Two economists from Washington University have looked at current copyright and patent laws and concluded that they’re not good. The pair see current Intellectual property laws as similar to ‘medieval trade monopolies’ which were bad for the economy as a whole, and are calling for the system to be reformed.
Overreaching corporate claims are nothing new, certainly when it comes to copyright. Toyota vastly over-reached recently, requesting all images containing their products be removed from a wallpaper site, citing copyright issues. Finally, Toyota responds.
Motoring giant Toyota is normally ahead of the curve when it comes to technology. The company is known for innovations like the Synergy Drive in the Prius, as well as long term reliability. However, if you take pride in your Toyota, and have it as a wallpaper on your system, Toyota doesn’t want you sharing.
The Performing Rights Society, the UK outfit collecting royalties for the music industry, seems it will stop at nothing as it demands money from small businesses, charities, playschools, and now, kids’ community centers, all so that they can listen to music without fear of prosecution.
In the past, parallels between narcotics enforcement and copyright enforcement may have been drawn, but in one country parallels are out of the window, as copyright and trademark enforcement will now be treated as drug trafficking.
If you’re one of the many incensed by the file-sharing letters issue, the OiNK raid and extensions or the ease with which UK politicians are led by the media industries like prize cattle, this could be your chance to get a say. The UK government has started a public consultation on file sharing, and how to deal with it.
As we mentioned earlier in the week, EU commissioner McCreevy has been pushing for a longer copyright period for recorded performances. This proposal has now passed the commission and is on the way to the parliament. The upside however, is that the commission also aims to break music royalty monopolies.
The IFPI and mediocre artists around the world are rubbing their hands in glee, after a proposal to extend copyright in the EU for another 45 years. The proposal, intended to ‘benefit musicians’, comes up for a vote on Wednesday. On the plus side, at the same time collecting societies are going to have their practices scrutinized.
Paulo Coelho, author of books such as “The Alchemist” and “The Witch of Portobello”, sold over 100 million books last year. In part, he puts this success down to BitTorrent, as he saw a huge increase in sales when his books appeared on sites such as The Pirate Bay. We talked to Coelho to find out more about this remarkable story.
At a preview of his new ‘Change Congress’ project, the Stanford professor took a swipe at the Pirate Party of the United States. Whilst expressing skepticism about it’s utility, his main criticism seemed to be the name.
The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) has been lobbying politicians of the European Parliament to force ISP’s to identify, filter, block and remove copyright infringing content from the Internet. Now, according to an early report, it appears that all three anti-piracy measures have been defeated.
