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msknight

Michelle's corner

Michelle Knight. Writer, photographer, programmer, truck driver and general, all round nut case. Life is a journey and that's what this blog will probably end up being. Let's see where we go, eh? ;-)

Currently reading

Science and Philosophy in the Indian Buddhist Classics
Dalai Lama XIV, Ian Coghlan
Progress: 23/433 pages

Dancing babies that intimidate copyright holders.

My head hurts... http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/09/17/dancing_baby_victim_shaming/

 

Long story short, if someone breaches our copyright outside the defense of "Fair Use" then we can use takedown notices. However, big tech don't want us to be able to use them. The thing is a bit dry and doesn't go anywhere for a while, but it really starts to make sense on page 3, and this is a section from page 4...

 

Fair's fair, unless it's not fair

A paradox emerges (and remember, I did warn you about cognitive dissonance). Broader "fair use" doesn't lead to a fairer world: it can lead to the opposite – a much less fair world where the originator isn't acknowledged or compensated. A world in which where micropayments or plain old small payments (accrued somewhere for convenience) is clearly "fairer" than uncompensated usage. The UK's copyright hub attempts to do that and there are many more similar projects underway. What we sniffily call micropayments can add up to a lot – especially if you live in India.

Yet for Big Tech and its Silicon Valley-funded activists in pressure groups and academia, fair use has become an end in itself. Silicon Valley has even managed to put the words into the mouths of uncomprehending foreign heads of state.

When David Cameron stood at Old Street Roundabout in 2010 and launched an enquiry into IP, he parroted the ideas that Google had prepared for him: did the UK need fair use? Cameron said he was disturbed by the idea, related to him him by Google, that the absence of a US-style fair use meant the UK could never create a Google or Facebook. It later transpired that the quote he referred to had never actually existed.