This thread is for formulating and discussing proposals for PPNZ's official policy on copyright reach. Proposals and ideas will be collated on the wiki page Policy Committee Proposals on Copyright Reach (linked)

If you would also like to discuss copyright reach on IRC, please raise this in the thread, and the Policy Committee will try to arrange a meeting time. To help us select an appropriate time, please ensure you update your preferences in the poll Board index > General > Polls > What time of the week should PPNZ have IRC meetings? (linked)

Discussion on proposals will be open until at least 11pm on Sunday 31/07/2011. [EDIT: The last call for proposals (linked) has been posted.] Once the Policy Committee has finalised a set of proposals, we will post instructions on how to vote (the vote will be conducted via e-mail). Voting will then be open for at least the following 5 days. [EDIT: Instructions for voting (linked) have been posted.]

[EDIT: Votes have now been counted (linked)]

- Is this the place where you say "copyright should not apply to software"?

- something about what happens when there are a ridiculously high number of authors for something, i.e. so you don't get a situation where you need to track down more than 499/500 authors in order to make a derivative

- Is this the place where you say "copyright should allow the holder to stop people making money off it, but not to stop people sharing it on a noncommercial scale for noncommercial reasons"?

i request an irc discussion on this one as well a clarification of which of the above are relevant to "copyright reach"

I don't have much of a problem with copyright applying to software. PATENTS should not apply to software (we seem to be winning on that front anyway)

Without copyright on software unfriendly companies could take free code, make some minor changes, and release it as non-free code with DRM-like technical restrictions. Copyright is what makes copyleft possible.

Same for number of authors. You don't need to track down all the linux kernel authors in order to modify the linux kernel, as long as you're happy to release your changes under the same GPL terms as the kernel.. You would if you wanted to make a non-free fork of the kernel though (and most of those authors would rightly tell you to get bent.)

Copyright should apply to 'commercial distribution' only, I think we all agree on that already. The hard part is defining 'commercial'. If I run a torrent site that lets you download movies for free and it has some advertising on it to pay the hosting costs (or even if I make a profit out of it), is that commercial or not? I prefer a very limited definition; it's only 'commercial' if I charge you money for the content itself eg 99c per download, access at $1 per GB ..

Creative Commons have tried to tackle this one already, and they seem to favor a much broader interpretation;
http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Defining_Noncommercial

Agree, i got the two mixed up, but my point was about the word "reach"

Copying should mean copying, and nothing else. I'm seeing a disturbing trend lately where people are suing based on a very broad interpretation of 'copying' .. Oracle suing Google for it's implementation of the Java API (although that might be a patent thing)

And this; a photographer suing for photos that they believe are 'inspired by' their own photos because they have similar numbers of people in similar poses;
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/201107 ... ying.shtml
http://www.petapixel.com/2011/07/14/at- ... ringement/
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/201106 ... copy.shtml

I've got this theory, that if the answer to a question is incredibly complicated, it's the wrong question.

So in my most humble of opinions, the question should not be "what should the reach of copyright be?" but "Do we need it at all?"

And to answer that, you'd need to look at places/industries where it doesn't exist. Is there any less income gained, or culture created as a result?

A reasonable middle-position is that in the UK Pirate mainifesto

http://www.pirateparty.org.uk/policies/ ... s-patents/

But I'm more than willing to play bad cop and say scrap it all. We don't need it.

And I do think we need bad-cop in any situation that involves negotiation.

Time was when I CC licensed everything I did - but really, these days I'm not even seeing the point in that. It seems childish to think that I have "the right" to control bit-patterns I've released into the wild. I haven't gotten round to changing my site(s) footers, but in my mind, everything I do is already public domain.

Not that that gives me sufficient moral gravitas to impose my opinions on anyone else, but it gives me a hell of a lot more than if I created nothing at all. I have skin in the game.

This is an excellent point, although it wasn't what I had intended 'reach' to mean.

This was what I was thinking of.
Basically I was thinking of 'reach' as 'what does copyright cover?' (e.g. does it cover commercial use only, public broadcasting, conveying in exchange for a fee, personal use, etc.), not any other details of how copyright should work.

I'd suggest the scope of this vote be just the narrow question of where copyright should apply, not how it should apply. But the question of how copyright should apply is certainly worth discussing.

