ACTA, copyright and the internet

First, let me say that artists deserve to get paid.

But the fact today is that copyright laws which are supposed to protect them have been usurped by large media corporations (by taking over artists copyrights in exchange for promotion & production). This means that today artists often get less than 10% of the sales of these corporation's products.

The global corporate machine also takes actions solely for profit which are very much against us, the consumers. For example, why should a DVD film released in the USA not become available in Europe until months later, or why should the BBC only be allowed to stream iPlayer only to UK IP addresses? The corporations have widely sub-divided rights by media, time and place.

Issues

So I believe we need to discuss these issues

1 The revision of copyright law. To shorten the time it applies - to say 10 years. And to make it global and non-divisible in media, time nor place.

2 The banning of DRM, or any kind of technology technique which prevents us from doing what we like . DRM is useless against file copying, but severely reduces our rights to use the purchased media as we wish (transcode to other hardware, re-sell...)

3 Making sure the internet is open and free and available to everyone as a utility and a right. Thus not using ISPs or any other delivery channel to police the digital bits they carry and deliver.

Make sure that personal infringement of copyright is always a civil law, not a criminal one. That is if you don't make money out of a copy then you don't commit a criminal offence.

Comments

Some comments I have recently read, reacting to the publication of the infamous, and up until now secret, ACTA treaty:

"The net is a fractal distribution network. DRM/DMCA/ACTA etc. are designed to be effective against a linear fixed network, it is pointless against a fractal net."

"The choice is between ISP liability and no ISP liability."

"I don't think that legislators or the mainstream of society yet considers or realises that information & Internet access should be treated like a utility, and thus a basic staple of life in the modern world. "

"ACTA is nothing more than sanctioning a worldwide oligarchy of "content owners" who are in fact simply middle men between the artists and the audience. In the era of the internet, such people are no longer needed."