very substantial justification before we will consider it reasonable, precisely because it is so highly unusual.

The problem is if everyone does that, you kill the goose that laid the golden egg. The idea that nobody who creates movies or writes software cares about money is naive and childish. People do create less when they are unable to earn an income doing so.

Not entirely accurate. They create differently. We've created a large industry that can afford to create these blockbuster films (which, incidentally, it looks like people are finally getting tired of). By contrast, an industry with fewer restrictions on copying would tend to reward smaller-scale donation-based or even patronage-based works that, although less expensive to produce, are often of similar quality. Moreover, because the money is not concentrated in a small number of businesses, the culture is enriched by having a greater number of people creating those works, with more unique voices, different points of view, and so on.

That said, nobody is asking for copyright to go away. They're asking for criminal copyright charges to go away

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

[gnupun]

I get paid hourly, once I have completed an hour of work I will never be paid for that same hour again. Why should it be different for someone who makes something copyrighted?

Because once a copyrighted work is created it generates revenue for a long period. Additionally, the effort and skill to create such a work is a one or more levels higher than creating a derived work or doing a repetitive work.

I am not able to obtain any future royalties on the ethernet cables I install today, and the end customer gets full control of them to do whatever they want.

Why should you obtain royalties for a commodity service? It would be like paying royalty to a grocer for buying his apple, royalty for a taxi ride, etc. Installing cables is not a unique task and serves a small group of people. Creating copyrighted work is creating a unique product that serves thousands or even millions of users. So the compensation should be proportionate.

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

[green1]

My point isn't that I should obtain royalties, it's that nobody else should either. Once the work is done, there's no reason to pay for the same work again. Copyrighted material is every bit as much of a comodity resource, there's so much content made very minute of every day that a person couldn't watch it all in their lifetime, and most of it is created with no expectation of any compensation.

Your statement that someone should make money over and over again for the same work just because it generates revenue for a long period is circular logic. You're stating that because it is that way, it should stay that way. That's not logic, that's just a love for the status quo. That said, the network infrastructure I install today will generate revenue for the company I install it for for years to come. How is that different? Just because we've, relatively recently, made this absurd set of rules for copyright that are out of touch with how the rest of the world works, doesn't mean that things "should" work that way.

Artistic works have existed long before copyright. and they will exist long after it. There are 2 ways these things happen. 1) love. This, and this alone is what makes the best works, and it requires no money at all. No matter what you do, you can't stop people from creating for the love of their art. 2) patronage, artists are hired for specific projects. Once upon a time only the wealthy could afford to hire someone for a specific work, but with things like kickstarter that's no longer the case, it's easy now for a group of people to pool their resources to commission something they want.

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

[GumphMaster]

But why should someone who creates something not be able to control how it's used? That seems pretty basic. It wouldn't exist at all if not for them.

So you would have no objection to GM telling you that you can only drive their cars on Tuesday or roads they approve? Or perhaps that you can only sell your car to people within 50 miles of where it was bought? Or that you can only use fuel they supply? Or that you cannot loan your car to another person? Or that they can take back to car without recourse? Or that their control over the vehicle exists for 90 years after manufacture or the last designer dies? All of these things are what the big lobby interests insist should apply to their "intellectual property" but clearly would be utterly unacceptable in the world of real goods. These interests have lobbied for, and won, laws that make it a crime to do any of these things if they'd rather you didn't. This incongruity is being opposed. That is not the same thing as removing the ability of the original creator to try to recoup fair recompense for their effort.

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

[Darinbob]

I don't agree with this view. Copyright has always been about being able to copy, not about controlling what happens with the copy. It is a very radical departure to grant control of how copies are used to the copyright holder. If I want control then I need a separate and distinct contract and the terms must be spelled out in advance.

Ie, if I sell you a piece of software, then you can use it in ways that I do not approve of (stick it in a smart bomb). Of course software usually does come with restrictions but these come as separate side agreements (EULAs, or actual contracts).

