WIPO Talks May Portend Sweeping Broacast-Based Copyright 113
An anonymous reader writes "It seems the nasty 'Broadcast Treaty' is rearing its head again in the WIPO talks. This would give a new copyright to what is uncopyrighted or out of copyright material to anyone who broadcasts the material. It essentially re-ups the copyright — not to the original copyright holder, but to the broadcaster, without any contract to the original holder."
What it's always been about (Score:4, Insightful)
Copyright is to protect the privileges of the distributor, never the creator...
What's a "Broacast"? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What it's always been about (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't be fooled by the stated intention. Copyright is the the exclusive right to copy, an act necessary for distribution, not for the creation of new works. Copyright law therefore inherently serves those who distribute, not those who create.
Temporary Monopoly (Score:5, Insightful)
The profitable privileges of the distributor have always conflicted with the free speech/press rights of the people. The US Constitution's original power to Congress to create something like copyright (a temporary monopoly "to promote progress in science and the useful arts") was a 1700s compromise with our rights that never really worked, like any compromise with rights. But it was the best our predecessors came up with in the generations when the publishing business was mostly defined by manufacturing and producing heavy physical products dressed up with the copyrighted content.
Since the 1900s, broadcasting has decreased the dependency on processing and moving matter for sale with content copied on it to make profits. We're far past the point where copyright is necessary for even the original 17 years. In 17 years a generation's new pop culture book becomes folk culture from the previous generation. But that takes only maybe 10 years for a TV show, 5 years for a movie, 3 years for a song, a couple years for a digital game. The profit curves match those pop->folk expirations, so the profits that promote science and the "useful" arts as incentive to create by those who'd do something else if profits didn't incent them also expire pretty quickly. The profits from the folk phase, the "long tail", are a bonus too small to justify to any realistic capitalist financier the initial creation, and are the product of as much work by the audience perpetuating the content as work by the creator or distributor. And of course most artists and inventors create their work not for the profits, but by the compulsion to create, which is typically what drives the creators of the best content - the content created solely for profits, especially large expected profits with no competition - is typically the least valuable creation, and most dependent on an artificial government monopoly to protect income.
In the 2000s, copyright for even the extended periods bought by the copyright industry from successive 1900s Congresses overall interferes with progress in science and the useful arts. It always conflicted with our speech/press rights. There is no justification for extending it beyond the original 17 years except simple corruption: the regulators are captured by the copyright industry, and violate the people's rights to press/speech as well as the progress in science and the useful arts that we need. The copyright changes that can trade progress for compromise of our rights would cut sharply the length of the monopoly, and release the content from control after the time the content has its shot at repaying the investment in creating it.
Re:What it's always been about (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, but the point of having that exclusive right is supposed to be to encourage the creation of new works.
Re:What it's always been about (Score:0, Insightful)
Patents Protect The Assignee, NOT The Inventor.
Every Engineer who is 'employed' signs an agreement in which everything invented in the 'scope of engagement' is automatically assigned to their employer.
Inventors typically get no rights whatsoever. It all goes to the rich folks.
We pretend that patents protect the little guy. It's mostly a mirage. The little guy can't afford a patent and certainly can't afford to defend it.
The only way an inventor can afford a patent is to get a venture capitalist involved and then you are back to giving it all to the rich folks.