[Foundation-l] WMF/EFF and Copyright extension

[Brian McNeil]

I wonder, would the phrasing "not in the interests of the public that EU
institutions are supposed to serve and represent" be appropriate?

In any case, based on the discussion I think it is time someone else had a
go at drafting the resolution - including both the Wikipedia aspect and the
"not in the public interest" issue. We need something to go to Mike for
final tweaks and presentation to the board. It isn't going to go through in
time to give to the EFF tomorrow but I'm sure they'll be pleased to hear
that the overwhelming consensus of Wikimedians is that the proposal is a bad
idea.


Brian McNeil
-----Original Message-----
From: foundation-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org
[mailto:foundation-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Lars Aronsson
Sent: 21 February 2008 10:39
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] WMF/EFF and Copyright extension

daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:

> I would hope the reason we oppose the extension of copyright is 
> far more principled than that.

I agree.  I think what we have to make clear is that there is a 
public interest on the far side of copyright expiration.  Most new 
legislation is written by asking for input from all interested 
parties, involving both sides in any conflict.  But for copyright 
law this has traditionally meant both publishers and authors, or 
both record companies and artists.  Both sides have agreed that 
more protection and longer expiration times is better.  For 
example when life+50 was changed to life+70, this was only 
described as an improvement.  The people who disagree, that is we, 
the users of public domain material, have not been asked.

Of course, both shopowners and shoplifters are not involved in 
drafting anti-theft legislation.  So what we have to make clear is 
that we represent a public interest that is not only huge, but 
also legitimate.

In countries (such as Scotland and Scandinavia) where you have 
[[freedom to roam]], this is certainly against the interest of 
land owners, but on the other side of the negotiation table are 
hiking societies, such as [[sv:Svenska Turistföreningen]] with 
300,000 members or 3 percent of the total population of Sweden.

Wikimedia Sverige is 122 years younger and has only 100 members, 
so still needs to recruit 299,900 more.


-- 
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se

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