hi charles,

read your article in the greenguide yesterday and totally agree with you that the copyright laws are not adequate for the times and that they do not properly reflect our rights as consumers

however, i am not in agreement with you about a levy on blank cd's because, as usual, those of us who do the right thing are going to be penalised

surely as a consumer, i have the right to make a copy of a music cd that has cost me $25 so that i can play the copy and not put the original at risk...likewise with any dvd movies i buy

i never copy cd's for friends or from friends and so don't see why i should pay the levy because others do

isn't time that people like me who do the right thing be rewarded rather than be penalised for the wrongdoings of others?

consider also the argument that those who engage in piracy will bring up: " i am paying a levy on blank cd's to make up for the loss to the artist, so why should i buy their cd's? "

people who copy cd's and dvd's always have their own arguments for doing so and forcing a levy will provide them with even more reasons

it is time that we as a society stop punishing everybody because of the bad practices of some

The key issue to me is they way media are controlled through eg regional settings, publishing zones and the like. the artificial market then exploits this by overcharging for media, and so consumers are paying an exploitative price for material. At this point - when the market is not free- then rules that allow fair users (ie people not trying to reproduce media and obtain profit) not to copy their own purchased material on different media are totally inappropriate.
Levies on blank media are an unjustifiable impost - as the inflated costs for media (justified by spurious claims of supporting overall industry needs and structures to develop new talent and so on) are merely the means by which these companies pad up their profits, and enhance their own existance. (Often this is in neglect of the artists' rights).
The argument of whether music downloads are an infingement of copyright is much disputed. From my interactions with people who do this, the choice of purchasing the media in the controlled inflated price structure (as even commercial download sites confirm) would not be pursued. So the idea of "depriving the copyright owner of income" is not valid - the people would not bother, and so the artist would not only have no income from this process, but also reduced exposure - a vital element in market penetration.
I say - for personal use - then cross media copying cannot be an infringement. Only when a real free market in media is allowable (so media from the cheapest markets is available) can company's justify arguments of market support, and then perhaps levies.
Ta
Peter S.

I dislike the levy idea.
In general, the only artists/companies that benefit from
such things will be the more successful/larger ones.
Since any distribution of the fees has to be based on
some statistics the tendency to use legal sales data
will disadvantage indie artists & labels.
Such a levy would just be a cashcow for the big labels and
artists unless the problem is solved prior to such a levy
being introduced.

Format shifting: I seem to recall reports that several
senators were *shocked* that they were breaching
copyright law by time-shifting TV programs, or
ripping CD/LPs to new formats.
If the laws aren't changed in those areas we need to arrange
a test case with the copyright holder(s) vs. a prominent
government Minister or two.

I remember reading in a Green Guide article of
some time ago about some issues surrounding the
copying of music and movies for personal use. As
I recall a lawyer (I think) thought that buying a
CD or DVD did not give the owner the right to make
a backup copy as, in his view, it was no different
to buying, say, a lamp: if it broke, you'd have to
buy another one. I thought it was curious that
this came from someone trying to defend the rights
of the _copyright_ owner, and yet he's somehow
mixing up intellectual property with the transport
media. Are we paying for the disc, or the
material on the disc? If it's the physical disc
that I've paid for then I should be able to do
whatever I want with it - send a billion copies to
India if I want. If it's the material held on it,
then I should be able to guard that data so that I
don't lose it, and store it in a way that is most
convenient to me. I'm happy to be restricted to
one or the other of these, but it seems that some
people would like to have it both ways, and
unfortunately it tends to be the loudest voices,
not the most reasonable or fair, that get heard.
I certainly can't justify taking my CDs into the
car for fear of having them stolen or, more
likely, ruined. So I make copies for that
purpose. I also have some CDs that don't work in
my CD player, but for some reason burned copies do
(I've tried replacing the discs to no avail).
Both strike me as perfectly legitimate practices.

Incidentally, A levy on blank media is not only
unfair, as those above have pointed out, but will
also be ineffective. Copying music and movies is
now usually, or at least most effectively, done
over networks and on hard drives. If it isn't
already, this will soon become the norm. If,
however, it were deemed prudent that hard disks
should be taxed, the money going to musicians,
then we would surely have come to a convolutedly
appalling state of affairs. What does my
oceanographic data have to do with Universal's
latest teenage sex symbol?

