[pp.int.general] where is the manifesto?

[Richard M Stallman]

    - From <a href="http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html">UDHR, article
    11.2</a>: "<i>No one shall be held guilty of any penal offence 

Note that this is limited to _penal offences_.  Reducing copyright
power does not mean establishing a penal offence.  It simply means
increasing people's freedom to copy.

     href="http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Spanish_Constitution_of_1978/Preliminary_Title">Spanish
    Constitution, article 9</a>: "<i>The Constitution guarantees</i> [...] <i>the
    non-retroactivity of punitive provisions that are not favourable to or
    restrictive of individual rights</i>"<br>

Likewise irrelevant.  And the others too.  They all pertain
to convicting people of crimes which were not crimes at the time.

I fully support the principle of non-retroactivity _for crimes_, but
that has nothing to do with the issue at hand, because we are not
talking about making anything a crimes.  To reduce copyright power
means legalizing activities that are currently crimes, and ending
certain artificial opportunities for certain peopel to sue.

To apply a principle of non-retroactivity to artificial economic
privileges is neo-liberalism.  It is an offense against our freedom.

    Of course Richard that, if author's material rights can be lengthened,
    they can be shortened. You may pass a law which retroactively shortens
    it -i.e., not only for future works but also for past works-, but what
    would happen? I believe that US Supreme Court, ECJ, Spanish
    Constitutional Court and simmilar courts would make simmilar judgments

If they make such decisions, that would indicate they have adopted a
misguided principle about artificial privileges.  Perhaps the
constitution needs to be amended.

The road to freedom is not always short.  But it is infinitely long
if you give up.