Month: July 2007

En discussion depuis septembre 2003, voici la version 2.0 de la loi sur les droits d’auteurs allemande, commentée par le magazine c’t allemand. Notamment, il y a de nouvelles restrictions pour les bibliothèques et l’information scientifique. Pour ces domaines essentielles pour l’innovation et le progrès le droit d’auteur revient maintenant à ce que des commentateurs ont appelé: “Obligation d’utiliser des chevaux pour tirer les Ferrari”.

The CISAC (Umbrella organisation for music collecting societies) put up speeches, audio and video of their first Copyright Summit, held in Brussels on the 30-31st May. (For video, this link is best). A pretty good overview of an industry in transition.

Some choice bits:

BT CEO Ben Verwaayen (video)

He pleads that Collecting Societies represent a great industry, of which everyone wants to be part of. They should be afraid of this, as others want in and those will innovate, while CSs still hold onto their one-size-fits-them-all established model. If CSs can include “open, global and real-time” they’ll succeed, if not, they’ll be the masters of an ever shrinking world. (Note: CS believe that Telcos only want CS reform and competition to get their hands on cheaper content)

Debate: Creative Commons’ Larry Lessig and Bret Cottle (video)

Larry (as a representative of “open, global and real-time”) argues that CSs should open to more flexible models and recognize that there are models outside the commercial on. Cottle refutes on mostly philosophical grounds. (Ironically, this debate was available just one day after the conference on google video).