UK Government Order Review of IP Rights 159
quaker5567 writes "The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, has ordered an independent review of intellectual property rights in the UK. The review will be led by Andrew Gowers, formerly the editor of London newspaper The Financial Times. The review will look into the awarding of IP rights to business, the complexity of current laws and the extent of "fair use" in the current law. Importantly, the review will also examine whether the current term of copyright protection (70 years after the author's death) is appropriate. Andrew Gowers recently criticised the print industry for not realising the true power of the digital platform, comparing them to a record company which specialises in vinyl."
Can we guess the outcome? (Score:4, Insightful)
Not necessarily... (Score:3, Insightful)
Things might not actually go so badly.
Gordon Brown has been playing to the people a lot lately. Blair has said he will not be seeking a fourth term, and so will probably step down in a couple of years' time; Brown is the heir apparent, and has been plotting to become Prime Minister for a long time.
So, Brown's been doing popular things wherever possible. He was very big on the whole debt-cancellatio
Re:Not necessarily... (Score:4, Insightful)
As soon as anything can be "owned" and has "value" in the eyes of the law, then the right to use and transfer of ownership can be taxed.
The biggest danger as always is that the large multinational companies will squeeze out the small software developers, especially when government contracts are concerned.
This really is not flamebait... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:This really is not flamebait... (Score:2, Troll)
Heseltine, I fear, is among the last of a dying breed. He and Kenneth Clarke are all that remains of the Tories as they once were, the party of old Mr Heath. I wouldn't attach too much hope to him.
Many of the rest are hideous Little Thatchers. Authoritarian, x
I totally concur (Score:2)
I suspect flat tax rates will prove a con too, but in principle they are better than the present system which actually means that poorer people pay a higher percentage of their income in tax than the rich do (regressive taxation.)
I suspect too that I will be disappointed again...but who else is going to provide a credible opposition to the free holiday scrounger and Berlusconi's mate who always has the door open for the likes of Ecclestone( - there's a monopolist if there ever was one)?
Bait and Switch ? (Score:2)
And while we are all chatting about this subject, the European Parliament are about to pass draconian anti-privacy laws against all forms of electro
Re:Can we guess the outcome? (Score:2)
My question is, what viewpoint does Mr. Gowers hold regarding current copyright law? I couldn't glean that information from the article. If he thinks print publications are outdated and that publishers should start taking advantage of and learning to work with digital publication, that could mean either he is in favor of lengthening copyright terms and strengthening the law, or he could also be in fa
Re:Can we guess the outcome? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Can we guess the outcome? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, no... that would grant legitimacy to the idea that you can give something away for free and still hold copyright on it.
I suspect that the outcome of this "review" will be to create perpetual copyright for commercial, proprietary products, while anything given away for no or negligible financial cost will be declared to enter the public domain automatically, to prevent unfair competition from F/OSS harming the software industry.
Not that I'm at all cynical or anything.
Re:Can we guess the outcome? (Score:2)
Re:Can we guess the outcome? (Score:2)
The vinyl curtain (Score:4, Funny)
Now, to be fair, there are many very interesting record companies that specialize in vinyl. In the same way, I'm sure there will be small but interesting paper book companies decades from now
Re:The vinyl curtain (Score:2)
Yeah, and isn't it a bit ironic that all the vinyl records I buy are pressed and shipped from the UK?
Metaphors (Score:3, Insightful)
Dude! What did you expect from a member of Tony Blair's government? As far as I know that group contains no sentient life-forms.
It's not the UK government we need to worry about (Score:2)
Fortunately, jests aside, you're wrong. Labour's back benchers have finally developed some spine, hitting Tony pretty hard over the 90 day detention without trial issue (though still missing the principle and increasing the figure to an insulting 28 days, but at least it's a start). They're threatening to do it repeatedly over ID cards, health and education reforms, too. It's a real shame that old school Labour figures like Robin Cook and Mo Mowlam didn't get to see (and participate in) what's been happenin
"fair use"? (Score:2)
I'll take my pedant-points now, if that's ok.
