Re: [Fsfe-uk] EC Copyright Directive consultation paper - a review

[Simon Waters]

Paul Mobbs wrote:
> 
> #The implementation of the Directive does not create a tight copyright
> control over computer software/databases, as that's already been done under
> other European legislation.

If this was a reference to my comments, I meant to imply that
any legislation seeking to unify International copyright laws
should (IMHO) repeal some of the copyright on database laws, to
bring us in line with the US. Call it a legislative "opportunity
cost".

Some of the stuff I am involved with is copyrightable in Europe,
and not in America. The legal aspects get even more fun when I
publish the data from a US server, but do the work from Devon,
and it is immediately copied to European servers by mirroring.
It is a good job everyone largely ignores their copyright in
that area, else I'd be an expert on the topic.

I think the legislation can be accused of levelling copyright
law up, in the sense that I don't see anything to benefit the
users of copyrighted material, only the publishers, and I wanted
to draw attention to this with an example.

As such it is clear this is a law driven by a vested interest
group (publishers), to protect their own interests, not out of
some desire to bring sanity to the laws of copyright. Some of
the covering material seemed to try and imply this was merely an
attempt to make the law consistent with ruling from other bodies
- this may well be true, but it isn't the whole of the story.

Anyway I will go read you analysis with interest.

 Simon