Thursday, February 25, 2016
Copyright Office Decides To Rewrite Copyright Law Itself, Blesses A 'Making Available' Right That Isn't There
Techdirt: The Copyright Office has decided to take a stance on copyright law that requires two slightly odd things. First, it requires ignoring what the Copyright Act actually says and then, separately, it requires pretending that the law says something that it clearly does not say. That's pretty incredible when you think about it.
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While I do agree with the author of this article that it’s a bit questionable for the Copyright Office to make claims that seem to ignore the law that already exists and rely on them adding bits to the existing laws I think it’s a good thing that they’re taking a position. If there’s this much contention over the issue, then clearly something needs to be done about it and if the courts aren’t making definitive rulings and Congress hasn’t changed the actual copyright law to account for it then it might as well be the people responsible for the patents. If anything I’d rather have them making the decision, after all they are the ones who have to deal with copy right laws the most, I would imagine (or at least hope) that they would be in the best position to figure out the correct direction to take the laws and how to deal with the idea of a “making available” right.
I think this article highlights a very big issue in our governmental system. Laws are not being updated to fit modern times. The fact that digital sharing has yet to be addressed in official copyright law is amazing, since file sharing has been around for at least 15 years, if not more. The copyright office is trying to skew the existing laws this way or that way to fit what they want the laws to say. But if it’s vague to the point of so much argument, add an explicit amendment to the law. And also, please talk to computer experts. Because some of the definitions (like copy and tangible) may actually translate to the digital world in ways the average person may not understand. A computer expert could tell you whether opening a shared file on a computer creates a temporary memory of that file which could in theory be accessed later. The copyright office is a prime example of a government office refusing to notice it’s the year 2016, and sometimes that means that things created in 1998 don’t really apply anymore.
This article makes me nervous. The legal system was never made to include the digital world, and while it makes complete and utter sense that the Copyright Office would update their laws in the land of digital file sharing, the fact that they just get to "decide" what the laws meant is kind of weird to me. Granted, this might not be the whole story. But the way this article is phrased, that's definitely how it sounds.
Like, a year ago or something, there was a law proposed that basically said any photograph, drawing, or digital image posted online without a copyright (even your own work, which you should have an inherent copyright to, ugh) would be part of the public domain. This freaked a LOT of digital and modern artists in general out, because it meant they would not be able to post art online (and therefore market themselves) without going through the lengthy copyright process for every. Single. Piece. Luckily, that did not happen, I think it like didn't even go past being proposed to talk about or something. But, just the fact that these things happen and people think they are good ideas freaks me out, honestly.
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