Rizla you have posed some interesting questions
.... that I continue to ponder especially when I look around me in everyday life and observe who is doing what, and how, with their various gadget devices.
The first question in my mind is: how does one know if 'something' (book, music etc) is
in copyright?
Obviously the answer is if the site you are on to purchase 'it' states it is, is one answer. But it may be DRMed and yet
not copyrighted and that distinction is not made on the purchase site.
Again, and obviously, one might say that 'it' is copyrighted if the 'owner/creator' is still alive and kicking and they have laid common law or statutory claim to copyright. But in what countries does that copyright hold?
And what of the dead originator of the material? How long after death does the material become 'public domain' and under what circumstances?
So - I want to identify how I know, and can test, if 'something' has:
- extant copyright,
- copyright broader than a publisher/producer,
- validity in my country at the time of acquisition.
It seems then Governments need to establish an information portal on questions of copyrighted material and how to determine such material. It is insufficient for governments to merely say downloading, or conducting other described acts/omissions/commissions on or with copyrighted material is illegal.
IMO an education campaign would go a long way towards resolving misconceptions and misinformation re downloading material which may have DRM but is not copyrightable to the creator, for example, so therefore obtaining that material from a non DRM site and using another publisher is quite legal.