[Eisophca]

Quote: UN Copyright Convention
A resolution to reduce barriers to free trade and commerce.

Category: Free Trade
Strength: Significant
Proposed by: Ceorana

Description: The United Nations,

NOTING that the greatest value in intellectual property is the creative or investigative work used to create it, not the medium on which it is demonstrated or displayed,

BELIEVING that creators of intellectual property should be able to have control over the distribution and display of their work,

NOTING that many nations already have copyright laws in place, but these laws can vary immensely and do not apply to other nations,

AFFIRMING that an international convention on copyrights would guarantee copyright owners control over their work, and thus

CONCLUDING that an international convention on copyrights would give authors an incentive to market their work both internationally and nationally, improving economies through increased trade,

1. DEFINES, for the purpose of this resolution:
a. "intellectual property" as any work of mainly creative value that is of original authorship and is fixed in a tangible expressive medium;
b. "copyright law" as law which grants exclusive property rights to the creator of a particular form of intellectual property and provides protection to those rights;
c. "fair use" as a use or reproduction of intellectual property in educational institutions for educational purposes, for private/personal use, for use in critical articles or reviews, or for parodies, provided that such use does not excessively infringe on the rights and profits of the copyright holder;
d. ?legal entity? as a sentient being or corporation;

2. DECLARES that the copyright law of each nation shall apply to the distribution, demonstration, expression, and use of intellectual property in that nation, regardless of where the work was originally published or created or the citizenship of the author;

3. MANDATES that national copyright law must provide at least as much protection as the following:
a. No legal entity or government may print, display, demonstrate, reproduce, or store in an electronic system any intellectual property without the consent of the copyright holder for a period extending until at least thirty years after the death of the author, or, in the case of a corporation originating the copyright, at least sixty-five years after the work was placed in tangible form, except under the exceptions for fair use;
b. National copyright law must not discriminate in favor of domestic works;
c. Except as provided in this clause, application of copyrights must take place automatically at the time that the work was first placed in tangible form, with no statutory formalities required for protection. Nations may impose additional requirements for securing copyright, but these may apply only to works created within that nation by its own citizens;

4. DECLARES that copyright holders may license use of intellectual property to any or all legal entities under any terms they desire, but that all people reserve the rights to use the work under the pertinent national copyright law;

5. DECLARES that copyright holders may, if they wish, put their work into the public domain, at which time it is free for anyone to use for any purpose, with or without attribution;

6. DECLARES that copyrights may be held by any person or legal entity, and may be transfered or sold, but that the original author of the work must always have rights to use his work.

Co-authored by Ausserland.[/quote]
Vote will be cast as FOR as soon as this comes to vote, thank you very much.

[Stolidia]

If our nation was a member of the NSUN, we would probably vote against this. Ceorana is alright, but we don't trust the co-author of the proposal.

[Antrium]

FOR

[Fonzoland]

Bah. Property is the right of ownership over an object, not the object itself. The definition of legal entity is not too hot either... [/nitpicking] FOR.

[Sober Thought]

ABSTAIN.

Creating worldwide copyright law is a challenge enough, and I missed out on all the preparation so I feel somewhat unqualified to criticise. Nevertheless, 3a seems to negate any sensible excercise of the national right for additional formality. For example, many countries use the concept of legal deposit. For instance, an author sends one or two copies to the national library to establish a claim to copyright. Under 3a, many types of legal deposit would be prohibited.

[Eisophca]

Sober ThoughtJun 18 2006, 11:38 AM ABSTAIN.

Creating worldwide copyright law is a challenge enough, and I missed out on all the preparation so I feel somewhat unqualified to criticise. Nevertheless, 3a seems to negate any sensible excercise of the national right for additional formality. For example, many countries use the concept of legal deposit. For instance, an author sends one or two copies to the national library to establish a claim to copyright. Under 3a, many types of legal deposit would be prohibited. [/quote]
That would mean that authors would have to go through that process for all of thirty thousand UN nations in order to have copyright there.

