This is an ancient post, published more than 4 years ago.
As such, it might not anymore reflect the views of the author or the state of the world. It is provided as historical record.
Since Polish and European citizens voiced their opinions on the need
of copyright reform so clearly 2 years ago there is a feeling of
anticipation in the air – what’s next? Brussels-based politicians hint
(or outright
state publicly) that everybody is waiting for some Polish move.
Can’t say I blame them. Widespread Anti-ACTA
protests started in Warsaw; Polish Prime Minister was the first to admit ACTA was a mistake; politicians from Poland
were also the first to grasp that (using the not-exactly-fitting language of Polish MP Gałażewski)
ACTA was “passé” and also the first to start asking the
right questions.
This past September finally something has happened. At the CopyCamp Polish MEP Paweł Zalewski has shared his ideas for copyright reform in the EU, and
about two months later, together with Amelia Andersdotter and Marietje Schaake, announced
them officially in the European Parliament.
A month later the European Commission opened-up
consultations on the InfoSoc directive reform – a process we
should all take part in! Time is of essence, as the deadline is 5th
of February, but there are
tools that help get involved.
Use them!
Soon afterwards the Polish Ministry of Culture opened local
consultations in order to create an official Polish stance in the
InfoSoc reform consultations.
Copyright Forum
The Copyright Forum is one of the after-effects of the ACTA debate
(the Ministry was responsible for the treaty within the Polish
government), and of other situations where Ministry’s decisions and
processes seemed less than transparent, so to speak. For which they have
been heavily criticised.
The Ministry seems to learn on their mistakes, and does not wish to
ever be called “non-transparent”, hence the Copyright Forum was born.
Long story short, any and all organisations that are interested in
copyright and its reform now have a chance to voice their opinions in an
open debate, facilitated by the Ministry. Finally!
New consultations, old
misunderstandings
The 5th Copyright Forum was
about:
- scope of copyright and its protection;
-
fair use/fair dealing/“exceptions” to copyright
law.
As far as the a sane stance on these issues is concerned, please see
Open Education Coalitions’s response
in this consultation process. I want to focus here on something
else.
This was not the first (nor, hopefully, the last) copyright
consultation meeting I partake in. Even though we (“us, opennists”) had
been explaining our position for years, we still find basic lack of
understanding (as I am not going to
assume malicious, conscious mangling) of what we’re trying to say.
It was clearly present in statements made on this Forum also. Let’s have
a look at the most “interesting” of ideas and misrepresentations, shall
we?
“Linking to
illegal content should be illegal itself”
The idea here is that mere linking on the
Internet to content that is in some way infringing on somebody’s intellectual
property copyright should be illegal itself, because notice-and-take-down
procedures are slow, complicated and ineffective.
Before we dive into how bad an idea this is, let’s stop for a moment
on the “illegal content” part. That’s another of those language
constructs that are artificially used in a way to slant the debate before it even
starts. “Illegal content” is content that is illegal to
share, reproduce, etc, under any circumstances, regardless of whether or
not you have a license on the content itself. If Polish copyright
collectives claim that the “content” created by the artists they
(supposedly) represent is “illegal”, maybe
they should call the Police?..
If we’re talking about infringement, we should
call it infringement, nothing more, nothing less.
An idea that was also present on the Forum and is closely related to
“making linking illegal” strategy is “making search engines remove links
to infringing content”. Both ideas are completely
absurd, for a number of reasons too long to be put in full here;
here’s the skinny:
- links are purely informational, just as bibliographic notes;
penalisation of linking is as absurd as penalisation of bibliographic
notes;
- removing links to infringing content is sweeping the problem under
the rug, instead of solving it at the source (e.g. by removing the
infringing material);
- a person that links to a given content has no practical way of
ascertaining the legality of said content, not to mention that this
legality can change over time;
- this whole idea is claimed to be “necessary” in the light of
“ineffectiveness” of notice and take down; well, if notice and take down
is ineffective, what makes the proponents of such a measure think that
they will have any more luck with removing links than with removing
content itself?
- regardless of its ineffectiveness, it will cause problems
for works published under libre licenses, including free software.
More in-depth arguments are also available.
“Users of culture”
The division between “users”
(or http://copyspeak.org/consumer/ “consumers”]) of culture, and “creators” of it is as old as
it is outdated. It had, perhaps, some sense in the times of mass-media,
with their clear difference between broadcasters and audience. Today all you need to become
an artist is a laptop, and all you need to reach your audience is
the Internet.
Read-only
culture became read-write
again,
finally. There is no meaningful line of division between “users” and
“creators”. Everybody can be one or the other, as they choose.
Users’ responsibility
According to polish copyright law today, if I have access to a given
work, I can download it, and use it (including sharing it
non-commercially with my family and friends). I do not have to check
whether or not that content has been shared with me legally. That’s the
sharer’s problem.
Of course that’s something hard to swallow for the copyright
collectives and their ilk. Hence the idea to change that, to make the
user responsible for downloading and using content that might have been
illegally published or shared. A proposal that is burdened with some of
the same arguments as “making linking illegal” one above. Namely, how
can a user check that, if even courts tend to have problems with it?
Should the illegally-shared works be marked in a certain
way? If so, whose responsibility that would be? Artists’? Sharers’
themselves? If the latter. how can one be sure that the content gets
marked truthfully? If the former, artists would have to gain control
over every single shared copy… while somebody that would still want to
share without proper authorisation will
do so anyway.
