A royal view on copyright...

I was reading the paper at the weekend and came across an interesting article by Pelle Snickars, head of research at Kungliga Biblioteket  - the Swedish Royal Library.  The article discusses the Google books project and the ramifications of the internet on the availability and distribution of our common culture - in particular it draws attention to the majority of the books being scanned which are not in the public domain - but not commercially available either.  Orphaned works that are effectively lost to our collective online heritage.  It is a state of affairs that he ascribes to over-extensive copyright.. 

"A series of independent studies have shown that cultural products such as books, music or films have a commercial value on the market during a five-to ten-year period. With some extremely few exceptions – and Google Book Search is about the General rather than the particulate – then demand drops dramatically. Even if  the "long tail" in the long term will perhaps extend the commercial potential for various cultural products, it is a consumption pattern that will continue for a further period. For example, when American copyright demanded that copyright owners extended their rights after 28 years, it was less than 15% that bothered to. The incentive to extend rights to a commodity that no longer generates profit was fairly negligible.

That almost nine out of ten copyright owners did not find it worthwhile to renew their rights ought to be a cause for reflection, but developments have rather gone the other way. As several network activists and progressive law professors have said, the extension of the terms of protection over the past decades have been unusually narrow-minded given how the Internet developed during the same period. Future historians will in all probability be asked how the lawmakers were thinking that could  lock in the whole cultural production of the 20th century at the same time as the Web was developing as a global distribution channel available to all citizens."
(translated by Bing.. with a bit of help from me..)
 
Laws should be about getting the best deal for society - but clearly today copyright fails to deliver.   It's no coincidence that Piratpartiet are advocating greatly reduced copyright duration to bring back the balance between creators and society.  If you don't believe me, go to the library and look it up...

Piratpartiet & The Pirate Party -  Working for copyright reform.

MPs challenge the UK government on file sharing

A parliamentary early day motion on illicit filesharing is challenging the governments position on how to tackle filesharing.  It highlights that alleged offenders can easily conceal their (IP) identity, that not-for-profit downloads don't necessarily cause financial loss, and that cutting people off the net is unjust for others using the same connection.  Pretty obvious stuff - but the government clearly don't get it.  Great anyway to see the mainstream parties waking up to address the issues. 

So far eighteen MPs from five partys have signed  up....   More please!
(so much for two party politics!)

Update: now 26 MPs

Tips: Pirate Party blog " MPs start to get it"

Piratpartiet & The Pirate Party -  Working for copyright reform.

Morons on copyright? Tell it like it is..

Boing Boing & Michael Geist report on a submission to the Canadian consultation on copyright by Access Copyright - an organisation that collects copyrights for writers.  As BB reports - they came out as opposing the right to record TV shows at home, and the right to "format shift"  media (e.g., load a CD on your MP3 player, or put an old ebook on a new reader or phone). They also say that almost all commercial use, no matter how trivial, should require a license and not fall under fair dealing.

I would comment on how stupid this is - but I found I don't need to...   this quote from BoingBoings comments says it all...

"What a bunch of well-intentioned albeit deluded and ignorant frickin' morons. As a Canadian writer I am stunned and embarrassed by their comments. They neither represent the true needs of creators nor reflect the reality we are now living in. Excuse me now whilst I go back to pounding my head against the desk and mutter: "What the fuck were they thinking?!" - Robbo

Piratpartiet & The Pirate Party -  Working for copyright reform.

Tips on living under Surveillance: Stockholm Edition....

I've blogged about it before but just today I thought Swedish readers might find themselves in need of advice on how to communicate securely in repressive environments. 

Actually.. it's not just - or not even Sweden - that is under surveillance now that parliament here has for the second time given the thumbs up for the FRA to tap all traffic passing Swedish borders.  It's enough to piss you off....  Whatever happened to principles?

Piratpartiet & The Pirate Party -  Defending your privacy

Human Rights & Culture

Spend the time to look and learn.....

Privacy & Justice on the front line

It's one thing to write laws... And quite another to see them tested through the courts...

The week's big news - which admittedly got a bit lost here in the Swedish blogoshere with FRA in the news- is that a court in Romania has ruled the Data Retention Directive to be a breach of individuals' right to secrecy of communications. Which is GREAT news.  It's not immediately going to affect the legal position in other EU countries, but in the long term it's untenable that an EU country can conclude that EU law is in breach of our civil rights and that not propogate up to an EU wide judicial test. More on this at the Open Rights Group.

Meanwhile, closer to home, the Swedish appeal court has ruled against five publishers in the first case under Sweden's controversial IPRED legislation (Allowing media companies to demand details from ISPs on who uses which IP address). The court overturned the previous ruling concluding that the prosecution had failed to show that e-books on a password protected server were 'available to the public'.  If nothing else this is going to drive up the standards of evidence required to show a copyright infringement has taken place - which is no bad thing.  Congratulations to ephone that have stood up to protect their customer's privacy.

The third legal news this week is that the boys from the Pirate Bay are back in the news with allegations that evidence used in a trial in the Netherlands is fabricated.  Peter Sunde has a long explanation on his blog on why a company credit search presented to tie them to ownership of the Pirate Bay is a fake - and an official complaint has now been lodged.  Amongst other things the company that are supposed to have created the search record have no record of making the search...    Is the media industry so desperate for convictions that they are fabricating evidence?  It will be interesting to watch this one...

Piratpartiet & The Pirate Party -  Putting Privacy first.

Secret Affair: This is the time for action (FRA edition)

"This is the time for action, this is the time to be seen"

Sadly I missed the demonstrations on Saturday against the FRA legislation - up for review in the Swedish parliament on Wednesday.  This legislation - which is in force since the first of January this year - allows state monitoring of ALL traffic passing Swedens international borders (mail, telephony, SMS, surfing etc, etc).  There are specific provisions to limit surveillance on traffic originating in Sweden - but all other traffic is fair game.... 

Which means if you don't live in Sweden THIS AFFECTS YOU!  Your right to privacy?  Those nice guys in Riksdagen are about to screw you over....

If that concerns you then write to them and tell them.  Lobby them to respect your privacy and vote against this legislation.

Write today...    write now........  do it.

Contact details here.  Supporting the bill and in need of your persuasion are Moderaterna (m), Kristdemokraterna (kd), Folkpartiet (f) and Centerpartiet (c)... click through for lists of names and mail contact details..


Piratpartiet & The Pirate Party -  Putting Privacy first.