#6: Remove “AI” from that. I should have the right to run ANYTHING I own locally without being spied on.
Anonymity/privacy are a HUGE deal that imo transcends a “consumer” bill of rights and should just plain be a human right. I’m embarrassed I ever believed the “nothing to hide nothing to fear” BS around age 12-13 and the patriot act, which was the first time i ever knowingly faced the idea. Now we have people sent to prison for posting memes.
German law makes a distinction between real-people and legal-entities.
As far as I am concerned, “some guy” writing a book should be treated differently from “mega corp produces a text item”. One guy writing his book should have the rights to that text until he dies.
Any purely legal entity that does not wish to hinge all rights on “some guy” gets the same terms as patents: 20 years, that is it. Fair game after that.
A theme I notice through out the conversation is that this entire thing would need a lot of distinctions. And that means that mechanically, we would need an army of people sorting through a ton of claims, and somehow magically not get them to be bought out either.
While I agree, in the machine we are right now it would be preferential to have these distinctions I don’t think any right holder is going to pay for all that when they (intellectual property holders) have a system that works for them right now. Which is, ‘Eat shit bitch. We own it.’
Cause the best approach would be to have it be publicly funded, but that ain’t gonna happen in GOD’S country.
I don’t want to derail the convo too hard from it’s intended point, but I a thought to why we have copy protections in the first place, and why we would need them comes to question when, by and large, making information free (as in liberty and beer if possible) is just a win for everyone.
I say that because the only mechanism that would likely make changes like we’re floating here is us getting unsettlingly upset (to grossly under emphasize what is required.) And if we’re going to put that kinda effort in might as well get the whole hog and share it appropriately.
Here a couple of my thoughts:
For devices that the seller intends to be used to access the seller’s services and that are “vendor locked”, a clear declaration of this and all other such limitations, and a duty to either buy back the device or remove the vendor lock if the terms and conditions for the service change. For devices like cellular phones and tablets, both the vendor lock and any installed software (apps) that send data and usage information to be removed or made removable after the device is considered paid for in full.
A full disclosure of the kind of information and the recipients of such information that a device, software or combination thereof transmits or is intended to transmit, with such transmission only to commence after the purchaser or leasee has agreed (opted in). If purchaser does not agree to the terms, the purchaser having the right to return any such item and/or cancel the contract for a full refund.
As applicable, full disclosure of the exact legal name and geographic location of any business, including subcontractors and their installations where such data are received, analyzed and stored.
In case of a data security breach, a clear statement of liability, duty for speedy notification and the rights a customer is entitled to in such an event. If the breach is due to negligence of the seller, a contractual right for the customer to be adequately compensated for damages.
If possible, a “right to be forgotten” for any natural person who is not a public figure ( defined as a person holding or having previously held public office, or who is or was in the past a declared candidate for public office at the State or Federal level).
Anyway, just a couple of thoughts.
Sorry that some of it ended up with clauses and subclauses.
I think you make a fair point here (or at least, that’s how I’m reading a part of it) that getting anything changed in the existing system will be tough. If Wendell does find some IP lawyers and bill-writers to get this into a model bill form, there will be a phase at some point of compromise and tradeoffs that accelerates if this makes it to a committee and the floor of a legislature. We’ll go from our idealized list to some cutdown/watered down list. However, I would view any incremental improvement as a win, though I understand why others might not. It does also work to shift the Overton window in our favor a bit and could lead to future, easier wins.
But as with anything involving agreement from lots of people, it’s going to result in language no one really likes and, as you mention, any scheme that is powerful enough to work quickly becomes a juicy enough target for certain folks to want to corrupt. Even so, I think some fights you just have to fight because the fight is the right thing to do (regardless of if you win, “half-win” via compromise or lose).
I also agree that rethinking the whole current scheme of IP is worth it while we are doing this, if only to make sure our changes are well thought through. Though I may respectfully disagree you on some other points, I agree it will be a very tough fight given the current incentives structure. IP has become similar to a medieval English style land/property ownership system where all the land is owned by the lords, redistributed at the whim of a monarch and “ye plebs shall never own nuffing”, which is not sustainable though I think we can fix it at the ballot box if we make it something that an election could turn on.