In particular once the copy is out of my hands I can not change my mind. If I sell a million copies of my song on a record then I have no legal ability to recall those records if I later find out it has become a popular with white supremacists. The record once sold is out of my control. I am also unable to prevent owners of the record from playing it to a small group of family or friends. This is why companies want DRM, so that they can change the terms of licenses after the fact, or bypass fair use clauses, and in general maintain a level of control that copyright does not grant.

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

[dryeo]

Perhaps the business model has always been different in Canada but I've never heard about or experienced wedding photographers selling prints to the wedding guests. Usually when you pay well over a thousand dollars for a professional photographer to spend a couple of hours shooting pictures you end up being able to give the pictures away yourself with only small reasonable payments for more prints. Now the photographer can argue that he should get payed over and over if you don't have exactly the correct contract instead of the old default that when you hire someone they're working for you.
Next the default will be for roofers to get payed every time it rains, plumbers to get payed every time you flush and you're car mechanic (who has much money invested in equipment now a days) to get payed every time you put gas in the car.

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

[cheesybagel]

Well you earn a lot more than a thousand dollars a day in an advertisement shoot over here. A wedding depends on the wedding. Some of the richer clients here are handled using the business model you described. How many photos are shot for those thousand dollars and do you get anything in the deal other than the shooting work? Is the cost for the extra prints flat? A lot of people often forget that weddings are awfully seasonal. You have lots of them in the middle of the summer then you have next to no work to do the rest of the year. I have known photographers who planned their business activity poorly because of this and end up pawning their equipment in the winter when they don't earn enough to eat. Advertisement shoots can get you a lot of money but they are really hit and miss.

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

[dexotaku]

You obviously don't know any artists and aren't one yourself.

Many if not most of the artists I know, have met, or worked with [both inside and outside of academia] do what they love in such a way that what you're talking about [pay them by the hour] is not even remotely feasible.

Among other things:

* They tend to work for enormous lengths of time on only one thing. Writing a book, for instance, can take years - and often if not usually requires such a devotion of time that doing anything else - like making money by some "normal" means so they can just plain survive, let alone afford to work on their creation - is next to impossible.
* They never get paid -at all- for 80-90% of their "work" [yes, I'm making up numbers, but based on personal experience and observation and interaction with MANY artists this doesn't seem like an exaggeration]
* Most of the artists I have met and known -never- recover anything like what their time "should" be worth for their works of art, even if they do get paid for them. Many works of art -never- make money enough for the artists to even cover total materiel costs let alone how much time it took to create them.

Funny thing is that I'm usually on the side of the argument that you are - I think that copyright as currently implemented in most countries is ludicrous. I also think that the idea of perpetual royalties is outright stupid, and that copyright terms should be shorter than they are.

I can't agree at all with the idea that artists try to somehow get paid hourly for what they do, though. There are too many reasons that idea is utterly impracticable.

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

[cheesybagel]

Also I don't know how it is over there but over here the photographer starts working on the wedding around the early morning when the bride and groom are still getting dressed. If they live far away from each other you often need to have two photographers to be able to shoot them concurrently which means you have to split the pay. Then you have to be in there all the way. During the service, during the party, and afterwards as well. Quite often there is a photo shoot in the night in the house of the couple after the party. A guest is only around for the service and the party so yeah, for them it seems like a couple of hours in which they can be sitting while the photographers are standing all the time. In practice over here you work for at least 14h flat just doing the wedding shoot on site. I am not counting the work done afterwards correcting pictures or handing administrative fluff like prints or handling money which usually takes several days.

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

[sjames]

Does the cow get to decide if you can make a milkshake? The dairy farmer? How about the grocery store?

If not, why not?

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

[LordLucless]

You'd probably have to switch to a Kickstarter-like model. The prospective author uploads a high-level summary of what he wants to write. People who want to read it donate a couple bucks. The author then writes something and releases it for free. This would probably work, at least in a sense, but it'd be hard to fund longer works this way. You'd get a lot of short stories, novellas, and serials. I've got nothing against those formats, but I do like to have some diversity.

