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posted by janrinok on Thursday June 18 2015, @07:26PM   Printer-friendly
from the common-sense-reigns-in-Europe dept.

Julia Reda, the only Pirate in the European Parliament, who has been mentioned here in various contexts now blogs with more good news.

[June 16], the Legal Affairs Committee of the European Parliament passed an amended version of my copyright evaluation report with a broad majority. (Find the detailed breakdown of the votes on my overview page. The final adopted text is not yet available--I will link to it as soon as it goes online.)

The amended report was supported by all political groups--the only two opposing votes were cast by MEPs from the far-right French Front National.

In this report, the Parliament recognises that copyright reform is urgently needed not just to improve the Digital Single Market, but also , to facilitate access to knowledge and culture for all people in Europe. It calls on the Commission to consider a wide variety of measures to bring copyright law up to speed with changing realities and improve cross-border access to our cultural diversity, going further than the plans so far announced by the Commissioners.

For the first time, the Parliament asks for minimum standards for the rights of the public, which are enshrined in a list of exceptions to copyright[...]

  • to allow libraries and archives to digitise their collections efficiently,
  • to enable the lending of e-books over the Internet and
  • to allow the [automatic] analysis of large bodies of text and data (text & data mining).

Related: Julia Reda, the Only Pirate in the European Parliament, Weighs in on Copyright


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Thursday June 18 2015, @07:47PM

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Thursday June 18 2015, @07:47PM (#197950) Journal
    About time someone admits the copyright isn't something immutable, designed just to create artificial scarcity in a time big data is installed comfortable in our life.
    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 18 2015, @08:55PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 18 2015, @08:55PM (#197977)

    Copyright does create artificial scarcity. This is an objective indisputable fact. Without copyright, data can be copied as many times as our technology allows, which needless to say is a lot.

    As to what it was designed to do, it was designed to allow the parasitic wealthy to exploit the bright minds which didn't have such fortune, at least in it's modern incarnation. Our laws are as anti-meritocratic as you get, all the while being defended by claims of meritocratic virtue. It reminds me of how slave owners used to brag about how good their subjects have it.

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by physicsmajor on Thursday June 18 2015, @09:51PM

      by physicsmajor (1471) on Thursday June 18 2015, @09:51PM (#197992)

      Copyright creates no scarcity whatsoever, because in an age of costless copying information is, for all intents and purposes, not scarce. Copyright attempts to impose scarcity, by force of law, upon an inherently non-scarce quantity.

      This is an important distinction! If it actually did create scarcity, suddenly all the bluray burners in the land would cease to work at the stroke of a lawmakers' pen. No matter how much they might wish - or delusionally believe - that to be so, it isn't.

      • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday June 18 2015, @10:29PM

        by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Thursday June 18 2015, @10:29PM (#198005) Homepage
        But DRM, and the DMCA backing it up, has been designed to do precisely that. And what does the "C" in "DMCA" stand for?
        --
        Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
      • (Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Friday June 19 2015, @12:30AM

        by bzipitidoo (4388) on Friday June 19 2015, @12:30AM (#198048) Journal

        Copyright most certainly does create scarcity! Copyright is scarcity by government/corporate fiat. It is just what the name means, the legal right to make a copy. That it is ineffective and archaic doesn't change the intent, which is to treat information like material goods. The law makes token acknowledgement that information is different, by having copyright expire and enshrining a few other differences from property law. In spite of that, it is a conceptual failure, because at the core it still treats information as if it is no different than a scarce, material good.

        It is an incorrect simplification that has been all too seductive, and many have bought the fallacious arguments of the copyright extremists, who have taken advantage of the confusion to brush mitigating details aside, and insist that "property is property" and "copying is stealing", except of course when they don't own the copyrights, then they just take it if they want it and force the victims to sue to make them play by the rules they so publicly lionize. Might as well say "sin is sin" and you will burn in Hell whether your sin is mass murder or merely coveting your neighbor's possessions.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 18 2015, @10:52PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 18 2015, @10:52PM (#198012)

      It must suck to be a band that signed a contract with a recording company before most people were aware that audio files could be delivered via the 'Net.

      Years ago, Nine Inch Nails, Courtney Love, et al were saying to do it yourself via your own domain.
      Middlemen are absolutely NOT necessary.

      ...and go out and PERFORM.
      Bands who make big bucks get that by doing CONCERTS.
      It's -always- been that way.

      .
      Another interesting example is the Jazz band Down to the Bone. [wikipedia.org]
      The guy who "writes" their songs doesn't appear to read (or write) music, doesn't perform with them, and doesn't play an instrument--yet he seems to make money from this undertaking.

      slave owners

      One more data point: Bob Crosby was NOT the "boss" of The Bob Crosby Orchestra (nor The Bobcats).
      They used his name in the band's name because his big brother was already famous.
      Way back into the 1920s, those bands were worker cooperatives.
      Everybody got an equal vote on decisions and the pay was distributed evenly among all the workers.

      ...and Bob Crosby didn't read music or play an instrument either.

