Copyright law addresses needs from centuries ago

Summary: Laws which were written in the age of primitive printing machines cannot be applied to the age of mass exchange (Internet)

WHILE Hollywood is trying to make copyright law even more draconian (through TPP), here in Europe there is an effort to reform (weaken) copyright [1,2]. It is a struggle between politicians who work for Hollywood and politicians who work for the people, not just European people. Sometimes the former group is scoring wins; take for instance this US-style censorship of the Web at the behest of the copyright monopoly (mostly from the US) [3].

The copyright monopoly fought Google over the attempts to reform copyrights for the digital age and Google has just won [4,5,6]. Microsoft, as usual, fought all along together with the copyright monopoly (against Google), showing its huge hypocrisy because it tried to do what Google did and just never succeeded (the product/service got shut down). This whole case helped show what force we are up against and it helped show that with enough determination we can defeat the copyright monopoly. We just need more activism and we need to pressure our politicians to serve public interests, not publicly-traded companies. ⬆

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. The Commission's work on copyright reform

   Time for copyright to be an enabler, not an obstacle.





2. Failure of "Licenses for Europe" Underlines the Need for Reform of the EU Copyright Framework

   Ahead of the last meeting of the “Licences for Europe” initiative, five European citizen organisations – Centrum Cyfrowe, EDRI, Kennisland, Modern Poland Foundation, and La Quadrature du Net – release the following joint press release reaffirming the urgent need of an European Copyright reform.





3. Denmark Blocks Major Movie Sites, Norway Prepares Pirate Bay Blockade

   Legal action in Denmark has added several major movie download sites to the country’s blocklist. Anti-piracy group Rights Alliance, which acts on behalf of local and United States-based copyright holders, successfully applied to have four sites including Movie4K and PrimeWire blocked at the ISP level. With ten unlicensed domains now inaccessible in Denmark on copyright grounds, rightsholders in Norway are now speaking with ISPs about a Pirate Bay blockade.
   
   





4. Google Books ruled legal in massive win for fair use (updated)

   Scans that show snippets are legal—they don't replace the full book.





5. Why Google's Fair Use Victory In Google Books Suit Is A Big Deal--And Why It Isn't





6. Google wins book-scanning case: judge finds “fair use,” cites many benefits

   Google has won a resounding victory in its eight-year copyright battle with the Authors Guild over the search giant’s controversial decision to scan more than 20 million books from libraries and make them available on the internet.