Chinese Propose New Copyright Laws

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copyright, intellectual property law

Techdirt relates the Chinese government has been looking to change copyright laws in an attempt to grapple with the new realities of the internet age. Here’s the portions of the new law that are causing a fuss:

“According to Article 46, any record producer who acts pursuant to Article 48 shall have the right to make recordings of musical works owned by another, without needing authorization from the original owner, given that the content had been published for three months or longer.” [Italics mine]

The three month stipulation is causing consternation with the producers and artists, and for good reason. ”It is very difficult to popularize a new song within three months. Getting your song heard and appreciated by others is completely different from a song that has been around for years. This new amendment will encourage Internet copyright infringement…” The main reason for this is to protect the Chinese government from charges of piracy of foreign works.

As someone who publishes books, I have an interest in getting paid for my work, but I also refuse to use DRM on my works. I’d rather have people read my stuff than not; if they pay for the product, so much the better. Three months does not allow an artist to profit from their efforts, but the “copyright industry” that has cropped up looking to sue anyone they can and buy up any property they can lay their mits on has made this an issue. There is a long-standing precedent of works — music, books, etc — eventually entering the public domain once they are out of print. (List of the copyright law period for various countries.) The copyright industry and several governments (France and China) are working hard to prevent intellectual property moving to public domain; lawyers want to buy up public works and sequester them, profiting off of material that has been open to the people. Governments are instead choosing to place public domain works into government control for the same reason — revenue.

I find I’m moving steadily toward thinking that IP should move — at longest — to public domain after the death of the creator. The continuation of copyright a few decades after death was to provide the progeny of the author with a stream of income, but the children of the author, musician, filmmaker will have already benefited (indirectly) from the income generated during the life of the person. Any transfer of rights after death should be left to the creator or owner of the property — not dictated by state fiat.

Senate Looking to Make Half the Stuff on the Internet Illegal

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copyright, dana klobuchar, fair use, government corruption, government incompetence, s.978

Thanks to the dinosaurs in old media looking to protect themselves, Dana Klobuchar (D, MN) has proposed the awful S.978 to “protect” us all from embedded videos that might violate copyright. Except, as anyone who follows the Gestapo routine of groups like the RIAA and MPAA (get thee to techdirt.com!) knows, there’s a push on to subvert copyright and fair use laws to make pretty much anything on the internet protected — even stuff that is public domain, clearly fair use, or not even their own product.

The goal, try to force the internet genie back into the bottle to save antediluvian business models used by the Hollywood studios, big publishing, and the even creative (that was sarcasm) music industry. What they miss — often these companies put their own clips up on YouTube and other sites to push traffic to their TV shows, movies, music…but complain when people link to the material. They miss studies that show many consumers will buy product once they’ve seen/heard and enjoyed it. Think of the video and music in the Bittorrent streams as equivalent to watching the old Saturday night music video shows, or preview shows of old….

Are there the free riders (or freetards, as the copyright nazies like to call them)? Yes…and there always will be. But even little 8 year old Sally and her 82 year old grandma didn’t do thousands of dollars in damages to a company by downloading an “illegal” version of a song. At best, they own you $1.29 by current iTunes pricing.

Worse, because the law is — shocking! — poorly written, it could make a felony of any embedding of content that is not yours on a blog or website. I’m a major pirate under S.978…and I only link to material that people want read, viewed, or listened to. If anything, my linking news stories drives traffic to those sites. I should be paid for advertising for these groups.

Klobuchar is a prime example of the government playing favorites for big corporate interests that have obsolete business paradigms. She is indicative of the problem with government: stupid people who get a bit of power, get bought off by big interests, then use their surprisingly idiocy to harm everyone around them. But then again, she’s new aristocracy, don’t you know — so shut up and stop linking to things that you should not be allowed to see, peon! And eat your peas!