Copyright Reforms

 I do agree with the sentiments expressed in the chapter, especially about it being urgent. I am kind of surprised by how accurate the prediction was, the prediction was published in 2012 and barely 6 years later the whole EU article 13 meme fiasco went down, so I think they were and still are right. I haven't yet seen of websites and chat services scanning user chat/comments to block and remove any copyrighted materials, but it isn’t that hard to imagine, maybe it will already be a thing in 10 to 20 years if corporations and companies keep putting pressure on the governments to pass laws and regulations in that direction.

I have actually seen YouTube channels with small subscriber amounts get killed by copyright abuse even if they compiled with the laws and regulations. I have even seen a law or a regulation get changed and a channel get more then half their videos taken down because of that. So I believe that the current copyright system does need to be either completely changed or reformed so that the corporations don’t hold all the power regarding copyright.

Another item that they mention is that they want commercial models that are viable currently to still be viable after their reforms, but I’m not sure how well that would work, as any current commercial model that would be killed by their reforms would probably be because it exploited the current copyright system to make profit and probably deserve to die, like for example websites with scientific journals and papers that charge large fees for access.

Now about the individual points proposed by them.
“Moral Rights Unchanged”, I think everyone can agree with this one, so nothing to really say here.
“Free Non-Commercial Sharing” now this one is a more complicated subject, after all how will you know if a file shared is going to generate profit for the person or is it just being sent to a friend, as they want commercial models to keep functioning after their reform they will need to implement strict laws and guidelines for this.
“20 Years Of Commercial Monopoly” I am sure that almost everyone can agree that the life + 70 years is way too long so no arguments there, tho I’m not sure if 20 years is actually long enough, I’ve seen people wait until a copyright expires to start actually doing anything with it, so in those 20 years the inventor might not get enough money so I think this might have to be raised.
“Registration After 5 Years” this is also something that everyone can agree on it, if anything I believe that 5 years is too long, after all if the work is considered an orphan work then all it is doing is just sitting there waiting for the copyright to expire before people can really do anything with it.
“Free Sampling” I don’t really have any type of experience with this, but to me what they are proposing sounds fine, I don’t really have anything to say here.
“A Ban on DRM” I also support this, tho not sure how relevant this point really is anymore, as I believe that DRM really only applies to physical copies so if a person can’t lend their DVD to a friend that they will have to resort to piracy for that.

One of the things that I didn’t really see mentioned anywhere is the pharmaceutical IP “scam” going on in America, the most prominent example being that of insulin, one corporation has owned the IP for it for a very long simply by reinventing insulin by a slightly different formula whenever their ownership of the IP was coming to an end, so I think that needs to be cracked down on.

In conclusion, with how they ended the chapter:
Copyright needs to be reformed urgently.

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