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

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[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].

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

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