Review of "The Case for Copyright Reform" (Week 5)

-

 

[source: https://www.eea.europa.eu/legal/copyright]

In the modern world, copyright is an essential part of the information that is hovering around the Internet. Some people follow it, but others try to bypass it by creating a “pirate” copy of the data and releasing it for free on various websites like “The Pirate Bay”. To further investigate this matter, I will give some opinions about the ideas that were presented in “The Case for Copyright Reform” which was written by Rick Falkvinge and Christian Engström.

The authors introduced 6 main points which summarized their proposals:

§  Moral Rights Unchanged

§  Free Non-Commercial Sharing

§  20 Years of Commercial Monopoly

§  Registration After 5 Years

§  Free Sampling

§  A Ban on DRM

 

The first idea suggested that there should be no changes to the understanding of the real author. People who are responsible for what they have invented or created have to be known as the original authors. Someone who pretends to be the actual creator should be punished as it is considered an illegal activity. I completely agree with this idea, because if someone falsely claims to be the author then it would be morally deceiving for the real creator. That is why the originality of the author must be protected at all costs.

By “free non-commercial sharing” it is meant that there is a freedom of sharing simple things such as songs, photos with your friends, and so on. I believe that this action should be allowed as it has no profits involved. Furthermore, sharing such simple stuff and having restrictions to these actions seems absolutely absurd. The only reason to have such a law would be acceptable if the action engages in commercial purposes.

            Did you know that copyright lasts for life plus 70 years? Yes, it is indeed surprising and absurd to hear this. However, the authors believe that reducing the duration to 20 years from the publication date would be a great idea both for the investors and the society. I mean obviously, no investor would really wait life plus 70 years to invest in such works. In addition to this, it is not possible for a deceased writer to come back to life and continue his work or create new ones, that is why I support the idea of reducing the protection duration of copyright.

            Registering after 5 years from the publication would be a helpful step towards the copyrighted works that have an owner who is impossible to find. Keeping a record of the rights owner is important as later it may be required to be used in new works.

            Free sampling would be big innovation to the music and film industry. This is something that I would recommend as the new works can be modified with existing samples. Additionally, free sampling could result in less work and convenient solutions to various industries.

            Lastly, a ban on DRM is something that should be analyzed deeply. The DRM prevents us from copying, sending copies to everyone, remixing, and playing it on multiple machines; nevertheless, these are not the only features of DRM. As harsh it may sound, I believe that DRM getting banned is a valid idea. For example, DRM caused performance issues in several computers which some people were not happy with. In the game “Assassin’s Creed: Origins” DRM would check files before opening the game to make sure no files were changed [1]. This would result in more usage of CPU which would let some customers get the pirate version of the game which would not have such issues.

             In conclusion, this book includes great suggestions for the future of copyright, and I really recommend the enlisted proposals that may solve ongoing issues that are caused by copyrights.

References

[1]

R. Edmonds, "How aggressive DRM in games only hurts the consumer," Windows Central, [Online]. Available: https://www.windowscentral.com/how-aggressive-drm-games-only-hurts-consumer. [Accessed 7 February 2022].

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Two Technologies from the Earlier History of the Internet (Week 2)

-
Image
              As a daily user of the Internet, I have always thought that it is something that was created 2-3 decades ago and presumed that its origin was the creation of Tim Berners-Lee called World Wide Web (WWW).   However, I was wrong regarding the Internet’s early history after helpful research which made me realize that Internet has a quite long history than two or three decades. Additionally, I have noticed that some of the technologies that were created in the early history of the Internet are still in use, while some of them have become obsolete and been replaced by modern technology. In the following paragraphs, I will introduce those technologies and briefly discuss their history and use. 1. Finger             Finger is one of the first computer networking tools which allowed a user to see some other user’s information while having the same computer sys...
Read more

Three Interesting examples of IT Solutions from Three Different Decades (Week 1)

-
Image
     Throughout the years, researchers tend to surprise us with several inventions of IT solutions. Furthermore, all of us use at least one of them during our daily life. Referring to the previous idea, it is hard to believe for us to get our day done without the use of any kind of technology. Besides the technology that is surrounded by us, there are other IT solutions that we most likely have never heard of and these inventions may come from various decades. To keep you informed, I have gathered some details regarding three fascinating examples of IT solutions that are all from different decades. 1. CAPTCHA      CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart) is a way of distinguishing humans and robots  [1] . It was invented in the year 2000 at Carnegia Mellon University  [2] Over years these CAPTCHA types started to evolve, and different kinds started to emerge. Furthermore, people started to confuse CAPTC...
Read more

Hacker Culture Applicability in Modern World (Week 12)

-
  The entire community of hackers regardless of their purpose has a common belief that information should be free. This idea was initially established in the book “Hackers” by Steven Levy in 1984  [1] . In his book, Levy highlighted The Hacker Ethic which is a set of beliefs that is similar to hacker culture. This ethic was initially created at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) sometime around the 50s-60s. Furthermore, the term “hacker” back then was a way to characterize college pranks planned by MIT students, and it was used for describing a project initiated or a product made to satisfy some goals as if it was not enough the pleasure for pure engagement  [2] . The Modern World On the other hand, when it comes to my opinion, I believe that the “Hacker Culture” is something rather special, especially in the modern world. Without the “Hacker Culture”, there would be many gaps in the security of the many software applications. In addition, they see these ...
Read more