Showing posts with label Copyrights. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Copyrights. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Canadian DMCA withdrawn for now
Shortly after posting my entry yesterday I found out that the Canadian DMCA Bill was withdrawn. As I had already posted my entry, I figured I would wait until today to let the few of you who read my blog know the good news. While I highly doubt my letter was the reason for this, I suspect the public outcry combined with a minority government is what caused the temporary delay. I am sure that another attempt will be made in the future, but I can at least hope that due to the outcry that the next attempt will at least try to keep with the spirit of Canada and will at a minimum address fair use issues properly. I'll probably be writing more letters to my MP.
Sunday, December 9, 2007
Canadian DMCA
There is proposed legislation for a Canadian version of the DMCA. The problem is that fair use rights are not addressed in this law. For this reason I have mailed my members of parliament.
As the creator of vast quantity of copyrighted works I certainly understand the need for copyright laws. Though I personally feel that the length of copyrights are way too long, that is a separate issue. What is at issue is the omission of fair use rights from the proposed Canadian DMCA. These rights are of tantamount importance and must be present in any DMCA bill that is put forward. If you feel it is necessary to delay addressing these concerns, then the introduction of the Canadian DMCA should be delayed with them.
As both a creator and consumer of digital content, it is my opinion that consumers should be allowed to copy, time-shift and format-shift material as long as it is strictly for personal or educational use. If digital locks prevent such things, consumers should be allowed to use any tools available to bypass those locks. Likewise, parody and the ability to criticize works is of up-most importance to citizens and not even the most vile of police states would try to make such practices illegal. Also, when you consider that the entire Technology Industry was built on top of the practice of reverse engineering it is vital for our economy that this practice is allowed in the future.
If you are under pressure from trading partners to pass a DMCA bill into law, it would be best if you incorporated the broadest possible fair use laws and then have a Copyright Review Panel to consider if the fair use rights are too lenient and restrict those rights in the future if the majority of Canadian Citizens felt that it was necessary.
As the creator of vast quantity of copyrighted works I certainly understand the need for copyright laws. Though I personally feel that the length of copyrights are way too long, that is a separate issue. What is at issue is the omission of fair use rights from the proposed Canadian DMCA. These rights are of tantamount importance and must be present in any DMCA bill that is put forward. If you feel it is necessary to delay addressing these concerns, then the introduction of the Canadian DMCA should be delayed with them.
As both a creator and consumer of digital content, it is my opinion that consumers should be allowed to copy, time-shift and format-shift material as long as it is strictly for personal or educational use. If digital locks prevent such things, consumers should be allowed to use any tools available to bypass those locks. Likewise, parody and the ability to criticize works is of up-most importance to citizens and not even the most vile of police states would try to make such practices illegal. Also, when you consider that the entire Technology Industry was built on top of the practice of reverse engineering it is vital for our economy that this practice is allowed in the future.
If you are under pressure from trading partners to pass a DMCA bill into law, it would be best if you incorporated the broadest possible fair use laws and then have a Copyright Review Panel to consider if the fair use rights are too lenient and restrict those rights in the future if the majority of Canadian Citizens felt that it was necessary.
Sunday, August 5, 2007
FLOSS - Public Domain Problems
Even though it is a long weekend in B.C., I haven't posted an entry in my FLOSS series for a while so figured that I would take the time to do so now.
Once you have made changes to a public domain item, those changes are copyrighted by you. This means that you can take existing public domain material and by just making a few minor changes to it create a copyrighted work. Disney is very good at doing this, with a huge number of their films being based on public domain material. While there is nothing to stop someone else from creating a Snow White from the original public domain sources, people automatically associate the work with Disney. Likewise, Disney lawyers don't like competition so if you do try to create your own version of Snow White, be careful not to take Disney created elements and use them in your version, even if they are logical extensions of the original work.
