Through education and advocacy, the Creative Freedom Foundation seeks to encourage, and promote New Zealand artist's views on issues that have the potential to influence their collective creativity. Read more about our goals →
This cartoon is NOT copyright by Dylan Horrocks '09
As the natural world meets the digital
opportunities are opening up for artists to connect with people across the world.
The Creative Freedom Foundation encourages and facilitates discussion, provides education, and seeks to answer emerging questions around issues that have the potential to influence New Zealand artists' creativity.
According to the provisional order paper the new s92A formally titled the Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendent Bill is being debated tomorrow (Tuesday) and you can watch it live online at Parliament TV or on TV at Freeview 22, Sky 94, or TelstraClear 94.
CW Magazine reports that due to public pressure the text of ACTA is to be made public next week, saying: “A controversial plan to crack down on online piracy and counterfeiting will be opened up to public scrutiny for the first time next week [...] Negotiations over the past two years have been conducted in secret. Leaks of the draft text have sparked a public outcry, mainly because of how the text deals with online copyright infringement [...] they don’t plan to reveal their individual negotiating positions”
Will Page from the PRS (a UK analogue to APRA) gives a presentation on how the music industry is doing and how, like New Zealand’s APRA, they’re up on last year’s profits and that “it’s not all doom and gloom out there, PRS revenues for 2009 are up; this is not a part of the music industry that’s about to fall off a cliff. I just want to provide some balance, you know often these armageddon-now scenarios that you hear in the industry – it’s not that bad, and some parts are doing actually pretty bloody well”.
One interesting part is that Will Page says that 25% of the music industry is now based on giving people music for free (radio, public performance, etc.).
Pat Pilcher at the NZ Herald talks to Bronwyn Holloway-Smith about ACTA, “Leading up to the New Zealand ACTA negotiations, local opposition to ACTA has steadily mounted as concerns around the lack of transparency and public input into ACTA, as well as fears that an ACTA agreement could trample over hard-won New Zealand digital rights legislation such as the soon to be enacted replacement to the controversial Section 92a.”
A goal of Saturday’s PublicACTA meeting was to reach a consensus on what artists, technologists and the wider public want from ACTA – an international copyright treaty. After a lot of discussion a document was released yesterday and already over 1000 people have signed the petition to show support for artistic and public rights: “The Wellington Declaration agreed by yesterday’s PublicACTA Conference has now been released [and] can be found at: http://www.publicacta.org.nz/ [...] members of the public can find a link to a petition where they can sign their support of the declaration. “I urge everyone interested in protecting their digital rights online to sign this petition and endorse the Wellington Declaration”
You can also read the Wellington ACTA Declaration in Spanish and German.
Our submission’s introduction reads “Today, a large proportion of interactions with copyrighted material involves personal use through personal computers and devices with internet connections. It is fair to say that, in turn, a proportion of these interactions involve infringement of copyright. Understandably, there is much debate as to how to interact with the new paradigm of creation and distribution that the internet represents. Some have responded to this new digital era by seeking to extend the scope of copyright, and the methods of its enforcement, so that existing ways of creation and distribution are protected, if not privileged. We do not share this view.”
First don’t forget that this Saturday is PublicACTA so if you haven’t RSVP’d then get on that right away. Rumour is there’ll be a special FREE concert on at Bar Bodega (map) on Satuday from 8pm too so come along!
CW magazine report on the NZOSS and InternetNZ submissions, saying: “Changes that reduce the access the public have to creative content must only be considered where strong evidence suggests they are needed,” he says in a statement. “That evidence simply does not exist.” “We prefer a safe harbour approach for minimising ISP liability, in line with the current New Zealand approach,” Carter says. “We do not support the release of the details of alleged infringers to rights holders, and we do not support enhanced enforcement or protection of digital rights management systems or copyright management information.”
It took a month for the winner of the Academy Award’s Best Movie category The Hurt Locker to appear on New Zealand screens. It will be many more months DVDs are on sale and perhaps years before we can legally purchase the movie online and DRM-free. Rather than satisfying demand for the movie it was delayed and missed the hype of the Oscars. Will illegal downloads of The Hurt Locker be counted and should we respect them when they’re not even selling a movie?
If you buy a DVD exactly are you buying? Should owning a movie mean that you have a license to access it on any device, or should you be forced to buy it on DVD, then again for your iPod? The New York Times looks at the issue of ownership and how conventional rights are taken away when you buy books online: “I bought an e-reader for travel and was eager to begin “Under the Dome,” the new Stephen King novel. Unfortunately, the electronic version was not yet available. The publisher apparently withheld it to encourage people to buy the more expensive hardcover. So I did, all 1,074 pages, more than three and a half pounds. Then I found a pirated version online, downloaded it to my e-reader and took it on my trip. I generally disapprove of illegal downloads, but wasn’t this O.K.?“
Arstechnica review a new research paper on how to make meaningful copyright reform. They say, “Bashing current copyright law is easy—just askJessica Litman, a professor of law at the University of Michigan. She calls current US copyright a “swollen, barnacle-encrusted collection of incomprehensible prose.” Or, to change the metaphor to aging, copyright law is “old, outmoded, inflexible, and beginning to display the symptoms of multiple systems failure.” Suggesting something new to replace it can be a harder job, and Litman turns her attention to that task in an unpublished new paper called “Real Copyright Reform” (PDF). Part of a spate of recent reform proposals (Public Knowledge is heading another high-profile effort, for example), Litman’s quest to reform the 1976 Copyright Act is, as she acknowledges, quixotic.”
