Don't reform copyright yet, begs publishers' body The government should not change UK copyright laws until supposed problems with the current framework can be assessed in light of how a new 'digital copyright exchange' (DCE) works, the Publishers Association has said. Richard Mollet, chief executive of the association, said that the benefits the DCE could bring could …
Never a moment, never an opportunity goes by for the copyright Industry to repeat the same old mantra 'protect us and we'll give you economic growth' etc.
1. Someone should remind these bastards that the Government, at worst, can't go below the Berne Convention in any reforms, and the Convention is damn tough in their favour.
2. The whole of the Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution occurred on much weaker copyright laws than the Berne Convention. Funny that!
As usual, these carpetbaggers are crying wolf again. Trouble is the Government will probably believe them.
>There is a very natural reluctance to play ball with a policy process which looks like it wants to take your ball away,"
Whose ball? surely the original authors are one thing, but children and other family members, people that buy up the rights, their companies and the like can't all expect to operate under the same rules.
Just look at Disney to see what a too one-sided copyright framework will produce: the original mickey mouse cartoons are still covered I believe?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act
ttfn
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The continual extension of copyright terms is scandalous. Basically it's no longer there to support the original creator, but to benefit the corporations that acquire the copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage creativity by rewarding content creators... but having a really long copyright period just discourages further creativity and encourages copyright holders to rest on their laurels. Why would they bother creating new stuff when they can still get paid forever for stuff that was created 50 years ago?
Copyright term should be limited to 25-30 years
Imagine if pharmaceuticals were governed by the same standards. You could kiss generic drugs good-bye. And I think that the price of the drugs would be lower because they would no longer have to be priced for a such a short ROI period. (or the price stays the same and the profits go up exponentially)
You can always tell when an expensive drug is reaching the end of its protected period; the manufacturer starts running ads that highlight the fact that 'no generic form of XXXXXX exists'.... and the ads only stop running on the day their protection expires.
Correct, this is a serious problem. From ancient, out of copyright movies put on $2-DVDs which ALSO includes the FBI's copyright message 'we'll lock you away for 20 years' stuff; to government-owned museums and galleries who copyright photos of old public-domain objects; to the republication of out of copyright books with nothing additionally new in them except the publisher's name and the copyright symbol, (c), etc., etc., etc.
It's scandalous, but again they'll get away with it (as they done so for the past 120 years).
99% of copyright infringement occurs with works that are less than five years old. Freetards wouldn't stop pirating stuff if the limit was 10 years, they'd simply argue that 10 years was "an immoral eternity" and that content creators should get a new business model (code for "one in which we pay if we want and lets face it we have better things to spend our money on so maybe you could make a t-shirt or a kickstarter or something and continue with the free")
TBH, i wouldnt mind harsher action if there was a quid-pro-quo.
Much more limited time (30-40 years absolute maximum)
Private copying for your own use providing you have an original including Format changing.
Parody exception.
None of this ridiculous DRM rubbish,
You must provide a public organisation, Say the british library, with a copy so when the (C) runs out, its not lost to the world.
Ability for someone to Easilly purchase a cheap limited personal licence, EG, for background music for a youtube video of your dog doing tricks.
In return:
Your responsible for what goes through your Internet connection, unless you can make a convincing case you thaught you were secure.
Harsher penalties for commercial copying.
Harsher penalties for personal copying (But not to the US's ridiculous levels, cos bancrupting people achieves nothing, it should be harsh enough to make you know you've done something illegal, but not enough to destroy you for life)
A quick and easy clearing house for copyright claims to reduce the costs on both sides, perhaps some form of Tribunal. (However, unlike the US, Looser pays)
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"Much more limited time (30-40 years absolute maximum)"
1. Research shows that the economic returns on copyrighted materials is mainly amortized over the first 17 years after publication (after that it's trivial).
2. However, there are exceptions to this rule. it would be easy for copyright laws to incorporate a system of year-by-year extensions upon demonstrated returns from previous years, thus projecting revenues for the forthcoming year(s).
3. To ensure that much shorter copyright durations remained fair, buffer period could be introduced:
- For a time after 17 years only copying for personal use would be allowed.
- Then a period where other non-commercial use would be permitted (by organisations as well as personal use).
- Only after both buffer periods had concluded would copyright be fully extinguished and that full commercial use would be allowed.
There are also dozens of other proposals to make copyright much fairer for all.
The one thing I've never understood about copyright is that, if everybody followed it to the letter, the whole system would collapse within a month.
Basically, it always states that you can't copy (screen, whatever) something "without permission from the rights holder"... so if everybody contacted the rights holders, every single time they wanted to rip a song to MP3, lend a book, CD, DVD (etc) to a friend, make a parody and post it on YouTube, whatever, the sheer maintenance overhead on that would probably get the copyright holders themselves begging for some more liberal reforms as it would be far cheaper than covering the "lost sales" to these everyday infringements.
Try it sometime, you'd be surprised. I reached out to a copyright holder for a short portion of a lyric I wanted to use for a book. The response was extremely fast. That and the wording used in the response made me feel like I had just attempted baiting a shark that scented blood in the water. A little unsettling; I wasn't left with the impression the individual wanted to help me - more like I was about to be shaken down.
They could just run a single copy of every book, once a year, and keep said books under copyright indefinitely. Besides, they could just partner with Amazon (or whomever) to offer up a single copiy of each book each year, for $1.00/page. How would you feel about paying $382.00+tax for 'Good Omens' by Sir Terry Pratchett? And that's only if there's no bidding war... I like the book, a lot, but I don't know if I like it that much. I paid 4 pounds 99p (plus vat) for a copy in 1995,
I suspect the OP meant that an "unused" copyright ought to expire early if it's not being actively exploited.
It should be easy enough to include a clause such that printing one book per year (or some other obviously low number) would be seen as talking the piss rather than exploiting a valid copyright.
It would be fantastically difficult for anyone to establish whether the copyright had or hadn't expired through lack of exploitation. And the answer would no doubt depend on which country's courts you ask, so the copyright would have expired in some countries but not in others. Lawyers would have a field day. Everyone else would be massively inconvenienced.
Article translation:
"That freeloading hippy Hargreaves wants to weaken our monopoly hold on publishing. The DCE will allow all well resourced and well connected publishers to rip off each other's work, without allowing outsiders in on the act. And isn't that what we all want?
By the way, your brown envelope is under the third door from the left."
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