I don't think that's necessarily true. The current Copyright laws are extremely over-reaching and also incredibly one sided, as user generated content or personal IP is often used by companies without the actual copyright owner's permission. Basically Copyright currently is a one-way street and it's wildly inconsistent and frequently misused.
This doesn't really need a government to "create room to tinker, create, share, and learn on the internet", it just needs the government(s) to fairly apply the law and punish businesses who rampantly abuse it. With US DMCA claims, all are made under the penalty of perjury that the claims are valid and true - how many stories do you know of that are about companies being punished for an overreach of copyright claims or for false claims? The answer is likely none because despite there being debate over the copyright misuse in courts, there are just too many damn instances of copyright misuse to even start with.
It's a considerable imbalance in US law because it's truly a case of where a wealthy few are able to protect their rights and use the law as a cudgel to get their way, and often their claims have no basis or are not covered by the copyright law as the companies want to interpret it. However, individuals do not have the resources to adequately challenge these claims, and the fraudulent DMCA claims have effects beyond the takedown.
There's nothing to revert. How many times in history the people had the power to choice their own future by voting and by campaigning?
The problem is not the politicians, they're just an easy scapegoat.
You can influence the society by voting with your money. Money is power and every time you give money to someone you give them power. Choosing who you work for, what products you buy (not only with money but also with your privacy) has enormous impact.
Politicians usually update our laws to catch up to technology by banning, restricting, or regulating it.
That's not entirely fair. For example, here in the UK, the government did try to reform copyright to some extent by introducing a private copying exception in 2014. This was several years later than it should have been and followed multiple extensive official reviews of IP laws, but at least they got there.
The exception was reasonably clear and quite tightly defined. Roughly speaking, it legalised actions like format shifting, making backup copies, and storing content on cloud services, provided they were for the personal, non-commercial use of someone who already had a legitimate permanent copy of that work. By modern political standards it was remarkable for following the original spirit of copyright so clearly: an individual would be free to enjoy a work they had lawfully obtained, including taking advantage of modern technologies, but the basic principle of copyright that the individual could not duplicate the work to share it with others was also maintained.
That law was overturned less than a year later following a judicial review, based on technicalities of EU law particularly around compensation for rightsholders.
There are a lot of things wrong with this situation, but in any case it is now abundantly clear that the EU authorities are heavily pro-big-copyright and have no qualms about using their influence to block progressive reforms or anything else that might be a threat to big rightsholders. They have repeatedly interfered both with member states' national governments, as in this case among others, but also on the world stage with organisations like the WIPO, from promoting longer copyright terms (again, contrary to overwhelming public opinion in evidence given to the official reviews) to blocking plans to ease restrictions on libraries so they can perform their public function.
So yes, unfortunately some politicians seem to have completely lost the plot here, but not all of them. Of course, in the particular case I mentioned, the power structure is about to change between the UK and EU authorities, so hopefully whatever deal gets worked out over Brexit will at least escape that particular unwanted interference.
> We'd have to change the power structure to get new laws that "create room to tinker, create, share, and learn on the internet."
What boggles my mind is that such views are cloaked in the garb of "freedom" but are essentially confiscatory and anti-freedom. They want to take away the freedom of people who create things to share those things on terms of their own choosing.
Copyright doesn't need to catch up with technology. The whole point of copyright is to keep people from getting ripped off. The fact that technological advances make it easier to rip people off doesn't create justification for changing the laws.
While I favour the sentiment, I won't sign the petition. One reason is that I am only a visitor to the EU.
But if I was a European, I would still be troubled by the vagueness of the thing. I'm all for putting rhetorical pressure in general directions; but if I am to put my signature on it and send it to a legislator, I want to see some concrete reform proposals.
Agreed. While to goal is noble, the description sounds like something written by 10th grader. I mean, com'on, are memes and GIFs are really among the most important things?
There's no text. I can highlight it, but it's not even the same color as the background. It looks like every letter has been replaced with a space. Is that copyright protection?
There is not enough information on the site to get me motivated to take any action. It sounds like the EU doesn't have fair use or the freedom of panorama? But is anyone is prison for photographing the Eiffel Tower or making a meme?
According to Wikipedia, it looks like it's not the entire EU that's missing a freedom of panorama, but just a few countries:
There are countries where the government mandates what clothes you wear and whatnot, so perhaps their society does not particularly value personal freedom. Thus it doesn't make much sense to me for a US company to intervene here.