I’d end with noting that the basis of US real property law has historically been to favor “alienability” of land (so its ownership can and does change hands and its doesn’t get locked into the perpetual ownership of one person or entity) just so we don’t end up re-making the English system we broke away from that was so miserable for anyone not born into peerage. We seem to have recreated medieval English property law now in IP law, and corporations are starting to become the new peerage.
Wont we need a politician patron of sorts for these kinds of things? Who was the Senator that was suprisingly up to date with these kinds of things?
Bit surprised to not see Bill Clintons DMCA called out specifically here since alot of the anti-consumerist BS companies are able to get away today are thanks in a large part to the protections afforded to them under that act.
**Fair use is not a defense to a prohibited act of circumvention or trafficking.** It does not matter that you or someone else has to circumvent DRM in order to make fair use of a copyrighted work.
This really had a chilling effect on american innovation since everyones response was to instantly put DRM into their products.
A good first step would be to repeal the DMCA in its entirety.
Maybe Ron Wyden (D-OR)?
Would be good to have one supporter on each side of the aisle. Even though that sounds a bit crazy in the current climate, if you look at the live trackers of bills on one of the various websites that track them, there are still many bipartisan bills (they just don’t get spoken about because the Red vs Blue fights get more eyeballs and clicks).
I think software is something distinct in-between an invention that could seek patent protection and other creative works that may deserve copyright protection. I would propose a new classification for software intellectual property, it would gain 14 year default protection, with a 14 year extension possible if they provide to the copyright office a VM with buildable source code including any server side software required to run the software. At the behest of the software owners and with a small fee the second round protection could remain sealed until it expires.
Copyrighted elements, such as music or artworks could granted a non distribution status or replaced with placeholder assets.
Reminds me of a book I read long ago (free with FSF membership at the time) - Free Culture | LESSIG, a surprisingly interesting book about copyright in America, IIRC it details his own fight to prevent copyright becoming perpetual and the associated depletion of the public domain via repeated copyright term extensions.
Lessig is the person I’d reach out to for opinions if I was interested in a serious attempt at reform.
I’m not in America, but through the magic of politics American copyright laws end up exported to us - Australia–United States Free Trade Agreement - Wikipedia
This right here is another fun side effect of the dmca, trying to treat everything as something that can have a copyright. Now add in some rights management and no one can reverse engineer your software or face the wrath of the dmca.
As an old fogey who has been in tech for awhile it was sad watching the rapid progress we were making in the 80’s and 90’s basically stall out after the dmca went into effect and enforcements started happening.
NO RETCONNING!! - the darkside of “right-to-repair”
You remember what they did to Indy? That’s the first South Park episode i couldn’t finish.
Now Fart Face Ryan Gosling is in star wars - apparently the force is still female.
Also, did you know that Lucas took the idea of the death star from a 1960s conspiracy theory that a proto human alien race lives on the back side of the moon, hence Pink Floyd; and the moon was originally but was created to migrate a that race from mars to earth and terra-form the once chaotic planet earth. The moon is like 1.5% the mass of the earth, but the most stable orbiting moon in the solar system, gives us a stable rotation and 24-hr day, and is in direct proportion of distance/size of the sun 1/400th.
The migration part sounds like krypton.
That is all
ITEM #11 SHOULD BE AT THE TOP OF THIS LIST. If manufactures and Publishers abandon software, or stop supporting a product, they should simultaneously be relinquishing any and all rights to the software or products… If Microsoft decides to stop supporting WindowsXP, then they should no longer hold any rights to the OS, so that 3rd parties can continue to support (for profit, non-profit, what’evs) and distribute updates… Samezies for hardware, if Alphabet doesn’t want to support gen-1 Nest thermostats, then a secondary market should be allowed to open up to support these products… I believe there is a precedence for this in the automotive industry, as I can still buy OEM equivalent parts for my 1975 Toyota pick-up truck from 3rd parties, and I don’t see Toyota suing someone for selling replicas of their carburetor parts, or rebuilding their alternators?