Re:"fair use"? (Score:3, Informative)
UK rules need an overhaul anyway (Score:5, Insightful)
The two aren't really equivalent.
Several uses that I think most of us would consider reasonable are actually illegal in the UK, or legal only on a technicality under some circumstances. Making back-ups, format shifting, and making music compilations are all somewhat dodgy, for example, even where only legitimately bought content is involved and it's strictly for personal use by the person who bought it.
To give an example of how daft this is, a local dancing club I help to run would like to make compilation CDs of the music we have legitimately paid for, since we have a large library and carrying all the CDs everywhere is awkward. We also pay an additional fee for the right to play this music at public classes and events, so our use of the music itself is entirely legit. We have concluded that none of the standard licensing agencies can authorise the simple compilations we'd like to produce, so we have made efforts to contact the copyright holders directly.
Interestingly enough, the specialist dancing music companies from which we buy most of our CDs (we're talking about things like ballroom, rock 'n' roll, salsa and swing here, rather than clubbing stuff) tend to be helpful, slightly surprised that we've even bothered to ask, and happy to grant permission for reasonable uses. The big names, which we actually don't buy as much from, have also been slightly surprised to hear from us, but we get strange things like permission for the mechanical copyright, but not for the actual recording because the publisher doesn't actually hold that copyright, and doesn't seem to know who does.
In other words, we have a reasonable use, we're paying properly for the music itself and the right to play it at public events, when asked the publishers generally haven't objected to our request or asked for any extra consideration in exchange, but legal technicalities mean that strictly speaking we still can't make the compilations because some unknown copyright holder hasn't given permission and there's no way for us to seek it. That seems a bit daft to me.
Personally, I'm not sure US-style fair use is the best way to go in a digital world; it's just too easy to argue that activities which could -- not necessarily are in practice today -- be seriously damaging to copyright holders are authorised. I'm thinking in particular of distribution to "friends", and thence to their "friends" and so on, until a new track/e-book/game/whatever has suddenly spread across the whole Internet.
However, it seems about time that paying to buy content should guarantee certain inalienable consumer rights, such as the right to make a back-up copy, to shift to a different media format, and the right to make compilations composed only of legitimately purchased content. In particular, those should be rights rather than exemptions, so that the media industries can't simply add DRM that makes it technically difficult for an average consumer to do these things (or to criminalise the behaviour under alternative laws such as the EUCD or DMCA as a back door).
Hopefully, the guy they've put in charge of this review has his head screwed on the right way, and a reasonable balance between the legitimate interests of the consumer and the legitimate interests of the copyright holder and content creators will be found. I'm a bit worried about some of the language, as no doubt mentioned by others in this discussion by the time I post this, but I'm far more interested in how the review actually goes than in any guesses based on government weasel words before they've even started.
Re:UK rules need an overhaul anyway (Score:2)
You're talking about the same government that wants to suspend trial by jury, presumption of innocence and the right to face your accusers in court for persons suspected of terrorist offences, right?
-Nano.
Re:UK rules need an overhaul anyway (Score:2)
Well, the government (as in Tony and his cronies) may want that, but the majority party (the Labour Party) has recently demonstrated that it is not entirely bereft of spine, so Tony and co may not get what they want for much longer, and I doubt some of the more draconian legislative steps that have been take
Re:UK rules need an overhaul anyway (Score:2)
I don't believe this has ever been an aspect of "fair use". I believe that people who do it want to believe that it's fair use, but it's not, and I don't believe it ever has been. I also don't see how anyone could rationally justify this as "fair use," because there's nothing really fair about it.
Re:UK rules need an overhaul anyway (Score:2)
I agree entirely; as another respondent pointed out, it pretty clearly fails on one of the four tests for fairness under US law. That doesn't stop the widespread belief that the magical "fair use" is some sort of legal right (rather than an exemption) that means you can copy anything you like as long as you're not directly making money from it, though. Hence my concern is that with the US-style approach, you can too easily argue that something like this is fair use, not that it actually is fair use in the e
Some interesting issues, esp re author's copyright (Score:3, Interesting)
As for whether it is legimitate to enforce copyright 70 years after an author's death, it seems clear that any reasonable economic analysis would conclude that the marginal incentive provided to authors by this absurd protection doesn't influence their output of creative work, and is only likely to cause detriment to those who cannot afford to pay full price for a novel or other creative work. This would include citizens of LDCs, and poor people, two groups in particular need of reasonably priced access to important literary or academic works.
