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Date: 1999-01-20

US-Copyright/gesetze: Meinungsfreiheit abgedreht


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Die im Digital Millennium Copyright Act verabschiedeten
Gesetze werden eines weitaus schlimmere Wirkung auf die
Rede-und Informationsfreiheit im Netze haben, als jedes
Communications Decency Amendment, meint der Kolumnist
von USA Today.

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Sam Vincent Meddis
1999 JAN 19
....
A totally different assault on our constitutional rights has
gained relatively little notice, however. It's the Digital
Millennium Copyright Act, which was signed by President
Clinton in October while the nation's attention was riveted on
the upcoming congressional elections and impeachment
proceedings.
...
When it came to the copyright law, it wasn't the political
clout of the overreligious right to which Washington
kowtowed. Instead, it was intense lobbying of a special-
interest congloberate made up of the music, film and
software industries.

Few would argue that strong enforcement of copyright isn't
essential. On the contrary, it's perhaps more essential than
ever, because our digital networks make it as effortless as a
few mouse clicks to illegally duplicate everything from songs
to computer operating systems.
...
But in their zeal to prevent the Chinese, say, from
appropriating Disney's Mickey Mouse ears, our nation's
lawmakers went too far and too fast. In short, the new
copyright law helps to protect the revenue streams of well-
heeled industries at the risk of impoverishing free expression
on the Internet.

Let's look back at earlier scares. The debut of photocopying
machines made publishers nervous that readers would start
making illegal copies of books. Similarly, the movie industry
feared that videotape recorders might drive down their profits.
...
With the Web still its infancy and growing at a dizzying pace,
this was surely not the time for Washington to lock us into
copyright rules based on the congloberate's worst-case
scenarios.
...
Its First Amendment Outrage of the Week warned of a
claustrophobic pay-per-view future: "If, for instance, a famous
singer dies, don't expect to hear snippets of her tunes on an
online newscast the way you would on TV or radio. Practices
that are routine on the air become illegal online. It gets
worse. Educational Web sites can now face criminal
penalties for offering the same information -- some of it in the
public domain, no less -- that you can walk down to your
local library and pull off the shelf."

Last week I participated in a panel on copyright law at the
Forum and heard Carl Kaplan, a public interest lawyer and
cyber-law columnist for The New York Times, describe where
he thinks we're headed. "Today, it's music; tomorrow, it's e-
books," he said. "This is the future; everything will cost
money, and all the free uses -- for scholarship, criticism,
reporting -- will go out the window."

So naturally I was glad to see that same week the launch of
at least one serious challenge to new copyright regulations.

The Eldritch Press, a non-profit organization that posts
literary works for free on its Web site, filed a lawsuit seeking
to overturn a provision in another law signed in October that
extends copyright protections for authors from 50 to 70 years
after their death, and works such as movies from 75 to 95
years.

The Constitution confers upon Congress the authority: "To
promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by
securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the
exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."
....
We don't need to wonder what the framers might have had in
mind by that definition. The original copyright statute of 1790
granted copyright terms of only 14 years, with a 14 year
renewal period.
...
Jonathan Zittrain of Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and
Society, which represents Eldritch in its copyright lawsuit,
told me in a telephone interview that Web users will be asked
for their support. The goal is to kindle an online campaign,
perhaps not unlike the one that helped slap down the
Communications Decency Act.

Source
http://www.usatoday.com
relayed by
http://www.newsbytes.com


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edited by Harkank
published on: 1999-01-20
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