Gun dealers and copyrights
p2pnet.net news view:- An article about a recent European proposal on copyright infuriates me, and demonstrates just how out of touch with reality some politicians are.
We live in a world where gun manufacturers aren’t held liable when people are killed, but where the person who’s in possession and control is liable.
While this is how we treat the major crimes that can be committed with guns, there are insane lawmakers worldwide who seem to think a different standard should be used for information technology. Rather than having individual citizens responsible for their own use and abuse of technology, the responsibility seems to be entirely in the hands of hardware manufacturers and software authors.
Canada’s legal-affairs committee said the abuse must be “a deliberate and conscious infringement of the intellectual property right for the purpose of obtaining commercial advantage”. As we’ve seen in the Viacom accusation against YouTube, what some old-media copyright holders think is “deliberate and conscious infringement” is very different from what a reasonable person would agree with. These old-media companies don’t want peer production or user generated content to compete with their industrial-era products and services, and thus claim any site that allows competition is deliberate and conscious infringement.
The only person who can possibly be deliberate and conscious of any alleged infringement is the person who uploaded the content, not any intermediary whether it’s a hosting service, software author, or hardware manufacturer. It should be this person, and this person alone, that should be liable for any claims of copyright infringement.
Let’s flip this around – let’s take all the people who committed violent crimes using guns and let them free, as clearly they can not be blamed for actions that are the fault of gun manufacturers. Let’s put all the manufacturers, distributors and promoters (including the military to be fair) in jail. If this isn’t appropriate for gun related crimes, why is it appropriate for copyright infringement?
I think some politicians really have their heads in the sand, promoting draconian counter-measures beyond what they’d do for violent crime, and apply them to non-criminal and questionably harmful non-commercial activities.
Russell McOrmond – p2pnet contributing editor
[McOrmond is an independent author (software and non-software) who uses modern business models and licensing (Free/Libre and Open Source Software, Creative Commons). He's also the CLUE policy coordinator.]
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Tired of being treated like a criminal? They depend on you, not the other way around. Don’t buy their ‘product’. Do bug your local politicians. Use emails, snail-mail, phone calls, faxes, IM, stop them in the street, blog. And if you’re into organizing, organize petitions, organize demonstrations and then turn up on your local political rep’s doorstep, making sure you’ve contacted your local tv/radio station/newspaper in advance. Don’t just complain. Do something!
March 23rd, 2007 at 9:21 am
Russell,
It’s very simple:
The gun dealers opps I mean manufaturers are right -because they have the $$ to buy the politicians.
The media cartel opps industry is correct -
because they havethe $$ to buy the politicians.
Andwhen you have the $$ to buy the politicians you too can be right.
March 23rd, 2007 at 10:55 am
I guess I can blame paper manufacturers and Zerox for copyright infringement as well. While I’m at it, I also blame dinner utensils for Rosie O’Donnell being fat
March 23rd, 2007 at 12:03 pm
“logic” is used in both the story and your post. Very good point you make. Thank you!
March 25th, 2007 at 5:37 am
I graps the problem that Russel brings forth as a result of a lack of some clear and universally accepted principles which are to be adhered to when legislating.
When you add the lack of princiles to the fact that legislation is done by diffrerent persons at different imes at diffrerent places, unde diferrent pressures and influences you are bound up to end up with a set of laws that are too many and inconsistent with esch other because each is based on a different principle or no principle at all. You end up with a “bowl of spagetti” laws.
As to copyright these are my principles
1. Copying without authorization should only be considered copyright infringement when the copying is done for monetary profit on a commercial scale. Let us forget about the kid that copies 3 records and sells them to his friends. The law breaker (the guilty one) is the one that gains (money or employment) from the infringement.
2. Copyright nfringement should be a civil, not criminal matter, unless the infringement is a violation of a judicial injunction to stop the infringement.
3. In civil proceedings , damages awarded should only be for the actual damages, plus interests and legal expenses. Arbitrary (statutory) damages shoulds only be set when the infringer fails to answer a lawsuit or fails to provide discovery information, for exampe, how many copies were made at what price. A penalty percentage may be added to compensate the victim for his/her time used to make the claims.
4. Companies that infringe in violation of a judicial injunction should be dissolved and the persos responsible shold be barred for from working in a copyright related indusdtry (as they do for bank workers who commit fraud).
Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com