Philippe Aigrain at Oct 6 Hearing on transposition of the European Directive on Copyright in French law

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [A2k] Philippe Aigrain at Oct 6 Hearing on transposition
of the European Directive on Copyright in French law
Date: Wed, 7 Dec 2005 07:47:14 -0500
From: Manon Ress <[email protected]>
To: [email protected],a2k discuss list
<[email protected]>

http://www.debatpublic.net/Members/paigrain/blogue/cspla#english

Philippe Aigrain at a Hearing on 6 October 2005 in the "On-line
distribution of works" commitee of the High Council of Literary
and Artistic Property

[Context for non-French readers: CSPLA is the committee advising
the French government on copyright issues. The special committee
on "on- line distribution of works" had a general mandate, but
most of its work was situated in the perspective of the coming
transposition in French law of the European directive on
Copyright and Neighbouring Rights in the Information Society.]


Good morning. I am grateful to your committee and its Chair for
having accepted to hear me. For more than 20 years I have been a
research scientist, working mostly on tool developments for the
critical reception of image and sound media. I became by force a
philosopher of law in your domain of competence, in particular in
relation with my work in the European Commission services, and it
is with this philosophical perspective that I am addressing you
today. Finally, I am today an entrepreneur, trying to provide
tools and services for the public debate by citizens of policy
issues.

I will not surprise you by telling you that there is a strong
tension between various philosophical models for the foundations
of intellectual rights and of their practical implementation. My
own contribution is based on using as foundations the
capabilities, that is the effective ability of persons and groups
to conduct activities in the intellectual sphere. I do not hope
-nor have I today time to try- to convince you of the relevance
of this approach. However, you can't ignore that it is adopted by
a powerful and growing movement in many aspects of intellectual
endeavours, and as M=E9lanie Dulong de Rosnay has just described in
creative art and innovation (NB: Melanie Dulong de Rosnay
represents Creative Commons France in the committee). So what?

We can not forget the rich history of substantive law and the
exigence of its continuity. Those of you who may have read
through my book Cause commune all the way to its conclusion
chapter will know that I am not asking you to adopt a
revolutionary stand and turn upside down copyright law. What I am
asking you is to acknowledge that the voluntary creation of
information and creative commons is a fact. That it is promising,
though uncertain in its future forms, like anything that is just
born and grows. If you accept this premise, the consequence is
that we must draw a limit not to be trespassed. One should
abstain from adopting legal provisions that are incompatible with
the continued exploration of the potential of information and
creative commons.

One has already gone beyong this limit, but, for what is already
transposed in French law, this was done mostly in the domain of
patent law. Regarding author rights and copyright, it is not too
late to abstain from committing what will be hard to repair. How?
By refusing (to the full extent allowed by the constraints of
transposition) any provision that would go against a key
principle of author rights and copyright: the a posteriori
judicial consideration of the legitimacy or illegitimacy of
usage. Do not transfer this consideration to a judgment embedded
in technical devices that are designed and parameterized under
pressure of specific commercial interests. Give an immediate
effectiveness to the legitimate usage rights that are identified
as exceptions in laws, but are nothing else than fundamental
rights that would deserve a better recognition than the one they
presently get in France.

Finally, do not consider one text in isolation. Pay attention to
a trend that precipitates us into the abyss if we are not able to
master it. In the pipeline after the directive that the DADVSI
law is about to transpose, other laws and regulations are already
proposed or in deliberation at European level. They set ever more
extreme measures to prevent was is ineluctable and what I claim
to be desirable. The letter stating the mission of your committee
invites you to "consider the interests of all cultural chains and
the public". Some interest groups depict a world where the forces
of the cultural good oppose the axys of evil of piracy. In
reality a very small number of centralized media firms are afraid
of the irruption of information and creative commons. What
motivates this fear ? Human time, this scarce resource. They are
afraid of the capability of anyone to choose what s/he will watch
and listen to, play, compose and shoot, and how s/he will do it.

We live through the end of illiteracy for time-based media. Some
would like to delay the birth of literacy by a few tens of years
or centuries. The Ministry of Culture, to which your committee is
attached, used to support - beyond political changes in
government - the design of  tools and the availability of
contents as to favour the birth of a true media literacy. The
same Ministry champions cultural diversity. The fragile success
that was just scored in UNESCO for the proposals of France and
Canada was obtained because for one of the first times, there was
a synergy between ambitious cultural policy, NGOs that promote
cultural commons and countries from the South. Do not be mistaken
: information commons are not just useful to culture, they are
its foundations.


************************************************
Manon Anne Ress
[email protected],
www.cptech.org

Consumer Project on Technology
1621 Connecticut Ave, NW, Washington, DC 20009 USA
Tel.:  +1.202.332.2670, Ext 16 Fax: +1.202.332.2673

Consumer Project on Technology
1 Route des  Morillons, CP 2100, 1211 Geneva 2, Switzerland
Tel: +41 22 791 6727

Consumer Project on Technology
24 Highbury Crescent, London, N5 1RX, UK
Tel: +44(0)207 226 6663 ex 252 Fax: +44(0)207 354 0607

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