Copyright in Botswana
p2p news / p2pnet:- Botswana is working on a bill to amend the Copyright and Neighbouring Rights Act.
I’d like to get my hands on it because its content seems like a plain violation of more than one fundamental right and look just plain weird:
Under the proposed law, every sound and audio-visual recording made available to the public by sale, rental, lending or distribution for commercial purpose in Botswana will have a security device affixed to it. The copyright office will issue the device once the person who wants to make it available to the public has paid. The device will only be approved if the owner of the copyright has made authorisation. The device will be the only indication that it is not a pirated work.
Any person who contravenes the set requirements shall be liable upon conviction to a fine not exceeding P20, 000 or to an imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years. Any person who reproduces the device without the authorisation of the copyright office shall be liable to a fine not exceeding P50, 000 or imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years.
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.]
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October 6th, 2005 at 7:29 pm
These are countries that desperately need to suck up to United States lobbied interests. Unfortunately they have no idea what they’re getting into.
October 6th, 2005 at 8:16 pm
Hi..
You are mistaken. Ut is only for COMMERCIAL Property. P2P is safe. Hell, most ppl in Southern Africa, do not even know what p2p is
October 7th, 2005 at 12:18 am
“Hell, most ppl in Southern Africa, do not even know what p2p is”
That’s exactly my point. I live in Canada and can see first hand how American corporations aggressively try to push their policies onto our government. Fortunately for us, the courts have so far been smarter than our politicians
October 7th, 2005 at 6:53 am
The first sentence describes how the “device” only be applied to commercial distributions.
The second sentence makes the device owner cough up some cash for the privilage of having a “protected” work.
The third sentence says that the (potential) device owner must have permission from the copyright holder to have the device approved.
The second paragraph describes the punishment for NOT going through the official process of getting the authrized device. The last sentence say that any person who copies the DEVICE is liable to get in trouble.
Basically this is the requirements for the AUTHORS and DISTRIBUTORS, not the ordinary people, although it does say that you can get in trouble for reproducing the “device” – it doesn’t say you get in trouble for removing it altogether. (So you could copy a CD, but so long as you don’t copy the device to make your burnt CD look “legit” you’re fine.
I like the idea – there are more obligations on the copyright holder, and it leaves the copyright office open to revoke the copyright if the author/distributor stops paying.
October 8th, 2005 at 12:22 pm
The proposed law is nothing more than an attack on freedom of speech. As more speech is through high persistence audio and video recordings, the threat of speech to the politicians who are there for the money becomes greater. They have found a solution to the freedom of speech problem of videos and mp3 files.
Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com
October 11th, 2005 at 5:50 am
You would think there would be more pressing issues in Botswana. For instance, the 38% adult HIV prevalence rate. Maybe they’ll put ‘devices’ into all of them next to monitor all of their HIV+ people.