

Three Strikes Against ACTA In European Parliament Today - Tsiolkovsky
http://falkvinge.net/2012/05/31/three-strikes-against-acta-in-european-parliament-today/

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josteink
It's interesting that in the US, the country which has attempted to push this
legislation on everyone else, that Obama declined to reject it because "it was
an internationally binding agreement" before almost anyone else has voted on
it or ratified it.

Hopefully this is the beginning of an end in the US-led international abuse of
copyright law.

Copyright law needs to reform and it needs to get back to its roots. It needs
to get back to being limited and it needs to get back to being a _temporary_
monopoly.

The public domain, the one thing which copyright law was _actually_ created to
ensure, is dying before our very eyes and noone seems willing to save it.

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k-mcgrady
What kind of copyright reform would you like to see? Is it to do with the
years a person has copyright on something?

I think the best way to do it would be allowing someone to maintain copyright
on their creation until they die (or in the case of multiple creators, they
are all dead) after which it immediately enters public domain. There would
also need to be provisions that record/movie companies etc. couldn't hold
copyright, it would have to remain with the creator. Of course then there is
the problem of defining the creator.

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josteink
Copyright should only be long enough to encourage creation of content.

Back in the days, when things moved a million times slower than they do today,
14 years was more than sufficient to encourage mass creation of content. No
author's life plus plus bullshit. 14 years. That's what you got to monetize.
No more.

I see no reason it should be anything more today.

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glesica
I personally like this idea, or some variant thereof. Bringing the life of the
author into the copyright term just muddies the waters with respect to
corporate copyright (since corporations don't necessarily ever cease to
exist). Additionally, if a creator dies suddenly, his estate can still
exercise his copyright. This is important for small-time creators who may be
supporting families and the like.

The big counter-argument that I've heard is that movie studios (Disney
especially with the "vault") still make money on movies that are decades old.
But this is a fundamentally flawed argument. The point of copyright (both
theoretically and in the US Constitution) is to encourage creation. So it
doesn't matter if copyright doesn't maximize Disney's revenue, so long as it
is enough to encourage them to make movies in the first place. A term of
roughly 10-20 years should be _more_ than enough to do that.

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rmc
_Bringing the life of the author into the copyright term just muddies the
waters with respect to corporate copyright (since corporations don't
necessarily ever cease to exist)_

They've thought of that. Usually the law says "50 years from creation if the
copyright is held by a company" or something like that.

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luriel
Corporate copyright is 120 years after creation or 95 years after publication,
whichever is shorter:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_United_Sta...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_United_States#Duration_of_copyright)

Can somebody please explain to me how this is not insane?

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jeremyswank
how about this: copyright is a moral right pertaining to the creator (or group
of creators). it cannot be transferred. it cannot be sold to a corporation. it
cannot be inherited. it lasts 14 years without fee, and you can renew it up to
2 times for a fee (as was the tradition before, if i am not mistaken).

my assumption is (roughly) that if copyright is intended to encourage and
support creative output, then only the actual creators should be the
beneficiaries of it.

(i don't know if i really think this would be the best -- or even a good --
system, in a way i'm trying it on for size and want to hear what others
think.)

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TazeTSchnitzel
You mean similarly to patents? I always think it's strange how patents expire
but copyright never seems to.