It could be argued that publishers are more likely to support struggling writers if they can collect money for 70 years after the death of the author, but where is the evidence that 10, 20, 30...years after the author's death wouldn't provide exactly the same incentives to publishers to hunt for the next JK Rowling?
Here is a (pdf) link to some of the main economic issues involved here http://www.oiprc.ox.ac.uk/EJWP0502.pdf [ox.ac.uk]
70 year copyright (Score:3, Interesting)
I approached the copyright administrator for permission to reprint something for our congregation, and they wanted more royalties than I was prepared to pay. The net result is that a piece of music which Vaughan Williams wrote for the greater glory of God was not sung because of the copyright laws, and the excessive copyright terms. He coul
I don't think thats the real problem (Score:2)
I don't think thats the real problem with over-long copyrights. I think the problem is that the copyright holder has no incentive to invest in new works because they can milk the old works. Which is a pisser if you're todays "Vaughan Williams" sin
Re:Some interesting issues, esp re author's copyri (Score:2)
The expiration of a copyright involves the transfer of something that has value (the copyright) from the rights-holder to the public. This is a fair trade if the public has compensated the rights-holder with something of equal value, which they will have done through granting the copyright in the first place, if the term of copyright was long enough.
Put another way, the "fair" term of copyright is t
"Review of IP rights" (Score:5, Insightful)
To the people of the UK -- be afraid. In fact, be very afraid:
In other words it is the legal scheme (IP) and not the ideas, creativity or innovation which what lies at the heart of Britain's success. an environment for innovation usually means an environment rewarding past innovation with infinite monopoly reducing the motivation for future innovation (consider US copyright law).
This sentence is usually a sign that the public, the largest stakeholder in the business, is about to be excluded.
Re:"Review of IP rights" (Score:2)
Unless IPod owners make their future voting intentions clear!
The world is changing at 5.6kbps (Score:2)
So everyone is moving to internet media? What is your point? FT.com has been around for years, so it will just overtake itself?
Believe it or not, there will always be people who buy newspapers, especially while commuting. Internet access is not as ubiquitous t
Intellectual Property is a scam (Score:5, Insightful)
The U.K. isn't going to make any changes to their laws. In a country with increasing inflation, increasing unemployment and increasing debt, the powers-the-be will more likely collude with megacorps than shun them. There is a mistaken belief that employment is a creation of government fiat and that the market won't provide unless government sets up regulations and restrictions. IP is one of those restrictions. IP also creates unemployment, as companies that could otherwise compete with the IP holder are not allowed entry into the market.
Kinsella wrote a decent [mises.org] article (PDF warning) about Intellectual Property and how anti-freedom/pro-force the idea is. I don't believe we can "fix" the laws, and I don't think we can even roll them back. The slippery slope has shown its ugly face, and the only hope we have is to completely toss the rules and find a better way, maybe a non-government way. Kinsella's 53 page article has more footnotes and links that I could ever place in a slashdot article, but he hits the nail on the head in reaching the same conclusion: don't offer protection for non-physical property.
If you post it, expect it to get copied. If you create it, expect cheap knock-offs to appear. If you don't want either thing to happen, don't put your idea into the public eye. If you want to profit from your creation, you have to add in the cost of knock-offs and copying into the equation, and offer value added options in order to attract customers to your first-to-market creation.
Re:Intellectual Property is a scam (Score:2, Insightful)
There has to be reward for work.
Re:Intellectual Property is a scam (Score:2)
There is. It is called a salary. If you want to earn a living from writing, get a job with a writing house (newspaper, website, cartoon creator, etc). They'll pay you a salary in exchange for your creativity. They will take on the costs and risks of trying to make a profit.
