house.gov study committee report on copyright

[j.p.s]

Last Friday, 2012 Nov 16, the Republican Study Committee posted a policy brief, "Three Myths about Copyright Law and Where to Start to Fix it", as a PDF on the rsc.jordan.house.gov web site. It was taken down soon after, but is still in Google cache and as text and PDF on various web sites.

Very interesting read.

Techdirt article (lots of interesting comments in the article and followup article. https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20...l-reform.shtml

Techdirt update: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/201...rm-brief.shtml

Google cache (as text): https://webcache.googleusercontent.c...er_16_2012.pdf

Text and link to PDF: http://keionline.org/node/1592

[VaultBoy]

Interesting read. Thanks for sharing.

[Greg Anos]

Interesting... A whiff of change on the political class? Only time will tell.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

Interesting... A whiff of change on the political class? Only time will tell.

The GOP folded to the lobbyists once again and did what was wrong for America.

[holymadness]

Yup. Pure spinelessness.

[jgaiser]

Yep... RIAA and MPAA reminded them where the money comes from.

[SteveEisenberg]

there were tons of people -- many of whom were lifelong Democrats -- claiming that they would switch parties if the GOP stuck with this

For purely selfish reasons, I'm all for reducing the length of copyright to the proposed 46 years. However, there are far more important issues for me to base my vote on.

Actually, if you remove all the blather about the founding fathers and DJ's, the GOP proposal sounds pretty good to me as a reader. If the penalties for copyright infringement were less draconian, they might be slightly more enforceable. And 36 or 46 years is probably a long enough copyright period to not to significantly harm incentives for creating expensive-to-research new non-fiction books.

If there could be an exemption for classical music, I would favor that. I think that putting lots of CD quality classical music in the public domain, just a few years from now, would hurt that already ailing music sector.

The renewal fees do sound a lot like new taxes. Grover Norquist wouldn't have liked that.

P.S. We shouldn't violate the Berne Convention (life plus 50) unilaterally, but only as part of international negotiations. Step one should be to harmonize with Canada. The GOP proposal was irresponsible because of ignoring international law.

[teh603]

Wish they'd left it up. This is one of the few places where I actually come close to agreeing with their ideologies.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

For purely selfish reasons, I'm all for reducing the length of copyright to the proposed 46 years.

Couldn't be done. The International Berne Copyright Treaty, to which the US is a signatory, requires a minimum copyright term of "life+50 years". Changing that would require re-negotiating Berne, and that's something that would probably take decades.

[Dylan Tomorrow]

Then just leave the damn Berne Convention! That ancient thing is from 1886 and has been obsolete and out of touch with reality for decades. (I know there have been revisions, but none all too progressive, save for exceptions for blind people etc.)

Or are they not free to leave it? Well, would not been the first international treaty the US has violated and gotten away with violating . Also, they would have the support of the general population. This treaty is not the actual obstacle to copyright reform, it's the corporate content industry.

On, and props for the Republicans! The first good thing from them in years. Imho, the Democrat's biggest weakness are their ties to Hollywood etc. and all their votes they would lose from there would they adopt a more progressive position on Copyright.

[HarryT]

Abrogating the Berne Convention would have major economic impact for the US, because the result would be that intellectual property created in the US would no longer have any copyright protection in any other country which was a Berne signatory.

[Ekaros]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Abrogating the Berne Convention would have major economic impact for the US, because the result would be that intellectual property created in the US would no longer have any copyright protection in any other country which was a Berne signatory.

Sounds good, go do that!

[Kumabjorn]

That would create complete anarchy in the publishing world, not to mention movies and music. You could take anything produced in the US and make legal copies of it, without the risk of prosecution.

[Billi]

Just a little nitpicking: these works would still be protected in Germany (and in other countries too, I am quite sure) as there is a bilateral treaty from 1892 still valid. (But it would of course defeat the object if the US would leave the Berne convention only to make hundreds of new state-to-state treaties.)

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Billi

Just a little nitpicking: these works would still be protected in Germany (and in other countries too, I am quite sure) as there is a bilateral treaty from 1892 still valid. (But it would of course defeat the object if the US would leave the Berne convention only to make hundreds of new state-to-state treaties.)

Yes, the UK has a bilateral treaty, too, but it would be a nightmare to negotiate bilateral treaties with each countries individually. That's the whole point of the Berne Convention - to remove that necessity.