Tuesday, April 01, 2008
Foolish Copyright Legislation
As someone who takes particular interest in copyright law, I was shocked and appalled to see the news of a new copyright bill introduced in the Senate today. Take a quick look at it.
It wreaks all sorts of havoc with the copyright laws, like extending the term of copyright to essentially infinity minus one day, establishing a Department of Intellectual Property Security (DIPS), giving copyright protection to auto parts and fashion designs, and making the wonderful doctrine of fair use applicable only to accredited libraries and archives and even then only reducing the damages available. And there's more where that came from.
You would have to be a fool to vote for this bill.
It wreaks all sorts of havoc with the copyright laws, like extending the term of copyright to essentially infinity minus one day, establishing a Department of Intellectual Property Security (DIPS), giving copyright protection to auto parts and fashion designs, and making the wonderful doctrine of fair use applicable only to accredited libraries and archives and even then only reducing the damages available. And there's more where that came from.
You would have to be a fool to vote for this bill.
Comments:
Should fashion designs not be copyrighted? Don't know about auto parts, but I gotta think that if there were some teeth to it, we'd have a lot fewer Rolex and Fendi knockoffs on the streets..
Just wondering on your take there.
Just wondering on your take there.
Fashion design is not and should not be copyrightable. The last thing the world needs is to give Van Heusen a monopoly on blue pinpoint Oxford shirts. Rolex knockoffs are trademark infringement, because they are attempting to "pass off" (that's a formal legal term) goods as coming from a place they don't really come from.
makes sense, since most of the knockoff stuff out there is trademark-based, I presume. Since the designer logo is actually a part of the product in most cases, it makes sense for it to be trademark infringement.
thanks for the clarification.
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thanks for the clarification.
