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

[Reinier Bakels]

>    One should not loose imagination, but one should not get out of touch 
> of
>    reality either.
>
> "Get out of touch with reality" implies insanity.  In effect you are
> calling those of us who seek larger changes insane.

I am sorry if I used the wrong word - English is not my native language. 
What I meant simply is: some goals are feasible, others ae difficult, and 
still others are impossible. I regularly fall in love with television 
actresses - but realistically ...

And on your other notes: sure it makes sense to consider also long-term 
goals. But is anything wrong with setting priorities? And I repeat: 
advocating really esoteric proposals could work out counter-productive: if 
yoou are considered radical, the influence on short-term issues may suffer.

And there are many short-term issues that deserve attention. Such as the 
privacy issue. Mainstream politicians still argue that they should employ 
all available technology to prevent terrorism, and they still repeat "if you 
have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" - which is obviously plain 
nonsense in view of e.g. all the accidents such as accidental loss of 
confidential data, and identity theft.
In order to enforce copyright, the latest trick is "self-regulation" 
involving ISPs. That is also helpful to fight child pornography, and we are 
all against child pornography, aren't we? But ISPs are not judges 
(http://www.ivir.nl/publications/hugenholtz/codes_of_conduct_and_copyright_pragmatism_v_principle.pdf) 
and experience shows that blocked pornography sites often have no child 
pornography at all. And filtering is simply a form of censorship (for those 
who read Dutch: 
http://www.ivir.nl/publicaties/dommering/Filteren_is_gewoon_censuur_en_daarmee_basta.pdf)
In patents, presently there is a debate on anti-competitive behaviour with 
patents, in particular in the field of standards and interoperability. After 
the verdict of the European Court of Justice on Microsoft some respected(!) 
lawyers cried that intellectual property is no longer sacrosanct - and I 
don't need to explain on this list that this is plain nonsense. In 
copyright, the proliferation of levies is frightening, but fortunately(!) 
the collection and redistribution of levies in my country became a complete 
mess. And it violates som down to earth principles. Like the fundamental 
right of the rights owner (author) to decide NOT to use its exploitation 
right (open source!) and, on the other hand, to prohibit certain forms of 
publication. Furthermore, the redistribution of levies involves decisions of 
cultural policy that should not be left to organisations that normally cater 
for the very capitalistic interests of the record industry. Should we 
perhaps advocate levies on plain paper, which is just as logical as levies 
on memory sticks? I like the idea of "reductio ad absurdum", or 
"Verelendung", to speak in Marxist terms. And I already mentioned thre 
present efforts to explore the true ambit of the "three step test" in TRIPS. 
In Europe we don't even have a "fair use" rule.
Typically right-wing politicians are in favour of copyright, patents etc. 
But businessmen - typically their suporters - get fed up by all the 
copyright "taxes" business have to pay nowadays, e.g. for a radio playing in 
an office. And business get fed up by the administrative and legal burden of 
patents - reduction of administrative burden happens to be an agreed policy 
objective both in national and European politics. Firms tend to put their 
"intangible assets" on the balance sheet, which seems logical in "the 
information age" - but there is an increasing awareness that it is not the 
kind of asset that CFOs like due the their strongly varying value. Some 
commetators already talk about a patent bubble that will burst one day - 
like the financial bublle last year. Typically, right wing politics favour a 
mean and lean government - but copyrights and patents are the the ultimate 
epitome of bureaucracy.
Economists know that the shortcomings of "public goods", like information, 
can be remedied *to some extent* by (legal nd non-leagal) measures that 
allow "internalisation of externalities" - but that does not work either if 
the costs of internalisation exceed the benefits The trick? Let someone else 
pay! And that is what actually happens if copyright and patent infringement 
are prosecuted as crimes.
The abolitionist movement in patents of the late 19th century, which lead to 
the full suspension of patents in The Netherlands and Switzerland for 
several decades, was not advocated by left-wing activists, but by liberals 
(who are conside right-wing in Europe, unlike the US) for mercantilistic 
reasons.
Often legal "logic" is used to Can a car manufacturer prevent 3rd parties to 
manufacture spare parts? It was amazing to see that the lines of legal logic 
exactly paralleled the line between countries that do and countries the do 
not have their own car industry ...
And on the levies - again - the proponent did not try to hide that their 
purpose was to divert some of the income of the (allegedly) very profitable 
electronics industry to the languishing record companies.
IMHO the record industry (and similar outdated distributors) should be the 
prime short-term target of PPI. They campaign consistently with various 
false rumors - for esentially "rent seeking" 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking: manipulating regulators to 
increase income without actually contributing to the econmy.

And reducing the copyright term? Well, that would be last on my list. Not 
only because of the problems noted above, but also because copyright (at 
least in a European perspective) is more than a mere exploitation right: it 
also serves a moral purpose - which happens to be the base of e.g. GPL and 
CC licencing. More in general, copyright should again become a true authors 
right, which helps authors to defend their interests against greedy and 
powerful publishers. Copyright contract law should protect authors against 
publishers, like labour law protects employees against employers. And it is 
currently under political(!) debate, at least in my country.

There is a lot to do.

reinier