      -- gewg_

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by physicsmajor on Thursday June 18 2015, @08:58PM

    by physicsmajor (1471) on Thursday June 18 2015, @08:58PM (#197979)

    Yes. We desperately need a return to rational copyright, which would have an absolute upper bound of 14 years (the original length granted, and that which has now been proven optimal to society). [rufuspollock.org]

    Anyone who claims otherwise must bring a preponderance of evidence to the contrary.

    Also, for protection works must be registered, and full and complete recognition given that any owner may do whatever they like with their own property for their own, noncommercial purposes.

    I realize this is in violation of the Berne Convention. That is not a valid argument. We all should reject that agreement as it is verifiably, objectively reprehensible to our culture and society.

    • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday June 18 2015, @10:28PM

      by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Thursday June 18 2015, @10:28PM (#198004) Homepage
      The author of that paper seems to be unaware that it costs half a billion to get tent-poles like Iron Man 3 onto people's screens. Costs to produce movies that large numbers of people want to see most ceratinly are not dropping. So his conclusion ought to be that copyright terms on movies needs to increase.

      The clue that his conclusions would be messed up was in the existence of the word "economics" therein.
      --
      Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
      • (Score: 4, Interesting) by physicsmajor on Thursday June 18 2015, @11:55PM

        by physicsmajor (1471) on Thursday June 18 2015, @11:55PM (#198041)

        It doesn't cost that much. Movies and their accounting are hilarious. Think of them like money sponges; they suck up everything available and clamor for more.

        Ex Machina was made for 11 million Euros. It is more technically impressive than the Avengers.

        Mad Max was made for 150 million USD. It's mind blowing how much better that is than the latest Iron Man.

        Oh, and both of these more than doubled their cost from their theatrical run alone. So have all recent Marvel films. So a copyright term as little as 6 months would still have them immensely profitable. The conclusion here would be that movies need shorter copyright terms, not longer ones.

      • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Immerman on Friday June 19 2015, @09:56AM

        by Immerman (3985) on Friday June 19 2015, @09:56AM (#198178)

        Even assuming Hollywood accounting was rational - the movie would still probably profit or flop within the first year. I seem to recall a study stating that the vast majority of films generate 80% of their lifetime profit within the first year or two - if a film can't turn a profit after 14 years, another 75 is unlikely to make any difference to the bottom-line considerations at the time it's being made.

        The big profitability boost of extended copyrights (assuming there is one) is probably not in generating income from the protected work itself (well, barring a few classics with multi-generational appeal), but in keeping that work out of the public domain as long as possible, and thus reduce its ability to compete for audiences with new films. How many new movies would you buy if you could legally download every movie made before 2000 for free? Even if only 10% less, that's 10% more profit for new works.

        Not to mention all the remixes that would be made. We've got some clever editors releasing interesting works on Youtube today, mostly under the radar. Imagine what might be created if everyone, including professional-grade talent, had unrestricted legal access to all that older footage.

        • (Score: 2) by mcgrew on Friday June 19 2015, @05:04PM

          by mcgrew (701) <publish@mcgrewbooks.com> on Friday June 19 2015, @05:04PM (#198322) Homepage Journal

          keeping that work out of the public domain as long as possible, and thus reduce its ability to compete for audiences with new films.

          Somebody actually gets it. That's also the reason record labels fight piracy. Their competition, the indies, rely on it while the majors have radio.

          --
          mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
        • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday June 19 2015, @06:35PM

          by DeathMonkey (1380) on Friday June 19 2015, @06:35PM (#198352) Journal

          Imagine what might be created if everyone, including professional-grade talent, had unrestricted legal access to all that older footage.

          Hmm, that might almost promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts. Can't have that happen!

      • (Score: 2) by mcgrew on Friday June 19 2015, @04:36PM

        by mcgrew (701) <publish@mcgrewbooks.com> on Friday June 19 2015, @04:36PM (#198308) Homepage Journal

        You're looking at the wrong metric. Look at revenues, they're WAY up.

        Personally, I think non-commercial sharing of electronic media should be legal. As such, all I charge for is physical books -- reading has always been free. I've read tens of thousands of books in my lifetime, there's no way I could have paid to read all those books.

        --
        mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
    • (Score: 2) by mcgrew on Friday June 19 2015, @04:50PM

      by mcgrew (701) <publish@mcgrewbooks.com> on Friday June 19 2015, @04:50PM (#198312) Homepage Journal

      I think copyright terms should vary by media. I've held two registered software copyrights since 1984; it's crazy that they're still covered, since the hardware has been obsolete for decades. Five years is a good term for software, I'd say ten for movies and twenty for books. I'd say ten for music as well, because it's simply too easy for a musician to infringe accidentally.

      I'd add that any work not commercially available should lose its copyright, lest we lose the work. And there should be an online database of copyrights that lists when the right expires and how to contact the holder. There's a bit in an upcoming book of mine that suffered from my inability to contact a copyright holder, and my next book will be 20th century public domain science fiction. I would have liked to include Leinster's A Logic Named Joe [baen.com], but inquiry to Baen as to its status was ignored. Its author is long dead.

      Patents last twenty years. Imagine how technology would suffer if patents lasted as long as copyrights! That's how art and literature are suffering. Like science and technology, art and literature are built on what has become before.

      --
      mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org