If you want to be independent, you are accepting a HUGE risk, just as an independent IT consultant is taking a huge risk versus working for "the man."
Creating content is not enough to make a product. I
Re:Intellectual Property is a scam (Score:2)
Where is it stated that a writer, poet, musician, etc must earn their main income from doing that? For one thing it would prevent older people who are in reciept of a pension doing such creative things...
They'll pay you a salary in exchange for your creativity. They will take on the costs and risks of trying to make a profit.
Though probably with some res
Re:Intellectual Property is a scam (Score:2)
What you ought to have said was that people often hope to have a reward for their creative works; not just any reward, in fact, but a large enough one to outweigh their best alternative.
That's fine, but remember that just as an author should weigh their best alternative against a hoped-for reward (e.g. author X ca
Re:Intellectual Property is a scam (Score:2)
But to be fair, I think the rest of your comment is pretty insightful ;).
Re:Intellectual Property is a scam (Score:2)
Where is the evidence of authors (especially unpublished) authors are demanding such onerous laws? Most of the demand appears to come from publishers or the descendents of sucessful authors.
I for one would rather have sensible copyright laws than the next Harry Potter book,
Where has J K Rowling stated that she woul
Re:Intellectual Property is a scam (Score:2)
The real problem for most aspiring authors is getting published in the first place.
There as a huge amount of luck responsible for Harry Potter ever getting published at all. There are plenty of examples of highly sucessful creative works which almost vanished into oblivian.
and then sit back and watch the Chinese print off a gazzilion copies of her work a week later without her profiting one cent.
They wou
Re:Intellectual Property is a scam (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not a libertarian really, but that's not important
First, the ability to defraud the public was much more accessible in the
Re:Intellectual Property is a scam (Score:2)
Yes. Because all of us having to check on the wiseness of every transaction we make, from the purchase of a cup of coffee, to a banana at a store, to a pencil at the office supply store, at every level, from economic advantage to health and safety makes these transactions so simple, efficient, and friction free.
Look - at some point, the idea of people getting together and agreein
Heres the deal (Score:5, Interesting)
You see, the UK, and especially the US are starting to realise that they have way too much debt for all that stuff they bought on credit from overseas, in their housing markets, in their bond markets, and in their industries. In fact, in economic circles bankers talk about the fall of the dollar as if it was pre-destined (which it is).
The deal is that they have this wet dream that they are going to be able to export their "intellectual property" abroad, to make up for all these economic imbalances - and bring them unlimited growth and profit.
I think they are going to be in for a very very rude supprise.
Re:Heres the deal (Score:2)
I'm preparing for the market surprise by holding gold-as-money, downsizing my house significantly so I have no mortgage, and traveling more (which helps me gauge the realities of the market, not what the media and the government rep
Re:Heres the deal (Score:2)
I'm preparing for the market surprise by holding gold-as-money, downsizing my house significantly so I have no mortgage, and traveling more (which helps me gauge the realities of the market, not what the media and the government report).
WOW! that's exactly what I'm doing. (well, I'm not traveling, but have been planning an exit strategy just in case ... probably Chile). It's almost sureal, people are doing their christmas shopping and whatnot like there is nothing wrong. Slashdotters routinely act lik
Re:Heres the deal (Score:2)
And they likely won't either (Score:2, Offtopic)
I don't think people have any idea what they're in for. Americans have never experienced 3rd world like conditions in over 150 years.
And they won't either. it doesn't matter a whole lot if the US economy suffers a total meltdown, for two reasons.
One, the US is the worlds largest consumer. If their economy suffers a meltdown, the whole earth will cascade down as a result. Moving to Cole won't help you out much, guess where most of their exposts go?
Two, even if such a thing happens, a poor economy does not
Re:And they likely won't either (Score:2)
The power of a military is not based on sheer numbers of soldiers.
China does not even hold a candle to the US in terms of hardware and technology, even if you give them a generous amount of 'tom sectret' type developments.
The UK has a capable military for sure, but again it is not even in the same ballpark as the US.
A few figures [cdi.org] for your consideration. Sure, dollars spent is not a direct 1:1 correlation with military might, but it should give some perspective as to the ballpark.
