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Publishers are evil!
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Copyright Laws Threaten Our Online Freedom
There is nothing really new in this article, and yes, I know, copyright issues have been covered here on Mobileread quite often already, but the article was published in the Financial Times and is one of the news items listed on the DrudgeReport today, so I thought I'd mention it.
The article is titled Copyright Laws Threaten Our Online Freedom and was written by Christian Engström It starts out -- Quote:
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#2 |
Final Five n°42
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Interesting article, thanks.
Just a quick note (it is mentioned at the end of the article) : the author of this column is a member of the Swedish Pirate Party. |
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#3 | |
Wizard
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Just like when supporters of a football club identify as a group by saying "our team" the actual team does not belong to them. |
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#4 |
Professional Contrarian
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While I agree that there are instances of excesses in copyright law (e.g. copyright periods too long, enforcement too aggressive), I don't find much merit in his position.
The idea that governments are planning to inspect email or other one-to-one sharing for copyrighted material is slightly absurd. Sadly, anti-terrorism efforts are the not only more likely, but actual existing reason for additional government scrutiny. It's a straw man argument. In addition, even Linux benefits from some of the concepts inherent in copyright law. E.g. if I release Linux code under the GPL, I may be explicitly allowing users full access to the code, as well as the ability to modify and redistribute that code. However, I am still relying on the ability to require those subsequent modifications to be open and redistributed. And naturally, Engstrom makes no provisions for paying the creators of the "cultural heritage." There won't be much culture left, if the artists cannot survive while making it. Nor did I ever see any indication that The Pirate Bay distributed so much as one thin dime to the artists whose work it helped distribute in violation of copyright law without permission. I agree that civil rights should be protected. But enforcement of copyright laws is not, and if enforced properly should not, be a civil rights issue. |
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#5 | |
Guru
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![]() Wikipedia Italia was forced to remove reproductions of Renaissance paintings... Were they making Caravaggio work for free? ![]() Is really copyright the only way to pay for creations of the mind? I don't think so. ![]() |
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#6 | |
Punctuation Fetishist
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Copyright terms, skewed to infinity by greedy companies, is a problem, not a crisis. If it becomes onerous to a majority of the people, it will get changed. Companies risk shooting themselves in the foot if people suddenly decide not to buy thier art and music because it's too constrained. Anyone can draw a mouse on a steamboat, some better than others. If someone can do it better than WED once did, the Disney company might just be in a world of hurt. Regards, Jack Tingle |
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#7 |
Wizard
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They certainly were when those works entered the public domain. That's what the public domain basically is, cultural heritage. With the way current copyright laws are being written/updated, there won't likely be anything entering the public domain anymore.
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#8 |
Connoisseur
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While I agree with some of that it's hard to take the article seriously when he name-drops PirateBay as one of the sites protecting our cultural heritage.
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#9 | |
Banned
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#10 | |||
Wizard
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#11 |
Wizard
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Why would Disney have to worry about competing when it's far easier to eliminate the competition by suing.
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#12 | |
Professional Contrarian
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By whom? I have never seen anyone even suggest, with the slightest degree of seriousness, the idea of scanning every email sent with the intention of identifying copyright violations, which is the scenario Engstrom depicts. I'm not even sure such a thing would be possible in the EU, which has stricter privacy laws than the US.
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To be clear about one point though, I would not say that "all creativity will come shuddering to a halt." However if artists are unable to get compensated for their works, they won't be able to continue producing those works, particularly works that require extensive resources and labor (e.g. movies). And in particular, the Pirate Bay has profited by its facilitation of copyright violations, and as far as I can tell they have never distributed a single cent to any content creator. (Doing so would be a snap, since they know exactly how many times a given torrent has been downloaded.) How is that a sustainable model for the artists? |
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#13 | ||
Wizard
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Copyright needs to balance the interests of the industry with the interests of the consumer. Right now it is extremely unbalanced in favor of the industry. The article is talking about reforming copyright, not eliminating it. |
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#14 | ||
"Assume a can opener..."
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Last edited by zerospinboson; 07-09-2009 at 12:35 PM. |
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#15 | |
Punctuation Fetishist
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Some folks on teh Intertoobz are of the opinion that all information, including copyrighted IP, should be free immediately. Chinese media pirates agree. The law in most places disagrees. Most people can get into (and eventually out of) a rational, productive argument about how long IP should be protected. Totally unprotected, or protected forever, are both reserved for zealots, or very greedy (and often unwise) corporate executives. Personally, I think the correct answer for terms of copyright are on the order of a few decades, not a century, but I don't get too excited about it. Regards, Jack Tingle *Parodies excepted. |
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