[Stolidia]

Sober ThoughtJun 18 2006, 03:38 PM ABSTAIN.

Creating worldwide copyright law is a challenge enough, and I missed out on all the preparation so I feel somewhat unqualified to criticise. Nevertheless, 3a seems to negate any sensible excercise of the national right for additional formality. For example, many countries use the concept of legal deposit. For instance, an author sends one or two copies to the national library to establish a claim to copyright. Under 3a, many types of legal deposit would be prohibited. [/quote]
I'm afraid I don't understand this. How would 3a prohibit legal deposit?

[Eisophca]

StolidiaJun 20 2006, 06:20 PM Sober ThoughtJun 18 2006, 03:38 PM ABSTAIN.

Creating worldwide copyright law is a challenge enough, and I missed out on all the preparation so I feel somewhat unqualified to criticise.  Nevertheless, 3a seems to negate any sensible excercise of the national right for additional formality.  For example, many countries use the concept of legal deposit.  For instance, an author sends one or two copies to the national library to establish a claim to copyright.  Under 3a, many types of legal deposit would be prohibited. [/quote]
I'm afraid I don't understand this. How would 3a prohibit legal deposit? [/quote]
I think he meant 3c, and legal deposit probably qualifies as a statuatory formality.

[Sober Thought]

Three things:

To Ceo:

No, you don't have to submit to all 30 odd K UN members; just have a clause that any legal deposit in one UN member country consitutes legal deposit for the entire UN membership. Consider it reciprocity, or in the American idom, full faith and credit. (E.g., the government of Illinois is obliged to recognise a marriage solemnised in Alaska, the government of New Mexico is obliged to recognise a driver's licence from Texas, despite differing solemnisation and licencing requirements in the various states.)


To Stolidia:

[3. a.] "No legal entity or government may print, display, demonstrate, reproduce, or store in an electronic system any intellectual property without the consent of the copyright holder..."

Certain creations, such as the traditional book, might be fine under this, since you don't have to copy it and a bibliographic record containing basic information (even if stored in an electronic system) would not violate copyright. But even there, making it available to legislators (as the Library of Congress, a legal deposit institution, does), violates "fair use" as defined in the resolution because it is not for educational, private/personal, review or parody purposes. Or maybe one might argue legislators are their own self-parody.

In contrast, any visual material (think maps, globes, charts, diagrams, posters) must be "displayed" to be useful and automatically violates the resolution. This is especially true if one has created scanned images like thumbnails to aid search and retrieval. Commercial art galleries' catalgues would similarly be in violation.

"tore in an electronic system" is another can of worms which conventional books again can probably avoid since brief bib records wouldn't violate copyright. However, what about talking books, which consist of sound signals stored on some medium (phono record, cassette tape, hard drive, optical disc, what have you)? Or a computer programme? Or anything stored on CD-ROM? Any UN nation which required legal deposit for most of the non-traditional media would be in violation of this resolution.


And another thing that eluded me on my first read:

"6. DECLARES that copyrights may be held by any person or legal entity, and may be transfered or sold, but that the original author of the work must always have rights to use his work."

This seems to make copyright both an alienable and inalienable right, namely that you can waive or sell your rights while at the same time retaining them; in effect, selling nothing for something. I'm not trying to be a jerk about this; it just seems that under this system, nobody could commission per occasion or employ full-time an author or artist for a work and then actually own all its rights.

In a related vein, there was an unsual case in Canada a few years ago which upheld the moral rights of an artist. to the artwork sold to a commercial mall or galleria. The artist made some Canada geese and was unhappy when the mall put ribbons on them. Personally, I thought it was bizarre. If an artist doesn't like or doesn't trust a patron or buyer, don't sell art to them; seller's remorse should never enter into it.

[Sober Thought]

Ceorana Posted on Jun 21 2006, 02:29 AM

Quote: I think he meant 3c, and legal deposit probably qualifies as a statuatory formality. [/quote]

I didn't, but that certainly applies too.

