Copyrights Bill [Passed]

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

While I am no proponent of our over-lengthy patent terms, this goes too far in curbing them.  It also means that Atlasia will be abrogating the Berne Convention, as the proposed lengths are far less than the minimums established under that convention.

Berne calls for life +50 as opposed to our current life +70 term.  The advantage to having an international framework for copyright outweighs the desirability for even shorter terms  (personally I'd prefer something in the range of life +25 to 40).

If someone will second my opinion, I shall set out some amendments to this bill that are compliant with the Berne convention.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

The amendment is as follows:

I. Sections 1, 2, and 3 of the bill are struck.

II. A new section 1 is added as follows:
1. It shall be the policy of the Republic of Atlasia that once granted the terms of copyrights should neither be increased or reduced.

III. A new section 2 is added as follows:
2. As of the date of the passage of this Act, any change in the term of copyright of a protected work caused by a change in the law after the date of first publication shall be null and void and the applicable term shall be that called for under the law at the time of first publication.  Any royalties due the copyright holder resulting from such a nullified change in the copyright term for a work published publication after the expiration of the original term the copyright and prior to the date of the passage of this Act shall still be due the copyright holder.

IV. A new section 3 is added as follows:
3. As of the date of the passage of this Act, the term of a copyright granted by the Republic of Atlasia shall be the minimum term required under Article 7 of the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works as in force as of the date of the passage of this Act.  Works for hire shall be treated as anonymous works save that moral rights under Article 6bis of the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works shall be held by the hirer and not by the anonymous author(s).

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Aye
Pending Nay
Nay

If the vote is close on the second of these three amendments, I'll take the time to look more closely at what would be struck as law.  I'm concerned that repealing the DMCA might throw out a baby along with the bathwater, but I don't have the interest to examine it more closely unless my vote ends up being potentially decisive.

See post below for reasons why I'm opposing the second proposed amendment.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

If you get us any information about decent amendments in the Sonny Bono legislation, Ernest, I'll be happy to amend my vote as such.

DMCA and the Sonny Bono Act were both passed in 1998 and both affected copyright law, but they are separate acts.

DMCA consists of five titles.

Title I: WIPO Copyright and Performances and Phonograms Treaties Implementation Act
This part does two separate things.  Section 102 brought the U.S. into alignment with WIPO on the treatment of sound recording under copyright law.  Section 103 dealt with copy protection systems by adding chapter 12 to title 18.  The parts dealing specifically with requirements for VHS and 8mm video tape players are effectively obsolete already, the rest of chapter 12 makes circumventing copy protection systems illegal itself regardless of whether it used to copy a protected work.

Title II: Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act
Adds safe harbor provisions for OSPs that keep them from getting hammered by copyright holders for violations resulting from what their users do.  Could possibly use some amendments, but I'd oppose outright repeal.  Without it OSPs would be justifiably unwilling to let a lot the stuff that goes on now on the internet happen on their systems as those lawsuits that Brandon H complains about would target them instead.  Deleting this title means no more YouTube, ImageShack, etc.

Title III: Computer Maintenance Competition Assurance Act
Keeps computer repairers from being in violation of copyright law for making temporary copies of copyrighted works while doing repairs.

Title IV
Various minor changes to copyright law and changes the pay levels of some copyright officials.  Nothing particularly objectionable here.

Title V: Vessel Hull Design Protection Act
Adds chapter 13 to title 18 which establishes 10 year long design patents for small water craft (less than 200 feet long)  So if a boat builder comes out with a new hull design, other builders can't copy it immediately, even if the design doesn't incorporate any patentable engineering advances.  Sort of silly IMO, and if we had to have them, should have been set for the same 14  year length as other types of U.S. design patents.
--

In short, I'm voting nay on the second proposed amendment now, but would not oppose a narrower amendments to strike section 103 of the DMCA and would consider other amendments to the DMCA as well.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Would the PPT be so kind as to give the text of this bill as it currently stands.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I propose the following single amendment:

1. Section 5 of this bill is struck

2. The following are added as new sections 5, 6, and 7:
5. Section 102 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 is repealed.

6. Section 103 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 is repealed along with any amendments made by later law to chapter 12 of Title 17, Copyrights.

7. Title II of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 is repealed.

8. Title V of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 is repealed along with any amendments made by later law to chapter 13 of Title 17, Copyrights.


This amendment changes the blanket repeal of the DMCA to a repeal of just those sections that I've heard any complaints about .  Assuming this amendment passes, I have two further amendments.

Section 7 of this bill is struck and all later sections renumbered accordingly.

Section 5 of this bill is struck and all later sections renumbered accordingly.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Aye

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Section 102 also added various forms of moral rights for recordings of live performances that prior U.S. copyright law did not have.  So even if the economic rights (i.e. copyright) were held by someone else, the original performer(s) could still object to alterations of their performance, such as digitally adding a fifth Beatle for instance.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Uh... aye. Wouldn't we have voted on this pretty soon anyhow?

Only if no more amendments were offered.  Granted, this bill wasn't subjected to a lot of silly amendments intended only to prolong debate and prevent a vote, but we were having a spate of those on other bills at the time this and the other cloture motions were made.