Meanwhile, the law seems to be ignored and the cost of an international lawsuit over a picture of a building is prohibitive to nearly everyone, so I'm not too worried.
You can do something. Support organizations like Mozilla, EFF and FSF. Donate to them and stop using companies like google (which pushed for DRM on the web), facebook, etc. That make money selling your privacy and use that money to influence standards and laws.
Yet we still have strong pushes from the government on the radical TPP and TTIP. I fear they want to update the law to catch up with technology but not in pro-consumer or pro-citizen way.
EU copyright reform is coming. The Commission (=administration/ministry) proposal is scheduled for 21st of September. It will propose more harmonisation (currently the EU sets just a basic framework, countries choose what/what not to implement in detail, but the terrible is of course that the more ambitious it tries to be the less likely it will go through. The more national systems will be unpredictably affected, the more likely you'll get a few vetos. So the proposal will significantly update, improve and bring more clarity across borders, but necessarily makes compromises and has to leave enough freedom to not ruin existing working systems.
At that point the ball is handed over to the European parliament (~750 members elected from the 28 EU member states) and the council, i.e. the heads of state .
That means 1-2 years of negotiations and finally political bargaining between the member states.
The big issue is that copyright is only partially harmonised, so after that procedure EU member states have to transpose the EU law into national law.
Along all these stages vested interests will be lobbying. Politicians will cut deals. The EU (at least the eurocrats) will try their best to get an ambitious result, but we all know that it's in the end about politics. Political parties and leaders will make the final call.
There is no abstract EU making decisions about Europe. There are national governments, national parliaments and nationally elected politicians negotiating and cutting deals.
If you want a good copyright framework stop sending incredibly vague petitions. Go and pick up the phone and call an MEP. Go and join a party and make an effort to get into the committee that sets the party line. Go and visit your local politicians' open hours and tell them that you expect them to make their party listen - and offer to provide support.
Then you'll make change happen.
Stop slacktivism. Start informing yourself (by reading the stuff on 21st September) and then take an honest look to try where you can act.
Writing laws is much much much harder than writing code (corner cases, ambiguity, corruption, etc.).
Did you ever write a "big" program completely bug-free? I think we should first start by writing correct programs (e.g. invest more in Coq, linters, etc.) then "pass" our wisdom to law writers.
That'll just make them consistent, not necessarily right.
Laws should definitely be more declarative though. There seems to be a push towards a more imperative style of law making which results in very inflexible legislation.
[+] [-] leereeves|9 years ago|reply
Politicians usually update our laws to catch up to technology by banning, restricting, or regulating it.
We'd have to change the power structure to get new laws that "create room to tinker, create, share, and learn on the internet."
[+] [-] csydas|9 years ago|reply
This doesn't really need a government to "create room to tinker, create, share, and learn on the internet", it just needs the government(s) to fairly apply the law and punish businesses who rampantly abuse it. With US DMCA claims, all are made under the penalty of perjury that the claims are valid and true - how many stories do you know of that are about companies being punished for an overreach of copyright claims or for false claims? The answer is likely none because despite there being debate over the copyright misuse in courts, there are just too many damn instances of copyright misuse to even start with.
It's a considerable imbalance in US law because it's truly a case of where a wealthy few are able to protect their rights and use the law as a cudgel to get their way, and often their claims have no basis or are not covered by the copyright law as the companies want to interpret it. However, individuals do not have the resources to adequately challenge these claims, and the fraudulent DMCA claims have effects beyond the takedown.
[+] [-] ffggvv|9 years ago|reply
The problem is not the politicians, they're just an easy scapegoat.
You can influence the society by voting with your money. Money is power and every time you give money to someone you give them power. Choosing who you work for, what products you buy (not only with money but also with your privacy) has enormous impact.
[+] [-] Silhouette|9 years ago|reply
That's not entirely fair. For example, here in the UK, the government did try to reform copyright to some extent by introducing a private copying exception in 2014. This was several years later than it should have been and followed multiple extensive official reviews of IP laws, but at least they got there.
The exception was reasonably clear and quite tightly defined. Roughly speaking, it legalised actions like format shifting, making backup copies, and storing content on cloud services, provided they were for the personal, non-commercial use of someone who already had a legitimate permanent copy of that work. By modern political standards it was remarkable for following the original spirit of copyright so clearly: an individual would be free to enjoy a work they had lawfully obtained, including taking advantage of modern technologies, but the basic principle of copyright that the individual could not duplicate the work to share it with others was also maintained.