Re:Heres the deal (Score:2)
A service based economy can not maintain itself. You need to produce a bit of everything (or something that you can trade) if you want to keep going.
Re:Heres the deal (Score:2)
In a completely free market, you DO have the ability to provide a solely service economy more now than ever in history. There are so many services that can be performed over the Internet, but we are not competitive because of our government's destruction of wealth and currency while continuing to push prices higher through counterfeiting the dollar (legally).
I a
Western countries produce knowledge. (Score:2)
The UK is safer because they don't have the idiotic religious zealots that burden the US (the UK is one of the most secular societies in the world, only behind, guess who?, South Korea, read below for why this is interesting).
This is important because knowledge this century will be more profitable in the biological sciences. We are just starting to explore many of the fields in biology. The countries that ride that wave will become the pace setters in pretty
Re:Heres the deal (Score:2)
Re:Intellectual Property is a scam (Score:2)
And do "many people" who want to add artificial weight to their own views on a controversial subject start their statements by implying, without proof, that many other people agree with them?
Re:Intellectual Property is a scam (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Intellectual Property is a scam (Score:2)
In my experience, the IP debate ends when someone brings up pharmaceuticals. It is now called Dada's Law of IP Debate. The pharmaceutical industry has incredibly high costs because of government regulations, not because it really costs US$325million to make a new drug. We have 6.5 billion people in the world. If reducing government intrusion would save half, we're talking about 2.5 cents per person to make a n
Re:Intellectual Property is a scam (Score:2)
Yes, and I alluded to that. You didn't answer the question.
We have 6.5 billion people in the world. If reducing government intrusion would save half, we're talking about 2.5 cents per person to make a new drug.
That's nice. What about the vast majority of drugs that don't target every human being on the planet? Not everyone is HIV positive. Not everyone has diabetes. Not everyone will get esophageal cancer. That doesn't me
Re:Intellectual Property is a scam (Score:2)
Re:Intellectual Property is a scam (Score:2)
By cooperating. (Score:2)
What companies would do is to join al together and share the costs an reap the rewards jointly, since otherwise there would be no economic incentive.
If they would not join forces, the would dissapear, leaving the ground free for companies willing to do so.
And is not like they do all the research, very often a lot of their research is done with public money.
Re:Intellectual Property is a scam (Score:2)
It's something of a false dicotomy to assume that the only possibility is the status quo (ever increasing and abused IP laws) or the elimination of any IP.
Do we eliminate the massive costs associated with testing and just let people fend for themselves (and companies too, since presumably you'd support suing any company that still puts out a risky product)?
Is the current system of regulation entirely about av
Re:Intellectual Property is a scam (Score:4, Informative)
In short I think that was a troll comment and readers more locally focused in their knowledge of these things shouldn't fall for it. The UK is neither to be lazy conflated with "Europe" (read: France and Germany, completely different circumstances and economic philosophies) nor America.
Re:Intellectual Property is a scam (Score:2)
And, indeed, once this guy can find a proper publisher, he will release his first book with this publisher and chances are that quite a few people who bought from the first publisher will buy the "proper" version also. Bo
'Review' means 'extend' (Score:5, Interesting)
As a UK citizen, this has got me worried. I don't think there has ever been a government that has *reduced* the copyright term. This move also probably ties in with the announcement earlier this year that they were going to extend the copyright term on recordings from 50 years to 100 years (after all, we couldn't have any of the Beatles' material get into the public domain, could we?).
Re:'Review' means 'extend' (Score:3, Interesting)
We all know labour will do the EXACT opposit of what the people want..
Re:'Review' means 'extend' (Score:2)
Here's a list of some other bits and bobs they're quite happy about.
Labour's top 50 achievements [labour.org.uk]
BTW, considered a job writing for the Daily Mail?
Re:'Review' means 'extend' (Score:2)
But I suggest you look at the URL. It's labour's website.. oddly enough I don't trust the horse's mouth for news on the horse.
