After several meetings of the Alternative to Copyright Working Group, I have drafted the replacement copyright policy in advance of Congress this year.
The draft omits three things which will be added shortly after further meetings and research:
A definition of ‘commercial use’ (to be discussed at the next meeting).
Information on which treaties will need to be renegotiated, and what can be implemented immediately.
Inclusion of more content from the existing preamble.
Nitpicking on the premable; (not that im an expert on grammar or anything)
“Extensions to the duration of copyright have not been made on sound economic evidence, but as a result of extensive lobbying.”
‘Extensions to the duration of copyright have been made after extensive lobbying, without sound analysis of the social and economic costs’
1000%, first time i read it as 100%, maybe spell it out ‘one thousand percent’, give the reader time for it sink in.
“However, the complex legislation provides different durations for different types of works, making it all the more confusing.”
‘However, different types of works have different protection measures and durations, making the legislation difficult to comprehend by those it aims to protect’
Mistake i think (bolded)
“Open Access provisions will be for required for all publicly financed scientific and academic research”
Just a quick thought bubble on the preamble, wasn’t the original British copyright solely about censorship, restricting access to the presses to approved printers and content only?
There were similar statutes before 1709/1710, but they related more to monopolies on printing rather than copyright as we know it.
I dispute the claim in the Engström/Falkvinge book that the monopoly awarded to the London Company of Stationers in 1557 significantly resembled copyright (except insofar as it was a monopoly). This monopoly was, however, used for censorship (Mary I granted the monopoly so long as she got to decide what could be published).
The earliest genuine copyright statute is the 1709 (or 1710, depending on what you read) Copyright Act (more commonly known as the Statute of Anne). This was the first to provide direct protection to authors who could sell or licence the rights to their books.
The earlier monopolies were very clearly censorship tools, but didn’t give any rights to authors, and, importantly, were granted to individual publishing companies of the monarch’s choosing. The right was not over what was being printed, but the right to print in itself.
Made some slight modifications to what you’d written, but thanks for reading through it and picking up on these.