Suggestion1:
Users shall have the right to be informed of the copyright actions being taken through any and all enforcement mechanisms. Should an entity be abusing enforcement mechanisms, either as a whole, or against a specific individual, they shall loose protection over the material they are defending copyright of, and may face other consequences.
This shall include the usage of automated copyright protection mechanisms, whereupon
A user shall have the right to unbiased, unburdened, speedy, manual human intervention. The reviewer cant just be someone clicking no as fast as possible, and has to actually read what was sent. This may occur after multiple levels of review, and so does not need to be immediate, but should not take weeks.
In an automated tool makes a mistake, it must be rectified and improved to not make that mistake again (or atleast decrease recurrence rates).
Suggestion 2:
(Im much less sure on the exacts of this one, and feel implicit remixing may be controversial. Welcome discussion)
Determining who owns what in the world of copyright is extremely complex. Getting the rights to use something, expand on something, or make something that already exists are ALSO complex.
It should be required that copyright & licensing be easily discoverable so that existing remixing rights can be applied, or other licensing sought out.
Ideally (tho I understand likely controversially), Id like there to be default percentages granted to anyone wanting to remix beyond just the existing remix laws (a musician can perform a cover without breaking copyright, but they have to give royalties to whoever owns it).
I’d like these laws to extend to all media, with default (tho negotiable) royalty percentages and costs that anyone can use. As a work gets older, these decrease. As a derivative work gets further from the original, these decrease. the rates would probably have to start rather high for very close works so that you don’t have people just reprinting with minor changes causing confusion immediately on launch.
Ex1:
Someone making & selling a modified version of the new Mario Kart to add other Nintendo characters 2 weeks after release would have to charge the MSRP for it and give that chunk to Nintendo, but could charge ABOVE MSRP and thus get a cut for themselves.
Where you to do the same thing to MK Double dash, (a 17 year old game) you would be free to charge a much smaller amount as the game is so old (and or take a larger cut) Tho Nintendo would still have rights to a reasonably large percentage of the sold amount.
Ex2:
Gotye’s Somebody That I Used To Know is a song that uses bit-crushed & extremely remixed samples of other songs that were popular at the time. because of this, the publishers of those songs get a very large cut even though they have almost no impact. With this right, Goyte could have argued for a minuscule (if not nonexistent) cut given the distance from the original works.
Ex3:
Author A writes a book. Author B comes along and makes a fan-fiction in that book’s universe, with a bot of work referencing the characters from Author A, but otherwise not interfering. Author B would be able to sell their work, Author A still gets a cut for building that universe, and the fans get more material to potentially read.
As much as I like #11, a problem with #11 is that it sounds to me like a positive right. (It also has a bit of cross-over with #5, which is more of a negative right.)
I know the EU and many in the US don’t give a damn about even recognizing this concept (that positive rights aren’t ethical) but the US founders certainly did.
If #11 could be revised so it isn’t mandating that someone (who may not even exist at the time) takes action, it would be better. I’m not sure how to fix it.
Most (maybe all) of the rest appear to be negative rights which are certainly defensible–and badly needed.
It’s a shame our lawmakers are almost universally captured by scum with the money to bribe. I doubt anything like this would ever get real attention.
I’m not familiar with that one, so not sure why that name came to mind. I would’ve figured someone like a Rand Paul would be more open to strengthening property and privacy rights.
I would hope this particular issue would be a bi-partisan one. But unfortunately from the state of things, the bi-partisanship might be more about fighting us than backing us.
One way to at least discourage the in comparison to patents (IMHO) essentially insanely long duration of copyrights would be a requirement for the copyright owner to actively maintain the copyright protection by paying an escalating fee, maybe after a five year grace period. Currently, after a copyright is obtained, no further fee or payment is ever required, which encourages holders to simply hang on to their copyright until it expires. Patents however not only expire much sooner, but also require active maintenance of the patent protection, including payment of escalating fees. In other words, it costs money to hang on to a patent, and the fees escalate the longer the patent is maintained! If copyright maintenance would require similar fees on a similar schedule, only copyrights that are really valued by the holder would live on for decades.
See Summary of FY 2020 Final Patent Fee Rule | USPTO
It’s already illegal to strip attribution away.