So, from a software standpoint, releasing your source code directly to the public domain is doable, but anybody who wants to can then take your source code, make a minor change, then start selling a product using your source code without compensating you. If the entity that is copyrighting your work is promoting their modified version you can end up with a situation where people are paying for work that you wanted them to have for free. In fact, if they promote their work enough, your original work may become an obscurity. They don't even have to mention the original work or who created it, so they may also be taking credit for your hard work.
Once you have made changes to a public domain item, those changes are copyrighted by you. This means that you can take existing public domain material and by just making a few minor changes to it create a copyrighted work. Disney is very good at doing this, with a huge number of their films being based on public domain material. While there is nothing to stop someone else from creating a Snow White from the original public domain sources, people automatically associate the work with Disney. Likewise, Disney lawyers don't like competition so if you do try to create your own version of Snow White, be careful not to take Disney created elements and use them in your version, even if they are logical extensions of the original work.
So, from a software standpoint, releasing your source code directly to the public domain is doable, but anybody who wants to can then take your source code, make a minor change, then start selling a product using your source code without compensating you. If the entity that is copyrighting your work is promoting their modified version you can end up with a situation where people are paying for work that you wanted them to have for free. In fact, if they promote their work enough, your original work may become an obscurity. They don't even have to mention the original work or who created it, so they may also be taking credit for your hard work.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
FLOSS - The Public Domain
To understand what the public domain is, you first need to know a little bit about copyrights. The copyright system has changed quite a bit over the years, and seems to be more focused on corporate interests than on public interests. Basically, when you create something you automatically gain copyrights on the item that you created. You can not copyright ideas, just the particular implementation of an idea. Copyrights last a set period of time. The particular amount of time varies by country, with the US being the life of the creator plus 70 years but corporation owned copyrights last only 95 years from publication or 120 years from creation (whichever is shorter) due to the fact that corporations are legal entities that can theoretically live forever. For the duration of the copyright, the owner controls what can be done with the work, though there are some exceptions for educational use.
When the copyright term expires, the material enters something that is known as the Public Domain. This simply means that anyone who wants to can take the public domain material and do whatever they want with it. To be perfectly blunt, the vast majority of material that has reached public domain status is too old to be of any real use. this is one reason a lot of people want shorter copyright terms. I personally would like to see 10 year copyrights that can be perpetually renewed for another 10 years for a small fee and the renewal information would be publicly accessible so it would be easy to see if something was still under copyright. The advantage of such a system is that anybody would be able to keep their copyrights forever if they desired, but less valuable material would fall into the public domain sooner so that there would be a much greater chance that it would be useful to society.
While the vast majority of the public domain is so old that it is not relevant to modern society, there is still a lot of material that can be used. For instance, Shakespeare has stood up to the test of time quite well. While you can still pay for a printed copy of a Shakespeare play, many archive sites have free copies of the plays that you can download. If you want to put on a play, you don't have to pay any type of public performance fee for using the material. In fact, you can even modify the play however you like. And that is where the problem is.
When the copyright term expires, the material enters something that is known as the Public Domain. This simply means that anyone who wants to can take the public domain material and do whatever they want with it. To be perfectly blunt, the vast majority of material that has reached public domain status is too old to be of any real use. this is one reason a lot of people want shorter copyright terms. I personally would like to see 10 year copyrights that can be perpetually renewed for another 10 years for a small fee and the renewal information would be publicly accessible so it would be easy to see if something was still under copyright. The advantage of such a system is that anybody would be able to keep their copyrights forever if they desired, but less valuable material would fall into the public domain sooner so that there would be a much greater chance that it would be useful to society.
While the vast majority of the public domain is so old that it is not relevant to modern society, there is still a lot of material that can be used. For instance, Shakespeare has stood up to the test of time quite well. While you can still pay for a printed copy of a Shakespeare play, many archive sites have free copies of the plays that you can download. If you want to put on a play, you don't have to pay any type of public performance fee for using the material. In fact, you can even modify the play however you like. And that is where the problem is.
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