Brad Fox of Strada Films posts on why progressive copyright reform should include reducing the term of copyright.
Brad Fox on Reducing the Term of Copyright
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To be fair…
While his is advocating a reduction of the term of automatic copyright, he is also advocating the ability to optionally extend the copyright in 5 year increments. Not a bad idea. Copyright is extended if the holder wants it to be, and is willing to pay for the privilege.
However, I can’t see the major content owners (as opposed to producers) going along with this for the simple reason that it requires them to be active… everything that I’ve seen to date on the issue leads me to believe that a very vocal group wants it to be completely passive on their part (hand off the responsibility for finding violations to others, hand over cheques to them). I am not making the claim that the vocal group represents a majority of the copyright holders, they simply represent the squeaky wheel that gets the oil.
Anon-K: Not only do these ‘interests’ want it to be automatic and passive, they want the government to police infringement.
@Vincent
That is why I referred to it as passive 🙂 Normally they would need to actively find violators and register a complaint.
@Vincent
Further… you are correct that they want the government to police enforcement. Now, it wouldn’t be such a big deal if the government were to do this, so long as it was on a cost recovery basis (they are charged for the government’s actual costs, rather than a per-violation basis). In that situation, they are effectively contracting the government to do the job… however, in that case I’d argue that the government agency that does the job not be able to get a warrant, nor require any agency that can get warrants (RCMP, CSIS last time I looked, there may be more now) to assist them.