Naw. New authors would probably be limited to those categories, because they wouldn't attract a lot of funding, and they'd couldn't afford to be locked in to a novel-length commitment for a pittance.

Established authors (either established via the traditional publishers, or by getting a reputation in the shorter formats) could probably get a novel kickstarted. Genre superstars, like George R. R. Martin, Stephen King, or J. K. Rowling could probably be funded almost instantaneously.

The problem with Kickstarter, I imagine, is the whole direct-to-the-public aspect of it. Novels are often notoriously late (looking at you GRRM) and some fans can get really obstreperous about it.

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

[LordLucless]

The vast majority of published authors are, in a way. They're paid up-front with an advance, and never see royalties because their books don't sell enough. Ok, it's not quite "paid by the hour", but it is paid upfront with no perpetual royalties.

The royalties only benefit the publisher, and some few authors who sell enough numbers to earn back their advance. It's pretty much identical to the Kickstarter type model - the only difference is the source of the funds (one large publisher vs many small individuals).

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

[ScentCone]

You do not seem to know the business model very well.

Commercial photography (including social events, of which weddings are a sub-set) has been part of how I make a living for about 30 years. I've watched markets and business models come and go. I know a lot more about it than you do.

Wedding photographers usually have zero and sometimes even negative profit selling photos to the newlyweds once you take into account equipment and consumables.

If by "wedding photographers" you mean "amateurs who don't need to make a living at it," then, maybe.

The profit is achieved by selling copies of the prints to people attending the wedding itself.

Are you writing from some alternate universe, or perhaps through a wormhole connected to 1978? Like I said, this is something that you don't know much about.

A lot of these photographers do contract work for advertisement agencies as well. In this case the client gets to own the digital files.

The fact that you're not even using the right words, here (hint: it's not about the files, it's about transfer of copyrights, or work for hire, or licensing), suggests that you need to study this more.

The difference is the client pays a lot more, a whole lot more than a wedding couple is willing to pay.

There are wedding couples who pay $300 for a full day's work with a DVD and full rights, and there are wedding couples who pay $30,000 for what amounts to a small movie production company to spend the entire weekend with them - and what they get is a limited license to a version of the finished body of work. Likewise there are commercial clients who write work for hire contracts (where the photographer never has copyrights), and those that merely want to license an image or two from the entire shoot.

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

[ScentCone]

Exactly. "Taking pictures" is about 3% of the job.

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

[dryeo]

The point is that previously you didn't need a contract beyond a check changing hands. You hire someone to work for you, you pay them (and wedding photographers are expensive), and they do the work, in this case taking high quality photographs for you and if the photographer reneged on the work, the canceled check is good enough to go to court with.
Now you need a written contract, perhaps vetted by a lawyer, to get the fruits of the work that you payed for. The natural default of getting the fruits of the labour you've paid for has changed to the labourer keeping the work that you've paid for and time and energy having to be spent on non-productive stuff, perhaps enriching lawyers instead of producers.

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

[cheesybagel]

Blech. I have better things to do than to use legalese when trying to describe something. The "timewarp" effect depends on the market you are into. If you do work on a rural community where everyone knows each other and people have large families quite often the people attending the wedding will buy a lot of prints. If you are doing your job in an urban setting where people don't even know their next door neighbor properly then sure that business model does not work and you have to milk the wedding couple.

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

[ScentCone]

The point is that previously you didn't need a contract beyond a check changing hands ... the fruits of the labour you've paid for

You always needed a contract. What are the fruits of the labor? What degree of post-production is supposed to be included in the delivered results? How many hours before/during/after does "the check" represent? How many photographers are supposed to cover the event? Is there a "required shot" list? What are the cancellation terms? Who pays for transportation? Who is liable for things going wrong, in what way?