[Eisophca]

With the statuatory formalities, a formality could be you let the government store one for the purpose of legal deposit. I don't think that full faith and credit would fly with different nations though.

I am having qualms about the fair use clause being a bit small, you're right that it could cause problems with catalogues and stuff... :unsure: I don't think it will be a problem though, if they're in a gallery, they can probably get permission.

With the storing in an electronic system problem, I think it only bans the process of storing it, not having it stored, so it would be OK to have anything electronic stored, since it was already stored by the person who recorded it.

[Sober Thought]

Ceorana Posted on Jun 21 2006, 03:30 AM

Quote: With the statuatory formalities, a formality could be you let the government store one for the purpose of legal deposit. I don't think that full faith and credit would fly with different nations though.[/quote]

It might not, or it might. Some countries combine no-stat-requirement, copyright-at-birth provisions with better protections for formal copyright assertions. But I think faith and credit is certainly more workable than applying in each jurisdiction or having one gargantuan central office.

Quote: I am having qualms about the fair use clause being a bit small, you're right that it could cause problems with catalogues and stuff...  I don't think it will be a problem though, if they're in a gallery, they can probably get permission.[/quote]

Unless it's from Michael Snow. Combine this with the retained rights, who is to say that some pinko commie artist doesn't claim that merely putting a picture of their work in a catalogue doesn't automatically denegrate the work by making it a commodity? I also worked for a year at an art museum library, and believe me this is not a far-fetched example. One exhibitor's most famous portrait was an unflattering painting of Prime Minister Brian Mulroney as a literal butthead.

Quote: With the storing in an electronic system problem, I think it only bans the process of storing it, not having it stored, so it would be OK to have anything electronic stored, since it was already stored by the person who recorded it. [/quote]

Many CD-ROMs require some sort of system files to be installed on a host computer. All these would be illegal if mounted, and would be useless (except for pretty decorations) if left unmounted.

Again, I'm not trying to be difficult, I just have the misfortune of knowing first hand how troublesome copyright can be. I'm sure it will have a fair shake when it comes to the floor (I thought it was actually there, but had I paid more attention to the thread title, I would have realised it was just in the queue).

[Eisophca]

Sober ThoughtJun 20 2006, 08:57 PM Ceorana Posted on Jun 21 2006, 03:30 AM

Quote: With the statuatory formalities, a formality could be you let the government store one for the purpose of legal deposit. I don't think that full faith and credit would fly with different nations though.[/quote]

It might not, or it might. Some countries combine no-stat-requirement, copyright-at-birth provisions with better protections for formal copyright assertions. But I think faith and credit is certainly more workable than applying in each jurisdiction or having one gargantuan central office. [/quote]
I really don't see how (especially hardline natsovers) nations would give each other full faith and credit in anything. In any case, they can work it out themselves.

Quote: Quote: With the storing in an electronic system problem, I think it only bans the process of storing it, not having it stored, so it would be OK to have anything electronic stored, since it was already stored by the person who recorded it. [/quote]

Many CD-ROMs require some sort of system files to be installed on a host computer. All these would be illegal if mounted, and would be useless (except for pretty decorations) if left unmounted.[/quote]
I don't think it would be too much of a problem to say that if a CD installs something on your computer, it implies that you have permission to do so. You could define that in national law.

[Stolidia]

OOC:

To respond to Sober Thought's concern about legal deposit. If a nation makes legal deposit a condition of securing copyright, I believe that consent to whatever normal and customary uses the depository makes of the material would be implied in the consent. Ideally, they should be spelled out in the submission form, so the consent would be stated, not implied. Those uses would then be by consent of the copyright holder, not under fair use.

And I sympathize with your copyright headaches. Having had a book and two articles published in the field of literary bibliography, I had a few dozen of those, too.

[Keeslandia]

Supporting the Delegate and the Empire votes "Aye."