torrentfreak.com — As a Member of the European Parliament, I very much welcome the increased attention the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) has received in the past weeks. It has taken a while for massive outcry to emerge, but we are seeing protest voices getting louder and louder.
Feb 4, 2012 View in Crawl 4
murxFeb 4, 2012
"For any lobby to be effective, however, it must be fact based."
Or have massive funds to bribe it's way into the legislative....
nitoriFeb 4, 2012
I favor returning US copyright law to the 1790 duration of 14 years with the option of a 14 year extension.
George Lucas would have still made his billions under the 1790 law.
Mark_LincolnFeb 4, 2012
Corporations are trying to shift the cost of copyright enforcement from themselves to taxpayers.
dsmxFeb 4, 2012
If you lobby for a bill then you should have to pay the cost of it's enforcement.
TechEpisodeFeb 4, 2012
Good to see more and more politicians taking a firm stance against ACTA and copywrong overall.
Well written article as well.
johnnysoftwareFeb 5, 2012
The "X reform" mean is way overused now and has become cliche.
There does need to be an equitable system, however. The ACTA, PIPA, SOPA one is not. Nor is a near total breakdown of the 'de jure' system.
Artists, performers, and creators do need to get paid. They won't if investors and publishers all vanish, unless the cost of publication drops to practically nothing and a lot more people participate in paying.
They also won't if the corporations are dirty crooks and partly or completely hide that they are making revenue from selling the material. That has happened before too, and also needs to be stopped for the same initial reason given above.
andy721Feb 5, 2012
If you get rid of the source you won't have to worry anymore. Take action now before they swoop in on us.
melthornalFeb 5, 2012
First, only the person who actually created something should be able to have copyright. Corporations should never be able to own a copyright. This alone would fix a great deal of problems in the copyright law.
Second, a copyright should only apply to the content as created by the original creator. For music, a recording of the original artist performing the song. For film, a substantial clip from the film. A different artist playing the song isn't breaking copyright. Short clips from a film isn't breaking copyright. Making a similar game, or a mod to a game, is not breaking copyright.
Third, a copyright should only apply to a fair effort by the copyright holder to distribute their work. If a copyright holder attempts to apply an unfair level of control over the distribution of their work, the copyright should not apply.
For instance, if a copyright holder attempts to only sell their product in a physical store in a unique location, and their work is traded digitally online, then their copyright should not apply to the online distribution. If they decide to sell their product in any willing physical store (meaning any store willing to buy and sell it without copyright holder imposed restrictions) and a any online store willing to sell it (without copyright holder restrictions), then the copyright should apply to both physical and digital distribution. If the copyright holder is only willing to allow an online store that only caters to, say, Americans, then the copyright should not apply to digital distributions outside of America.
Finally, a copyright should last no more than 10 years. In the event of the creators death, it should be transfered to the next of kin for the remainder of the 10 year period. If there isn't a next of kin, then the copyright should be void.
coatnosugarFeb 4, 2012
No European Parliament needs to address unemployment,hungry and corruption.Not Copyright Reform or #ACTA must be taking lessons from the U.S how to distract from the main issues
blankmikeFeb 4, 2012
This is an intelligent article about the political (not technical) aspects of copyright. Even the author goes out of their way to point out this is a political story. Therefore it should not have been submitted to technology since neither the ACTA, SOPA, nor PIPA affect technology. They affect people while leaving the technology alone.
I mostly agree with the author. A lot of work needs to be done at a fundamental level to figure out what society as a whole actually want. I have no problem with the *principal* of copyright as long as it expires in a reasonable time. The idea behind copyright is the author of a work has a chance to make money.
There are currently a number of flaws in the system as I see it. The length of time before it expires is unreasonable. Copyright can be sold so that someone who is not the author is making the money. It is currently being used as a censorship tool. It is also being used as an anti-consumer tool.
gregacFeb 4, 2012
I am thinking more like 2 year for copyright, 3 for patent, no patents/copyright (If they somehow managed that) available for software, anything remotely medical, crop/food production. Make trademark limited to 10 years, and they can go only after large-scale international abuse of trademark (50,000+ employees) etc. Highly strengthened parody use for patent/copyright... with a clause that states if there is any attempting to stop truthful reviews (Negative or otherwise), they lose there patient, with a decision that on each charge must be made within two months (Burden of proof on the company, not the accuser). Finally force copyright rules for on commercial use only (Not Sharing), and burden of proof on company, with only an amount of fine available based purely upon what was taken (Must also be proven, should have a set of guild-lines for this also). Allow a company to use there profits tax free (up to 20%), if you for traditional research in there companies own field (However, not for things like market research, trend research (We don't want any free running advertisers)). Law making it so university can sell there research while under copyright/patent period and not have it controlled (Variance for military research only). IE: I mean they can sell it to anyone/ and however many people they like. Likewise a business should be able to sell there in house research, however, unlike the university once they sell they lose there copyright/patent protection immediately. Government research (Or any research that has any payment from taxpayer (Save again classified/military) should get no copyright/patent and be freely made available to the public use/corporate use. If a technology is complex, the rule should also be made so there can be no hindering of teaching/modification (For Private Use) of a full technology (Note: Does not apply to a work of art). No DRM, or locking down of software or devices. Any locking of devices which can be proven, should be treated under criminal law as market collusion. This can be even extended to that if custom OSes are made which only operated on certain devices only certain carrier carry. Furthermore all drivers & codecs, shall be made open source for compatibility. Otherwise any self locking driver for devices/or codec for file-type can be considered locking and thus treated as collusion.
brooks007Feb 5, 2012
I did not read your wall of text but 3 years is not long enough for a patent. It takes 3 years sometimes to get your product on the market from the file date. That only hurts the small guys. 15 years would be good.
johnnysoftwareFeb 5, 2012
Dude, it often takes more than 2 years to write a textbook or a novel. Your thinking would leave many authors starving. It's their living, not a hobby.
Copying has gotten way easier.
Creating hasn't.
brucealmightyFeb 5, 2012
I'm OK with fairly long copyrights in order to encourage people to produce creative works and to be properly compensated for their efforts. But I think the penalties for copyright violations should diminish over time as the works become more and more a part of the common culture, sort of like they do with royalties for actors. They start out fairly high and are payable for many years but after a while they are only pennies per instance due rather than dollars for each use until it's finally too little to be worth the trouble and eventually nothing at all.
varkolaka91Feb 5, 2012
We dont need ACTA, we need more do over copyright
jay80jadejaFeb 5, 2012
"For any lobby to be effective, however, it must be fact based."
Or have massive funds to bribe it's way into the legislative...
pemoodyFeb 4, 2012
Layers on layers of unenforceable law won't do it. It's about money - either its ours as content owners, or theirs....
A Mill Girl
https://sites.google.com/site/blueheronjournal/
pelo1968Feb 4, 2012
I think judjes should issue warrants on the say so of presumed copy-right olders, that the police should then toture the obviously guilty pirates until they confess and rat out their accomplises followed by a swift execution. The legal system shouldn't get bogged down with this stuff, they have more important things to do like prosecute those disgraceful "occupiers" and those smelly pot smokers.
This being said, I would like to report the people at microsoft and apple for stealing my idea of a graphical computer interface.Comment is buried, click here to see the rest.
JLF2035Feb 5, 2012
Go kill yourself.
breadfredFeb 5, 2012
Did you work for Xerox?
nomynkjaanFeb 5, 2012
popular articls and intresting news watch on http://www.nklist.com