You're only addressing the "work for hire" aspect of a complex process, and only as it relates to the ownership of copyrights. Anybody doing such work without a contract to govern the entire relationship is no professional. And it only takes a couple of lines in that must-have contract to also address ownership of the rights or licensing, etc.

energy having to be spent on non-productive stuff

Contracts are written precisely to minimize the amount of non-productive energy spent.

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

[dryeo]

You're correct about the reasons for having a contract and being old fashioned most of that has always been covered verbally for me. Note that I've never hired a wedding photographer having got married on the cheap 20 odd years ago. I have hired portrait photographers (including school portraits which are more of a group thing) and the contracts were fairly simple with only the last one mentioning licensing rights. The photos I paid for were mine.
Anyways while your points about contracts are good and mostly correct, my point about copyright holders getting more control also stands. The default for works for hire was changed for photographers to their benefit.
Remember copyright was introduced to advance learning (called the arts and sciences in America), not to enrich people and photographers for hire are a good example of a type of creator that could flourish without any copyright.

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

[ScentCone]

Remember copyright was introduced to advance learning

No, not just for that. The founders understood that the society would be a much richer place if artists didn't lose their incentive (the ability to make a living if their work was compelling enough to draw a paying audience) to invest the time and effort (and materials, and hired talent, and a million other variables) in creating thing that it takes a lot of time to create. You're thinking of "photographers" as "service providers," but that's only a small sub-set of that sort of work. That's like saying that the guy walking around tables at a restaurant playing a violin for tips is the same as the first chair in a studio orchestra hard at work on a soundtrack project that it will take her and 100 other people two years to complete - long before the paying end customer (the movie fan) ever spends a dime.

Copyright protection allows people (sometimes by themselves, or sometimes including literally thousands of people) to gamble on the long term efforts required to produce more than an on-the-spot performance or hourly service.

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

[Baki]

Sooner or later though, a truely democratic state will choose to loosen or abolish copyright (partially), e.g. by means of a referendum. This is quite well possible in Switzerland, for example.

Then the will of that people will clash with the US openly.
I wonder if the US will then still talk about "supporting" democracy worldwide.

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

[VisceralLogic]

I believe the authors should get exactly the same type of protection I do on their livelihood. I get paid hourly, once I have completed an hour of work I will never be paid for that same hour again. Why should it be different for someone who makes something copyrighted? I am not able to obtain any future royalties on the ethernet cables I install today, and the end customer gets full control of them to do whatever they want. They will never have to compensate me further if they want to move them, re-terminate them, sell them, or put data signals accross them. Once I've installed them, and they've paid me, we're done and I no longer have any say whatsoever in what they do. Authors created work for thousands of years before copyright was invented. I don't see them stopping even if copyright were to vanish altogether.

Under your scenario, the author would not be paid while not working on a book. Seems fair. But who exactly pays the author while he's working on a book? The consumer, who doesn't get anything until it's completed, or a publisher? A publisher certainly wouldn't have any incentive, since anyone else could publish the book without paying the author a cent once it's finished. That leaves the consumers, who may not want to spend money until they can have a product in hand, by which time in your scenario they would not have any obligation to pay the author, anyway.

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

[dryeo]

I'm talking about An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by Vesting the Copies of Printed Books in the Authors or Purchasers of such Copies, during the Times therein mentioned., better known as the Statute of Anne, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_Anne
Which the founders drew heavily on both in the American Constitution and the first copyright bill passed by congress, The Copyright Act of 1790.
Before the Statute of Anne it was the publishers that had all the power and the ideas of modern Anglo-American copyright were introduced to empower the authors, including as you say giving the creators incentive but also enriching the public.
There still needs to be a balance and still the publishers are trying to subvert both the creators and the public. People need to be able to make money and they and the public also need previous works that are open to build upon. I don't want to see a return to the days when the private publishers could kick down your door, break or confiscate your stuff and fine you. It's bad enough having the government having those powers but at least in theory the government is responsible to the electorate unlike a private monopoly.

What's the world coming to?

[Vanderhoth]

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?

Re:What's the world coming to?