Or maybe the “users of culture” (being creators themselves!) should
limit themselves to just a few “kosher” channels? If so, which ones
should these be? And who decides, on what grounds? Can I start such a
channel myself, for example in the form of a blog, videolog, podcast? If
so, how can my audience be sure that it is “legal” itself?
Finally, how should users of infringing content be punished? Are we
to assume that copyright collectives are proposing the
American model here?
“Everything
that potentially allows anybody to make money – is commercial”
That’s an attempt at defining the hard to draw line between
“commercial” and “non-commercial” use, and it’s done in a way that makes
sure that any use of cultural work on the Internet is in fact
commercial. After all, even if I were to completely non-commercially
send a private e-mail with a picture attached to my family member, my ISP, their ISP and probably
at least one ISP in between makes money in a quite real way.
Does it make sense to use such a broad definition of “commercial
use”? After all, it’s legal for me in Poland to watch some movies
together with my friends. But in such a situation there are several
third parties than can profit from it – a taxi driver, public transport
operator company, some local grocery stores where we buy the supplies
for the evening… Does that make my watching movies with my friends
“commercial”? Or, for that matter, if I am going to watch a movie
myself, the electrical company is going to profit a bit. Is that
commercial also, then?
And by the way, how about the copyright collectives themselves –
after all they employ people, who profit from their activities…
Non-commercial
vs. libre-licensed
That one’s a classic, with authors publishing their works under libre
licenses being called “creators not planning to make money on their
works”.
How many times do we have to repeat ,ad nauseam, that
libre-licensed work does not have to be a pro-bono work? There are many ways to make money on digital works –
sponsoring, crowdfunding,
work-for-hire, adverts are just a few most obvious.
There are big corporations and small firms publishing some of their
products on libre licenses – Intel, Google, RedHat, to name just a few
best known. Stating contemptuously that publishing something under a
libre license means that the author has no intention on profiting from
it is either a sign of ignorance, or (much worse) willful attempt at
marginalizing such creators.
“Some
organizations are only interested in gratis access for users”
That’s also something we hear quite often. Usually from the same
person. Mr Dominik Skoczek, once the head of the Intellectual
Property and Media Department at the ministry of Culture (he was the
person responsible for ACTA topic within the Ministry), today
representing the Association of Polish
Movie Producers (think: MPAA without the clout), had an abundance of
occasions to hear from us that libre licensing is about something other
than cash.
And that it’s not about “users”, as everybody can be a creator.
I wouldn’t go as far as to assume malice on part of Mr Skoczek; on
the other hand if I assume that after years of our patient explanations
of our views he still cannot grasp the not-so-complicated ideas behind
them, Mr Skoczek could understandably feel offended…
Instead of pondering the source of such lack of understanding, then,
I shall simply explain once more, that libre licenses, free culture,
free software, etc, are not about
gratis access, but
about the possibility of creating and remixing. Creativity and culture
are never in a void, all creative work is
derivative, making works inaccessible for remixing up to 70 years
after author’s death – is a barbaric attack on culture itself.
Authors of libre-licensed works and organisations demanding
libre-licensing of works created with public funds demand not “access”
for all, but allowing creativity for all.
“The
only chance for money reaching the artist are copyright
collectives”
A Polish lawyer (and author of a well-known blog), Piotr
VaGla
Waglowski, had asked one of the Polish copyright
collectives (the one supposedly
representing rights of authors like him) about the possibility of
receiving what could most aptly be described as “his
money”. The answer he had
received was too long to be quoted in full here, but the important
part is this:
Due to a very large number of entities entitled to receive these
funds there is a danger of considerable atomization of remunerations to
which they are entitled. This has direct bearing also on the possibility
of such remuneration, namely on acceptable repartitioning model of the
received funds. (…) In summary, we have no way of meeting your
expectations at this time.
I don’t think I can find a better comment than VaGla
himself:
By the way, is not remunerating authors by copyright collectives can
itself be considered copyright infringement?
Creators’
inalienable right to financial gratification
That’s another very dangerous idea being passed under the guise of
“working in artists’ interests” (by none other than copyright
collectives, of course). The proposal is: as authors are often in a much
worse negotiating position when discussing their remuneration terms with
their publisher or producer, it should be made impossible for authors to
abdicate or transfer their right to financial gratification. Thus, every
time a work is “exploited”, artists themselves will also have to receive
money.
These, of course, would go through copyright collectives. But that’s
okay, as “the only chance for money reaching the artist are copyright
collectives”, right?
Regardless of who should receive such royalties, the very fact of
their introduction would make libre licenses ineffective – each use,
even of a libre-licensed work, would mean payable royalties. That means
Wikipedia would be (financially) impossible, along with open educational resources and the rest of the libre
side of creativity.
Summing it all up
I guess the best summary of the Forum and many of the ideas expressed
therein is a quote by one of the attendees (can’t wait for the release
of the video recording of the forum to link directly):
Representatives of some of the NGOs here think this is all about some
ideals – it’s not, it’s about hard cash!
What could I possibly add to that! We’re all waiting for the official
stance of the Ministry (and the Polish government) in the European
Commission consultation process – but we
need not wait without action on our own part!