Petition drive to keep DMCAism out of trade treaty
IP Justice has started a petition drive to keep DMCAism from infesting the whole Western Hemisphere via a Hollywood-influenced trade agreement, the FTAA.
Sign up–no matter where you live in the Western Hemisphere–especially if you’re an e-book publisher. Jack-booted measures like the present DMCA in the U.S. encourage software companies to create third-rate protection technology and ignore consumer convenience.
The end result? People feel as if they don’t truly own e-books. They can’t share them easily with friends. Sales suffer. The DMCA is one of the reasons why e-book sales this year will be a mere $10 million or so.
Outrageously the terms of the proposed Super DMCA are said to be even worse than those of the current one here in the States, particularly in regard to file-sharing. Even without RIAA complaints, thuggish bureaucrats can file criminal charges against you. There is also prejudice in the FTAA proposal against free software and open source development.
Wonder how much our friends at the RIAA and like-minded outfits spent on campaign donations and lobbying to get this beaut written. Please–read the specifics.
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Incidentally the Super DMCA isn’t the only item on the RIAA’s international agenda. Copyrights on the first recordings of Elvis Presley will be expiring in a couple of years in Canada, the U.K. and at least several other countries–those with the 50-year rule for sound recordings. Similarly, the Beatles’ early copyrights will expire in the next decade or so. You can bet that the RIAA will use the FTAA as an excuse to seek to “harmonize” the U.K. and the rest of Europe and the world with much longer terms that the trade agreement calls for–95 years for sound recordings from the date of release.
Will we really encourage the arts that much by extending copyright terms to pay out more millions to Elvis’s hardly cash-strapped heirs–or even the remaining members of the Fab Four? If the RIAA really cares about typical musicians and creative incentives, then maybe it’s time for legislation restricting how much of a bite the studios can take out of the revenue the artists bring in.
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