I think whether or not we 'need' copyright is probably a matter of opinion. I suspect that we wouldn't have as many big-budget Hollywood type movies without copyright, so if we 'need' these, then we 'need' copyright.

Well, that's what you "suspect"... this is why I said we need to look at places/industries that don't have copyright. Places are few and far between - Serbia is one.

http://falkvinge.net/2011/04/11/impress ... copyright/

And then there is the fashion industry, which is bigger and more lucrative than the movie industry. Then there's the movie industry in Nigeria... which while unlikely to create the billion-dollar blood-baths that Hollywood is addicted to, does appear to be thriving.

I don't buy for a second this argument "If you don't have copyright/patents, you don't have innovation". What we have right now (with movies) is a situation where if people want to download (or burn and swap) videos for free, they're entirely at liberty to do so - and yet the movie business is making more money than it ever has before.

But in the meantime, all sorts of slippery-slopes are creeping in... creating the moral justifications for this trojan-horse for state/corporate control of the internet.

I don't think discussing whether "this should be copyright, but that shouldn't"... is about as useful as "should it be 3 strikes, or 6?". It's still getting onto this slippery slope. That is why it's a difficult question.

Personally, I can see the UK position as being winnable - as a compromise... as something that can be slipped past people as a concept without them having to massively recalibrate their thinking.

But it may be that it is completely unwinnable because it's accepting the moral precepts that the englobulators are trying to inflict on everyone... and we might just be better coming in with a completely fresh perspective.

And that is, that we don't need copyright at all.

I certainly don't think there'd be no innovation without copyright/patents. I suspect some industries are more dependent on copyright/patents than others, and I suspect that the movie industry is one that is fairly dependent on copyright. Musicians can tour, software can be iteratively improved by users around the world, industries like the fashion industry that have brand recognition and produce physical goods can support creativity by the sale of these goods, artists and authors might make an income from donations, and sometimes people just create for the sake of doing so.

I don't think any of these models would easily transfer to big-budget Hollywood style movies though. Theatre troupes may tour, but video post-production is not a performance art. Software can be iteratively improved by users around the world and become more useful, but movies need to be delivered by a consistent group to remain cohesive. People 'buy Gucci' or 'buy Prada', but they don't 'watch Universal Studios' or 'watch Paramount Pictures'--the brand value is not the same. Nor are people as likely to donate their money to a faceless movie studio as to an artist or author whose work they appreciate, and movie studios aren't likely to create just for the sake of doing so.

And you're right, the law doesn't currently effectively restrict non-commercial conveying, but it does currently effectively restrict commercial conveying (by movie theatres, video stores, and retail outlets), and this is where most of the money for movies comes from.

Yeah, I only suspect that there'd be fewer big-budget Hollywood style movies without copyright, I don't know this for sure, but I'd be surprised if it wasn't the case. And yeah, we might question the real value of big-budget Hollywood style movies, but apparently some people like them.

I think we should try to legalise the kinds of non-commercial activities that people have been doing anyway since non-commercial copying became possible. I think this is a matter of protecting personal liberties that are under threat. OTOH, I don't see a limited term copyright on commercial activities as so much of an issue.

Aren't you assuming that no copyright=nobody pays?

I'm not seeing any evidence for that to be honest.

We already have a "no copyright" situation with P2P - and the studios are making more money than they ever have before, and study after study (after study after study) shows that people who share the most, buy the most.

What we definitely ARE seeing though is a massive burden on independents who want to create work based on the reality around them - but are at huge risk of being sued by corporations, for violations of "IP".

You know (and I know you do) that Australian indie movie Gabriel? It very nearly didn't happen at all - because there were complications with their errors and omissions insurer (E&O insurance being something you have to pay to fight suits should you have a hit).

Why the fuck should anyone doing any creating need to pay E&O insurance? We're back in the land of having to ask permission for every single little thing.

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So while I'm not seeing any evidence of no-copyright=nobody-pays, I'm seeing a hell of a lot of evidence for "rights" accumulating uphill creating a chilling effect on anyone who isn't a corporation.

And here's a counter-suspicion: I suspect that the money that studios pay to protect themselves from external IP-attacks, is less than the amount they "lose" from other people sharing or re-using their material.

(this being based on the fact that 80% of pharma research is actually state-funded, and of the remaining 20% that is corporate, half of that goes on circumventing enemy patents)

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So if I had a vote, I'd vote for getting rid of the lot.