Remix (book) - Reforming Copyright Law

Reforming Copyright Law

Lessig outlines 5 steps that will put us on the path towards more efficient and sound copyright law.

  1. Deregulating Amateur Activity. Primarily this means exempting noncommercial and, particularly amateur, use from the rights granted by copyright. In addition, this loosening of control will, in turn, remove some of the burden from the corporations' monitoring for misuse of their content.
  2. Clear Title. As of now, there is no comprehensive and accessible registry that lists who owns rights to what. In addition to making the above clear, Lessig insists that author/owner should have to register their work in order to extend the copyright after a shorter period of time and for the work, otherwise, to enter public domain. He insists that this change would be instrumental to digital archiving and access for educational purposes.
  3. Simplify. Building on his previous suggestions, Lessig insists that the system should be simplified. If a child is expected to comply with copyright law, they should be able to understand it.
  4. Decriminalizing the Copy. As mentioned before the production of the 'copy' is a commonplace in daily transaction within the digital realm. If our daily activity triggers federal regulation on copyright law, it means that this regulation reaches too far. Thus the law must be rearticulated as to not include uses that are irrelevant to copyright owner's control.
  5. Decriminalizing File Sharing. Lessig suggests this should be done either by "authorizing at least noncommercial file sharing with taxes to cover a reasonable royalty to the artists whose work is shared, or by authorizing a simple blanket licensing procedure, whereby users could, for a low fee, buy the right to freely file-share" (p. 271)

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