2009/10/27 Andrew Turvey andrewrturvey@googlemail.com:
- Lots of talk from big business interests saying there is a "narrow
legislative window of opportunity" at the moment (i.e. before the next general election)
Given the spectacular series of delays on updating / UK copyright law they may have a point.
- For a "creative" conference focussing on new technologies it was
remarkably lacking in opportunities for delegates to participate in asking questions etc - format is largely a panel discussing the issue among themselves.
Still we need to know what some of the players are thinking.
- SIon Simon, another politician present, mentioned that the copyright
debate is highly polarised between the industry and free copyright advocates, both sides are deaf to the other and they need to engage. Despite this the discussions on copyright have been largely one sided, unbalanced, with some fairly extreme language used - "copyright warriors", "green ink brigade". "a generation of stealing" etc.
Going by the copyright arguments on wikipedia that is unsurprising. Who was "copyright warriors" aimed at?
- David Rowan (WiredUK): "Government should free data - postcodes, ordinance
survey"
Any mention of United Kingdom Hydrographic Office?
"obscurity for some artists is a bigger challenge than piracy"
"we need a new settlement to liberate archived rights"
archived rights?
- "we should have extended collective licensing"
Potential danger there. Some forms of collective licensing can create issues for free licenses.
- "businesses spend huge effort in clearing licenses - need more effective
ways of clearing large numbers of rights holders"
That risks meaning "disenfranchise small copyright holders".
- "copyright switches should be turned to "on" by default rather than "off""
?
- "working on a new digital license to allow museums to publish in-copyright
articles"
Driven by the Anthony Blunt thing?
- "licensing details should be included in the metadata"
In theory yes but a lot of people strip out metadata and not all file formats support it that well. It would make the life of commons admins less hard though.