Japan’s ‘Free Use’ copyright
p2pnet.net News:- The Copyright Division of the Japanese Agency for Cultural Affairs (ACA) provides an nice overview of the 2003 and 2004 Law for the Amendment of Japan’s Copyright Law [PDF - thru Chosaq]. The overview also mentions the copyright policy for building a “Nation Based on Intellectual Property”.
To this end the ACA strives to popularize something which is reminiscent of a (limited) Creative Commons system: the Free Use Marks system, “which enables copyright holders to predetermine the scope in which their copyrighted works can be used without advance approval.”
These are the symbols copyrightholders can attach to their works:
From left to right:
1. Copy OK: Permission for printing, duplication, and free distribution
2. Use by Disabled OK: Permission for non-profit use for the benefit of the disabled
3. School education OK: Permission for non-profit use for school education
I’ve got no idea how widely this system is used, but one would think that at least the third option (School education OK) might be covered by the permissible scope of exceptional unapproved use. Anybody to fill me in?
Rik Lambers – CoCo
[Lambers is a former researcher at the Institute for Information Law, Amsterdam, who's now in transition to a new full time job in the field of IP/Internet law. He's also an associate member of the European INDICARE project, which
researches consumer issues related to DRM.
==================
Something you think we should know? tips[at]p2pnet.net
May 20th, 2005 at 3:54 pm
That’s the REAL story behind this push.
Large industrialized nations are seeing their major industries and productive sectors beginning to deline compared with the rest of the world.
Rather than make laws which encourage resurgence (a lot of work and a VERY painful political move) they decided to use their current power to try to arm-twist the rest of the world into providing them “welfare” (or a “pension) for their previous contributions to global society.
It doesn’t work that way! You can’t build a nation on the production of NOTHING.