[c0lo]

Yes, where's this heading to?!?... why, next thing you know, they'll legalize whistleblowing and impose transparent governance as a rule of law!
It may well be the end-of-world-as-we-know-it!

Re:What's the world coming to?

[Vanderhoth]

"end-of-world-as-we-know-it!", hold onto your socks buddy, the whole universe is about to implode.

Re:What's the world coming to?

[Vanderhoth]

Go home AC, your drunk.

Power to the People

[sincewhen]

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?

Re:Power to the People

[Gaygirlie]

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?

Given the cynicist that I am I expect them to briefly glance at it, pretend to care about the issue, then reject the proposal while pocketing some "gifts" from "friendly parties" behind the scenes.

Re:Power to the People

[Anonymous Coward]

Only one such proposal has gone through so far; it was about making fur farming illegal. This was in March. The politicians are supposedly still doing something about it -- but at the time it was presented to them, the overall impression was that they did not know what to do with it and avoided responsibility. (They have no legal requirement to implement the proposal. Only to give it a fair hearing.)

Re:Power to the People

[Anonymous Coward]

A Finn here.

There is absolutely no chance that this results in changes in Finnish copyright laws. They'll have to vote on it, and they'll vote not to do anything just out of pure spinelessness.

Re:Power to the People

[bestalexguy]

A Finn here.

There is absolutely no chance that this results in changes in Finnish copyright laws. They'll have to vote on it, and they'll vote not to do anything just out of pure spinelessness.

Whoa, do lobbyists use violence in Finland? Because AFAIK they use cash everywhere else, so it's greed over spinelessness

Re:Power to the People

[Anonymous Coward]

Finn here.

This is the Litmus test.

The proceeding is somewhat new -- the previous initiatives have regarded the ethics of Fur industry, and gay rights (adoption, etc). Those are still pending.

How this differs, is that this is essentially one of Finland's core industries today, and the leading supporters are 35~ rising, well off, entrepreneurs, IT-professionals, etc. It is not just populist activism, but a real concern that has profound impact in actual business and prosperity of the country.

While this might be thrown aside by our politicians (whose work of late has been mostly harmful instead of beneficial), this will not be shut down with a whimper, but with an uproar -- there are powers behind this draft that won't take no for an answer without a convincing, public argument. On top of that, there is already support in the parliament, as some representatives there are former IT-professionals.

I am eagerly waiting to see where this leads to.

Re:Lobbying lawyers are also citizens...

[Gaygirlie]

It would be really surprising if there are no "eastereggs" written by lobbying lawyers in there...

The proposal in its entirety is fully-accessible online and can be read by anyone. Also, it's not editable by everyone, it's not a wiki -- lobbyists can't just pop in there and add or edit stuff as they please.

It will be discarded

[Anonymous Coward]

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 article and summary a bit misleading

[DMNT]

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.

Nothing will happen

[CptPicard]

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.

Who really buys that anyway?

[Yvanhoe]

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.

Re:Who really buys that anyway?

[jalopezp]

You either have direct democracy inscribed in your constitution or you don't.

And we don't, mostly because otherwise we'd end up banning minarets or something ridiculous like that. But Finland is a prosperous country of only 5 million people. They have a better chance than anyone of implementing a reasonable law that is more popular with its citizens than foreign industries. Not that it's a huge chance, just better.

Wrong interpretation of democracy

[mythix]

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?

Re:Lobbying lawyers are also citizens...

[smittyoneeach]

Stand by for this exercise in self-government to be crushed in 3 ... 2 ...

Buried in committee

[grimJester]

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.

Similar system in the USA

[T.E.D.]

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.

Re:Similar system in the USA

[__aaltlg1547]

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.

That campaign contribution is just a a way of expressing to your Congressman that it's a great idea with tons of popular support. Really it is. Protected speech and all.

Print shops?

[__aaltlg1547]

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?

Re:Print shops?

[Major Ralph]

Simple, add in a clause that if you are selling said works, then it's more than a misdemeanor. This proposed law is really intended to protect the everyday joe from litigation.