Everything I've seen lately (and checked many places) basicly says "you're 20!? HAHAHA you're fucked!". I was hoping to goto university.. hey guess what, I probably won't be able to untill I'm nearly 30 because I'll never have the money being that I have to save my ass off, pay for other peoples pensions and get no support funding my education wh
Re:'Review' means 'extend' (Score:2)
The main reason I responded to your post was because of the sheer 'fuck the world' negativity in it. There is a lot of
Re:'Review' means 'extend' (Score:2)
I'm a very negative person.. I'm quite sick of how the world is right now. your point on "fuck the world" would be totally accurate. I can look objectively but I still see the world as a hell hole..
That's where my problem comes in. I don't feel like being in debt for years and years. So I want to make money so I can goto college (again, I went at 14 to do some courses while I also had home schooling) then uni. Slight problem with working at summer markets is I was born with screwed up legs.
Re:'Review' means 'extend' (Score:2)
Re:'Review' means 'extend' (Score:2)
Re:'Review' means 'extend' (Score:2)
I have no faith in the system. The system is rather pathetic and gives me no real choice in to how I want the country run.. most people just don't care at all and never will. These are the people who don't vote but still complain.. This was the first year I could vote.. so I did.. I voted for the lib dems.. not because I liked them, purely because my vote ment next to nothing so I threw i
Re:'Review' means 'extend' (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes -- we wouldn't want more artists to expand [bannedmusic.org] on their work. This would take away, diminish, undermine and otherwise dammage the Beatles.
Afterall, it couldn't possibly bring a whole new generation to listen to their work?
New Fans (Score:2)
Once upon a time, a man and his wife were traveling by car and "Get Back" came on the radio. Wife says to man that the vocals sounded a lot like Paul McCartney; husband tells her that it is Paul, back in the days of the Beatles. Wife says she'd never heard it before.
Man and wife? Sir and Mrs. Paul McCartney!
Re:'Review' means 'extend' (Score:2)
Since much of the Beatles' catalogue now belongs to Michael Jackson, I wonder if McCartney might, if asked, now support the reduction in length of the copyright cover? He gets to spite Jackson, and simultaneously look really amazingly cool and froody...
Re:'Review' means 'extend' (Score:4, Informative)
Firstly there's the mechanical copyright - the copyright on an actual recording. In the UK this currently expires 50 years after date that the recording was first released, independant as to where it was released. In all cases the expiration takes place at the end of the calendar year. There are a number of record companies who exploit this by issuing old recordings whose mechanical copyright has lapsed.
Secondly there the publishing copyright - the copyright on the song. This expires 70 years after the authors death. Payments for these are usually managed via a publishing company who collects the rights and passing on a percentage to the authors. So even if the mechanical copyright has lapsed, the publishing copyright still remains in place.
In the Beatles case, Northern Songs which owns the publishing rights to most of their compositions (excluding some of the earlier material, later George Harrison compositions, and Ringo two) is partly owned by Michael Jackson. The publishing company still passes the payments on, Jackson will just get some kind of financial benefit as the co-owner of the company.
So under current UK copyright law anyone will be albe to press up a copy of 'Love Me Do' (their first single, dating from 1962) from January 1st 2013, but publishing will still have to be paid to Lennon's estate until the end of 2050, and to McCartney's estate up to at least 2075.
Gordon Brown (Score:3, Informative)
Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
And what about extending ideas? They're locking up our common culture - I still can't legally link to a copy of steamboat willy (Micky Mouse precursor) for the readers in the US can I? Could this mean that in some future dystopia everyone will have to pay simply to participate? Sorry Bob, I can't talk to you about last nights episode of Friends as you don't have a license....
Damnit. [gnu.org]
For those not up on UK politics ... (Score:4, Informative)
My suspicion is, because he is so desperate to raise more tax revenue, it that he will allow anyone and their dog to patent anything, "fire", "the wheel", for example, and then others will have to fight it down in court.
Remember, you read it here first.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:For those not up on UK politics ... (Score:2)
"Fire, on the Internet"
"Fire, on a mobile communications device"
"Wheels, on the Internet"
"Wheels, on a mobile communications device"
Straight Talk About Copyrights (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, this is actually a repost from a week or so back, but it seems like not so many have read it .....
