US Public Affairs - 30/12/08

Lessig: It's Time to Demolish the FCC

"Economic growth requires innovation. Trouble is, Washington is practically designed to resist it. Built into the DNA of the most important agencies created to protect innovation, is an almost irresistible urge to protect the most powerful instead.

The FCC is a perfect example. Born in the 1930s, at a time when the utmost importance was put on stability, the agency has become the focal point for almost every important innovation in technology. It is the presumptive protector of the Internet, and the continued regulator of radio, TV and satellite communications. In the next decades, it could well become the default regulator for every new communications technology, including, and especially, fantastic new ways to use wireless technologies, which today carry television, radio, internet, and cellular phone signals through the air, and which may soon provide high-speed internet access on-the-go, something that Google cofounder Larry Page calls "wifi on steroids."" [NewsWeek]

Comments on the Commission's Green Paper on Copyright in the Knowledge Economy

"This paper is a reaction to the Commission's Green Paper on Copyright in the Knowledge Economy. It discusses issues concerning the three step test model licenses, digitization and orphan works, disability discrimination and access to digital content, dissemination for teaching and research, dissemination through libraries and user created content." [SSRN]

Triennial DMCA Review at US Copyright Office"The US Copyright Office is again hearing arguments for exceptions for, as the December 29 Federal Register notice puts it, “certain classes of works from the prohibition against circumvention of technological measures that control access to copyrighted works. The purpose of this rulemaking proceeding is to determine whether there are particular classes of works as to which users are, or are likely to be, adversely affected in their ability to make noninfringing uses due to the prohibition on circumvention.”" [CopyrightAlliance]

EU Public Affairs Monitor - 30/12/08

Music copyright extension - strings attached: Sort yourselves out, warn Burnham and McCreevy 12th December 2008
Culture Minister Andy Burnham gave clear backing to extending the copyright term for sound recordings yesterday - but called on the music business to make sure it benefits musicians, not industry fatcats.

"We want the industry to come back with good, workable ideas as to how a proposal on copyright extension might be framed that directly and predominantly benefits performers – both session and featured musicians," Burnham said." [TheRegister]

UK ignores logic, backs 20-year music copyright extension December 12, 2008
"After a UK government-led commission said that the current 50-year term for musical copyrights was fine, and the government last year publicly agreed that there was no need to extend the term, culture minister Andy Burnham yesterday made the logical follow-up announcement that yes, the government would now push for a 20-year extension on copyright. Turns out, it's the moral thing to do.

Actually, by framing the issue as a "moral case," Burnham gets to sidestep the entire issue of logic. Critics have already begun to charge that he is ignoring actual evidence and the well-regarded conclusions of the Gowers Report, not to mention previous government policy. But when the issue becomes a moral one and the livelihood of aging performers is at stake, it's suddenly easier to avoid cost/benefit analysis. Doing the right thing isn't always logical or economical." [ArsTechnica]

Are Performers A Special Case? 23rd December
"While almost every serious commentator in the field of contemporary copyright law takes the view that no case has been established for the extension of copyright term in respect of sound recordings, the case for the extension of the protection term enjoyed by performers themselves has at least one doughty advocate.

IPKat reader and copyright specialist Professor Amanda J Harcourt writes:

"While Andrew Gowers' article (Copyright Extension is Out of Tune with Reality) makes a number of useful and pithy points, it does not fairly, in my view, state the case for the performer.

While the record companies in the 1990s indubitably "missed the boat" when attempting to debate and adjust their commercial practices to accommodate the developments of the internet - and now are suffering the consequences - there are moral arguments surrounding this new development. The songwriter and performer occupy the only moral high ground in the economic environment that is the music industry. This economic model of copyright has been taken to extreme by record companies. Guy Hands's early pronouncements about executive and administrative waste soon after his purchase of EMI were on point, but an understanding of the way artists are contracted by record companies demonstrates that those at the bottom of the royalty food chain - in this case the artist - have reasons for moral outrage." [IP Kitten]

Thomas on Copyright Reform:An Injudicious Threat to Consumers and Artists
"Recently, the Court in Capitol Records, Inc. v. Thomas vacated a $222,000 verdict awarded by a jury of the peers of Defendant Jammie Thomas.1 The Court held that it committed a “manifest error of law” by instructing the jury that U.S. law gives copyright owners the “making-available right” required by nine international agreements supposedly implemented by U.S. law. But Thomas did not confine itself to an analysis of whether U.S. law provides a making-available right.

After adjudicating the motion to vacate the jury verdict, the Court appended a gratuitous final section—Section K—that used Thomas as a platform to attack the wisdom of both the jury and Congress. Section K, by casting off judicial conventions, by opining on jury questions, and by mischaracterizing the conduct of a party to a pending case—tried to present the Defendant as a poster child for an ill-conceived advisory opinion on copyright reform. In Section K, looting thus became a nonprofit avocation and deterring deceit became “oppressive.” Worse yet, these characterizations supported “reforms” that would only encourage piracy, endanger consumers, and further undermine the vitality of copyrights." [PFF]

Triennial DMCA Review at US Copyright Office December 30th, 2008
"Has it been three years already? The US Copyright Office is again hearing arguments for exceptions for, as the December 29 Federal Register notice puts it, “certain classes of works from the prohibition against circumvention of technological measures that control access to copyrighted works. The purpose of this rulemaking proceeding is to determine whether there are particular classes of works as to which users are, or are likely to be, adversely affected in their ability to make noninfringing uses due to the prohibition on circumvention.”

In other words, when is OK to ignore the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and hack DRM? (You’ll find information on how to participate in this democratic process at the end of this post.)" [CopyrightAlliance]