Copyright currently grants a personal monopoly for the extraordinarily long term of the entire life of the creator plus 70 years (or 95 years if the creator was an employee). These lengthy terms prevent people from building on our common culture. This bill proposes shortening copyright terms to life of the author plus 50 years, or a flat 50 years if the author was an employee.
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Copyright law grants creators a number of rights and powers. Unfortunately sometimes these are abused. For example, this abuse can take the form of suppressing speech that an author disagrees with, even if that speech doesn’t infringe his copyright. Additionally, copyright owners can stifle free speech by claiming rights and powers they do not have.
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Right now, breaking the digital lock on a piece of copyrighted content for many uses—even if the use itself is lawful—is illegal. That means that if you wanted to use a clip from a movie in order to criticize it, taking the clip itself is legal, but breaking the DRM on the DVD in order to do so is not.
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When it comes to takedown notices, it often seems like alleged infringers are assumed guilty until proven innocent. The process that allows content owners to remove allegedly infringing content from websites is far too often abused. Even in cases where there is no infringement, the content is usually removed immediately, taken down for a minimum of 10 days, and is sometimes never replaced. This is particularly worrisome in politically significant or time-sensitive cases where the cost of a faulty or malicious takedown might outweigh the benefit of keeping the content offline for a week and a half.
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Proposed Additions
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The United States Government should have an office that is dedicated to promoting innovation both within the government and within the economy as a whole. Vote for this Proposal
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A forward-and-delete system should count as a distribution or a transfer of a copy, not a reproduction. If the net number of copies at the end of the transaction is the same as before the transaction, it shouldn’t be considered the making of a copy. Vote for this Proposal
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Some of the fastest and most cost-effective networks in America are run by municipal entities. These include Lafayette LA and Chattanooga TN. If communities wish to construct and operate public high speed Internet access networks for their citizens, they should be able to do so. A Federal Law should be passed to preempt the 17 (or so) states with (largely ALEC-inspired) legislative barriers to such practices. Several years ago, a Community Broadband Bill co-sponsored by Senators McCain and Lautenberg (R & D, respectively) died in Congress. Let’s resurrect and pass it. Vote for this Proposal
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“The Free Internet Act: To promote prosperity, creativity, entrepreneurship and innovation by preventing the restriction of liberty and preventing the means of censorship. FIA will allow Internet users to browse freely without any means of censorship, users have the right to free speech and to free knowledge; we govern the content of the Internet, governments don’t. However enforcements/laws must also be put into place to protect copyrighted content.” (more…) Vote for this Proposal
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If a software EULA says that a user isn’t the “owner” of the copy of the software, that person can’t lawfully make use of first sale. This could be fixed if section 109 applied to whoever possessed the work, not necessarily whoever owned it. That way, transferring the same lawfully made (and likely authorized) copy wouldn’t be an automatic infringement. Although this would mean that someone wouldn’t be liable for copyright infringement if they sold a rented DVD, for instance, they’d still be on the hook for literally stealing that DVD from Blockbuster. Vote for this Proposal
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Protect not only the Internet but the tens of millions of American citizens who need to know that when they buy Internet access, they’re getting access to the real Internet. Network providers who offer services that depend on violating IP-layer neutrality should be prohibited from labeling those services as “Internet,” as their doing so will only undermine the weight of consensus authority presently accorded to the existing standards. The term “Internet” represents specific standards that provide IP-layer neutral connectivity that supports the openness of access and innovation that have been the defining characteristics of the Internet since its origins. Vote for this Proposal
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