As for the extending of copyrights, the aptly
named "international stupidity pact", I really
feel that we need to move away from this notion
that copyright is a fundamental right. It isn't.
It was created to encourage and reward creativity and innovation. It is an abstraction, not a law
of nature, and one may even argue that it
restricts freedom. It happens to have been
useful, however, and good, until now, because it
was applied in a reasonable fashion, but now it's
being hijacked in order to protect a few
organisations who have already had plenty of time
to take advantage of it. It's time governments
started looking after the good of _their_ people -
all of them, not just a few.

A few final words: There are always going to be
new technologies which are going to change the way
we do things, and some industries will be
threatened by these while others will be born of
them. Finding convoluted ways of protecting what
may be obsolete industries does not sound like
progress.

I don't think the levy is a fair idea at all. By definition personal copying doesn't cut into the profits of copyright holders because the person doing the copying has already payed their fee to use the copyrighted work - ie. the CD or DVD or software or whatever. Copyright was designed to give copyright holders a chance to earn a reward for their creation by charging for each copy, in the days when books where the only way of distributing information and most people had no facilities (or reason) to copy books for personal use. It was supposed to provide a fair balance between restricting information and rewarding creators of information, not be an absolute right like the right to physical property.



Therefore there is no automatic justification that they have the right to completely restrict copying or charge for every copy in existence - only that they get a fair oppurtunity to collect a financial reward for their work. Its clearly quite fair for them to be able to charge someone once for use of their copyrighted work. But its unfair to
say that levies are somehow needed to allow consumers to copy stuff unless you accept that they should have to pay a second, or third or fourth time ad nauseam for something which by any measure of fairness and balance they've already bought the right to use. The idea of levies has been introduced into the fair use debate by some greedy copyright holders purely as a profiteering measure that ensures that no matter what happens they still essentially get to charge people for personal copying, not as a way to protect their rights.

Suspension of copyright for out-of-publication material, after a set, reasonably long length of time.

A new concept to cope with loss of or non availability of material, when it has been out of publication for a long period.

The suspension is removed, once the coyright holder has made the material publicly available once more. This could be in electronic form. But it would have to be an individually ownable version, not copies available for loan.

It would then be "reasonable use" for the material to be made available at places like "Project Gutenberg", where they are trying to preserve presently out-of-copyright material, that may otherwise be lost for ever.

This "reasonable use" would continue to be legal, until the copyright holder informs anyone making the material available, that the copyright has been reactivated.

I hate the term "sucks" but I think it applies here.
I never, but never copy music to CD. Why then should I pay a royalty to a company, which also collects a fee for the collection, to pay a few, a very selected few, of the owners of intellectual property.
Surely ALL software owners would be entitled to a share too.
We might as well levy the collection on paper as well because copies of all sorts of intellectual property are made.
The legality/illegality of copying applies equally to each of those areas.
Could it apply to print on plastic film? Egad what a mess!

No wonder the Federal Police having problems with baggage handlers at Australian airports. A lot of their resources seem to be going into chasing children. The report by Alex Malik "Federal Police Crackdown on Melbourne Teenager" (www.themusic.com.au 1 June 2005) is disturbing. Malik's suggestion is a good one - make a submission to the Federal Government's review of fair personal use under copyright laws before the Federal Police come to arrest the rest of the community.

Have you ever whistled a tune?
Have you ever recommended a movie to a friend?
Have you ever rented a video tape / DVD?
Have you remembered a scene from a movie fondly?
Have you ever video recorded a TV show?

Go to jail, go directly to jail!
You've broken copyright laws!
The law is a donkey's behind!
The whole concept of copyright is ridiculous, although I still believe that if you USE something you should pay for the right to the original maker to USE it.

BTW. The Canadian artist fund, is a freud by the Canadian govt, I was excited when I first hear of it, it made sense, but the govt pocket the money...

I also believe these copyright laws need to be changed. It's starting to get far too restrictive + if recording television shows is illegal then why doesn't the government start up an ad warning Australians about Copyright Infrigment through TV Recording, but no, we are all criminals.

Copyrights = Artist - (Record Co.(Artist Rights + $$$$))

I know there are other similar sites out there but, here is a band (Steadman Band) that just want their music listened to. They are hoping it will pay in return as people get to know them and wish to pay for their music. All of their music free to download.

May the Open Source be with you!