The theory that we've all been taught is that copyrights are "intellectual property" rights that protect creators, and give them an incentive to make creative works that provide personal and public benefit. The truth is that property rights exist to allocate finite resources, not to artificially choke supply for the sake of incentive. Rather than protection, or a free market property, copyrights are more like a regulation that micromanages how people can use information. In practice, they are dangerous to rely on and lock out more opportunity then they promote.
History has shown that just protection of property rights leads to strong incentives, but coercion of incentive does not necessarily lead to just property rights. Simply because an institution calls something a property right, doesn't mean that it is. If, for example, an industry used the government to artificially restrict the natural supply of food and called shares of that monopoly a "property right", it would be very easy to see how the artificial distortion of markets would not only cause opportunity loss, but harm to society. Copyrights are a way for some industries to use government to artificially restrict the natural supply of information and force the market to center around information control rather than service value. That causes opportunity loss, harm to society, and a burden of enforcement that is too heavy to bear in the information age.
Normally copyright concerns would not be so eminent as they have been effectively used for hundreds of years without failure. However, things are different this time and faith in the copyright system is rather dangerous. Just as the industrial revolution forced the commoditisation of the labor market and the ugly death of the plantation system. The information age is forcing the commoditisation of information and the ugly death of the copyright system. It is not a coincidence that the speculative stock market crash around 1857, regarding industrial technology is very similar to the speculative stock market crash in 2001 regarding information technology. It is not a coincidence that the slavery issue created a raging debate about artificial "property rights" as copyrights have today. It is not a coincidence the disproportional prosperity of the plantation system then and the disproportional prosperity of the copyright industries today (That is, unless one thinks hollywood is underpaid). Things like the harsh punishments for merely teaching a person of color to read, vs copyright crimes having punishments worse than rape today. These are all symptoms of drastically changing markets and entrenched dying industries trying to prevent change. As for those industries that thought that the entire purpose and meaning of the industrial revolution was to leverage inventions like the cotton-gin to expand their plantations for unlimited growth and profit - they were deadly wrong in spite of all the money and intellect behind them. Those industries today whom believe that the entire purpose and meaning of the information age is to leverage inventions like the Internet to expand the influence of copyright controls for vast growth and profit, well?
Well, over the next several years, the copyright system will not only be changed, it will become effectively dead. All industries that center on them will change or die a protracted death, and all institutions that rely on a proprietary information infrastructure will be stuck in the mud as they suffer numerous opportunity costs. The information age is doing for information services what the industrial revolution did for production. However, the copyright system doesn't center around the supply and demand of service, but an artificial supply restrictions on information that services bring about. Over the coming years as information becomes commoditized and service value becomes more important than the content val
Re:Straight Talk About Copyrights (Score:2)
On reviewing policies... (Score:3, Insightful)
When he talks about balance between right-holders and consumers, he clearly misses the fact the distinction between the two is getting at least very vague. When he talks about enforcement of IP, he doesn't seem to see enforcement of IP will be futile in the very near future.
What happens now with music and movies, will happen with physical products soon. Right now metal parts can be custom machined by sending a drawing over the internet to a metal shop. It's done almost fully automated, noone checks on patent infringement. A metal shop could be manufacturing patented machines on a large scale without being noticed by the owners of the shop. The drawings could be torrented all around the internet. (it's probably happening already). It will happen with chemicals in less than five years, and with DNA in probably less than ten years.
Not to mention the 2.5 billion of people living in China and India alone, who will be very hard to convince they have to pay for using certain knowledge freely available on the internet.
As attempts to enforce copyright on music never fail to fail, so will other forms of IP as we know it fail. A study which does not recognise the fact that the very concept of IP is under pressure and likely to collapse, is therefore doomed to fail too.
On the other hand, if the review does recognise this, and studies IP at a conceptual level, it's also doomed, because it will be ignored.
