#Week 5. The Case for Copyright Reform Task

For this week I will give my opinion about the book  The Case for Copyright Reform . The book and particularly chapter 2 is trying to convince readers that the copyright as it’s been conceived, it is not good for society because if it is going to be applied effectively, it will collide with fundamental rights and they are advocating for a modification.

When the author say that this copyright law is endangering fundamental rights, it means that if you really want to avoid people sharing digital files, you need to sniff the communication between them and see what kind of information they are exchanging which of course lead you to know everything else if you want to.  

That is a difficult debate. If you think that you are harming an author you admire,  most of the people will be in favour of a tough copyright law. By other side, If you think that this law is attempting against your fundamental rights and that it is not protecting the author but the industry and all the people that was used to live out of an author’s work and talent, then you will most likely be in favour with the book’s authors.

One way or the other has benefits and drawbacks, so you need to try to take advantage of every situation in my opinion. If I were a singer, you now can go public easier that you could before, so maybe it is still hard or even harder to sell your music but if you get a good acceptance and there is no Covid, then you could go live in concerts. If you were a super seller you would like to keep this copyright law very tough, at least at the beginning… That is normal, it takes time for everyone to accept the new situations.

I agree with the author that copyright, can be an obstacle for democracy because you are restricting culture to the people. I also agree that the protection times covered by the law maybe are too long. At some point you or your descendants shouldn’t be earning money anymore for something originated 100 years  or more years ago.

Also mentioned the bureaucratic aspect derived of this law, which is important to considered. It is very difficult to find the way to withdraw some author’s work, because of the rights owner, even when they have little value.

To end, I think it was positive to have people like them, claiming all the issues behind this law. That is maybe why it has never been applied in a full extend.