France: All your books are belong to us
theregister.co.uk
theregister.co.uk
The article fails to explain that the intent of the law is to deal with the problem of orphaned works. It creates a process whereby out-of-print works can have have their copyright seized by the state, in order to make them available in digital form. Out-of-print works with a copyright date prior to 2001 are to be entered into a publicly available list. Listed works can be challenged for 6 months. Works that are not challenged within this period, have their rights seized, so that they can be published again.
Perhaps the specifics of the law are problematic, but on the surface, it looks like a great idea to me. Authors get rights to their works for 11 years, after which, if the work remains available, things proceed as they do now. But out-of-print works whose authors cannot be found, can be legally made available again. And the process has checks on possible abuses.
So what's the problem?
This is nothing but corruption, giving those select members of the quango a cash-cow at the expense of both the authors and society.
The article by the AFUL explains it well: http://aful.org/communiques/french-senate-proposes-to-legali...
Similarly, an author can assert their rights and ask for a republished book to be removed from sale, something which would not be possible if works were made public domains.
I'm not saying this a good idea, just that this is why they're not just removing the copyright from the works.
To me it looks like the incentives are not really in place for that.
1) If the authors are already present, registered, in touch, etc... they're already getting paid.
2) If the authors "can't be found", the big bureaucracy gets to keep the cash.
Italy has a 'collective management organization, the SIAE, and the thing is pretty much pure evil.
If I had to choose between the government (French, US, whatever) and Google doing such a thing, I would definitely choose an entity like Google on the grounds that since they stand to make money and have a stake, they'll manage it better than a typical government can.
Sorry, the research I've seen has shown the American government to be marginally more effective [1] and marginally less venal [2] at a much lower relative cost [3] than the French government. Quangos are usually in a class of their own when it comes to derision for public sector inefficiency [4].
[1] http://info.worldbank.org/governance/wgi/worldmap.asp (2010 Government Effectiveness)
[2] http://cpi.transparency.org/cpi2011/results/
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_spending#Government_...
It's even more restrictive : only the public libraries can make these works available (and only to there suscribers)
However given the opponents this probably isn't the case. But this article gives us nothing.
I think this opposition suggests that the party takes its positions from who its opponents are, rather than extending from a coherent underlying philosophy.
The Pirate Party should take a strict line - abolish copyright altogether - rather than buying into the premises of their opponents but then trying to make a murky case about fairness.
The French law could lead to good things. I'm on the lookout for an event where a government makes a significant concession against copyright and then finds that there are trade advantages to it. A well-publicised example of this could cause the floodgates will open, and there will be a race to liberalise.
I see a parallel to the period of history where England lost the US colonies. They abandoned mercantalism for a free-trade model, and actually got richer despite the loss of a major colony.
1. Aim to make available orphaned work. 2. Only applies to work unpublished for at least 5 years. 3. The public publishing right can be revoked by the author or publisher. 4. The author is getting royalties. 5. There is no censoring.
Let's compare to another somewhat related case of royalties land grab, iPhone publishing:
1. Aim to control and profit from other people work. 2. Applies to all iPhone published work from day one. 3. There is no alternative other than not publish your iPhone app. 4. Apple gets a cut, always. 5. Apple gets to decide what gets published or not, unilaterally.
It's funny also to compare this to, say, how the music radio system works. Hey, it's compulsory diffusion of work without the author consent with a government-prescribed royalty payment system. For current works. Ah, but music radio stations are mostly privately owned, so this all right?
All in all, the law is reasonable and makes a honest attempt to leave the author in control. I could even envision that small and amateur author would want their work exclusively distributed by such a system, if the royalties are fair.