Re:Print shops?

[jittles]

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?

Then you would no longer be a private citizen but would be engaging in business. I think that almost everyone agrees that anyone who does that for commercial gain should have the book thrown at them.

Re:Print shops?

[mark-t]

What if you're not selling the works, but are simply making many thousands of cheap copies of an otherwise good quality work to flood the market so that the (presumably much smaller) entity that was trying to make a profit from them is no longer viably able to?

Re:Print shops?

[MrHops]

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?

Then you would no longer be a private citizen but would be engaging in business. I think that almost everyone agrees that anyone who does that for commercial gain should have the book thrown at them.

Better not copy "Lord of the Rings" then...

Good start ... now finish it off (no pun)

[FuzzNugget]

Remove all penalties whatsoever for what is simply participating in culture.

So what?

[mark-t]

Parliament will vote on it, as required... the outcome will be that they voted no. End of story.

Bulding a car

[future assassin]

>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?`

Crime or not a crime? Make up your minds

[fnj]

... 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.

Re:Crime or not a crime? Make up your minds

[Anonymous Coward]

The Finnish words, 'rikos' and 'rikkomus'/'rike' ('crime' and 'infraction') basically just tell the severity of the offence. Both against the law. The former is something near the calibre of burgling a house and the latter would be shoplifting or getting a ticket from speeding.

The copyright law, as it is written currently, basically allows up to two years in prison and a police search of the apartment. They point of the initiative was to differentiate between commercial infringement (fairly rare) and the non-commercial variant done by individuals (very common). You can draw a parallel to the American laws and how the RIAA asks for $150 000 of statutory damages per file infringed, commercial or non-commercial.

Re:Yup, it's called "Redundancy notice".

[fnj]

You have to create more work to get paid more money.

For a regular peon, yes. Only the fat pig overlords get to have money continuously shoveled to their front porch for NO WORK ON THEIR PART.

Re:Lobbying lawyers are also citizens...

[jovius]

Already happening in Finland, because the representatives are obligated to think and talk about gay marriage and banning of fur industry. An overdose of ethics and humanity. There have been calls to cease the whole citizen initiative system, which was established by law recently.

Re:Lobbying lawyers are also citizens...

[Gaygirlie]

Anyone can log in and make a proposal, even a complete newbie and layman, but as I said the system is not a wiki: only the people who create a proposal can edit it. Anyone can suggest additions and fixes to an existing proposal they didn't create, but obviously it's the people who created it in the first place who decide whether to do anything with those suggestions.

Re:Lobbying lawyers are also citizens...

[wisnoskij]

What does it being readable on line have to do with who wrote it?

Citizens?

[wisnoskij]

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.

Re:Lobbying lawyers are also citizens...

[Gaygirlie]

What does it being readable on line have to do with who wrote it?

1) You can see who wrote it. 2) You can see if there are any "easter eggs" -- as the OP so eloquently put it -- there.

Re:Lobbying lawyers are also citizens...

[TranquilVoid]

And rightly so. Admirable as giving citizens a direct voice is, it's not necessarily representative. All it proves is that there are X people out there who support change Y. People against change Y may be more numerous but aren't taken into account. That's why elected representatives do their own polling. On the positive side, this sort of 'click the button' skewing probably does provide a counterbalance to traditional lobbyist skewing.

On this particular issue I'd expect it to be smacked down. Being the only first-world country to reject international copyright agreements is going to cause trade problems, especially in your own I.P. output. In the case of Finland imagine if, for example, other countries were legally free to make copies of Linux?

Re:Lobbying lawyers are also citizens...

[smittyoneeach]

And rightly so. Admirable as giving citizens a direct voice is, it's not necessarily representative.

Fair point, but in what larger scope do you manage "representative"?
Smaller groups of people can always label efforts "not necessarily representative", if those smaller groups are wielding too much power, can they not?
I suppose that time is the only way to sort out the tyranny of the minority vs. tyranny of the majority issues.