Start Lobbying today (Score:2)
We need to start lobbying against this now, with friends, family and our MPs; We need to set the agenda with news and media, we need to demonstrate that Gowers, the News and Media as copyright holder are obviously biased and demand a fair hearing. We need to point out that; Gowers as a copyright holder should disqualify himself, for his obvious bias. We need to get this meme into the public consciousness. We need to use organisations like the PPC to ensure that people opposing this gets a fair hearing.
Re:From the article: (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:From the article: (Score:3, Funny)
"We need ID cards! It'll make us safer" "but no one wants them, they've shown no benefits what so ever and they're going to cost a bomb!" "But they'll stop terrorism!" "NO. THEY. WON'T." "Shut up! We'll buy another report which says they will! That'll show you!"
Please don't use common sense in this matter.. it's not a good idea.
Re:From the article: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:From the article: (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think this is fair. Many us of here are software authors, and I think you'll find that something like 10 to 1 subscribe to the "programming is art" as opposed to the "programming is science" school of thought. Having said that, we know that programmers and authors and artists and musicians are the least likely to profit greatly from the hoardes of money that our products bring. I write a great program, a great song, a great boook, an
Re:From the article: (Score:4, Insightful)
And?
Here's a little secret to the free market: it requires dozens of people or groups to bring anything to the mass public. Idea makers, content producers, content directors, content creators, sales and marketing, packaging, shipping, distribution, retail and the end customer.
Just because you can come up with a great idea doesn't mean you have the best version of it. Just because you can code the best version doesn't mean you have the best interface. Just because you have the best interface doesn't mean you have access to the best distribution. Just because you have the best distribution doesn't mean you have an in-road to the customers' minds. Just because you have good advertising doesn't mean the sales staff will understand how to sell the product.
This is my problem with IP -- it disregards everything after creation. Creation is not enough, in fact, it is worthless. So much of creation is based on previous inventions -- how fast would we have new inventions if the old investions didn't have decades of protection?
There are those who say that creation will stop without protections, but I think this is stupid. Companies for hundreds of years have hired "invention wings" of thinkers who come up with new ideas. Before IP laws became so protective, companies continued to invent, create and distribute. The IP laws that help your company protect one idea are the same laws that prevent your company from perfecting the ideas of millions of others.
IP does not protect freedom or creation, it hampers both. Monopolies are bad -- and can only be protected in the long run by government force.
Re:From the article: (Score:3, Insightful)
Give us protection, or there won't be any innovation!
Of course for that to be true, there couldn't have been any innovation or creation before IP ... and yet...?
To be human is to be creative.
You're as likely to stop human creativity as to stop the tides, the winds or this little rock spinning 'round the sun.
Even these IP laws won't stop creativity: Creativity will just move to where it can be free. America was the destination for scientists and artists in the la
Re:From the article: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:From the article: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:From the article: (Score:2)
IMHO, I think that the lesson of Open Source programs is that software is greatly misunderstood. People have a habit of describing software as an engineering project, or an appliance, but in reality software is more like a how-to or do-it-yourself book stripped of all the unnecessary human-language guilding. It's a list of instructions, the most basic incarnation
Re:From the article: (Score:3, Funny)
--
I know what you're thinking, but I am not a nut-bag. -- Millroy the Magician
Somebody has to say it (Score:3, Insightful)
IP is obsolete
therefore
DESTROY IP
Somebody had to say it
Re:Somebody has to say it (Score:2)
Bikes are obsolete
therefore :
DESTROY BIKES!
Your theory doesn't make sense..
Re:Somebody has to say it (Score:2)
Nah..don't destroy them, but, I do wish we could keep the damned things OFF the road where cars are driving. They can't do much over 20 mph on a good day downhill....while cars around them are going minimum 30-40mph. (And that's if you're doing the speed limit)
They hold up traffic at the risk of being run over if you don't happen to see them in time...
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Sneaky corruption in law-making (Score:2)
Que?
We have these things called "death certificates", which have a person's name and date of death on them. Failing that, as the poster above said, poking the potentially-deceased with a pointy stick tends to work wonders...
Simon
Please ignore the ignorant replies. (Score:2)
Re:fucking great (Score:2)