Copyright Extension vote 10 days away
p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- Will March 23 mark the day corporate music vultures succeed in having their cake, eating it, buttering it on both sides and putting jam on it as well, to mix metaphors?
That’s the date the European Parliament is set to vote on extending the copyright term for sound recordings.
And it’s the date Vivendi Universal (France), Sony BMG (Japan and Germany), EMI (Britain), and Warner Music (US) expect to continue their complete and total domination of the world of music.
However, key European experts opposing the extension have released a new letter to MEPs warning of the dangers, says Sound Copyright.
A ‘ridiculous cultural aberration’
Copyright, “suspends what would otherwise be a musician’s natural liberty to build upon others’ published work,” said Crosbie Fitch recently, going on, “I think that is not only questionable, but highly unethical. Unfortunately, it’s the most I can do to convince people to at least question this state of affairs.
“The elders among us have simply grown up with the idea that it’s wrong to share and build upon each other’s published work without obtaining permission first. One day this will be looked back on as a ridiculous cultural aberration.”
Copyright is a, “form of intellectual property which gives the creator of an original work exclusive rights for a certain time period in relation to that work, including its publication, distribution and adaptation; after which time the work is said to enter the public domain,” says the Wikipedia [our emphasis], p2pnet said on Wednesday.
But, says Henry Emrich, “It’s actually worse than that … The ‘Elders’ have grown up with the notion that they have a ’sacred right’ NOT merely to monopolies such as copyright and patents, but the ’sacred right’ to break THEIR side of that contract by not allowing them to expire as originally promised. That’s the essense of the whole issue: every copyright extension is ultimately tantamount to ‘breach of contract’: it WOULD have expired on time, but now it won’t
Now, highlighting that the costs to the public are likely to exceed €1 billion, European academics warn »»»
If Europe wishes to keep its ability to innovate, it must not lock in the current industry structure at a moment of great technological change, it must not inhibit digital creators and archives in the exploration of music – music which has been paid for once already, during the existing term!
The public will not be fooled. If copyright law, cynically, departs from its purpose, piracy becomes an easy option.
We urge the European Parliament, and the governments of member states of the European Union, to consider carefully the independent evidence on copyright term extension, and reject the Directive in its proposed form.
“Your MEPs need to know that their voters are concerned and paying attention,” says Sound Copyright, “use our guide to lobbying your MEPs and a briefing pack.
“We can’t overstate it: get in touch with your MEPs now and use our new banners and buttons to spread the word.”
March, 2009
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March 13th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
Heh! With the “Cheers, Ryan” at the bottom it almost looks like I wrote that instead of just recommending the article
Thanks Jon, I appreciate it!
I did write to all my MEPs, not so hard really.. write your text and just add all their email address in the CC/BCC field, I wont post the email I wrote here as its a bit longish on text (being as passionate as i could about my feelings on the extension,and dont want to disrupt this pretty layout) but if you guys dont know what to write just send me a message and i’ll email you the text I sent them… either way PLEASE WRITE TO YOUR MEPS, its VERY important that you do.
Remember the first copyright extension was passed because most people didnt know and didnt care, this has resulted in BILLIONS of dollars from the consumer going to Disney and movie/music industries, and the padlock on a certain mouse as well as thousands of songs/albums and other forms or our rightful culture for years/decades longer… we paid for them the first time, we should not have had to pay for it again, but we did.
Lets not keep paying for it over and over like stupid sheep, long after you are gone your children will still be paying for it so to coin one of the most cliche phrases “THINK OF THE CHILDREN!”
Kidding aside, WRITE TO YOUR MEPs, make your voice heard or we _are_ going to end up with forever copyright minus a day ( http://ezee.se/49 ) .
March 13th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
Remind them that copyright is NOT A RIGHT, it is a PRIVILEGE. It is also a CONTRACT, a contract that the owners have with everyone. This contract grants owners a limited time monopoly PRIVILEGE in exchange for returning the work to the PUBLIC DOMAIN after the time has elapsed.
This copyright extension is a violation of that contract. Disney and the music labels are violating this contract. And if they violate the contract, why does the public have to respect their part of the deal????
March 13th, 2009 at 4:51 pm
If everything produced in the present and the last decade are to be kept out of the Public Domain for the next 50-100 years, what will be available in the Public Domain 10-20 years from now??
Copyright needs to die!
March 13th, 2009 at 4:58 pm
Ya gotta love the Disney model:
You take something FROM the public domain and expand on it, then copyright the shit out of it and keep it out of the public domain for another 100 years, and sue anyone who even tries to apply Fair Use to pieces of the *original* works.
Some years from now, students are going to be asking their teachers why they’re using only really, really old stuff in their cirriculum (i.e. Shakespeare, Burns, etc.), and not teaching them about writers/artists in the last 30 years. That can and will happen given the present scenario.
March 13th, 2009 at 10:56 pm
“The public will not be fooled. If copyright law, cynically, departs from its purpose, piracy becomes an easy option.”
Goddamn right.
It becomes an “easy” option, and a politically valuable one: THEY keep buying themselves bad laws, WE keep “breaking” those laws until everybody supporting such bad laws is bankrupted and totally destroyed.
And guess what?
We do the same thing if they EVER try it again.
Here’s a simple rule of thumb in regard to copyrights, patents and trademarks:
Whichever one has the SHORTEST term, is the one which is least odious.
Every increase in term length on ANY of them, is harmful.
Of course “piracy” is an “easy option” — the opposition finds buying themselves extensions every few years to be an “easy” option, but somehow THAT has the color of law.
Thus far, and no further.