





Czech Copyright Bill Undercuts Copyleft, Artists 282
A user writes "Earlier this month a copy of a draft of the Czech Republic's new Copyright Act [Czech PDF] was leaked to Pirate News. Included among several disturbing provisions are new regulations for 'public licenses' such as Creative Commons licenses and the GPL/BSD licenses. The amendment essentially requires that an artist wishing to use a public license must notify the administrator of a collecting agency, and must prove that they created the work in question. This goes against one of the strengths of Creative Commons and other licenses, namely the ease with which they can be applied. Additionally, collecting agencies will have increased jurisdiction over copylefted and orphaned works. ZeroPaid covers the story, noting that the amendment also reduces the royalties which artists receive from libraries by 40%, with that money instead going directly to publishers."
Comment removed (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Still just a draft (Score:3, Interesting)
Depends on who ponies up the cash to pay off the right people. The Czech Republic has some of the highest rates of corruption in the OECD according to wikipedia. Take it with a grain of salt.
VIolation of the Berne Convention (Score:5, Interesting)
Isn't this a violation of the Berne Convention?
According to Wikipedia:
Re:Current law isn't much better either (Score:1, Interesting)
I don't know the copyright situation in the Czech Republic but the royalties situation was corrupt everywhere. Bands who released on an indy label and received massive play on local stations wouldn't get a fair royality because local stations were always under represented in the limited sample of playlist stats for a given period.
With the internet, I'd question if we need collection agencies at all. This development and sideline squarking over compulsory licensing in the EU show the agencies also recognise their impending and inevitable redundancy. The berne convention doesn't state that works must be registered to receive copyright protection. So any Czech legislation to this effect would be unenforcable.
Re:Speechless (Score:3, Interesting)
Taking things a bit out of context? It's not actively making it harder, it's just making it so that people actually have to show they have a right to license the content that way.
Yet does the same not apply to any creative work?. Should people who use a commercial licence not also have to prove that they have the right to licence it - and that it is not plagiarism?
Re:Speechless (Score:2, Interesting)
I don't see how it needs special casing, it's copyright infringement. I'm no fan of the Berne Convention, but it requires copyright to be automatic and involve no formal registration. It's only fair to either uphold that treaty for both copyright and copyleft, or neither.
Neither would be the preferred solution. Registration would simplify a lot of things and ensure survival of works throughout the ages if coupled with compulsory archival in national libraries.
You could even legitimately call unauthorized use or fraudulent registration of unregistered works "theft" then.
Re:Copyleft does complicate the system (Score:1, Interesting)
If I write a book, and wish to live on it, I prefer to be able to sell that book, and not worry about somebody undercutting me or just taking advantage of their lack of costs of writing it.
And no, I don't want to be forced to merchandise it, or hold my hypothetical readers hostage by refusing to release more until I get enough money.
As for Derivative works, some of us get attached to our stories and don't like others messing with them while we're alive. Go figure.
A little clarification (Score:2, Interesting)
It has a very good chance of passage... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Copyleft does complicate the system (Score:2, Interesting)
A few weeks ago, I read an article about the lack of copyright in Germany in the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century. Compared to England - where copyright had been introduced a long time ago - there were significantly more books available at cheaper prices. The authors were paid better, too.
Here it is:
Google Translation [googleusercontent.com] / Original German [spiegel.de]
Re:Copyleft does complicate the system (Score:5, Interesting)
Except that the actual truth is on the exact opposite side of the spectrum.
Fashion industry [nytimes.com] shows how profitable it is [ssrn.com], especially compared to most other industries, and in Fashion industry there are no copyrights or patents. Sure there are trademarks, but no copyrights or patents at all, and they are highly creative and profitable, thus proving your position inconsistent with reality.