Talk:Copyright Issues

Under "Length of the Term", the "Artist's choice - the artist has a choice of allowing free non-commercial use" really shouldn't belong there I think. It's a licence issue. Right owners (creators) can use whatever licence they want. I also think the commercial vs non-commercial divide is too complicated. --Robin Millette 05:49, 31 July 2009 (UTC) Copyright should be a privilege. It should be one that can be removed as a judicial penalty for abuse and misuse. Like in the US where the RIAA engages in 'shotgun' lawsuits filing against massive numbers of people as John Does in order to get names and physical addresses so they can engage in their 'extortion' with settlement plans. If even a hint of such tactics occur the judges would be within their right to strip copyrights on every work claimed to be infringing. This would ensure that there is some 'risk' inherent with any attempt to bring frivolous lawsuits to court. To reduce the cost of enforcement would require making everything in the law much more clear including fair dealing provisions.

I believe the idea of Registration works quite well. However, copyright should also extend to non-registered works. The idea being that in general non-registered works would be considered permissible to use in non-commercial uses freely with an attempt at attribution if the creator of the original work is known. However, with a shorter copyright period (like 15 years) there would be a much larger public domain to choose from so infringing on copyright would not be as much of a problem.

As for the DRM section there are a few minor errors.

DRM != Metadata. However, it may make use of such metadata to determine whether to permit or block you from accessing a given file. Including unique ID numbers, encryption keys, etc... I have no problem with metadata that is used as it is supposed to. That is to identify the author, year of creation, title of work, etc...

TPM's are also a major concern. I would say it would be good to make it ILLEGAL for any TPM system to take control of your system via rootkit, malware or other underhanded method (such as burying their consent in page 18 of a 50 page EULA/TOS).

I'd say it'd be good to make laws requiring companies to include on the packaging prominently that DRM/TPM's are included with software or other media they are purchasing. Something like cigarette packages where like 20% of it with big bold letters is required. That way users will know what they are purchasing and exactly what DRM/TPMs they will have to deal with such as limited activations, only works with CD in drive, etc... ConcernedCitizen 14:47, 31 August 2009 (UTC)