The Case Copywrite Reform was published by Swedish Pirate Party members. Our session at school covered a topic called in rough translation: Computers and paragraphs: law/legal in computer world.
We had to read a chapter 2 from that book, which I mentioned above and write an assessment of the proposed solutions which were written in that chapter.
There where total of 6 points:
- Moral Rights Unchanged
- Free Non-Commercial Sharing
- 20 Years Of Commercial Monopoly
- Registration After 5 Years
- Free Sampling
- A Ban on DRM (Digital Rights Management)
Moral Rights Unchanged
This is one of the strongest points in their case and they are totally correct. No matter what, author of any publication, idea or any sort of creative work. Give credit where credit is due. Today even this point is quite often compromised, ideas stolen and sold as their own. All what actually matters is who will be the first one shouting and talking about the idea itself. Of course with a strong court case it can be overruled. The closest example, which I can recall, was in a TV series called "Californication". Show where a stepdaughter stole a work written by a lead male actor, in which case it was David Duchovny, and she sold it to publicist.
Free Non-Commercial Sharing
It is illegal for coping a CD or a song, movie, e-book after you have bought it and then to share it with a friend. I am actually surprised that the media you have bough isn't yet encrypted in a way that only you can see it, with some chip in the brain or artificial eyes. At least yet I haven't seen a case where you will get fined if you copy the music from one of your media devices and make a "mixtape" to your car, which composes songs from different artists. Artist may claim that whole album is one single piece and if you take one song from there you are destroying their art and stealing from them.
It is even illegal to download a song which you have on a media you have sitting in the shelf of your living room.
If there would only be a way to see how much of the authors creation has been shared and used, then why not let the government to pay them. If I like it or not, but the world is moving forwards to socialism and this would be strong case in this kind of world.
20 Years Of Commercial Monopoly
Even 20 years of time is too long to have a benefit for society from protecting the copyrighted work, but still better than lifetime+70 years. At least it would give hope to somebody.
Registration After 5 Years
Perfect point, this should be standard in modern world. You have to claim that you still are backing up your work after 5 years, not just some random idea which you shout out and leave it hanging so nobody else could use that. Most of the people even don't care after that.
Free Sampling
I believe that this one is a stretch. I want to take Mona Lisa and color her hair to blonde and call it Blond Mona Lisa. Nobody prevents to do that, as long as you refer to initial author and if needed give him some of the revenue you earn from this stunt. This is done in music industry today and it is done quite often. You cover somebody, they get a piece of pie as well.
A Ban on DRM (Digital Rights Management)
True, technology shouldn't prevent people to do stuff, peoples moral and ethical compass should be the one. Education is the key here.
Conclusion
Swedish Pirate Party is on the right track, I hope that some of their points will be pushed through. At least, we, in Europe are quite fortunate. We don't have many blocks to accessibility of the digital media, but imagine if you live in China. Even your phone cannot open applications which are not designed in China.
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