Thanks David and Geni for replying to this. I found Geni's email somewhat perplexing, so I've commented on it below. In general, I think the question is whether we agree with the overall stance, rather than the specific details of what would happen if it were put in place exactly as it is (there's a reason why laws tend to be very long) - unless the 'unintended consequences' are very serious and could have been avoided?
On 31 Jan 2010, at 16:10, geni wrote: > Sadly no. Good on idealism less good on unintended consequences: > > "Contracts or technical protection measures that restrict access to > and re-use of Public Domain works must not be enforced. The Public > Domain status of a work guarantees the right to re-use, modify and > reproduce. This also includes user prerogatives arising from > exceptions and limitations, fair use and fair dealing, ensuring that > these cannot be limited by contractual or technological means." > > The contractual limitations are of course unacceptable under the > principles of a common law system. More importantly the anti DRM > languages places limits on what you can do with a PD work. Huh? I don't understand this - please could you explain? > "Therefore, exceptions and limitations to copyright, fair use and fair > dealing should be construed as evolutionary in nature and constantly > adapted to account for the public interest." > > Basing fair use/fair dealing on the public interest strikes me as > risky. Better to base it on commercial rather than public interest? > "The excessive length of copyright protection combined with an absence > of formalities is highly detrimental to the accessibility of our > shared knowledge and culture." > > Implementing formalities such as registration is a great way to reduce > the effectiveness of CC licenses and the GPL. I'm not sure that I see the connection here? > "Any change of the scope of copyright protection must not be applied > retroactively to works already subject to protection." > > This is a great way to ensure that working out even a fairly > straightforward copyright clase involves 10 minutes with a > spreadsheet. > A situation where working out how long a copyright term is involves > trying to work out which system applied when it was created is bad > enough in the US. It is not something to encourage. As I understand it, if the 1978 US copyright law hadn't have been retroactive then a lot more content would now be in the public domain though. > "When material is deemed to fall in the structural Public Domain in > its country of origin, the material should be recognized as part of > the structural Public Domain in all other countries of the world." > > Oh Zeus no. I mean yes I can understand that mexico could probably do > with the boost to it's film industry but creating a situation where > countries have an incentive to create the harshest possible copyright > terms is not advisable. It would, however, solve a lot of problems with understanding international copyright law when things go out of copyright. As it stands, we're left with e.g. the crazy situation that some of Yeats works are out of copyright in the UK but still in copyright in the US (and until recently, the reverse applied). > "There must be a practical and effective path to make available > 'orphan works' and published works that are no longer commercially > available (such as out-of-print works) for re-use by society." > > No. Any such system is very likely to have the effect of allowing the > big guys who can do proper checks with more stuff to play with while > everyone else sees no improvement. So it's better to have out-of-print works locked away and unusable than risk having a system where "big guys" can take advantage of it? > "Personal non-commercial uses of protected works must generally be > made possible, for which alternative modes of remuneration for the > author must be explored." > > Been tried. I seem to recall that India ended up deleting this term > from it's fair dealing clause because it was so hard to define. So yes > it's a nice idea but don't expect any change if it is implemented. > > -- > geni Mike _______________________________________________ Wikimedia UK mailing list [email protected] http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
