Re: An alternative to levies on copyright

A Sex, 2004-02-27 às 11:13, Edward Welbourne escreveu:
> > With software, the person who writes the software isn't necessarily
> > the copyright holder - that privelege goes to the employer.
> 
> and it's worth noting that massively-collaborative works present an
> issue for any "no transferability of rights" rule (without which a "no
> exclusive deals" rule is largely pointless, since the publisher then
> only offers even half-way decent deals on condition of transfer, just as
> they presently do for exclusivity).
> 
If they offer only half-way decent deals, the artist can simply accept
it and search for other 3 and 4 half-way decent deals. See the
difference?

As for the non transferability, I don't see the issue. I don't
understand why a "no exclusive deals" implies "no tranferability of
rights".

> Any software of any significant scale is the work of many coders; if I
> can't transfer my rights to my work-for-hire, my contract will have to
> insist that I will always allow my employer to use what I write on the
> job.  Such insistence doesn't break the "no exclusivity" rule, but does
> effectively ensure only my employer can ever hope to have the permission
> of all contributors - thereby achieving exclusivity.  In the case of a
> software house I'm not hugely fussed by this - as long as the only
> monopolistic privileges granted in relation to software are about
> copying, as opposed to re-use of the ideas contained therein - since any
> bunch of the contributors who could sensibly have said "well it's mostly
> by us" (so our wish to grant someone else permission to publish our work
> will being thwarted by our having lost track of some ex-colleagues (who
> moved on to other jobs) or by our (perhaps, by now, ex-) employer
> keeping at least some other contributors on their side) would equally be
> able to get together and write something better (now that they've had
> the experience derived from the first time round).
> 
So, you're saying that complexity creates some situations of
quasi-monopoly. For me that's fine. Knowledge and education have always
been barriers to entry in the IT world. I accept that as something that
happens, not a bad result of the copyright.

> However, the same rationale applies to recordings of orchestral works.
> If they're to be published at all, the consent of all players is
> required; and anyone trying to put together a deal for republication
> later is going to have a hard time finding them all (some will have
> moved on) and getting them all to agree to the deal - especially if the
> first publisher is twisting a few arms.
> 
Same issue as above.

> An orchestra *could* set up a collective rights-management entity that
> all members of the orchestra contractually agree to allow to use their
> collective works; then that entity (under the democratic control of the
> orchestra's members) would be able to do a deal with a publishing house
> to release the work, while retaining the authority to later do a deal
> with someone else in relation to the same work.  To make that work, the
> orchestra would need to ensure the other parties with rights in the
> recording of their performance (the sound technicians, producers,
> etc. who are normally provided by the publisher) have also granted the
> orchestra's entity liberty to use the recording; and the orchestra would
> need to ensure they had a copy from which they could subsequently make
> copies (i.e. no DRM-crippling).  That would all require orchestras to be
> fairly hard-nosed and forceful in their bargaining; and I can just see
> how Big Music would be quick to find orchestras not yet that organised
> and offer to "carry that organisational burden for" them, so as to end
> up being in control of the recording; after they've done this with a few
> orchestras (and while they're still keeping them sweet) they'll be sure
> to threaten any organised orchestras with taking their business
> elsewhere if the orchestra insists on the things called for above;
> i.e. they'll apply market pressure to restore the status quo.
> 
Well, sound-technicians, producers, etc. are not part of the creative
process, so they are not entitled to copyright protection (I'm assuming
portuguese copyright, of course). Even the "forced down our throats"
database protection was implemented as a "sui generis" right outside of
copyright.

I'm still having issue if such organisations should be even allowed. The
simple idea that one author's decision could be overridden by others
seems bad to me. Should we just accept that fair use would be enough to
maintain the work available in the long term?

> So what's needed is not just legislative change, but a suitable aliquot
> of bloody-mindedness from authors, performers and the general public ;^>

And a group of people who see the opportunity of the new market of
cultural goods.
-- 
						João Miguel Neves

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