That law was overturned less than a year later following a judicial review, based on technicalities of EU law particularly around compensation for rightsholders.
There are a lot of things wrong with this situation, but in any case it is now abundantly clear that the EU authorities are heavily pro-big-copyright and have no qualms about using their influence to block progressive reforms or anything else that might be a threat to big rightsholders. They have repeatedly interfered both with member states' national governments, as in this case among others, but also on the world stage with organisations like the WIPO, from promoting longer copyright terms (again, contrary to overwhelming public opinion in evidence given to the official reviews) to blocking plans to ease restrictions on libraries so they can perform their public function.
So yes, unfortunately some politicians seem to have completely lost the plot here, but not all of them. Of course, in the particular case I mentioned, the power structure is about to change between the UK and EU authorities, so hopefully whatever deal gets worked out over Brexit will at least escape that particular unwanted interference.
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] rayiner|9 years ago|reply
What boggles my mind is that such views are cloaked in the garb of "freedom" but are essentially confiscatory and anti-freedom. They want to take away the freedom of people who create things to share those things on terms of their own choosing.
Copyright doesn't need to catch up with technology. The whole point of copyright is to keep people from getting ripped off. The fact that technological advances make it easier to rip people off doesn't create justification for changing the laws.
[+] [-] adrianratnapala|9 years ago|reply
But if I was a European, I would still be troubled by the vagueness of the thing. I'm all for putting rhetorical pressure in general directions; but if I am to put my signature on it and send it to a legislator, I want to see some concrete reform proposals.
Instead I see a wish-list of outcomes.
[+] [-] ffggvv|9 years ago|reply
The above petition had an effect on European MEPs.
[+] [-] kbart|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] philipov|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throwanem|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jrockway|9 years ago|reply
According to Wikipedia, it looks like it's not the entire EU that's missing a freedom of panorama, but just a few countries:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_panorama
There are countries where the government mandates what clothes you wear and whatnot, so perhaps their society does not particularly value personal freedom. Thus it doesn't make much sense to me for a US company to intervene here.
Meanwhile, the law seems to be ignored and the cost of an international lawsuit over a picture of a building is prohibitive to nearly everyone, so I'm not too worried.
[+] [-] sofaofthedamned|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DarkLinkXXXX|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] guard-of-terra|9 years ago|reply
I don't see any democracy in observing how this system works, only sense of entitlement of the minority.
[+] [-] ffggvv|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MollyR|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cornstalks|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] summarite|9 years ago|reply
At that point the ball is handed over to the European parliament (~750 members elected from the 28 EU member states) and the council, i.e. the heads of state .
That means 1-2 years of negotiations and finally political bargaining between the member states.
The big issue is that copyright is only partially harmonised, so after that procedure EU member states have to transpose the EU law into national law.
Along all these stages vested interests will be lobbying. Politicians will cut deals. The EU (at least the eurocrats) will try their best to get an ambitious result, but we all know that it's in the end about politics. Political parties and leaders will make the final call.
There is no abstract EU making decisions about Europe. There are national governments, national parliaments and nationally elected politicians negotiating and cutting deals.
If you want a good copyright framework stop sending incredibly vague petitions. Go and pick up the phone and call an MEP. Go and join a party and make an effort to get into the committee that sets the party line. Go and visit your local politicians' open hours and tell them that you expect them to make their party listen - and offer to provide support.
Then you'll make change happen.
Stop slacktivism. Start informing yourself (by reading the stuff on 21st September) and then take an honest look to try where you can act.
[+] [-] adamnemecek|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ffggvv|9 years ago|reply
Did you ever write a "big" program completely bug-free? I think we should first start by writing correct programs (e.g. invest more in Coq, linters, etc.) then "pass" our wisdom to law writers.
[+] [-] contravariant|9 years ago|reply
Laws should definitely be more declarative though. There seems to be a push towards a more imperative style of law making which results in very inflexible legislation.
[+] [-] barkbro|9 years ago|reply
Does Mozilla also think that a meme is an image macro or am I misunderstanding here?
[+] [-] reitanqild|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mike128|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] WorldMaker|9 years ago|reply
For a brief second I saw the sci-fi view of that headline and am now disappointed this isn't about someone's "time laws".
[+] [-] Dowwie|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ldjb|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Asooka|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] 99182912|9 years ago|reply
"We're more than the sum of our collective accolades."
"We're bigger than our innovations."